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.

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