Bathtime for Alice

This weeks entry for Lily Childs Friday prediction a brilliant fun writing competition held every week take a look and why not join in. Alice is the protagonist in a longer project I'm working on. After a month of drought on her story a poem came forth.

Bathtime for Alice

Alice likes painting arms, in shades of pumping red.

It’s what her demons bid her, from deep inside her head.

Swallowed by an institution, for a child that was never born.

The shocks designed to help her forget, and leave her memories torn.

Strapped naked in the bathtub, all she can do is lay.

She’s easy pickings for the warders and the vicious games they play.

Like a missionary in a stew pot, they know not what they brew.

They ramp the voltage upwards and her thoughts become a stew.

Sin, No Sin, the evil souls come in!

The Morning after the Peace before. Wins this weeks Feardom Flash

I'm really pleased that my poem was selected as the winner for last weeks Friday Flash competition @ Lily Childs Feardom. BTW if you haven't already you can get Lily Childs latest book Magenta Shamen Stones the crows for Kindle @ Amazon. I'm reading it at the moment, and I'm hooked.

The Morning after the Peace before.

Quietly dawn rises, and she’s full of surprises.
Yesterday’s peace has been taught to beg.
Death lifts from the field like an affectionate veil,
The first life’s taken out, with a scrape of her nail.
No football today both teams are away, the shooting is for their own goals.
Then the bleakest of hell, screams out of the Mustard shells.
Skin burning like it’s on hot coals.
We hide under ground where our bodies were found, with all of our masks caught adrift.
The protection of boy’s from the horror of war is no time for talking bout thrift.

                                  -~-

PAX Ex-

False Idol

She raises me on pedestals like a pharaoh, or a king.
Nothing ever touches me; I’m her hero, my praise she’ll sing.
She thinks I stride my chosen path to sweep all fears away, and will not ever suffer strife; I’ll scare the demons away.
In truth I’m just a man, a fraud, no god like powers. I work hard to remain her idol, by putting in the hours.
Fair faith such as hers makes the cynic in me glad, her surging spirit carries me, and makes me proud that I’m her Dad.

On Forbidden Love

She loves me, she loves she not.
Her chiding words draped me in sorrow.
Her smiling chastisement “there's always tomorrow.”
My gift of Flowers strewn, and left to decay, like my hope for her forbidden love.
Together on her silken bale, I found them locked a grotesque entanglement of betrayal.
An end to their love, as they put an end to mine, through shattered vase and flowers, for my courtships wasted hours.
The crimson spray of their demise illuminating cream linen, with splaying lines,
A tear for every Petal fallen, I am the Publisher of my passionate crime.

I finally submitted something to a print anthology. GULP!

I took the family out for a picnic and ramble through a local forest last weekend. As the kids went off and played, we got to discussing plans and where our lives were going.  I mentioned to my supportive and beloved wife that I'd had an idea kicking around since last year, but I'd done nothing with it and now the deadline was a week away. Thus began my roller coaster week, where I resurrected a stagant idea with a strong central character, and went from a 200 word precise to 5168 in five days. I've discovered that I have some bad capitalisation habits not to mention I evolved a nervous tic where I thought closer but typed closure through the whole document. What would Freud say. Luckily a patient wife proof read it for me twice, and it's now submitted. Now comes the pacing.

My Entry for Lily's Friday Prediction

My entry for Lily Childs Feardom 

Cul De Sac

Invisible like a pebble in a moat, I lay and wait all day.
Reality is a slur in my mind, my perception almost blind.
A lovely man holds my hand, my husband so he says, arrives early and stays till he’s shooed away.

At night they leave me laying in my soaking wet nightdress, they disconnected my panic button, so I can’t alert my distress.

My son arrives. If he knew, he’d make this cruelty stop, but worry clouds the beauty of his face, so a mothers love can not reveal the depth of my carers disgrace.

I didn't mean to kill him, it just kind of happened. I've been gently rocking back and forth in my chair arms wrapped around my chest in a attempt at self comforting, thinking what have I done, what have I fucking done, FFS. If I had a few extra words to give I might of been able to save him, but no I had to go for the Killer line and making his last words cyptic or pure comedy if your not aware of Epsteins sculpture. Tench will be back. I wrote this piece for Lily's Friday Prediction


Case closed
Tench stood watch under the spire of Coventry’s bombed out Cathedral, looking every bit the undertaker, cold and alone. What he grudgingly needed right now was the high gloss of Selling’s humour to keep him going. He felt something sharp hit the back of his neck and a wet numbness began to roam down his spine, making him shudder. As his end came near, He laughed in realisation, Epstein had used a milk bottle to fashion the devils shaft. “The Devils penis is a milk bottle!” were his final words. St Michael smiled down on him, then perfect oblivion.

