Two Love Notes

pic by sharon

Locks

Such keys
Open doors
Only we see.
Each twist
And turn
Unlatches
Somewhere new.
Unleashed
We tumble
Together,
Never unlocked.


Haiku 2

That night your card fell
Heavy in my empty house.
All the walls came down.


Two, of many, written for my Sharon over the years. With love.

And if yer feeling all wistful and lovey dovey, you may also enjoy my story "This is the One".

xx

Binary Love Poem

Clockpunching

The wheel in the cage would go

Round even if I was gone.

I am the grease on the cog 

Of a stalled machine and none

Of the parts grind in time, but

Still, old chains haul up the sun.

Ant under glass I am burned.


Right. Thats enough of that. It's a lovely fresh winters day outside.
And here's a clip of Ren and Stimpy singing about being happy...

Story Dice - Alberto's Shadow

When he was born, Alberto Vamos was given a present by a mysterious old native american gentleman; a slightly rusty battery operated torch. And whenever Alberto shines that torch upon himself, he casts a long and scary shadow, a shadow with a life of it's own. Alberto's long shadow is called Vikta, and Vikta fights for justice and truth...

Just last week, a local warlock stole all the words for miles around. No one could speak. At first, everyone enjoyed the peace and quiet and they were all having fun drawing up cards and pictures to communicate with one another. But the warlock's all seeing eye saw what they were up to, and stole all the flashcards and felt tip pens as well. Clearly, this was not on. Alberto shone his torch, and unleashed Vikta to sort it out.  And Vikta hid in the early evening sundial and then in the moons shadow, weaving his way in and out of the darkness to get to the warlocks house. Inside, the warlock was buttering some toast, and was a bit surprised when Vikta crept out from behind his golf clubs.

"You've stolen all the voices. Give them back right now."

"Shant." said the Warlock. "All the voices are locked away and only I have the key."

"Well give me the key then."

"If you want this key, you have to defeat me in a battle of wits."

"Fair enough." said Vikta "What has one letter and starts with an E?"

"Ehm..." said the Warlock.

"No. E. One more try."

The Warlock crunched his toast.

"End?"

"Don't be silly." said Vikta "Envelope. I'll have the key please." 

The warlock was nothing if not fair, so he handed over the key.

"Now...where's the lock?"

The Warlock laughed and buttered some more toast.

"I fed the lock to a fish in the river. He'll be miles away by now."

So Vikta went fishing, hiding in the shadows of the stones on the riverbed. He caught many fish and cut them open, but there was no lock. Then he thought to use the key as bait. A silvery green fish leapt straight out of the river and tried to swallow the key.

Vikta caught the fish, and cut it open, and inside was the lock; click...all the words were free and they flew back to where they belonged, though some of them had a bit of an explore first. Vikta brought everyones felt tip pens back as well. 

That night Alberto had fish fingers for tea. 

Alternate - Story Dice Doggerel

The wise fish knows the answer.

He sees all we cannot see,

Between the light and shadow

The edge of you and me.

His magic is the question

That we never dare unlock

His scales shine in the silence 

When we've forgotten how to talk.

Mind the rules? Now write yer own,

Corporate Comms

Story Dice Fables - A Question

There was a boy who had a question, a Big Question. And for awhile, he thought about it and tried to figure out the answer for himself, but he couldn't. And then for awhile he just kept The Question in his pocket and tried to forget about it, but he couldn't. So he decided he was going to have to investigate and ask someone, even though he was quite worried that people would think he was silly.
First of all, the boy asked his father his question. And his father stroked his beard and said
"Hmm. Well, that's a very good question. I'm not going to tell you the answer, but I tell you who you should ask...your teacher."
So the boy went to his teacher, and gave him an apple just to try and get him on side, and then asked his question.
"Well that's easy." said the teacher "Just think of how the moon hangs in the sky, brightening the dark nights."
The boy wasn't totally convinced. So he went for a walk in the park to think it through, and noticed an old lady sitting on a bench. "Old people know lots of things." he thought, and went over to introduce himself and ask his question. The Old Lady was very pleased to help.
"Well, I'm sure I know the answer to that question...just think of how you get all the wonderful colours of rainbows from single tiny raindrops."
The boy nodded and smiled, but he was mostly just being polite. Although, he did think The Old Lady's answer sounded nicer than the teachers.
"I need to ask the cleverest person in the town." thought the boy. "Everyone says the watchmaker is a bright spark. I'll go his shop and ask him."
The boy asked the Watchmaker his question, and the Watchmaker smiled.
"Well, I hear the answer every day in the silence between the tick and the tock of the clocks, or see it in the first spin of the compass needle as it finds it's way towards magnetic north. But that is my answer. It is not yours."
The boy thought this was meant to sound cleverer than it actually was, and decided to speak to his father again.
"Everyone gave me all different answers," said the boy, "and I've still got this question. I can't get rid of it."
"Wonderful." said the boys father, giving him a hug "And if you are very lucky, you may never find the answers to your question; but you must always keep asking."

Check here for the story dice fables rules.

Candy Bones

This is my entry for The Woman In Black Ghost Story competition, run as part of the promotion for the new film version of Susan Hill's classic novel. It reached the finals, but then got totally battered.


It was kind of a wee tribute to the stories you used to get in the Armada Ghost Books...anyone ever read them at school..."scary stories for children"? No..? Still available in all good second-hand bookshops.

So...I'm conscious of the fact that theres more folk reading the blog (and the Tales of the Oak blog) as a result of being in that competition. That might just be a wee temporary thing, but it just made me very suddenly conscious of what a big jumble of things are on here.

There's loads of stuff on here I've written for fun or for my friends or family, and there's stuff I've written for other competitions. More often than not, writing for competitions these days can mean harassing friends, family and complete strangers to support you by "liking" things via social networks. Bit of a riddy.

Recently I've got to thinking, I don't write or blog just to try and win things, but I do enjoy sharing what I write either way. Down our way that can sometimes seem a wee bit "show offy" and no one likes that. Sadly...that isn't going to stop me. Nor should it stop you! There's a nice wee book around just now, by Ellen Arnison, a local writer, "Blogging For Happiness", and one of the things it deals with, is how blogging is a nice way to help yer mental health. At the very least, that'll do for me.

Pretty sure you have something to say too.