Jackie Wesley

Jane, I suspect that, er, somewhere on the way you too encountered that anthology, so long ago you’d forgotten about it until my post reminded you.

Yes, I like the Liverpool Poets too. It’s only one aspect of his talent, but Roger McGough has raised that lowest form of wit, the pun, into an art form. Like this, from The Mersey Sound:

The Act of…[Read more]

From JaneShuff (copied from the wall)

Thank you for this, Richard. I spent my childhood and teenage years in Liverpool and The Liverpool Poets were a big part of it. I thought I hadn’t heard of Pete Roche but, amazingly, I found myself able to recite Somewhere On The Way as I read it so the poem must be buried somewhere inside the dusty old a…[Read more]

The Sanctum of Dreams

“I dreamt about you last night. You were in the sanctum.”
“Well, that’s hardly surprising, is it? Given what’s about to happen.”
“No. I suppose not. It was just so…”
“So…what? Are you going to share? Or just sit there looking worried? I’m not a mind reader.”
“Yet.”
“Ha! True. Well, tell me about it. I don’t like to see y…[Read more]

There’s a monster inside of me.

It was born when Noellia moved into number 14.

The car started it. A shiny new Fiat 500. Electric. In powder blue. Parked on the drive. I looked at my own clapped out Fiesta and felt the first stirrings of new life, deep in my chest.

She fed the monster well, did Noellia.

Had an open house, she did. Invited…[Read more]

Well done, @seagreen, excellent story.

Excuse the bizarre formatting, this had indents when I wrote it.

Sunset
The sun melted into the horizon like a knob of butter in a frying pan and behind it the sky was on fire, it’s flames dancing on the restless sea. Soon, for this was the tropics where sunset and darkness are never far apart, a million stars would come out to play. Frank and his sister, Sarah, sat shoulder to shoulder, their feet half b…[Read more]

Well it was a small select number of entries this month…well, two months! But they were none the worse for being that.

@Athelstone – a tale with sinister overtones… having been on the business end of a cat’s claws more than once, I’m glad my scratches didn’t end up this way.
@Janette – such a poignant story. I fully expected this to be linked…[Read more]

Last chance to enter something in the monthly-that-turned-into-two-months competition…

I wasn’t 100% certain that the (very) occasional references I found on the Net were to ‘my’ Susie until I found that photo. Susie isn’t exactly a rare name; neither is her given name, Susana, not in Spain. And though her surname may be exotic in Britain, she’d told me it’s common in Catalonia, where she was born.

On her last day at the pub I gave…[Read more]

I don’t want to come on like a rampant egotist, but within hours of my posting this latest blog Ath’s new challenge appeared, and all the excitement has pushed my blog out of sight way down the wall. So this blog is another thing that’s going to go…………..BUMP.