Honey has written itself into human cultural history in several disparate ways, perhaps the most interesting of which is the convergent history of ‘mad honey’, hallucinogenic honey which is consumed all over the world. different cultures incorporated mad honey into their society at different times in human history. Today, scientific papers on the subject of ‘mad honey’ are still being published in major academic journals. One group of scientists produced a study which investigated the natural neurotoxins present in mad honey, while another group of researchers found that topical administrations of ‘mad honey’ improved wound healing rates in rats. Scientific…

It is the act of over-thinking which makes humans special. That blanket statement does ignore the many examples of non-human consciousness or sentience which are being discussed by other scientists and naturalists, whom I support wholeheartedly. However, for my argument here, we are the over-thinkers. Our realm is the stars, we look at the universe and seem to be captured by the incomprehensible. My recent research on bats has shown me that we vastly underestimate the relationship between ourselves and our flying relatives. …

Pieces of mind

A mapped-out jigsaw puzzle

Invisible to the eye, look behind

And you see only the world

Your head is a space

A globe, empty, dark, filled by hair

Imagined for want of anything else

A cloud of blurred strands clumped

Drop your ego

Remember the moment a mist

Sent shivers down your arms, goose

Bumps, plucked pores of cold

Mere electromagnetism

For this is no letter stowed in a bottle

Or kept in a box under descending beds

But lost to posterity in false memory

Mountain ice caps,

More than, she said, supernatural snow

How could anything…

Between rocks, you can see

The millennium bridge, swaying

Gently over the lost land

Carved out by erosion, my side

Crinkles under the strain. Salted

Decaying, masonry muscles

Over centuries they came

In search of a king, a miracle man

Draped in the dye of shellfish

A deep blue crushed on ships

Sailed through the gates, from a sea

Almost landlocked, to gift tin

The mines are closed now, never

Leaden by labour more than then

When we were asked to take

Byzantine gifts laid claim to trade,

Routes through which we came east

On the wind of emperors, dwindling

…