Latest Submissions

Blues For David

I lost my son David to a rare bone cancer at eighteen years old. I wrote this Blues for him back then. I strummed the guitar, and my cousins son sang (You wouldn't want to hear me sing :-), and played the mouth organ. We did it all on the internet, sending files back and forth, until my cousin could mix it at his studio in London.  Blues for David Woke up this morning I ...

A Chance Encounter
Picked

I was walking home when a voice stopped me in my tracks ...

Beamo’s Gold part 26

Desperate, Beamo and Little Bit crash a bizarre party ...

Part 22

A merle of Blackbirds.  Four calling birds. On side streets.  Avenues.  A flock.  Strength in numbers.  Messengers of bad news. Mystical men.  Orange optics. Haunting and hunting. Parabolic searching.  Miniscule movements.  In attics and bedrooms. Behind false walls. Doors damaged.  Stairs shattered.  Walls, windows and will reduced to rubble.  Pulled from homes by hair or hands flailing.  Children crying and adults.  Blackbirds sing those alive to their grave.  In the distance.  A hill.  White plummage.  ...
/ / Fiction / 1 Comment on Part 22

Changing One’s Mind

The more I reflected on this idea of mine, the more I realised my mind wasn't set ...

Remembering Ireland 1916 haze of Whiskey

My ancestors were from County Tyrone. And fled poverty to England with thousands of others and just found they weren't welcome. Remembering Ireland 1916 through the haze of Whiskey Mangan poured the whiskey MacGowan held my legs Behan laughed and poured another, I laughed and poured it down! It was a night like any other The whiskey did a job on me. Where’s me whiskey for the night? Where’s me whiskey to keep it right? ...

SOVIET HOSPITALITY Part12

Here is part 12. Hopefully no typos. THURSDAY We got up, had a quick breakfast and left in no panic. We stood at the bus stop for quite some time and then on a crowded bus for over an hour. It stopped for ages with some problem. At five to eight I asked Rabfail when we were supposed to be there. ‘Eight o’clock’ he said with no sign of alarm. At ten past I asked ...

The Estate.

I was brought up on a housing estate, eventually I escaped into words. My life changed when I was in a pub and met a girl who was ay Uni doing Lit who I shared speed with as we listened to a band, then we went back to hers and had sex. She was showering and laid beside the bed Wass a copy of the "Plague" Albert Camus. She saw me flicking through it and ...

Absurdity of life.
Picked

Absurdity of Life Stumbling through rows Upon rows…. Of headless flowers. Wandering wildly At the assassination Of such beauty. Someone told me at school There was a heaven And a headman whose name Was god. They told me of gates above And endless caress of love. And another place of fire That waited for me if  I strayed from paths so dire. But I never believed for a moment Never told a prayer Not one ...

Strange Advent

This one came after the loss of an Iranian family in the channel; and it seemed ironic, that as we, as a culture, were celebrating the birth of one refugee child, while another had drowned; such is our human condition ...

Reunited

dedicated to a dear friend, Cheryl who died of cancer, a death hastened by contracting covid, and her devoted husband Roy, who too succumbed to the pandemic. updated after edits suggested by StormWolf ...
/ / Poetry / 7 Comments on Reunited

Soul of a text

A text written lives longer; bonsai in a lounge, fossil in a library. … When you're writing about yourself; truly describing your life, your experience, you are also drawing others. … The soul rises, sets, in the different parts of the soil, lightens leaves of distant lives like the sun, day and night.   ...