One Direction
by Oz Hardwick
On the steep steps, suitors shuffle with flowers and chocolates, attuned to the language of musical boxes and twitching curtains. Behind them, the street floods and the sky turns gunmetal grey and, behind that, a putative jealous god casts green eyes across all he could have created. Even dogs and divine beings must live with their choices – it’s just a matter of eternity. The door opens and light strides out, effortlessly retro in a Choose Life T-shirt and high-waisted chinos, glinting like white teeth in an expensive video, setting every flower face smiling and melting each hard centre. God knows it’s a painful world but even these rivals in love, uncomfortable in their tight shoes and ties and unrealistic aspirations, share a smile as light splashes out into promises of held hands and urban renewal. Curtains twitch and the Director calls Action! while the bird in his hand-held camera sings like a string of pearls snapped in a glass elevator.
Oz Hardwick is a European poet, photographer, barely-competent bass guitarist, and accidental academic, who has been described as a “major proponent of the neo-surreal prose poem in Britain”. His most recent full collection, A Census of Preconceptions (SurVision Books, 2022), was shortlisted for a number of international awards but didn’t win any, though he feels pretty confident about the upcoming over-60s egg-and-spoon race. His latest publications are the chapbook Retrofuturism for the Dispossessed (Hedgehog Poetry Press, 2024), the pamphlet Actioning the New University (Yaffle, 2026), and a track on the Deadworld album by British space rockers Incubus Lovechild. Oz is Professor of Creative Writing at Leeds Trinity University.