Less (adv.) a smaller amount (of)

In this, Ian Gouge's eleventh collection of poetry, "less" is characterised by absence: of love, of money, of understanding, and of life. We are exposed - on occasion brutally - to an experience of the world which is seldom what we would wish it to be.

facts evaporate under a microscope

if its lenses are looked through

with the eye that's always closed

- from 'a question of honesty'