To move around the site,click on one of the titles below;-
Web publishing and editing.
Web-
Short Story publishing
Poetry publishing
Internet Magazine
The Watch by Michael Skelding
THE WATCH by Michael Skelding
It was cold
and it was dark
it was electric
I’d never known
a night like that
before
Appearing
suddenly
a single star
perplexed and
overwhelmed me.
Took control
and piercing
my frame
it drew me on
to follow
without fear
its guiding light.
I’d never seen
a light like that
before.
It was cold
and it was dark
it was electric
I’d never known
a night like that
before
Appearing
suddenly
a single star
perplexed and
overwhelmed me.
Took control
and piercing
my frame
it drew me on
to follow
without fear
its guiding light.
I’d never seen
a light like that
before.
Oh ! Oh ! Oh! By Dave Shuck
ISRAEL by Dave Shuck
It’s a simple raised platform with carpet and a solitary chair. The speaker is sat in the shade of a plain white parasol that conspires with the breeze to keep him cool.
An hour before the gentle grassy slopes that form a natural amphitheatre around the stage lay empty and the shadows cast by the standing stones that encircle them gave shade to nodding birds and an occasional squirrel. Gradually the space was filled, first the front of stage, then the undulating slopes and finally their shoulders and the shadows from the rocks. The audience streamed in carrying carrier bags and hold alls and blankets that they spread out like table cloths upon the grass. They wore sun hats and bandanas and hats fashioned from paper to protect their heads so that to the observers in the helicopters patrolling overhead they looked like meadow flowers awash with colour.
“Sometimes”, said Susan, her voice a butterfly fluttering amongst them; and then she paused and listened again to the speaker. “Sometimes, you know” her voice on a children’s roller coaster, of the gentle sort that undulates and entertains infants at a village fete. “Sometimes, it’s like when you are listening to music and you catch hold of a note and it carries you off, up in to the sky and amongst the stars, just like Peter Pan and Wendy and you just fly with the note and then before you know it you are in Never Never Land.” She pauses once more as Peter and Wendy float across her skies.
The speaker is entertaining his audience, joking with them, poking gentle fun and they in turn are laughing and sometimes they applaud and then become still again as he selects a slightly more serious tone from his repertoire.
Susan is listening again and then, ”Only with him, it’s a word or a phrase; something that awakens you. It’s like a light going on in the attic so that suddenly you can see and you follow the words and they transport you.”
She pauses again and laughs with the audience and giggles in a sigh, and a breeze comes by and ruffles her hair; ”And when it drops you off you are in a still place and you understand things and you feel grateful. Do you feel like that Mummy?”
“Sometimes darling”, her mother replies; and softens the corner of her handkerchief with a solitary tear.
The air is warm and there’s a stillness in the quiet and the beginnings of a moon. The sun sets slowly leaving a golden sky and the traffic song mingles with murmurs as the audience recedes. A solitary helicopter hovers overhead its floodlight a conductor’s baton in the gathering dark.
“In Jerusalem it is already dark.” Susan recalls and gently recites the lines from a poem that her mother wrote:
“And so we ponder
As time slips by
Upon the rights and virtues of ideals
Whilst the sun sinks low
From a cloudless sky
And a pale full moon
Across the encroaching darkness steals.”
“And so we ponder
As time slips by
Upon the rights and virtues of ideals
Whilst the sun sinks low
From a cloudless sky
And a pale full moon
Across the encroaching darkness steals.”
It’s bloody cold out. There’s a freezing mist coming up from the River that’s making a brass monkey out of Santa Claus. He’s on the back of a pick up truck looking glum, as does his little helper, who’s stood at the tail end of it shaking an empty tin and making a mockery of an ancient proverb. She’s wondering if someone forgot to put a float in it or if Santa’s taken it because he’s been recruited from a Community Service pool, on account of her husband’s gout, and is hiding a half bottle of something called Jim Beam underneath his tunic. “One could clearly see its outline” she would later say in court. The truck’s been borrowed from a local business; its logo too is clearly visible and she’s thinking, somewhat cynically for the time of year,” Most likely a condition of the loan”. Meanwhile the two’s demeanor co conspire and both the tin and Santa’s grotto remain steadfastly empty.
