Two Poems by Frank Carter

Invercoe

The two hooded crows are squabbling with
Squawking common gulls
Each after the other's eggs.
We hope neither side prevails because then 
The eggs will never hatch and 
The baby birds black and white will
Never know
Loch Leven.

Kirkyard

Rough-hewn granite greys
Browns and sandstone slabs
Mark the different corners
Of this careful field where lie
Donald and Morag McGraine
Molly and Flora and 
Daisy who died so young
The Cruikshank bairns too
Noble Bonner and the good
Doctor Robert Boyd
Bella McInnes McCrone and
Auld Dubrach - that's
Robert Grant who lived 
To one-hundred-and-ten  
In eighteen-twenty-four the last
Survivor of Culloden Field.

Dog Food by John Holmes

A Shaggy Dog Story from John

Alright, big boy, what’d ya reckon it’ll be: beef or chicken? Let’s bet on it.
Fish.
Fish!? Stop messing about. Only cats eat fish.
Whippets eat fish too.
Maybe in your house. What’s he like anyway, the old boy?
Pretty useless. 
That figures. 
He’s kindly and forgetful. Always apologising. Not a pack leader. Not like yours.
OK, anyway, beef or chicken? 
Chicken.
No, I’m betting on chicken so you’ll have to choose beef. So how’s it going? Like it down here? 
Alright. Warmer than where I’m from. 
Oh yeah? Don’t start the old grim up north toffee with me, brindle lad. Where exactly you from?
Born in Boston.
Boston? That’s in bloody Lincolnshire. That’s not north, that’s midlands. 
Then we moved near Doncaster. 
Ok that’s a bit north. So was it always just the old boy? 
No there was an old girl too. She was the pack leader. She used to feed the cats but after two nibbles they’d clear off so I’d reach up and nudge the bowl off onto the floor. 
Clever. There’s an art to that.
There is. So I’d eat the rest of it in one go. She never minded. Made her laugh. 
Soft-hearted?
I don’t know about that. I used to get a few tellings off. 
Yeah? 
See she had this old Jack Russell. Ugly-looking. Had a docked tail. 
Really? That’s cruel in it? I wouldn’t want that. Mind you, if I could have chosen between losing that or me nuts…
That’s right. But I think it made him mean. He could be a bit of a bastard but he was like a dad to me in the end. Cunning though. 
Yeah? You got stories? 
Well, in the kitchen they were always leaving out stuff thinking we couldn’t get it. One day they left some pork pies in a bag on the counter. So the old Jack Russell said, You reach up and get em and we’ll share em. So I get right up on my hind legs, strain like mad to get the bag -  just about get my teeth to it - drag it to the edge then pull it over. It come crashing down to the floor, but before I had chance to get some he’d snaffled the lot, just leaving a bit of crust for me. 
What a bastard.
Yeah, but I gradually learnt how to bring things down so he didn’t get so much. He still got most of it, though. But it was fun. We had quiche - anything with egg in I liked best. Actually I could tell you a story about an egg. We had sausages, bacon, bread rolls, biscuits, fruit cake. And you can guess who got all the blame? Coz old shortarse could never get up there could he? 
Yeah, clever. But they’re all right, int they, terriers? You can have a laugh with them. Not like some of these other tossers.
That’s right. 
So tell me this story about the egg.
Oh boy. They had a huge garden once. Lawn was on two levels. They had four chickens. Vicious bastards.
They are int they? I’ve found that out.
So one day the old girl’s picked up some eggs from the hutch and put them in a basket, then she starts yakking to a neighbour like she always does. Distracted. So I stick my head in and get one in my mouth and run away with it. She starts shouting and I’m off racing round the garden. Leaping over raised beds and wooden steps and fish ponds. They’re shouting and laughing and they can’t catch me. Five minutes later I just stop, open my mouth and the egg’s still perfect. 
Wow. You were a master thief. 
And I got the tea.
Tea? What’s all that about? 
Yeah. She would always leave her tea on the window-ledge when she went to the bathroom. I found I could stretch up and put my snout right in. Never spilt a drop. Never knocked a cup over. I like tea. And she always had Earl Grey. Lovely and sweet. I had the lot.
Earl Grey? You’re having a laugh now ain’t you?
No. I’m not. 
Earl Grey? Is that what you grim-up-northerners drink? Not like softy southerners eh? 
