Cherrypicked stories
The Nerve Centre
Parents ignore kids to develop property and go mad
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- 1 comment
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- 935 reads
Now or Never 4
This has been the week from hell, although I’ve bought a cheap runaround and feel freer for it.
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- 3 comments
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- 1023 reads
inspiration point - poem?
Softly they fall, gentle and silent Petals of winter’s white rose, Hard edges fade and blur Trees shiver in frigid slumber Quick-flick, warily she darts Stop-start, stop-start
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- 15 comments
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- 4576 reads
Triptych 2
Memories tender and sublime; a retrospective construction of childhood faith.
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- 746 reads
OX-TALES
The last of my early short stories. I hope you enjoy it.
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- 7 comments
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- 2252 reads
Apton Road
It had been gruelling the past sixty years and Agnes wasn’t shy in admitting it to Sid. She did it as often as she could manage. Guilt was a wonderful thing.
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- 1 comment
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- 2373 reads
Not Living
black humour, if any one thinks its funny, I do!
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- 6 comments
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- 3063 reads
His Family Slain, A Boy’s Life of Rage Emerges
The mother braided hair on the weekend for extra money. Women and teenage girls came to her stoop to have their hair braided and styled and of course, to gossip.
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- 3 comments
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- 1644 reads
Alex
Waistcoats. Red kissing the blue. Brandy coughing snifters, of a 40 a day obsessive. The killer black, to the top left pocket. With a little bit of screw. Sheffield steel. Shamrock luck?
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- 2 comments
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- 2004 reads
There Ain't Gonna Be No World War Three, Chapter 6
6. Does Your Cow Give Fresh Milk? "We are now going to conduct", said Cleo as they walked hurriedly down a street calling itself Bahnhofstraße, "an experiment. To allay my wildest fears."
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- 1 comment
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- 723 reads
The Gods Besotted
A teen bacchanalian, Madame Butterfly at the Wash and Go, a run-in with the law and the continuance of an affected sense of not giving a damn.
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- 900 reads
Chapter 1: beginning in a giraffe's cage
My mid Life Crisis began when I turned 40. Or, perhaps more accurately, when I was 40 years and one day old. It began in the giraffe compound at the zoo. At about 6.23 a.m. On a Tuesday.
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- 1479 reads
Transference
Kind of sad and kind of creepy - its up to you
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- 9 comments
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- 2771 reads
Elusive cherries
Elusive cherries
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- 13 comments
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- 3931 reads
Remained Always Here
Look out across these wide-open spaces to where the horizon blurs the land into the sky. It is as far as seeing can ever go; to see the place where the earth meets the sky.
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- 2 comments
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- 1509 reads
And Elvis Will Marry Us
The UK takes on the USA.
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- 2 comments
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- 935 reads
The Ceroc Years - Number Eight
Apologies to Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772 - 1834)
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- 987 reads
Delirious
Oops! Inspired by 'simonbarget' and his title!
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- 7 comments
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- 4229 reads
Harley6
more desperate goings on
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- 7 comments
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- 1634 reads
Joe
I sit and think About the tape I made you And the books and shuttlecock You’ve left behind. I wonder how I couldn’t reciprocate When you did all you did Made music for me
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- 3 comments
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- 1714 reads
The Hog In Armour
So, I tried again And slipped, it seems Out of my own skin, Into someone elses, Into yours Into your house, your tragic life Your blood-red room And single bed I threw myself
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- 988 reads
Fish-Eyed
Edited following comments by Jacquelineann. Does this work better ?
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- 5 comments
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- 1675 reads
Life in the old sea dog yet.
"But I haven't had my dinner yet!" Moving four elderly vacationers along a mile long path is much harder than it should be. "Yes you have Doris."
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- 4 comments
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- 2199 reads
The Ceroc Years - Number Five
Apologies to Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (1854 - 1900)
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- 3 comments
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- 1442 reads
The Ceroc Years - Number Four
Apologies to William Blake (1757 - 1827)
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- 5 comments
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- 2162 reads
The Ceroc Years - Number Three
Apologies to Alfred Edward Housman (1859 - 1936)
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- 888 reads
James
And I can’t do anything about that fucking wall.
