Sartre’s lobsters by Ben Brooker

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Fire and finitude

Nobody any more seriously doubts that cigarettes are injurious… What is not well understood by those opposed to smoking is that the danger of cigarettes is not antithetical or even peripheral to their appeal – it is central to it.

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Divine dis/connection

Non-fictionMY FAMILY HAVE always been wary around animals, especially in the home (I could have written ‘non-human animals’, but a stark separation of human from animal is truer to them). My brother and I have changed because of animal encounters in share houses and via intimate others, and we now each live with a partner who likes cats (I ‘have’ one cat; he ‘has’ two). But our parents have remained the same.

Before I forget again

Poetry I am a ceramic horse in kintsugi fields. Shards shred my tongue to gold rivers. Cracked and crazed – from fire gallops beast. Memory slips lapis lazuli. I break curses, gather spells. Nudge fresh letters in water troughs – watch words bob – shiny new apples to crunch.

Easy rider

In ConversationMy first bull-riding job was a portrait of a young rider named Ian ‘Irish’ Molan from Cork, Ireland, for the upcoming event in Darwin that weekend. I attended the event that weekend and photographed behind the scenes and focused on Ian Molan in action. When it was the Irishman’s turn, he was thrown off the bull, who stomped on the rider’s chest repeatedly. I thought Ian was going to die. The bull was relentless.