Saturday 30 April 2016

Part XXX (Part A and B)

(The End..)


(A)

Ribbed in a broken
Red sunset
The man in black
Stood there
Lost in thought
For a good ten minutes
arriving after only
Brooks was left 
Before Brooks spoke

‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that;
He snorted
Reaching for a cig

‘Neither was I,
I thought he would
Have killed him for sure’

‘Instead he bought us more time’
The Man in Black
Pulled up his collar

‘And you believe that?’

'Mandrake arrived 15 minutes ago' ’

Brooks swore.


(B)

Carried across the wind
His coat blew up in the air
For five minutes
After he left the train

Covering the slight fog
Dangling on the platform
Like a blanket
Choking the life of somebody,

Before placing his sunglasses
Back on slowly
Leaving the two young inspectors
Shaking for a good ten minutes after,

Carrying on all the way to the gardens
Past people pushing their way
All the way up to the station
Like they were in a rush to leave

Where his friend eventually
Spotted him stood outside a coffee shop
Flicking through his mobile
With a strained frustration

‘Mandrake’ He said
to which Mandrake smiled wordlessly
his feeth flashing whitely in the sun
like they were fangs.

'When are those bastards due to arrive?'

'Tuesday night'

'Gives us time to prepare then'
looking at the poster on the side of the bus.



To be continued.. 

Friday 29 April 2016

Part XXIX A and B

(Nearly there - two more pieces leading to the end with the last I am expecting of my guest poems this year, the lovely Siofra Martin from Ireland. Enjoy)


(A)

Lucas stood there motionless
For a few seconds
Afterwards
Catching his breath
In a bass led heartbeating panic

Coma white in a chain led frenzy
Without a clue
Where he was
And dust dragging off his paws,

Sniffing his air in a vain attempt
To get his baring
Away from the light
Burning on his back

And fur half torn
All over his ears
Not to mention talons
All over the way back

‘What the hell did you do?’
he heard the words
following him all the way
back to the tunnel

and into the arms
of his people

barely aware of
what had just happened

and even less
of the deaths
he had caused
through no fault of his own.

(B)

‘What the hell did you just do?’
Michelle said stunned
Her fingers shaking
In murmured echoes.

‘I gave him peace’
Andy said in a tone
He didn’t regnoise
Cast out with a purpose,

‘He had been poisoned,
I cast it out’

Michelle looked at him
White-faced
‘How the hell did you do that?’

‘I don’t know’
He collapsed.

***

I know you aren’t in front of me.

I know you aren’t in front of me.
No,
 Don’t protest,
 I can see you sitting there
Head slightly tilted,
Glazed-eyed stare
Occasional grunts telling me to go on,
But body language screaming,
Are you nearly done?!?
Am I just boring..?
No..
 Is there something wrong?
I’m starting to worry
There’s so much of you gone.
Where is your sparkle?
Your fire’s gone out
I miss your laughter
I hate your self-doubt
Your colours have faded
To all over grey,
You blend into back grounds
And have little to say
I’m not the only one who’s noticed a difference in you
How your smile’s now rarer than the rarest of jewels
How you’re slowly confirming what we all feared we knew

How you’re slowly retreating from those you love most
How little by little you’re becoming a ghost.

@ Siofra Martin

Thursday 28 April 2016

Part XXVIII A & B & Andrew Smith - Movement in the Dark III

(On the day of my birthday actually - here are two of my favouite pieces so far following directly on from the last piece with a third piece from my Brighton friend Andrew Paul Smith - Movement in the Dark III)

A

Coughing in the sunset
the sudden burst of light
fused the lights
for almost two minutes

throwing everybody

in the area
to the ground 
like they had been Rugby tackled

breaking windows


shortening engines of

passing buses and cars

freezing the village

for a good few seconds 

before vanishing 

like a magician's trick

and leaving two

what could be men
stood there in shock

while the world 

shivered around them. 

B


Standing nearly in the light
They were thrown backwards

Some of them sliced
Almost in half
By the exploision
Like molten ice melting,

Forging their hatred
Into steel
Before splitting
Some into dust,

Some into the river
Never to be seen again
And the one
That escaped
Into a taunt line
Disappearing into
The nearby tunnel

Crying in broken agony. 

