Monday 26 November 2012

Christmas is coming


"Now that sounds crazy too. Carrying Mr Vukaj through snowdrifts, over mountains, down valleys and up the great looping staircase of hairpin bends, over the pass and down to the city ... But that’s that. Decided. For the sake of the village. For the sake of our honour. This is what they must do."
A short extract from Prella's Gift, my short piece based on an Albanian Christmas tale soon to debut as part of Show of Strength theatre company's Christmas show at the Southville Centre in Bristol (15-16 & 22-23 Dec): see http://showofstrength.org.uk ffi.

Friday 23 November 2012

Florentines

Excerpt from work-in-progress

And so there we have it: bench creaks
and shutter clicks, unmuffled.
Shameless adoration.

Tourist congestion
around the Botticelli.

We’re trying to make this up
as we go along.

Amongst the art-junkies
in the café on the roof
of the Uffizi, sparrows
do at least not shit
in cups of over-priced coffee.
In the photograph,
I almost look happy.

Over at the Accademia,
there's Byron’s head on a shelf.

We could drink cocktails all night,
for ten Euros.

In the drafty yard
of the Strozzi Palace,
Sarra’s got the bit between her teeth:
she's typing, pigeon-style,
on a Remington portable,
140 characters – a retro-Tweet.

It goes on. It’s cold
and we should go back
to the hotel. Sometimes
that’s what happens.

Tom Phillips 2012