The Pound shop’s full though and Teddy Grey’s Ice Cream (and every kind of sweet) Parlour is heaving; as is the Olde Chip Shoppe beneath the bridge. The Co Op’s doing okay and the Parking Warden; lurking outside like a preying mantis, looks absolutely frozen; which is cheering everybody up and doing more for the Festive Spirit than are any of the lost and lonely Christmas lights, strung out like pearls, or the faded garlands hanging limply in shop windows, for all are looking seriously depressed in the gathering mist.
The Church has a girdle of faded tapestries; Rudolph and his reindeers, Snow White and her little friends and, of course, the Nativity Scene, unfortunately (?) presently obscured by a family of Eastern European Refugees, bristling The Big Issue.
Jean has left The Emporium; escaping its gloom and emerging triumphant with her Beehive wrapped in cling film and buried beneath a scarf. In the imagination of some her heels sound like castanets, to others they recall memories of Ginger and of Fred Astaire. To all they are familiar along with her sing song voice and shameless laughter. Jeans wide belted raincoat describes a figure in hours; both hair and heels have seen off fashion for nearly forty years and she can still attract the wolf though these days the whistles are from the sons of men that she once pleasured.
There’s a steamer on the river and its lights are turned up bright and there’s a Jazz band on it, playing music from New Orleans, so that the Sally Army Circle has to raise its own din higher to ensure that it’s God that is held up Highest. The vicar’s in the vestry, blowing candles out; warm in the too tight Long Johns that his wife acquires secretly for him, in order to keep his sanctity in place and the pitch of his sermon right.
Ho Ho Ho. By Dave Shuck
The town’s humming and there’s that indescribable chill in the air that saves itself for Christmas. There’s a Dickensian mist too, floating up from the river on the wake of a New Orleans Jazz Band, it has the church surrounded and diffuses the light from the town hall clock. The music’s from a steamer and it’s lit up like a Christmas tree and with its revelers dancing silhouettes against the house lights from the north bank. The Salvation Army band’s on the quayside playing Onward Christian Soldiers and as the steamer glides by its trumpets and trombones jump ship and join it’ to everyone’s delight. The revelers pause, stop dancing and congregate at the rail; raising their glasses and shouting out,” Merry Christmas”, and flicking coins onto the cobbles, which the children pick up gleefully and drop into the waiting buckets.
The lights strung out up above look mysterious in the mist, the steamers fog horn echoes through the town and all the hum and bustle swallowed in the throng. The spiral garlands in the high street windows reflect the shop lights dimly; comfortingly Victorian, like the buildings.
The towns brimming and it’s all lit up and twinkling and even the traffic lights and brake lights and indicators are in harmony. There’s a new Santa Claus in a makeshift grotto, on the back of the butchers van. The Butcher lends it every year and treats his delivery man to a day off and a free trip on the River Boat. Santa’s collection tin must be absolutely jammed because his little helper’s shaking it hard and there’s not a sound. Proving a proverb? “I must ask her where husband is this year”.
The shops and the pubs are heaving and in the street everyone is cheery; even the Big Issue sellers look happy; they ordinarily look so dour; someone took a cup of coffee to the parking warden who looks both frozen and surprised. I see Jean’s had her hair done again and doesn’t look a day older than when she arrived here all those years ago. “How she manages those heels God only knows but she’s been tap dancing across that bridge and thrilling the shopkeepers for generations”.
The church looks magnificent with its tapestries; “the children have excelled themselves; and it’s so lovely that they are new every year, primary children too. It’ll be the hymns soon and everyone will be there; joining in; I expect the vicar will be there to say a few words. I hope his wife’s collected his Christmas Long Johns; they get them in specially. I wonder if the parking warden could do with a pair”.