I never say that.
So you ever get caught? 
Only by the old boy. He told her and laughed about it. She told me off. Then the silly cow left her tea out the next day too. 
So it was just you and him, this Jack Russell then?
Well, there were three of us at one time. We had a Jackawawa for a while.
Jackawawa? 
Yeah. More wawa than Jack though. You know, chihuahua cross. 
I see. Another annoying yappy thing.
That’s right. Hilarious she was. Silly as arseholes. If we encountered a German shepherd or something in the street she’d play the little Napoleon, telling him to get out her way and he’d just stare at her like she was a rat. Funniest thing was her trying to get up a tree once to catch a squirrel. Frantically trying to get her little legs up the trunk, she was. She couldn’t do it. The squirrel just sat on the branch laughing at her. 
That’s funny. Handbag dogs they call em. But I ask you, what’s the point? I mean, you ever been in someone’s handbag?
Yeah I have actually. The old girl’s.
Oh yeah, sure.
No I have. I’ve pulled out cosmetics, hair brush, hair net, notebook, cigarette pack.
You’re a right little kleptomaniac. Where’d you put ‘em all? 
I kept them on the lawn till she found them. I had hats, shoes - visitors were told to keep theirs on - even one of them little umbrellas.
Blimey. Could have had your own shop by the sound of it. 
I could. Except I’d never want to sell em. I just liked to have them. 
I see. So what happened to the other dogs? 
The Jack Russell died of a stroke and she—
The jackawawa?
Yeah. She went back to her original owner. She was trouble.  
That’s interesting. See,I think all these new breeds nowadays are either just vicious bastards or totally useless. All fluff and nonsense. Might as well be in the zoo. Breeds had a point once. You had your chasers like us, you had your catchers, diggers like your Jack Russell mate, and so on. This new lot -  we’ve had a few of them in here all dandified, prettified little tossers, but cross them and you’ll know it. Right mouth on some of them. I mean where’s the grace, where’s the elegance, and what’s the bloody point? 
That’s right. 
So how do you find it here then? Lots of little yappy things round your way, is there?
Yes. Quite a few whippets too. 
Some of the young uns? Boisterous little buggers int they? Need to keep out of their way. 
Yeah but we all used to be like that. I still am.
Yeah?
Yeah, when I’ve got my zoomies on.
Zoomies?
 Yeah I have my routine. I run from the lounge sofa through the hallway, to the bedroom, fling myself around like crazy on the old boy’s bed, race back to the lounge, leap clean over the coffee table straight on to the sofa. Then do it all again. It winds up the old boy something chronic, worried I’ll injure myself. 
Yeah? And after how many Earl Greys is that then?
None. He don’t drink earl grey. Darjeeling he has. 
Oh blimey.
Not as sweet though. Plus he’s crafty with it. 
Well, I’ve just seen something. I reckon it’s chicken so you can concede the bet now. 
Too early. 
OK. But i do know she bought some today coz I saw her taking it out of the car. So, tell me, you got any hard nuts down your way?
One or two. They don’t tangle with me.
Fancy yourself, do you? 
I’m used to it. I used to have three German shepherds on the regular walk barking away. 
Bark back? 
No just gave em me look. 
I bet that worked. Oh hang on I think the food’s coming now. So we’ll see who won. Winner gets first dibs.
Ok. 
You know, I’m glad you’ve come. We’ve had a good laugh. Whippets got to stick together. Better than the miserable bastards we usually get here. Always moaning. Owner does this. Owner does that. Get over it, I tell them. Oh no. No I don’t believe it. It’s bloody fish! I can smell it. What’s going on? She must be clearing the freezer out. Must be for your benefit. And it looks like she’s put sweet corn on it. Like that?
Love it.
So I guess since I chose chicken I won. 
How’s that? I said fish.
No we agreed it was between beef and chicken. And you chose beef. 
Alright. So it’s a no bet then.
No as I said, I chose chicken and, being white meat, that’s closer to fish, so I won. But you’re a guest so we’ll forget about it. 
Very gracious of you. 
And you can have some of the sweet corn since you like it so much. Have it with your Earl Grey. Come on tuck in, me first. 