****


Movement in the Dark III

I tried to move with slight and ease
Not wanting to disturb a thing
Every muscle wanted nothing more than to seize,
Grazes covered in slime starting to sting
I had no sense of time or direction in here
Just my heart beating its impending sound of doom
And as the scraping sounds emerged once more something was suddenly clear,
This nightmare was sure to conclude very, very soon.
It came with a speed far beyond that of man
My throat squeezed between elongated fingers and curved nails.
But my found resolve, I knew, would force me to fight back as best I can
My heavier weight lifting it up despite protesting squeaks and wails.
Desperation and anger found strength now unbound
As I flung this man-rodent against the tunnel wall
The crunch of bone and split of sinew a resonating sound
And then nothing, for what seemed an eternity, nothing at all.
I waited a long moment, resigned to swift resolution from the nest
But it seemed as if I was singled out by only one
And so I didn’t wait around to theorise this test
I had to act now, gather evidence and so for this to be done
The body was dead and broken, but easy enough to drag
so I pulled with all my reserve and might
As the bodies of my colleagues dimly came into view my legs starts to sag
And I thought ‘what would everyone make of this grisly sight?!’
At least I had the proof of slaughter
The beast with my friends' flesh between its maw
At least the police should most definitely give me quarter
Along with the statement of events I saw
As I started up the ladder, the light seemed so bright, almost painful like a burn
The sounds from above so loud against strangely pointed ears
And my teeth! Growing sharp and long, and the thirst...for what was this I seemed to yearn?
The thought of the public suddenly greater than all of my past fears
I found myself sniffing the air, tasting a scent, my now stretched nails curving around
Now I understood, from a clawing graze, this undiscovered race, one for one, in this sewer
My fate now forever bound.





Wednesday 27 April 2016

Part XXVII (Part A and B)

(Two pieces today - Part A focuses on Andy moving slowly towards Lucas and a very short Part B talking about Hope)

Part A

stood there in shock
underneath a street light
Andy stepped a few inches forward
with the breeze roaring
in his ears,

spilling over Michelle's words
almost unhearable

inverted in a different dimmeson 

'It's okay, I'm not here
to hurt you'

redifing emotions 
rather than words

airy silence 

rather than loudness

light merging 
with the darkness

cleansing each other
almost by magic. 




(B)

Surrounderd in chaos
Ghana looked at Brooks

'What's he doing?'
Brooks said
his words sounding almost
like a sky burial

'Hope;
she answered simply

'Hope'

Tuesday 26 April 2016

Part XXVI


(Part 26 focuses again on Andy coming to a relisation)


'Can't you see' Andy carried on

his own fear caked

stretching across the distance
until Lucas froze

'Somebody's poisoned him
tainted him'

replacing terror
with pearls

exploding in imaginary
bombs

'He's murdered literally
dozens of your people'
Ghana said
rolling backwards
into the distance

swolled in crevics

staying separate in the distance.

'But it's not him'
Andy stepped towards him
'It's not him'

with Michelle's screams
following him further.

Monday 25 April 2016

Chapter XXV

(Following straight on, it is all a question of breeding, Ghana explains)

XXV

‘He’s not bred for that’
Ghana said
Cracking the tension
Up to ten

Spitting words
Through inrrevisble
Laced sadness

‘His kind are not murders’
Subsumed in knowledge

‘then what the fuck has happened’
Andy answered.
‘he’s been poisoned’


Sunday 24 April 2016

Part XIV

(With the Monster trapped, Brooks, Ghana, Michelle and Andy remain at loggerheads)


Mewling in fear
‘What the fuck is it?’
Brooks said eventually
‘It’s crippled or killed
Nearly a dozen men
Alone tonight
And we suspect
Maybe dozens more
Over the past two weeks’

Mapping her words
Ghana paused
‘It’s a long story,
Albert’

‘They’ve called in the Army
And the press are asking questions,
Ghana’

‘It’s mankind’s last great protecter’
She said.

‘And now mankind’s great killer’
Andy cut in.



Saturday 23 April 2016

Part XXIII (A and B)

(Two more pieces today - i nearly didn't blog the first but the tenderness counterbalances off the madness of Part B)

A

Coughing slightly
once she had finished hugging him
Ghana spoke
'Albert'
she brimmed
bleached in the sunset.

'Ghana, it's been a while'
He smiled.

