‘I wasn’t the first man to put a pillow over a woman’s face, even with love. … “I don’t want to live anymore, let me go!” That’s what I’d heard her say, my mother. When it was all over, I stood beneath the cherry tree, the blossom growing whiter as I watched, more glorious than […]
‘Fate is an artful dodger. Whatever you believe of gods and destiny and all that crap, fate steps out to slip signals, pull points, shift tracks to take you on a route so bizarre, it makes you stare at the stars and scuff your feet.’ Was she to blame? Jack needed help, but then so […]
‘Pearls’ published by Cinnamon Press ISBN 978-1-907090 23-3 A short story of jealousy and deceit. ‘The birch tree is still here, leaves fluttering freely in the smallest breeze and the bark peeling back to a whiter beauty. And underneath my guilt is buried.’
‘Che Guevara’ – published by United Press ISBN 1-84436-331-7 Invited to send poems for publication. As this was a new venture responded with only one. Did they take all that were entered? This is one of my favourite poems. Che Guevara You told me of Che Guevara Revolutionary never changing his clothes and a woman […]
‘I Know’ – published ISBN 1-84436-336-8 Entered and chosen for this anthology. A lament for the impossibility of writing about love? I know the inside out of walking on dry earth and stones millennia back to where lava ran and rock split into a gorge of water falling to the ritual pattern of bricks red […]
‘The Crab Apple Tree’ published Spring 1998 ‘Annie knew about souls, always had done from the first day at Sunday School. The souls of the dead were all around you. Your own was a sort of flat thing, wafer thin, lying along your spine, invisible inside you, under the skin and muscle. You could sometimes […]
‘Captive Flesh’ for William Hogarth’s ‘The Graham Children’ and ‘The Three Musicians’ for Pablo Picasso’s ‘The Three Musicians’ – commissioned – published by Hodder & Stoughton ISBN 0-340679875 Even better! These were commissioned poems. I was invited, along with famous poets such as U.A Fanthorpe, Gillian Clarke, Charles Causeley, to respond to a range of […]
‘The Angel Child’ – published by The New Writers’ Club Limited in the fourth selection of short stories from the 1995 Ian St James Awards ISBN 0967-0289 Great excitement when ‘The Angel Child’ was a runner up in this Award. A confirmation that I was an author. Originally intended to remain as such, a short […]
‘Looking Back’ for L.S. Lowry’s ‘A Fight’ and ‘Faux Pas’ for Atkinson Grimshaw’s ‘Liverpool Docks by Moonlight’ – chosen – published by Hodder & Stoughton – ISBN 0 340 61873 6 Studying for my PGCE at Southampton University to teach English, my tutor was Michael Benton. One of our tasks was to create a file […]