A gentle novel in twelve paragraphs

I knew I would like this poem from the second sentence. The pacing and playful stream-of-consciousness style is carefully constructed, precise, and above all, true to itself.

The word choice and the themes in the word choice (boat/ocean), parallel the smooth pace and whimsical eye of the author. The ocean is, if anything, is vast, endless, flowing whole, but to go out on a boat is to put yourself at the mercy of the ocean's whims.

The pacing of the piece makes the reader trust the words he is taking in, he doesn't stop to think about the meanings of what he is reading. He takes them right to heart. This bit in particular: "Combatting xenophobia. They wear speaker cones for hats in China. They eat rice with their hands like a JCB shifts dirt into a skip. They play some snooker too, to feed their families," worked almost as a trojan horse. I had already read and moved on to the next paragraph when I stopped and thought, hey that's not fair, it's not me who thinks of Chinese people as snooker players first, and a nation which has had horrible famines second. But it's too late, the horse is already inside the gates.

some of my other favorite bits:

"airing cupboards, cigar smoke and a half-drunk pint of mild left on a picnic table; an hour-glass."

"Mutinous baked beans are empty bouys on the blue table cloth, patterned with a scud of white thread."

Thanks for the piece. I'm off to check out some of your older stuff.