I often think.

My shadow walked away from me I saw it go away and I said nothing Hoping that it would return After a brief, lonely, sojourn Return to make the same moves as me In a hope to attract it back I tried standing in a lambent light Then I stood in the bright summer sun It wouldn’t come back in any way Neither black or grey Or to darken any colour underneath me Whatever I did it would not come back To stand before, beneath or behind me I turned on a table lamp Hoping not to frighten it away The softer light I vainly hoped May coax my shadow back I stood waiting for hours It did not appear As I switched off the lamp I thought I saw it fleetingly It was but my cat curious of me Now how can I leave the house Without someone else to shadow me Without my shadow to follow me Or walk ahead or behind as he often did His legs joined mine at the feet His arms joined my arms His fingers joined mine in every small action His head turned and nod...

I will let blood with an unending flow Purify the lands and soak the sands Of places we need never go We will always be here and falling Bidden by your calling Drink with us when thirsty For each of you will fall like snow. Joseph Arthur ‘All The Old Heroes’ Servants Are So Hard To Come By Nowdays. It was 8:30 in the morning at the BT depot in Barnsley. Kev and Sid had a mug of tea and then gathered their tools together and headed for the job distribution board in the main foyer of the depot. Sid took the job sheet down that was under their day schedule and looked at it. “Looks like a couple of jobs today. Mind you I have something else here….” Sid paused and looked at Kev who remained expressionless and just nodded. “We’ve got a foreigner, if you’re interested. In Gawber Road, Kev. Picked it last night on my email. It’s probably some old dear, a switch off and switch it on job and fifty quid the richer. Just a thought, that sounds li...

Behind you something stands. Whilst you are reading these words you are not paying attention to what is going on around you. Someone or something could be and probably is standing behind you or in front of you and you wouldn’t notice. Your gaze is on this page, your attention is on this page, reading these words. In some corner somewhere near you a threat to your safety is lurking. While you are focussed on this page plans are being made to harm you in some way. Those plans may take fruition when your regard is on these words that are holding your attention. These words are holding you rapt and vulnerable to harm. At night the risks are greater to you, for there are now darkened places, shadows, for them to hide waiting to strike. In a place well known to you a spirit lurks that means you harm. They will be sharp of tooth and claw and waiting for your attention to wane from thinking that they are there.  They are there, do not doubt that for one moment. No one knows what they loo...

A taxi, an old enemy and Valentine’s Day The Day After You I hailed a taxi from the waiting line of black cabs parked outside Marylebone Station. A taxi pulled forward and I got in and slumped into the seat, pulled on my safety belt and looked at the back of the cabbies head as anyone does. “Might be an idea if you told me where we are going.” the cabbie barked into the passenger intercom. It seems I had picked the usual cuddly, friendly London cabbie. “Oh sorry mate, I need The Sherlock Holmes in Baker Street.” “Ain’t be anywhere else is it mate?” he barked back. I heard him laugh as he said it. There was something familiar with the back of this bloke’s head. That scar in his scalp was vee-shaped, it looked really familiar. His voice sounded a bit familiar too. Somewhere, sometime, some place I’d heard that voice. The cab pulled into the line of traffic crawling along the Marylebone Road.  As usual it was bumper to bumper and not moving. We crawled along at a few miles an ...

As the man came in from work he looked on the hall table as he did every night, ostensibly for any letters that had been delivered that day. There were none that day. There was, however, a small parcel wrapped in brown paper. The label on it was addressed to him, ‘With Love’ it read. It looked like his wife had bought him a book, which was unusual for her to even go into a book shop let alone buy him a book. He picked it up and felt its weight it was quite a weighty tome. He unwrapped the book and looked at the title: A Goode Wyfe: The Sojourn Of The Soul. He noted the archaic spelling of the title, she had chosen well. It looked very interesting and was certainly very old, the leather binding and the gold lettering on the spine and cover gave that away. It was well thumbed too and the pages fell open on their own.  He looked at the imprint,  last imprint 1818, first imprint 1313. It had been well used over the hundred or so years since it was reprinted. She knew what he liked...

Standing on the side-walk on a south-side street looking at what at first glance is an abandoned house, the shabby bungalow house stands alone. A Walnut tree is planted roadside. High above the roofline of the house the tree is in full blossom and the scent of it fills the air with a cloying spicy-sweetness.  On a lower branch of the tree a rope swing shuffles from side to side as heat from the scorching sun rises from the black scar of bare earth made by the dragged feet of children. An old worn, threadbare, tyre is the swing seat, it is so old it is spilling out its reinforcing wires. The rope has cut deeply into the bark of this old girl, she will have seen many winters and summers looking over this house.  In its heyday this area was known as ‘the shimmering south side’. There is notice gaffer taped on the door: It is a notice of demolition from the City Authority.  The only inhabitant in this housing wilderness is Roland Alphonse Junior lives here or exists here. I...

On Lord Rochester: (1648 – 1680) The Idle Rogue on His Deathbed Or After Death Nothing Is Here I Lay, Lie or Lay an Idle Rogue Some Men May Say My body wrapped in cere cloths Pissing blood and pus And Spitting Bile In the Mortal Agony of Not Knowing Whether I meet my God or Another below Or just go As Some Men Say, Burning, Straight to Hell The Damned Black-Frocked Bishop Burnet Flaps around My Death Bed Taking My Confession, Religiously Pecking at me Like a Crow does Carrion He Faithfully Hopes (Unwisely Say I) To Pluck my Soul Like some tasty Morsel From this Rotting Putrid, Stinking, Flesh Confessing to My Idleness, Lasciviousness and Lust He Assures me will Secure my place in His Heaven, Hell I Do Not Agree! But I’ll String this Foolish Man along A Mountebank I will be ‘til Death takes my release “God’s Teeth” I cry, And He, Like the Confessor He purports to be Cries  “My Lord God, Thanks be, He is Now Within Thee!” And Still Despite his exhortations The Cha...