Checkout John's latest novel, now published

A Ghost from a Well by Chitose Uchida

A well is the place
A handsome ghost appears

It is always a woman
Not a man
Not a girl

Wearing a white kimono
Long jet black wet hair

Hands hanging down lifelessly from her wrists
At her chest
Desperate and trembling she moans
Whining her sorrows

A ghost lady comes out from
A well weeping willow behind

It is always during summer
Not winter
Not spring

A gorgeous snow white face
Downcast teary eyes

Her legless body floating just above the well
No rope
No string
Yet she is confined to the well

The well’s disappeared
Along with her
From us, Forever


Chitose shared a response to our trigger word 'well' 
- the story of Oiwa and Tamiya Lemon and her poem inspired by it. 
It is a tale of betrayal, murder and ghostly revenge. 
Arguably the most famous Japanese ghost story of all time

WINTER IS NEARLY OVER by Joan Saxby


Winter is nearly over
We all hope as we rise each day
But we don another pullover
Because it’s not going to be today!

The snowdrops have made an appearance
As they do every year at this time
But they have not as yet made a difference
Because down comes the snow again.

The wind blows a gale through the hedgerows
And the rain’s turned the field to a lake
Birds are not singing and wild life’s still in burrows
But we hope soon that the season will break.

Sometimes we get rays of sunshine
And we all rush outside with glee
We’re hoping for Spring and some free time
And a day or two out by the sea.

But we will have showers in April
And we’ll all have to still wear our macs
But it could be the end of the cold spell
But the weatherman will give us the facts.

MY DADDY IS A MINER by Sam Richardson

MY DADDY IS A MINER 

My daddy is a miner. He is very clever. He goes down big holes in the ground and gets black gold out. We put it in our fire and it keeps us warm. 
 
Daddy looks sad tonight. Mummy and him are whispering in the kitchen. They don’t know I’m sat on the bottom stair and I can hear mummy crying. I’m not allowed to be awake this late. I have to get up for school in the morning. My brother is being good. He’s asleep, sucking his thumb like a baby even though he’s five. 

This morning Mummy looks sad and I know she’s been crying because her face is red and she keeps blowing her nose. She’s a bit cross too because my brother is being slow eating his breakfast. She says we have to be extra quick this morning. I don’t know why.

I’m scared going to school today. My friends and their mummy's are shouting funny words and throwing things at us. My brother is crying. I ask mummy what scab means. She says she doesn’t know and makes us run all the way to the school gates. 

I’m sitting on the bottom stair again. I know I’m going to get into trouble. Mummy and Daddy are arguing in the kitchen. Mummy doesn’t want Daddy to go to work. She says it’s too risky. I don’t know what risky means. Daddy says he has to go. I’m scared if Daddy doesn't get the black gold from the ground then we will be very cold. 

Auntie Vi collects us from school today and her face looks very white. I know she’s forgotten to put her makeup on. She always wears makeup and she lets me borrow her lipstick. She says mummy has had to go out for a while so she is looking after us. The nasty people are still throwing stones at us and calling us names.  

Daddy hasn’t come home for ages. There are lots of people in our house today. They are wearing black and eating lots of sandwiches. My brother is crying again. He keeps saying he wants Daddy. I want Daddy, but I don’t cry about it. 

