Fraser Gehrig after a dirty bump

About the author

Sam Morley

Sam Morley’s work has been published in various journals and has been shortlisted in the Montreal International Poetry Prize. He is the 2022 recipient...

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December 27

Poetry Sundown’s skies are warm like a picnic – scuffs of cloud like shiny scarabs jewelled into the evening’s tide. I sit in this ending, as I peel...

In ConversationYou don’t ever want to go so off the rails that you encourage somebody to blow their life up thoughtlessly. It was always helpful to remind myself, ‘The most I can do is offer someone a useful suggestion that they will consider. They still have to make their own decisions based on how they want to live their lives.’ If you take yourself too seriously in that position, you feel like, my God, I’m responsible for the wellbeing of all of these strangers, what if I mess up?

Bonfire

FictionIt was a loud dinner. Everything was loud. The murmuring soundtrack of free jazz seemed to emphasise laughs and guffaws. He grew drunker and drunker and toyed with his food, which no one even noticed. Normally, he would wolf down everything they cooked, but he twisted his fork in the spaghetti and just kept twisting. As he was on serving duty, he cleared it up without anyone even registering he’d barely taken a bite.