~End~

Coventry Cathedral displays the sculpture of St Michael vanquishing the Devil by Epstein on the wall next to the entrance steps. Daringly Epstein envisioned the Devil as being naked. Having personally spent hours waiting on the steps of Coventry Cathedral for one reason or another I had a morbid fascination with the Naked DEvil, it finally Dawned on me that Epstein had used a milk bottle to create the penis, causing me to exclaim the very line used by Tench.

Lily's Friday Prediction-8th July-2011

I didn't intend to write this then I was flicking through some old photographs at the weekend and discovered a picture tucked inside a note book with just the title and a date written. On my walk into work this morning this kept coming back to play.

Toxic Girlfriend 1993

My head is tangled in a toxic space where you define what goes, you’re the kind of girl that cuts off your face but only to spite your nose.

When you gatecrashed your way into my life, you were like an incision to my heart.

I went from a life so promising, straight to the end with no middle part.

Your desires are set to suffocate; you’re a covering like a septic crust.

You’re not dealing with a full deck love, your aces are missing, and if this were blackjack I’d be bust.

this weeks entry for lily's prediction

I'm on the cusp of getting a Kindle 3G, but my inner voice says hold on theres a discount around the corner with the Kindle 3G with Special offers bound to come to the UK soon now Fathers day is over.

Well at least it's brilliant week over at Lily childs feardom with a fantastic new piece from Lily, a DVD recommendation and the brilliant Friday prediction here's my entry.

Khyams Box

He dared to open Khyam’s box, the gilded letters bore her warning “What does not start has no end”

Watching the sands float through the hour glass within began to hypnotise him.

“Each of those granules is a Soul” Khyam whispered into his sub-consciousness, “See how the sand is never emptied from the top, that’s because a new soul is born, to replace those lost, you are lost too Cabannon”

Cabannon felt the ebb and flow till it overwhelmed his being, his soul billowed in the breeze, till he too became dust, swept away by Khyams tsunami of the soul.

It's all Kicking off again at Lilys Friday prediction some great early entries and my humble offering.



The Serpents Fife

Enchanted by the girl replacing the flute in Furs music shop window, the young man enters.

“The flute in the window?” he said as he noticed her name was Lucy
“Would you like to play it?” Lucy asked
“Yes please. Such a charming serpent motif, I normally have a phobia of Snakes” he said
“It was my fathers.” she said nonchalantly handing him the Fife.
As he began to play, the flute came alive in his hands and began to twist and arch till the snake entered his mouth and Stole his soul.

She’s a tricky woman that Lucy Fur.

Writers block

I apologise in advance, I'm tucked fully into some research at the moment and I need to get this rogue thought out there so I can move on.

"Rapunzel, Rapunzel throw down your long hair."

"No not the pubes!"

People are Strange

I get asked the oddest of things by people, just cause I'm smartass they seem to think I know everything (which I don't). I sometimes astound myself with my answers.

Last night I was asked "Is there anything for kids to do in Austria?"
I replied "You won't need to worry. They'll take the children off you as you enter the country. Then they keep them in a castle high in the mountains where Benny Hill lives as toy maker"

  No wonder people think I'm a smartass!

Friday Prediction

Every Week Lily childs throws down the gaunlet to write a 100 word Flashusing three given words.  This weeks words are Cult, Syrup, Neglect. Take a look at Lilychildsfeardom heres my piece for this week

Rex-Erection
After his ritual death his followers disbanded and left Rex to years of neglect, to rot in his tomb. One drunken night two of the cult remembered their creed and finally performed the resurrection ritual.

He now stood surveying his body, his dry desiccated skin looking like grey rotting baklava.

“How long” the fractured bag of dust that was his vocal cords rasped

“Fourteen years dude” Jud sniggered

His wizened walnuts no longer capable of producing their life giving syrup put a whole dampener on his concept of giving life after death.

He should shed a tear, if he could.

This weeks Friday Challenge entry

This weeks words are Cinderella, Mongrel and Profit.
My piece this week is based on an abridged and reworked version of  my yet to be published work "Starlet Autopsy". Neither piece is based on any character alive or deceased, it is a pure figment based on musings I wrote up one evening enjoying a bottle (or two) of Jacobs creek red in 1994.

Error of Judgement
Tonight should have been her Cinderella moment, but the face that graced magazine covers, now decorated the inside of her Daimler. Her diamante spiral earring twirled casting disco lights from the roof lining, pivoting on a mass of matted hair and brain tissue.