My Daddy was a miner. Mummy says that he has gone to heaven to do a different and very important job. I think heaven must be a very long way away and Daddy must be very busy, because he still hasn't been home for ages. 

© Samantha Richardson February 2024

Press by Michael Kebble

The button said “press”. 

I had been a bit of a loner as a teenager.  My big sister wanted to spend time with her boyfriend and the last thing she wanted to do was to spend time with me, my parents both worked and I had no real friends where I lived so I would spend many hours simply walking through London, visiting the sights, the museums and the parks.  If I didn’t feel like walking, or time was a bit short then buses were my principal mode of transport as they allowed me to see where I was going.  On the top of the bus one could see into the upper windows of the shops and houses that one passed as well as looking down on the crowds scurrying along the pavements on their way to somewhere.  Occasionally I would use the tubes, but they didn’t have the same attraction for me.  It always seemed to me that by the time you had walked from the entrance to the platform and then, if you had to change lines, walked between lines, you might just as well have walked all the way. 

My walks would take me all over London, past the old markets of Smithfield, Billingsgate, Covent Garden and Leadenhall, strangely quiet in the afternoon.  Into and around the great Royal Parks always buzzing with activity of one kind or another.  On a weekend I would love to venture into the City of London which was ghostly quiet with so little traffic I could walk down the middle of Cheapside without fear of being run down.  But my favourite trips were to the great museums.  Of course, I would go to the British Museum because it was such a grand building with such extraordinary treasures, and then the Natural History Museum with its fabulous architecture and the displays of dinosaur skeletons and models of huge elephants and the Blue Whale, but to a young boy, the best and greatest of them all was the Science Museum.  Nothing could beat the displays of vast steam engines which, at the press of a button would whir into life or the aeroplanes and locomotives and cars on display all available at no cost.  In the basement there was a special children’s gallery which was a paradise of button pushing and automation.  I spent many a happy hour in that museum and knew the basement so well I think I could have navigated it with my eyes closed.

I am older now, but I still cannot resist the lure of a button to press, nor have I given up walking through London.  It was on one such walk that I came upon the button that said “press”.  I had been made redundant a month or so before, and I was at a loose end.  It was a weekend and I decided to head into the City to see if it was as quiet as it used to be when I was young.  I headed down Goswell Road, onto Aldersgate and into the Barbican Centre.  I had seen this modernist development being built when I was growing up and found it fascinating, not least because it gave one an opportunity to walk on pedestrian only walkways without fear of traffic.  It was like nothing else in London with shallow lakes and raised flowerbeds surrounded by towering skyscrapers containing residential flats overlooking the roofscape of London.  The high-level walkways were hung with creepers and the lakes were filled with huge carp.  It hadn’t changed much.  The trees were more mature as were the gardens and the whole thing had softened, but it was still as fascinating now as it had been then. 

I crossed London Wall and into the old City by the Guildhall across to Cheapside and then into the myriad of alleyways and courts that make up the old city.  I am familiar with the City, having worked there for some time and, as I have said, walked it many times at a weekend, so I was not afraid that I could get lost.  I turned to left and to right, sometimes coming out into places that are familiar to all like the Bank and The Royal Exchange, sometimes into less familiar places like Cowper’s Court.  I could feel the history of these places as places of commerce, and I could almost hear the bustle of the coffee houses that must have lined each of these alleys and streets in the past.  I reached a crossing of two alleys and instead of following the alley I was in, I turned to the left and found myself in a place I had never been before.  I walked for about 50 feet at which point the alley took a slight turn to the right and narrowed to a dead end.  I was about to turn to retrace my steps when I noticed the button.

