Steve Ely

The bayonet tip wouldn’t bite at first. Scraped, slid off, like his vest was made of mithril. Lothlorien, Gonvilnd Keys. A gift from the Lady, or Arron Banks. Barings Bank. The plunderous karats of Antwerpus Loup. The bayonet tip wunt bite in the thick-seamed ephod, its armour of urin and bummin. Deep bruzing, dribling facets. Sum wailing: Paedo/haemo-philiac sadness. Bayonet tip at...

At bay in wounded country, panting across the loping snowfield for sanctuary of pines. Hounds bungling the line through folds of worried sheep, discharge of oaths and anxious shotguns barking off the trail. Torn throats and sucked blood: constables, collaborators, conscripts and their whores. From disembowelled cottage to massacred farmyard, the identikit’s identical: bristling...

Holy Mary grant me

a firkin of butter               a peck of green pease a quart of oysters               a kenning of corn

one thousand from the...