The paparazzi were kept away, every last mongrel; hungry for their shot to make profit from sorrow.

Across town, her disconsolate soul cradled her unborn, as she experienced her lover passing cash to her assassin. His high velocity shot making sorrow for profit.

He told her he would leave his wife, Liar!

Where was her head?

Literally!

5 x 5 Fiction Launches

Angel Zapata has launched the first edition of his E-zine issue one is called "Murder, Monsters and Misfortune" and can be found by clicking the link here -> 5 x 5 Fiction Launch Edition

I'm extremely proud to have been included in issue one, with my piece "Community Indictment", I loved the challenge of writing a whole story in 5 sentences of 5 words, it's harder than you think.

Proud runner up - After the Plague

Firstly congratulations to R.S.BOHN for winning this weeks Friday predictions at Lily Childs Blog, and also to co-runner upper Jenny Dreadful.

I'm really pleased

I'm really fortunate that my Uncle was close friends with Clarence Daniel and my family were invited to tea at his private museum in Eyam. Eyam is a fascinating place in Derbyshire famous for the sacrifice the residents made during the plague by placing themselves in quarantine. It's a place that stays with you long after you leave. I've been planning a story about the plague for a while now and this week I've been reviewing some of my notes which kinda melded together with the words provided by Lily. Grandmother, Party, Safe.

I present:-

After the Plague

A small fragment of hair attached to a hawthorn bush, spiralled on the breeze like a gift tag. The spring air on the Dales was caustic with its freshness, but sadness hung in the air like an apostrophe. We were safe for now, but there were those that walked among our party that had left their earthly bodies behind. As we stood by the vinegar stone, I watched the vapour that had been my Grandmother drift among the children; she was protecting them from the darker vapours gathering on the horizon. It was not over our trial was just beginning.

Friday Flash Squandered

I've been a bit lazy in updating my blog of late, largely down to twelve hour working days getting in the way.
I missed a week at lily's Friday prediction last week. So was determined to enter this week. The words were Fertile, Thirst and denounce. You can visit the prediction by clicking the link > Lily Childs

I heard some sad news about the untimely death of the wife of an acquaintance this week, that coupled with my spending so much time at work instead of with loved ones made me think. I present Squandered.

Squandered

My misery mewls like a fertile cat, desperate and unsatisfied.

I’m driven by the thirst for one last bask in the splendour of your smile, but your death has robbed us of that.

We used to squander our time together, by being apart. Through faux immortal eyes we laughed at death, and those that wallow in pity, but your sudden frailty tore longevity asunder.

I will not let death denounce your existence.

Kit Crewbucket

Last weeks words on Lily's Friday challenge were Tunnel, Judge, & Horse. I had an overwhelming sense of the English canals. I've had quite a busy week, so kept revisiting the same theme without success. Then I remembered legends of Kit Crewbucket and spring heeled jack. Unfortunately I couldn't get my story short enough so I put in a short poem instead. BTW a bogart is a household fairy which causes things to disappear, milk to sour, and dogs to go lame. Always malevolent, the boggart will follow its family wherever they flee.

http://www.waterscape.com/canals-and-rivers/trent-and-mersey-canal/ghostly-goings-on



The Ballad of Kit Crewbucket

From the tunnel depths I heard a wailing sound, from several souls that she had drowned.

How many there it’s hard to judge, their bodies sunk beneath the sludge

The headless bogart known as Kit, likes to play around a bit.

With the temperament of the wildest horse, she stalks this stretch of watercourse.

With wailing drone and chains to clink she seeks another barge to sink.

New Series

Having stretched my legs a little bit in 2010, I've decided to kick 2011 off to a start with a short series of interelated shorts, called "She Never Let Me Go". I've published part 1 here called Her Geek. I hasten to add this piece is fiction none of the chracters exist and the piece is written in the first person for effect.

Friday prediction Entry - 31-12-2010

The weekly competition is as great as ever at Liliy Childs Feardom my entry follows.

The Day Sadie Left

Sadie doesn’t like me taking my medication it pisses her off. She doesn’t like it when I’m on an even keel. “Hell hath no fury…” she sings that to get me to stop.

I’ve not taken it for days now, so she took over today, got me doing… things.
Fingers... in places...

Sharp things in soft parts. Fountains.

“How long will it take you to bleed to death” she taunted, before she left.
Been watching the clock since then.
Counting. Nearly have an answer.
Shame she’s… I’m nothing without her, she told me that.

I’ll just rest… close my...