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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 27

365 Tiny Tales

Day 21

Glendalough

He assumed the Perth suburb would have some vague affinity with its Irish County Wicklow namesake but it was full of car showrooms and americanised retail parks. Still, it was the place to come for a new kitchen so there was that. And burgers. #365tinytales #vss

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 23

365 Tiny Tales

Day 20

WA Summer Watch

I spot him, his shaved, peached head bobbing up and down in the snake riddled roadside bush above Jindee Beach, with no reason to be there but personal business, whether that be nature calling or some specific death wish. #365tinytales

WA SUMMER WATCH

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 22

365 Tiny Tales

Day 19

Don't Judge Me

I've locked myself in the bathroom. The four kids are looping on an argument about screen time. It takes them forty-five minutes to realise I've been here too long for a bath. They start to scream MUM one by one. It culminates in a bellow from my eldest son.

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 21

365 Tiny Tales

Day 19

Before

Dont look behind the screens that promise you an ideal life:
walks to pristine beaches, shady tree-lined streets. This is what your village looked last year: dust, scrub and bush, riddled with snakes who crave this searing sun tp warm their cold blood. #tinytales #vss

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 21

365 Tiny Tales

Day 18

Bigger

Everything is bigger in Australia: the snakes, the bats, the spiders, magpies that swoop down to try and kill you, dragon flies the size of Tonka toys, the unrestrained egos of its cricket players. #365tinytales #vss

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 21

365 Tiny Tales

Day 17

Oblivious Brief Encounter

He loved giving his daughter her first fishing lesson at Eden Beach a week after arriving in Western Australia, blissfully unaware of the brown western snake inching gently by. #365tinytales #vss

Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 19

365 Tiny Tales

Day 16

Alkimos Crow

Even the crows sound Australian; a simple morning caw, full of mocking scorn, reserved for ashes banter; the spirit of Shane Warne alive and well here in Western Australia.
#365tinytales #vss

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 15

365 Tiny Tales

Yesterday's News

I see a message on messenger from my brother the moment I sit down on a nice warm toilet seat for my first pee of the day, a pleasure marred only by a tsunami warning after an earthquake in South West Japan. I google it. No one was hurt. The warning was dropped

Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 15

365 Tiny Tales

Lawson

He buys curry bread from Lawson, his go to convenience store in Arashiyama. Think jam donut with curry, not jam. Think an unthinkable spike in his blood sugar. Think about the fucks he doesn't give when carbs taste this good. #365tinytales ##blueskystories #vss

Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 13

365 Tiny Tales

Day 13

Shinkanzen window

There's snow on the ground south of Nagoya. He thinks of the snow back home, how he's in no rush to go back. But he will soon start to miss his cats. Now, He feels time stretch away in front of him, like the railway tracks to Kyoto. #365tinytales #vss

Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 12

Day 12

Tokyo Sunday

He stops running to watch a little league baseball game on a thread-bare sports field on the fringes of Adatchi City. Number 22, about the same modest height he was at his age, strikes a good pitch perfectly, and runs towards first base. #365tinytales

Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 11

365 Tiny Tales

Day 11

Second Hand Tokyo

He entered the smoking room in Asakusa, inhaled the putrid emissions of the four men filling it with fumes and then went back out into the bright blue air, realising he wasn't missing it half as much as he thought he was. #365tinytales

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 9

Day 10

Pill Fatigue

He's so tired of forgetting if he's already popped his four daily pills. She buys him a special box so he can keep track but using it reminds him how much he needs such things these days, so he won't, not that he's stubborn or anything.
#365tinytales #vss #blueskystories

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 9

365 Tiny Tales

Tokyo Blues

He watches a red kite circling blue sky above Sumida River, like he does above Leeds. He's not homesick, but reminded that distance is sometimes an illusion. Familar raptors follow him, watching, content and smug in their artful yet ordinary symbolism. #365tinytales #Vss

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 9

Run

She runs by the Simida River, as she's done every day since he passed. She stops mid-stride to watch two love birds gazing at shining water, remembering how they'd always leaned on each other, and how leaning on each other was far more than a metaphor. #365tinytales #VSS

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 9

Run

She runs by the Simida River, as she's done every day since he passed. She stops mid-stride to watch two love birds gazing at shining water, remembering how they'd always leaned on each other, and how leaning on each other was far more than a metaphor. #365tinytales #VSS

Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 7

365 Tiny Tales

Winter in Chuo Ward

He longs for snow to come in the cold and late small hours. He wants to watch Dontonbori's neon mania play out above the untrodden black light of Shisaibashi Street before tomorrow's Instawarriors come and turn it all to grey slush. #365tinytales #blueskystories

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 6

365 Tiny Tales

365 Tiny Tales

Day 6

Nameless

They've agreed he will call her 'love' from now on, not that he'll remember. She hates it but it beats watching him dredge his memory for 'Linda.'
#365tinytales #dailyblueskystories

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Reposted by Mark Connors

Kathleen Jamie @kathleenjamie.bsky.social · Jan 5

A wintery poem…

Association for Scottish Literature @asls.org.uk · Jan 4

It was winter, near freezing,
I’d walked through a forest of firs
when I saw issue out of the waterfall
a solitary bird…

—Kathleen Jamie, “The Dipper”
published in POETRY (June 2004)
www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazi...

The Dipper
By Kathleen Jamie

It was winter, near freezing,
I’d walked through a forest of firs
when I saw issue out of the waterfall
a solitary bird.

It lit on a damp rock,
and, as water swept stupidly on,
wrung from its own throat
supple, undammable song.

It isn’t mine to give.
I can’t coax this bird to my hand
that knows the depth of the river
yet sings of it on land.

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 5

Day 5

Amber warning

I wheel my suitcase through fresh snow, from the hotel to the airport. It's 5 am. Terminal 2 is teeming with passengers, flying from departures and to arrivals like it's the most normal thing in the world. Who the fuck are they trying to kid? #365tinytales ##blueskystories

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 4

Day 4

On the towpath

'Was that the otter?'
'No. A mink.'
'Really? I saw one here yesterday, that's all.'
'Mink. They come here for the crayfish.'
'Mink are small. It was an otter, yay big.'
'We don't get otters here.'
'Well, I got one yesterday.'
'No you didn't.'
'Yes I did.'
#365tinytales

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Mark Connors @markconnors.bsky.social · Jan 3

Day 3

I want to pet one

I look again. They're not big dogs but tiny horses, like the one in The Handsome Family song. I start to walk over to the women walking them. Fuck. They are dogs, big fuckers. I don't want to pet them and we all know where I should've gone. #365tinytales #blueskystories

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Reposted by Mark Connors

Suzanne Frischkorn @suzfrischkorn.bsky.social · Jan 1

Joy is an act of resistance. —Toi Derricotte

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Reposted by Mark Connors

MoMA Paintings and Sculpture @moma.bsky.social · Jan 3

Reginald Marsh, In Fourteenth Street, 1934

https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1135174

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Reposted by Mark Connors

MoMA Paintings and Sculpture @moma.bsky.social · Jan 3

Alexandra Exter, Theatrical Composition, c. 1925

https://botfrens.com/collections/14377/contents/1137360

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