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- 17 comments
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- 5031 reads
A Piece of the Banner. Ch.# XII- College as a catalytic Experience- draft 3
Chapter XII- College as a catalytic experience
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- 2 comments
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- 1799 reads
The long room
The Long room. For L. without whom… Cold Creek, New England 1984
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- 2 comments
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- 1672 reads
Return of the Storm
The turbulence of an unexpected encounter with desire.
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- 868 reads
The Ceroc Years - Number Two
Apologies to John Keats (1795 - 1821).
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- 4 comments
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- 1776 reads
The Ceroc Years - Number One
Apologies to William Henry Davies (1871-1940)
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- 3 comments
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- 1662 reads
Oh Vienna
We are a chaste kiss waiting to happen By a table, with a lady frustrated by the lateness Of her boyfriend, pizza cooling A soft Viennese kiss brings it all back
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- 2 comments
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- 1062 reads
Gods
I felt her stare before I saw her. It happens from time to time and I can tell before I so much as raise my eyes to look.
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- 2 comments
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- 1960 reads
There Ain't Gonna Be No World War Three, Chapter 5
5. The Walls Are Made Of Poo "This is the police dog coming through now. He's a good lad, so I'm told. One of their best."
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- 1 comment
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- 722 reads
The Church and the Devils 14 - Epilogue
Murder, a priest and paganism in Anglo Saxon Northumbria
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- 559 reads
Seven Pence Piece
I saw a seven pence piece lying in the snow on the road beside me. I had never seen a seven pence piece before but had heard that they brought good fortune.
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- 4 comments
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- 2704 reads
There Ain't Gonna Be No World War Three, Chapter 4
4. The Wheels on the Bus Go Round And Round
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- 641 reads
The Church and the Devils 13
Murder, a priest and paganism in Anglo Saxon Northumbria
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- 570 reads
The Church and the Devils 12
Murder, a priest and paganism in Anglo Saxon Northumbria
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- 527 reads
The Church and the Devils 11
Murder, a priest and paganism in Anglo Saxon Northumbria
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- 528 reads
Death Makes Us Small
You left the world last night Sudden as the flick of a switch I saw the moment you surrendered And everything, everything shrunk- Eighty-eight years of life, minus three days
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- 4 comments
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- 1407 reads
Spider Chair
That chair looked like some sort of rusted clock-work spider, it was all predatory angles and the suggestion of some livid, serrated movement.
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- 457 reads
In the Gutter...
I imagine a cell, A prison cemented in the sky. It is a place whose walls, Stand soaked in despair. I find a woman there, We hate each other. There is nothing between us,
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- 1 comment
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- 619 reads
Lust, Fist-Fights and British Seaside Resorts
We were almost at Southend. Mum had fallen asleep five minutes into the journey, and she now sat, head lolling backwards, mouth open and arms folded.
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- 3 comments
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- 2381 reads
The Church and the Devils 10
Murder, a priest and paganism in Anglo Saxon Northumbria
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- 711 reads
The Church and the Devils 9
Murder, a priest and paganism in Anglo Saxon Northumbria
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- 603 reads
The Chruch and the Devils 8
Murder, a priest and paganism in Anglo Saxon Northumbria
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- 576 reads
A is for arguing
ABC from a really good kid with a big heart
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- 4 comments
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- 1228 reads
CHAPTER SIX: SUSPICION
"If this was a suicide, where is her note..
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- 6 comments
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- 2475 reads
Gladiators
Gladiators Backstage, the poets wait like gladiators, hydrating, meditating, training quatrains. They look fit, but the green room, in the mirror, their eyes glint
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- 2 comments
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- 1138 reads
Mummy’s alphabet
My attempt at the A to Z IP...
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- 3 comments
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- 1172 reads
Underground Jam
A mucker named Groober was playing the tuba down on the Central Line...
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- 2 comments
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- 1429 reads
The Church and the Devils 7
Murder, a priest and paganism in Anglo Saxon Northumbria.
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- 590 reads
The Church and the Devils 6
Murder, a priest and paganism in Anglo Saxon Northumbria
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- 522 reads
Drowning, not drowning
On New Year's Eve, in a hospital in a foreign country, Marina holds a vigil at her son's bedside. When a lost reveller appears in the otherwise empty ward, things take a strange turn.
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- 1 comment
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- 322 reads
Once Upon a Sprawling Forest
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- 282 reads
End of days 6
And then everything returned to normal again. Except it didn't.
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- 9 comments
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- 3096 reads