All posts tagged: writing

April Speculative Fiction Prompt

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The guidelines for those of you who are new are as follows: Speculative Fiction: a genre of fiction that encompasses works in which the setting is other than the real world, involving supernatural, futuristic, or other imagined elements. [Oxford Dictionary] Use the image below to write a story, poem, perhaps even a script. There are no rules about form or style. If you would like to create a piece of art in response that is also welcome. This prompt is about being artistic and creative in whatever way suits you best. Please keep entries PG as this is open to all. (i.e no erotica) The prompt is open from the first of the month to the end of the month. Use pingbacks to link up to the prompt or leave a link in the comments section. Whichever you prefer. I try to at least read every entry in the prompt and I’d love to encourage anyone taking part to try and check some of the other entries if they can. As always, re-tweets, re-blogs, and …

Take Stock – #NaPoWriMo Day One

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It’s best to count inwards from the outer rings, all these layers of bark around my bite too often gone unseen by those deserving of my sharp teeth or even sharper words.   Evening is the best time for taking stock. When sunlight settles softly across my back and you have to really look to find the lost marbles rattling loose in drawers.   I can reorder the library as much as I like. It will be out of place soon enough. Each new volume stacked into shelves I will never truly fill.  

End Of The Garden #DVersePoets

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There are no apples left for picking, only leaves caught up in the sunlight and a slow breeze passing through. Back between my molars sticks a pip that my tongue cannot pry loose no matter the shapes it twists, the times it risks my bite. A sparrow in the branches sings, tells me there are more trees, more apples, but they are behind walls, and gates, and men with bright black guns. They tell people which trees are good, which ones are bad. It doesn’t matter about the apples so much, it’s more about the hands.

Honeysuckle Wife #DVersePoetics

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Cut me off at the ankles or so you said, stood astride my stump, saw grinned. ‘Not so pretty now are we’ either of us.   Spent the winter finding my roots, you brought on your hot house girls throwing out the deadheads before they even had chance to wilt.   Spring freshened up all that toughening from too many years the same. Found new shoots moving upwards, more bend, less bark to my bite.   Summer and I redecorated it all, cloaked myself in colour, announced my presence, my survival. Dared you to try cutting me down again.  

Beltech Mortuary #DVersePoets #Prosery

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Upstairs a door slammed. Then another, and another, until finally the cast iron monstrosity at the top of the stairs shuddered open. ‘Quickly now grab me a jar!’ The jumped the last three steps. Ellsmore jolted awake and darted for the draining board. He fumbled with the jars but turned in time. The surgeon eased his hands over the open mouth and opened them slowly. It thunked against the glass. ‘Real bad ‘un this one,’ said the surgeon and wiped his hands on his trousers. Ellsmore closed the jar. The thing shivered. ‘What is it?’ The surgeon scowled. ‘There are moments caught between heart beats. They make us, us. This one, made a very, very, bad man.’ Ellsmore swallowed thickly. ‘If you cut it out, does that make him a good man?’ ‘Well that depends.’ ‘On what?’ ‘On the moments I didn’t cut out.’ ‘

Leftovers #DVersePoetics

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If I was my mother, and you were a horse, I would not wrap the lead into my fist as we walk the track with their ruined nissan huts patch up by ivy, so we can’t see through the hollow sockets of broken windows to the emptiness inside, always emptiness inside, and always me with a fist of lead to draw you closer to heel in case the emptiness is not what it seems.