It had been a while.

Too long for both of them.

B


Flitering through the estary
Chisteled in clay
The last kill
Was reckless
Even he knew that

Diving out of the shadows
Towards a group of men
At the edge of the river
Trying to tell them to run
Only creating laughter,

Laughter until he nearly
Killed one of them
And fists began hitting

His side,

And the rat in him
Became a wolf

And madness covered
The moon.

Friday 22 April 2016

Part XXII

(A gag this piece but it reveals more if you think about it)

Shattering impulses
the tension in the air
was as clear as broken ice,

chipping away on roofs
and in the shadows
of the nearby coach station

twisting questions
into answers
as Brooks looked at Andy
'We've met'

to which Andy
looked at Michelle
'Everybody knows me'

'Stick to the cheese burgers'
brooks cripped
'Nobody will care then' 

Thursday 21 April 2016

Part XXI (A and B)

(Two parts today although it could have been one almost
covering the meeting between Andy, Michelle, Ghana and Michelle
and a hint of something in the past)


(A)

‘Ghana’ Brooks said as soon
as the three of them
turned the corner

‘You’ve lost weight’ Ghana smiled
draining the tension
like a rising sun in a field

diminishing the tension

slicing the past into the present

rejoining lovers from different backgrounds
back together

(B)

‘I’ve given up the burgers
and joined the gym
What do you think?’
Brooks said smiling
‘I’ve been busy
dealing with killers
druggers
tossers
drunks
you know’

dealing his words
like a poker dealer
casually throwing his cards
onto the table
without worrying
what the players would get

‘I know you’ Andy said
stepping out of the shadows.

‘Everybody does, boy’ Brooks
answered
‘Even heroes at train station’








Wednesday 20 April 2016

Part XX A and B)

(Part 20 sees Brooks  waiting and another piece about the Monster)

XX (A)

Almost carrying through
Some of the buildings
Like a ghost’s footprints
Brooks’s cigarette smoke
Carried across the corner

And across the river
Biding its time
Offering a distinctive
Double meaning
With each puff,

Telling all to hurry
The bloody hell up
Without having to say
Another word
Knowing he was
The middle man
Without wanting to be.

XX (B)

By the end of the
Second week
The hunger was immeasurable

Asymmetric in sweetness
Faces crying out sometimes
Other times not

Fashioned in caculated pain
Touched in sadness
Sometimes remembering
The name Lucas

Other times not

Sometimes endless tunnel;s
Cutting deep into his throat

Blinded in others laughter

Faster

Faster

Before his blindness eroded
Whispering in his ear

Stripping memories
Into poison

Then hunger.



Tuesday 19 April 2016

Part XVIV and Andrew Smith II

(Part 19 moving straight along takes Andy (from his point of view this time) and Michelle and Ghana out of the underground or project if you wish back to the streets and the village, explaining everything has changed even if you haven’t realised it)

(Also included is the second guest poem from my friend Andrew Smith)

XIX

Let’s take this street you said
Then the next and 
Walk past the amber light of
The clock of St Anne’s Church,

Next to the dusty smell of
The Royal Exchange 
Leading to Waterstones
Where bodies vanish over-night

Stare up at the caged moonlight
Looking at us 
Like a book of illusions 
Dipping into our skulls, 

Changing the meaning
Of all that I knew existed before
Within minutes of 
Walking out of the tunnel,

****

Movement in the dark, damp space II

The world seemed so dark
As I lay in this pit of misery
The memory of blood and fear was still so stark
A horror scene forever etched so grisly
They seemed so few at first
Feasting on friends I had worked with for years
But the iron warm scent brought more with a thirst
Teeth and claws, red eyes and pointed ears
It was supposed to have been a myth
Rat people of Manchester a joke
A tall tale to drink and toast with
Not the ripping of flesh and blood to soak!
I dare not move, or even breathe
All I could do was listen
As one by one they started to leave
Dragging varying sized lumps that seemed to glisten
When the coast seemed clear
And silence descended
My consciousness shifted a gear
Clarity of thought momentarily mended
I appeared to have been spared
My limbs seemed remarkably intact
On my feet I assessed how now the situation faired
Thoughts of flight mixed with fear totally wracked
No one would believe me
I’m now suspect one to the crime
I needed proof or never be free
Or be the most hated of my time...