TO CHRISTINA ROSSETTI by Michael Skelding
(sing to tune of ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’)
Frosty days are with us
And the nights are long;
Now is when we hear you
Through your solemn song;
Now is when your voice rings out
True and crisp and clear,
Like those sacred mornings
Starting to appear.
As choirs and congregations
Follow every line;
The churches and cathedrals
Echo to your tune;
Children on the doorstep
Carolling with joy
Sing your simple telling
Of the stable boy.
As candle lit processions
Hum your haunting air,
Then people of all races
Gather everywhere;
People the world over
Unite at this time
To the lasting message
Of your verse and rhyme.
But how many know you
Or the way you were;
And your sacrifices
To the word and prayer;
How many would understand
Why you suffered so,
In your bleak midwinter
Many years ago.
(sing to tune of ‘In The Bleak Midwinter’)
Frosty days are with us
And the nights are long;
Now is when we hear you
Through your solemn song;
Now is when your voice rings out
True and crisp and clear,
Like those sacred mornings
Starting to appear.
As choirs and congregations
Follow every line;
The churches and cathedrals
Echo to your tune;
Children on the doorstep
Carolling with joy
Sing your simple telling
Of the stable boy.
As candle lit processions
Hum your haunting air,
Then people of all races
Gather everywhere;
People the world over
Unite at this time
To the lasting message
Of your verse and rhyme.
But how many know you
Or the way you were;
And your sacrifices
To the word and prayer;
How many would understand
Why you suffered so,
In your bleak midwinter
Many years ago.
Ho! Ho! Ho! By Dave Shuck
To Christina Rosetti by Michael Skelding
Into Our Lives by Stan Bloxham
Reflections of an Old Man at Christmas
By Stan Bloxham
By Stan Bloxham
REFLECTIONS by StanthePoet
(0f an older man, Christmas shopping)
Here’s my reflection
in “French Connection.”
Dreary, bemused, a bit sad.
The mannequins barely dressed
I won’t let my eyes rest
on them.
There’s a young girl dancing on air.
For her man she has no care.
Just for the “Gap” bag she smiles.
He will walk miles
to be by her side.
Now a pushchair trundles
pulling Mum with bundles
around above beneath
laden with grief.
A present she’ll carry
for a man she won’t marry
though the baby is his.
The Cumbersomes behind me, there.
He with bags and glassy stare,
she with stick and rigid hair.
They’re gliding past the window now.
Brown trousers beige coats,
bags full of porridge oats
and guns for the grandchildren.
In the door of the shop
Is a girl with a top
that’s hugging her breasts…
Ah! You foolish old man.
Concentrate if you can.
Remember your wife’s need
Bridge books, a good read.
(0f an older man, Christmas shopping)
Here’s my reflection
in “French Connection.”
Dreary, bemused, a bit sad.
The mannequins barely dressed
I won’t let my eyes rest
on them.
There’s a young girl dancing on air.
For her man she has no care.
Just for the “Gap” bag she smiles.
He will walk miles
to be by her side.
Now a pushchair trundles
pulling Mum with bundles
around above beneath
laden with grief.
A present she’ll carry
for a man she won’t marry
though the baby is his.
The Cumbersomes behind me, there.
He with bags and glassy stare,
she with stick and rigid hair.
They’re gliding past the window now.
Brown trousers beige coats,
bags full of porridge oats
and guns for the grandchildren.
In the door of the shop
Is a girl with a top
that’s hugging her breasts…
Ah! You foolish old man.
Concentrate if you can.
Remember your wife’s need
Bridge books, a good read.
Into Our Lives (1775) by Stan Bloxham
I had had a hard day in the fields, what with taking hay out to the cattle on the hill, and mending a hole in the hedge where sheep were getting into John Warmington’s next door, and it was nigh dark when I returned home.