It was a plain button with the word “Press” printed in its centre.  It was quite unlike one of those wonderful buttons that used to be on the old Routemaster buses; red buttons inside a silver-coloured metal ring with the words “Push Once to Stop” engraved around it, or any of the small brass buttons in the Science Museum.  It was about an inch in diameter made of some ceramic material set in a metal frame, itself set into a brick wall about two feet wide.  The short alley that I had turned into led under a building, so it was more of a short tunnel than an alley.  There were no windows on any side, and, because of its position, it was quite dark.  I hesitated.  The button did not seem to control anything.  There was no door, no speaker that I could see and no bell that I was aware of.  But the button said “press”.

I pressed the button.

I AM PLEASURE by Barrie Purnell


I am pleasure you will always desire me,
An addiction I’m forever in your brain.
Without me there’s no delight no satisfaction,
Once you’ve had me you will want me again.

I’ll only ever be with you in the moment, 
I’ve no morality, that’s yours to control.
You cannot have me, but only feel me,
I’m part of happiness but not the whole.

Don’t confuse me with excitement or joy,
I’m a feeling not emotions like those two,
They come more from what’s on the inside,
I’m a response to things outside of you.

You find me best in the anticipation, 
And then again in memory of the same.
You’ll find that it’s difficult to share me
Unlike my close colleague named pain.

Pain’s not my opposite but my closest friend,
When pain leaves I often make an appearance,
It’s boredom that lives furthest from me
And is the biggest danger to my existence.

I may come with your god as something spiritual,
Or come to you in the passion of your senses,
Unbidden by a friend’s triumph or an enemy’s sorrow,
I am transient often disguised within pretences.

You’ve found me many times by remembering
How you kept me a secret when you were young,
I was there when you travelled and after, when I let you
Still taste those golden beaches on your tongue.

I hide behind your acts of so called charity,
Which others see as your benevolence,
Because I know it’s really to be with me again,
That you give that poor beggar his tuppence.

It is when you have put aside your conscience 
I often appear with my old friend guilt,
I’m sometimes there when your actions harm others
And you hide me behind barriers you’ve built.

I can be with you during a moment of sin
You know may lead to a lifetime of regret,
You throw yourself at me without restraint
Like a suicide whose future’s already set. 

I don’t wait so when you want to write
It is desire that’s with you in the waiting,
But I am with you when you pen the words,
And with you once again in the reading.

You’ve sought me out everywhere you have been
Since the earliest of years I’ve been with you,
Now you are old it’s getting harder to find me
But imagination has come to your rescue.

Remember those young girls who gave me to you,
When you thought that you had nothing to prove,
When you were living the moments I gave you
Without thinking too much about love.

Now is a long way from then, and you draw 
A smile on your face in some rare infatuation
Just to pretend that at that moment I’m with you,
But I’m not love I’m at best just a poor imitation. 

Now those teachers of everything we know
Say that I’m nothing more than a rush of dopamine,
But without me happiness will prove elusive, 
So treasure me, when you find me in art or sex or just caffeine.

