Latest Submissions

Flanagan phoned – left a message   ‘hope you’re well I’m down your way be nice to catch up - I’ll bring some photos’   Flanagan had a forename she doesn’t use it - I never heard it   she lives alone in a pink-washed cottage on the white horse coast of Mayo painting wistful landscapes - gentle reminders of buried days - despite her arthritis   since her transplant she’s been teetotal she claims ...

The echoes of your laughter. We never forget ...

One from many years back but seems apropriate now. AUTUMN 1969 Elms are flared with yellow; Oaks turn bronze; Mist swirls along the furrow; The year grows old. And the beech trees stand Root-deep in discarded gold. I, squirrel-like secrete About the hollows of my mind Jewels To hang upon the world At other times When all within Is uniformly grey, When poetry fades And reason Faces the light of day. But words cannot retain ...

Next chapter WENESDAY 7TH MARCH We got up and set off at once to get to the Institute Neft (petrol) by ten when all the men at the institute would be presenting the women with flowers and presents. We made it dead on time and did some celebrating with Rabfail’s colleagues. The gentlemen had already presented the ladies with their gifts but we recorded Nikolay Cherkasov congratulating the ladies and then making me a little ...

His neck veins swelled into fat blue worms, his face dark red and ugly as a broken brick. ‘I am the son and heir, Jessica, mother had no damned right to leave my house to you, he bawled. Jessica’s lips trembled as tears seeped down her cheeks. ‘But, Sebastian, it was me who nursed your mother for the past twelve years. And where would we go? This is our home, all our friends…Poppy’s school…’  ‘Go? ...

Happy Christmas ...

Continuing part 4 - Derry is at the house of the first family, and about to be introduced to their son.  Edited. Thanks to Guaj and Ifyouplease.  ...

A truth I will never forget ...

when predictions materialise ...

Carnaby Street ...

(ask not) for whom this bell tolls   I only popped to the pub for last orders, and to nip to the loo for toilet paper (the pub had plenty to spare)     but at the door   an old bloke sifting ashtrays, like chocolate boxes, looked in need of cheering up - I stopped to pass the time,   ‘looking for dog ends?’ ‘bugger off - mind your own’ ‘s’alright, mate, I don’t smoke’ ‘why you looking for dog ends ...

The view that the world consists of two fundamental entities, such as mind and matter ...

Beamo and Little Bit have some explaining to do ...

COVENTRY CATHEDRAL A torn cross of crucified metal like the twisted girders of a city seared by war stands in silent serenity. There is no figure on it; the pain is not individual nor is it long ago. Outside, with a trust that is undeserved, the ruins of the old reach out to touch the new; Forgiveness in stone, raised by the hands of men perhaps in the half knowledge that no longer can we ...

COME UNTO ME There is an old woman who lives in a shoe, well, not really old and nor really a shoe, but a very small cottage in Wales. She collects lost causes, human or beast, anything suffering, lost or almost deceased. She welcomes stray kittens, ponies, pheasants or quails, rescues rabbits from cats and pensions them off, with carrots and comfort for those who’re not fit, and others she doses, binds up paws or ...