Nothing Else Matters

  I'm awake, and all I hear is some twat on TV selling kitchen knives. I can’t move. I can’t open my eyes. I think I was shot last night. Or stabbed. I have the worst pain in my side, like TV twat is actually stabbing me with a paring knife. I can live with the … Continue reading Nothing Else Matters

Five golden nuggets for writers to take-away!

In this never ending struggle to get words onto paper we have to celebrate the small wins when they happen. So...yay me,  I've finally finished that short fiction piece I was supposed to have published back in November. (Admittedly, I did have a data-loss meltdown that made me question my whole existential being and philosophy on … Continue reading Five golden nuggets for writers to take-away!

She Sells Sanctuary

She sells sanctuary, twenty-five pounds a turn in the comfort of your own car. We used to sit together in fifth-year English, drawing graffiti on the desks and throwing paper-bombs behind the teacher's back. Now she plies her trade along the broken pavements where the foundries were left to ruin, their chimney stacks ready to … Continue reading She Sells Sanctuary

I think Basic Instinct made me want to be a writer…

I always enjoyed creative writing at primary school, but I think it was Basic Instinct that made we want to be a writer for real. (That kinda sounds like we regularly watched soft porn/ murder flicks at school. We didn't. It was only some of the time!) For anyone who hasn't seen the film, Catherine … Continue reading I think Basic Instinct made me want to be a writer…

Night’s Butterfly

I should've run, gone some place she wouldn't find me, but some lights are too bright to turn from. Even now it's hard to know who was the moth and who the flame. Without wings what are we anyway? Caterpillars? or worse, grubs...cockroaches feeding off the detritus of a society hurtling toward its end of days. I drink in this … Continue reading Night’s Butterfly

Writing Death Monkeys

To some it's known as writer's block--an artistic palsy that leaves you with an inability to put pen to paper, fingertip to keyboard. Some know it as procrastination (laziness), while others still (usually poets) will deign to call it ennui.  It is a product of fear and anxiety, feelings of unworthiness, and if you're a writer you will have experienced it. Fear is the … Continue reading Writing Death Monkeys

Roast Beef and Armageddon 

News travelled fast about the spaceship. We weren’t used to things like this happening in Neverington. It was a Sunday afternoon in the middle of June, so at least E.T. had waited for morning service to finish. People round here still relied on their God fix. I was at my girlfriend’s house when it happened. … Continue reading Roast Beef and Armageddon 

Book be a lady tonight

So, I had myself a charming lunchtime rendezvous today with a classy little thing all the way from Bavaria. Oozing charm and sophistication (even at two hundred-years old), my date was attired in a devilishly chic little black number, blurring the lines between elegance and cheapness ...well, I did pick her up for a pound in the stairwell … Continue reading Book be a lady tonight

Visions of Insanity

  Visions of Insanity   Lost from life, lost of soul, inhabiting this dark domain, Through visions of insanity nothing else remains.   What sights are seen, unheralded views of a madness beyond control, the insight of a wicked past brings anger to the soul. They lock the madmen up in cages but who is … Continue reading Visions of Insanity

Apparatus of Death

TV said, "I am the apparatus of death. I am the scream of a thousand tongues, the raw storm of whispers beneath summer's sweet sweat. I see your skin boiled, pink wax, mother's breast crushed by bitter milk, shadows fasting in repulsive worship that ache in the symphony of time." (c) Darren Hawbrook I wrote this … Continue reading Apparatus of Death