Home From The Sea by David R Graham

The man stood on the deck of the Seagull as the vessel was tied off and her gangway lowered.
  Moments later the man stood on the quayside.
  After nine years at sea. He was home.
  He had done well during his time away. And was buoyed up with thoughts of enterprising prospects.
  He felt uplifted. In good spirits.
  Looking about the bustling harbour to familiarise himself with half-forgotten landmarks, the man became aware that his feelings of well-being were draining from him and his good spirits dissipated.
  He sought a cause for his unsettling mood swing.
  The quayside was busy.
  Stevedores and dockers were offloading cargo onto a convoy of waiting drays; the air was heavy with the tart smell of the sea mingled with smoking fish; market traders lined the street to the town square; their stalls laden with vegetables; meat, fish, bread, pastries, clothing, and leather goods.
  Townsfolk moved about amongst the market stalls; men, women, children.
  On the surface, the scene appeared normal to the man.
  His senses told him otherwise.
  Something was wrong.
  He studied the faces of people moving by.
  They all looked miserable, unhappy; unwell, as though in the grip of some ague or fever.
  The man took note of what was missing from the scene before him. It was the commonplace everyday sounds and noises of a busy harbour town: the absence of banter, laughter, and shouting. The townsfolk were going about their business in a desultory and half-hearted manner.
  Fearing the town was recovering from some form of plague, the man shrank back.
  Was his hometown not to be a haven?
  With creeping uncertainty, he made his way to the town square.
  The King’s Head was where he remembered. It displayed years of neglect.
  Entering the tavern the man noted that although the place was relatively busy, its patrons were unusually quiet; the atmosphere sombre. Taking a tankard of ale from the unhappy-looking landlord. The man crossed to an armchair by the fireplace.
  In the chair opposite, an old man sat staring into the fire.
  ‘Good day to you, sir,’ the man said.
  Without turning, the old man said, ‘I’ll grant you it is day, but it is not good.’
  Intrigued, and thinking again that some sorry plight had befell his hometown, the man asked. ‘Why so?’ He leaned in, his voice low, ‘Has the town been visited by a plague?’
  The old man raised his head. ‘Would that it had,’ he muttered. ‘A town can recover from a plague.’ He glanced away, warily, lowered his voice, and whispered, ‘Not so a curse.’
  ‘A curse?’ the man said, mimicking the old man’s tone. ‘The town is cursed?’
  ‘Aye,’ the old man whispered back, ‘it is. These past seven years.’
  ‘How so? By whom? By what?’
  ‘By Clara Wetshall, that’s who.’
  ‘Who is she?’
  ‘She was a witch. Burnt at the stake out on the square.’
  ‘Are you saying that she put a curse on the town?’
  ‘I am,’ the old man whispered.
  ‘How so?’
  ‘By her dying words,’ the old man said.
 ’What were they?’
  The old man glanced slowly about the room, then leaned into the man, lowered his voice to a faint whisper, and said, ‘As the fire consumed her limbs, she cried out, “From this day forth none here shall know neither peace nor restful sleep; neither shall they know happiness again.”’
  The man sprang back as though bitten.
  Two men approach.
  ‘We’ll take your purse,’ one hissed, displaying a rust-tarnished knife.
  The man rose slowly, turned aside, and put his tankard on the stone mantelpiece.
  When he turned back he held a pair of flintlock pistols at chest height. He cocked their hammers. ‘Step aside,’ he barked. ‘Or take a ball each.’
  The men complied.
  Guardedly, the man moved to the tavern door.
  Outside, the man concealed his pistols beneath his cloak and retraced his steps to the quayside.

  He encountered the Seagull’s captain.
  ‘Do you sail on the morning tide?’ the man asked.
  ‘I do.’
  ‘I will book passage with you.’
  ‘Very well.’
 The man looked back up the harbour road to the town square.
He was quiet for a moment. Then he said, ‘I shall abide aboard your vessel this night.’

Another Summer Away by John Holmes

The bubble of children’s laughter 
From a nearby field 
And the smell of fresh mulch
Sharpen the moment. 
Oh how those strong oaks sound like the sea 
When the wind gushes through them! 

The meadowsweet has thrived, 
Though the nettles still retain
That square of ground 
Around the quinces, but at least
Their fruit won’t rot on the trees this year. 

Occasionally in the grass there’s echoes 
Of her bare feet on the lawn, like the time 
One clear May morning, 
The heat unseasonal,
She sashayed out in a red bikini
With a chocolate soufflé and ice cream
For the eyes of imaginary neighbours.

The larks high in the sky,
She lay beneath the grapevine pergola 
On a bench reciting her affirmations 
Amidst the fallen cherry blossom.

So much time away this summer meant,
Even with an early return, 
No chance for deadheading roses and such,
Or removing briars more tangled than 
The endless trivial arguments, each
Layering fresh roots for the next,
Wearying the soil. 

Now what pervades is old cypress wood burning, 
And soon a curlicue of smoke 
Will rise above the peeling roof 
To hang bittersweet 
Upon the evening air.