Lockdown Killer

 Confinement, a bleak story of our day, 

Social interaction gone, unsafe with you around.

Loved ones hidden, you search for your next prey,

The streets are quiet, you walk without sound.

 

Rules are enforced, contact is your weapon,

A game of panic, the world is your playground.

Society sanitised, death is your profession,

Global isolation, you cast fear all around.

 

Faces masks on, you mix with the weak,

Protected indoors, can you attack a brick wall?

Scientists are discovering, your prospects are bleak,

A Vaccine will find you, lockdown killer you will fall.

 

Dew Drops

I would like to meet you on a Winters night,

When moonbeams dance and stars sparkle bright, 

Sitting with the twinkle in the western skies,

Dew drops rolling from our eyes,

There's no place that I would rather be,

Watching dawn break in, just you and me. 

The Invisible Fox

Wild yet vulnerable is the story of my life,

A world where I roam with fear and strife.

Some try to find me for blood and pleasure,

To shoot me down is your idea of leisure.

But over time I have become wise,

The urban night is now my disguise.

You destroy my habitat and the food I ate,

We walk the same path, still I hide from your hate.

The darkness is my light, I search for my next meal,

Some days I go without, my hunger I conceal.

Survival is my guardian in a divided society so gritty,

Our lives entwined, I am an invisible fox in your city.

Dedicated to my friends Cathy and Tammy

Sun Dancing In Winter

It's a well known fact that the sun only dances with his hat on. In the summer he can be seen dancing daily with his sun beams in the daylight and serenading his friend Moonlit in the dark. When winter arrives, it's a different story for the sun dancer (as he is known by all who see him). He no longer has his sun hat on and appears to have lost his twinkle as he sits, low in the sky, looking down at the world. However, not all in that bleak winter sky is as it seems to you and I. For the sun dancer has replaced his sun hat with a woolly hat given to him by Moonlit to keep warm. He wears this hat when he attends a live music club called Sunshine, where he likes to pull the wool over Winter's eyes, as he and Moonlit dance together until sunrise, to the Winter Blues.

Dedicated to the music scene of Ealing and the birth of loud in Hanwell where I live and where the father of Loud Jim Marshall set up his first shop in 1961.

To download for free The Ironic Fantastic #3 anthology of new writers and illustrators, where this short story was featured along with two of my poems visit: https://bit.ly/2K7

Solstice Spirits

Lighting night

Scottish skies 

Shining bright 
English eyes
Mountain sight
Welsh highs
Dancers ignite
Irish surprise
Summer unite
Solstice ties. 

Colourful days

Pacific high

Golden haze

American pie

Cable bay

Dreams delight

Foggy stay
Francisco eyes 

Winter unite                                                                                                                            
Solstice ties.

Dedicated to my friend Carmella Scaggs, who passed away in February 2017 in her hometown San Francisco.

Orange Peel

If a peel can ride on a citrus wheel

How do oranges write on peel?

A pip may owe its life to a zest

But why do oranges peel from a vest?

Oranges may win at a game of squash

But do zests have an orange crush?

When a citrus over tips

Does a peel give a pip?

While a citrus jives on the dance floor

Should a zest sing to an orange core?

As an orange surfs on peel

Is a pip waving to an eel?

Zest, zests a zesty peel

Pip, pips a pipping peel

Peel, peels a peeling peel

Revealing orange peel.

Do You Have Writers' Cramp?

In December my new short story 'Writers' Cramp' featured in Issue 5 of the Ironic Fantastic magazine, edited by my friend and fellow writer Paulo Brito, based in Portugal. In this story, dedicated to my friend Brian, there is a mystery to be solved in the writers' block when artist Little Miss Malaprop gets herself in a muddle and goes missing.

I took inspiration from all my many talented writer friends who have always encouraged me to develop my writing and poetry. Considering I write for fun, having this support from many established writer friends means a lot to me and it was only natural for me to write a short story about writers that I hope they will all find amusing.

From Europe to Australia,  there are an eclectic range of established and new international writers, illustrators and poets featured in this issue, so it is an honor for me to be published with them all and I was pleased to see some of my good friends featured too - it is a pleasure to be able to be part of something creative with all of them.

As some of you know, I am a big supporter of promoting local talent across the Arts and over recent years the freedom to self-publish on the web has opened many doors to independent writers, artists and publishers. Today many creatives can collaborate and share their exciting talent without being stifled by bureaucracy, or controlled by the giant corporate wheel.

Issue 5 of the Ironic Fantastic is free to download.  A taster of all the wonderful stories and poems featured by all the amazing international contributors can be seen in the contents table photo I have posted above. I hope you will all enjoy reading this magazine over the festive season.

I would like to end this post by wishing everyone a wonderful Christmas break and a sparkly new year - see you all for a cat's tongue wag in 2016!