“What troubles you Anne?’ says I, not thinking. Just annoyed to see a bare table and my wife on the settle bent almost double. Was she paying more attention to little Sarah playing on the floor than to preparing my supper?
Anne turned her face to me and then I knew. But yet I delayed, saying,
I had had a hard day in the fields, what with taking hay out to the cattle on the hill, and mending a hole in the hedge where sheep were getting into John Warmington’s next door, and it was nigh dark when I returned home.
“What troubles you Anne?’ says I, not thinking. Just annoyed to see a bare table and my wife on the settle bent almost double. Was she paying more attention to little Sarah playing on the floor than to preparing my supper?
Anne turned her face to me and then I knew. But yet I delayed, saying,
‘You are a month away from your time, surely?’ And then ‘I’ll go for Maud Warmington.’
Yet Anne insisted I first help her upstairs. I grabbed a candle and we stumbled up, as she let out a first long moan, which had the sound of straining in it.
‘No, love. Not yet. Breathe easy.’ I said. It was all happening too quickly. I eased her onto our bed and shouted to young Thomas to fetch Mrs Warmington, who had assisted Anne three times in childbirth. I heard Thomas slam the door, and felt a slight relief.
‘No, love. Not yet. Breathe easy.’ I said. It was all happening too quickly. I eased her onto our bed and shouted to young Thomas to fetch Mrs Warmington, who had assisted Anne three times in childbirth. I heard Thomas slam the door, and felt a slight relief.
‘Maud will soon be along.’ I said. Anne looked at me again. Her face full of fear.
‘ No. Maud and John are in Banbury visiting her mother. You must help me William.’ And she cried out again. I could feel the sweat prickling on my brow and my neck was tingling. I knew that she was right.
Now I have stood by cattle and sheep as they have dropped their calves and lambs. I have a few times had to lend a hand, heaving on a limb, or once, pressing my fist onto a sheep’s belly to stop her womb from bleeding. But a woman birthing! It should all be done under sheets with another woman to help and in a room away from men. My mind was spinning. Could I, should I do this? Now Anne cried out again, yet with her mouth half closed. A straining, keening, long drawn sigh, as though to push the child out.
‘Stop!’ I said, knowing I was being stupid.
‘Stop!’ I said, knowing I was being stupid.
‘I can’t you fool. It’s coming!’ Says she.
I pushed her many skirts up and aside over her parted knees, desperate to see what was happening. I was hit in the face by much warm licker spurting from her. Now all my doubts were gone. I could see what I must do. There was the child’s head rising from inside her, black curls matted with the soapy licker.
I shouted ‘Jem! Boil up much water.’ I thought to keep the boy busy downstairs.
‘And look to little Sarah.’ cried Anne, though weakly.
Then her pain was there again, that awful forcing moan, and the baby’s head was rising up and opening her wide, as she somehow lodged one heel against my shoulder, for I was now on my knees before her on the bed. I took her other flailing leg and placed its heel on my other side, and now she pushed mightily and to some purpose. I feared then that she might split as I could see the whiteness of her scar from bearing Sarah begin to stretch. But then the pain eased and the head went back a little and Anne moaned, sadly like. If she had been a sheep I would have pushed against her back parts to slow things down and let her stretch. So that’s what I did, and as her next mighty pain came and the child’s blue forehead came up to view I pushed back beneath it and yelled ‘Stop pushing wife!’
Which for a moment Anne did, while I eased my fingers round the head, rolling the tight skin back little by little, hardly knowing why, though I must have learned from how I’d dealt with animals. Anne was puffing and blowing but not pushing and then there it was, the baby’s head, within my hands. I thought there might be further difficulties with the shoulders, but there was none, for with another hefty push, Anne delivered up the rest of the babe, onto my knees. A boy. No doubt.
