Cherrypicked stories
Why of adventures more than of green spectacles?
“We’re bored. You’re boring us!” The muses whine I explain that poetry isn’t all sex and drugs and rock n roll Their eyes darken. One turns on the television
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- 1643 reads
Mr. Darcy piñata
The reception was without incident Until bobbing through the doorway Came a piñata the shape of Mr. Darcy He buffered across to the canapés Where, dipping occasionally, he melted
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- 2002 reads
Happy Birthday Cyril
Cyril throws his slimy sock to the other side of the room and apologises to Stan for the shaky bunk. “Don’t mention it friend. If you can’t enjoy Me Time on your birthday, when can you?”
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- 1724 reads
The best 15 minutes of my Easter holiday
A train And on that train Me And three old dears Women who’ve been on this earth for years and years And it’s lovely Because the train carriage may smell
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- 1499 reads
I want a girl who reads
“So, what do you go for in a girl?” He crows, lifting a lager to his lips Gestures where his mate sits Downs his glass “He prefers tits I prefer ass. What do you go for in a girl?”
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- 6 comments
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- 3720 reads
Someone's Daughter
She was someone's daughter. And now, I have daughters too. So, these days, I can understand why he hated this world and every man alive in it. Because he knew, as I know.
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- 2516 reads
Goosebumps
'the power of cheap music'
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- 1087 reads
February Morning
Not postmodern, not didactic, not navel gazing. Just a bucolic, blundering lonely as a clod, poem.
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- 3 comments
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- 2160 reads
Breaking into Commercial Fiction
I've just got back from Loughborough Uni where I was attending the Writing Industries Conference. It was a great day.
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- 9 comments
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- 2445 reads
Mourners
Various aspects of dying..
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- 2040 reads
A Castrato Sings
A castrato sings...
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- 1123 reads
Colourless
What happens when you have to grow up.
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- 8 comments
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- 3263 reads
Wanderer
Little ship within a ship, one oar adrift sail furled tight as a rollup, tight as a blind that naval Dad always said he never went to sea. Rudder tilts a shade to port
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- 2025 reads
Dollhouse
I've made a teeny tiny house for two it's all we need, pin neat. I've made the sweetest little bay, a door with stained glass like you like, I hope you get it, this the sweetest thing
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- 1568 reads
A Class Act
...serious people...
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- 1394 reads
Three Poachers and a Poet in a Sequin Beret
How do conversations like this start? In five-minutes-for-the-haddock queues? Purgatory waiting rooms? A Midland Mainline delay? So that you can imagine it -
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- 3 comments
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- 1570 reads
Watchman
First story in the Babel series. Part of the book of short stories currently being written.
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- 1519 reads
Ode to Tomorrow [Revised]
Today has a funny taste and it smells queer, too and I keep having to move the aerial and twiddle with the knobs. I think today must have his flies down because yesterday and tomorrow
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- 8 comments
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- 2971 reads
Ash Wednesday blog 2008
There is a certain relief to be had when things go up in smoke, and blow away on the breeze.
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- 4 comments
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- 1367 reads
Have You Ever
A footnote to eternity.
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- 1125 reads
What's in a name?
My name is McSporran. I’m Scottish. And if I had a penny for every person who said to me, on introduction, “That’s a very Scottish name, isn’t it?”, I could buy Scotland.
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- 1485 reads
If it's for me, it's for everyone
Here’s what made me think of death: taking cinder from the stove, balanced on a shovel, shaking the dust over a gravelled car bay, watching it expand from breath to mist: a cape unfurled.
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- 1086 reads
Meeting Celia
...another genre experiment...as mills and boon as you like...
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- 3 comments
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- 2811 reads
Limericks
A strapping young actor named Harris Suffered mortification in Paris When a rip in his clothes Saw his Hamlet exposed As he stabbed an old man in the arras An Eskimo, quite unconceited,
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- 1387 reads
Sex Butler
Sex Butler Gentlemen, I’ll admit The modern world’s a sordid jip Run by grubby little men who like to gloat Everywhere you turn you’re faced with some gaunt slapper’s gurn
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- 2 comments
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- 787 reads
Clima - his romance
sandstorms come in from Sahara - edit
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- 2134 reads
Afternoon
The first thing I've written in quite some time, woven from random thoughts on a rather frustrating afternoon at work and composed in under half an hour. An experiment. Comments are appreciated.
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- 1979 reads
OUR SON - a family challenge
"Do you want to come home from Training School son?" "Yes."
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- 6 comments
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- 2534 reads
Slim/Fast
I am full of emptiness all form no substance My talent wasted I am number 13 of 100,000 I am 0.9% of the 90 the invisible now visible a magic act in 3 parts the Greek say
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- 4 comments
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- 1654 reads
Hangover
I want to call everyone I've ever loved And tell them: Our time together Gave me joy so searing That now, when Sunday Is muffled and smells Like sweating bacon The thought of you tweaking
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- 1265 reads
A Poet in Student Halls
Between shapes moving towards the serpent and crystal craving shapes, I'll grow a beard as deep as the river, and stick a poster on my wall. With a tree that can't stop singing
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- 2327 reads
Oh no it isn't!
What's in a name? IPOW, inspired to such nonsense as this.
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- 1997 reads
The Girl With Norwich In Her Pocket
This is an experimental villanelle, with the repeated words within the lines, in the same order, rather than at the end of each line and rotated.
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- 946 reads
A Passing Day.
Where do you find the time or inspiration to write?
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- 2 comments
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- 1056 reads
There's someone dead in the toilet
I know it's Emma's party and I don't want to spoil it but I think there is somebody dead in the toilet.
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- 7 comments
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- 3343 reads
We should call a man
It's not my fault that I'm not able to French Polish the scratched coffee table
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- 3 comments
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- 1927 reads
Inspiration Point: Soggy Butties.
New Confessions
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- 8 comments
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- 3495 reads
Give My Daughter Back Her Hair!
Playing the lottery is what people do instead of changing their life, she tells me, buttoning up her pinstriped jacket.
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- 1179 reads