What to do now? I knew I must make him breathe. I grasped him by his legs as if he were a lamb, and slapped his bum so hard he cried with vigour and started wriggling. I placed him on the bed and shuffled off. Still we weren’t finished. I knew that, but I felt so relieved, I just stood there grinning like an ape. But only for a moment for the infant cried out again and I felt the urge to hold him close.
‘Show me! Give him to me!’ says Anne and her eyes were shining.
I fumbled around for some ribbon from the chest beside me and tied off and cut the cord, and then I passed the slithering boy to her, and as I did so she said simply ‘Oh!’ as the afterbirth came from her. That frightened me dreadfully. So much blood. We had both known of friends who’d died of losing blood this way. And I had never seen a woman bleed before. So much blood. But as Anne held the child and pushed his face up to her breast, the bleeding slowed and stopped. I stood beside her and she smiled at me and then I felt my knees begin to shake and so I knelt beside the bed and thought best to give thanks to the Lord. Anne just smiled at our new child as he nuzzled her. At length she said.
‘That was well done husband. ‘Tis well that I married a farmer. And you did well to pray to the Lord, particularly on this day. ’Then Anne saw my puzzled face and said ‘Surely you had not forgotten it is Christmas Day?’
CHRISTMAS EVE by Michael Skelding
Candle lit carols
at midnight
scene all set out
as before
Shepherds a crib and
the wise ones
frankincense gold and myrrh.
Mary and Joseph
in tandem
blessing the birth
of their son
born to the stare
of a stable
having no room
at the inn.
Peace to the world
in a reading
wonders for all
to behold
love with unlimited
mileage
all in the name
of a child.
Out to the cold of
the evening
out to the trees
that are bare
into the world as
we know it
each to our very
own star,
Christmas Eve by Michael Skelding
In years gone by, when time was short,
Christmastime was tense and fraught.
“Where’s that gift for Auntie Mabel?
Here it is, fallen under the table –
At least, I think so, it’s lost its label.
Oh never mind, what counts is the thought!”
On Christmas Day we’d go round to Granny’s,
That little house full of nooks and crannies.
Aunts and uncles, whatever the weather,
Crammed with cousins, all together -
“On best behaviour” we were told – whatever
Happens when they get to the brandies!
We’d all be squeezed into the smallest space,
Anticipation on everyone’s face.
“Ooh look, oh my, what a wonderful bird!”
Gasps of pleasure were always heard,
“Who wants stuffing?” “Oh I say!” “My word!”
Hands together, eyes shut, while Grandad says grace.
Now it’s so different, no crowds in my home;
No-one lives near, so it’s contact by phone.
Gifts electronic – “Now what can I get her?”
“She’s got something similar.” “But this one’s much better!”
(Whatever I give, there’s no thankyou letter).
But I love the peace, and toast myself, on my own.
I’ll have a little nap – just shut my eyes.
There’s a knock at the door - “Surprise, surprise!!!
“We didn’t like to think of you in isolation -
From friends who’ve made a small contribution!”
I’ll have a little nap – just shut my eyes.
There’s a knock at the door -
“We didn’t like to think of you in isolation -
From friends who’ve made a small contribution!”
Taking pleasure in change is what makes us truly wise.
Times Change by Lyz Harvey
It is a minute to Christmas; three at the ATM. A dusk shiver dominoes down the queue. Of course the hand which feeds five thousand is presently out of service. Maybe its bright face will return. Or is it a myth?
Chewing gum and sad receipts make friends with fag ends.
The presence of light or darkness doesn’t alter form.
“I am the truth and the light!” says the machine- a black hole in the wall. We return to this false idol again, again and again.
The hand which feeds five thousand at a minute to Christmas is as cold as the memory. It dispenses stale bread and rotten fishes; our own or loaned-without love.
A cold dark silent shudder shivers the few in that less urgent aimless queue. Purses are clicked shut, wallets sheaved thin.
All peel away lost and empty within.
We will drink vinegar tonight.
This Be The Curse by Steve Jones