Monday 18 April 2016

Part XVIII

(Part 18 focuses again on our old friend, the killer.
Dropping more hints onto his nature)

Curling in a corner
For a good half a hour
Or so later,

Its next kill proved
That traumatic
It couldn’t bear
To run away
Once it had fed

Let alone have the strength
To run away

Instead dragging itself
Into a shadow on the canal
Until it heard
The usual scream
That usually greeted
His handiwork

Over floating with guilt
With each drop of blood
He ripped out of the lad’s throat
Knowing he should have just
Put them out of their misery

Full well knowing
There was nothing
He could do about it. 

Sunday 17 April 2016

Part XVII and Gray Nicholls 'The Great War II'

(NB. Our faceless silent patient enemies from the end of II hover here again. What is this purpose? All shall be revealed)

(Also included is the second part, hinted before from my good friend Gray Nicholls
with the second part of his poem 'The Great War' simply called 'The Great War II')

XVI (A)

Unreproved, unwound
Back to the beginning

Chewed up in pieces
Of broken tape

Pentrating
Different languages

Signalling contempt
Drowned in love

Erotic in memory
Carrying revenge in breath

Trudging slowly
To the end of the tunnel

Waiting patiently
For the perfect moment to strike

Watching as another body
Is lifted out of the water.

***

XVI (B)

The first two kills
Were senseless
And left him
Unaware what he had done
Blood-red starred
With their screams
Like a hushed theatre,

The third cried
And weeped however
Shipwrecked into
Their own nightmare

Cursing him all
The way to death
Moving his toes
Tickling the pavement

Digging in open air
Asking him
What the fuck
Was he

And looking at himself
In the reflection
He didn’t know. 

***

The Great War II


Drained of blood
The second great war
At the start of the 20th century
With dozens of them
Found dead
All the way down Oxford Road

And clotted all the way
Down the ship canal

Moored up tight
Against the old workhouses
In a gangland style
Mass killing,

Laid up with the occasional
Snapped fang
Which turned to dust
If left in the sunlight

Too long. 

Saturday 16 April 2016

Part XVI (i) and XVI (ii)

(There are two parts of Part XVI both dealing with our old, mysteries friend The Man in Black and an un-named character both leading to the end of the story slowly but surely) 

Part 16 (A)

Broken inside out
The man in black
Waited outside central library

Hands lined deep
Inside his pockets
Until he nearly gave up
And went home

Smoking cigarettes
Repeatingly in a broken loop
Until another man
Turned up
His face lined
Like a rowboat

Coughing frantically
Knowing that their meeting
Would affect
More than
Just a few lives.



Part 16 (B)

Lateness spilled
Across his broken words
Running down
Oxford Road

Dodging the traffic
Across the roadworks
That blocked his way
Constantly at every corner

And then across
The peace garden
Narrowly missing
Getting run down
By the tram
At least twice

Until his friend
Whose name he didn’t
Even know
Was about to go

And looked at him
Like he was going to kill him
When he said it had started
Earlier than expected

In the middle of the village.


Friday 15 April 2016

Part XV and Marie Lightman - Unseen

(Part XV is the introduction of another major player who certainly knows a awful lot than he lets on, Inspector Brooks)

(Our latest guest poet is the wonderful Marie Lightman, a amazing poet from the North East England and besides married to Ira Lightman who needs no introduction, also currently is running https://marielightmanpromptresponse.wordpress.com/ where she is currently deliver a prompt a day for a year)


Part XV

Brooks knew something was wrong
About the massacre
At the train station
Before he even arrived,

Monumenting the sunlight
As in a tombstone
Suddenly slammed shut
When he stepped out of his car

Portraiting the chaos in his mind
Only hours before
With a subway wrapper
Dangling out of his pocket

And his inspector’s badge
Almost dragging itself back to his car
When he left to examine the body
As in a panic stricken protest

Summasing the evidence
In a few seconds
Of half ripped ears and fingers
Stitched into jigsaws

Glimmering half in and out
Of the shadows round the back
Of the coach station
And before the start of the village

Hauling tragedy all the way
Towards the canal
Washed in a deep velveteen
Of sorry filled faces

Floating across his eyesight
Full well knowing
Who this was
And there was precious

Precious

Little he could


About it.

***


Unseen

Ivy, crispy with ice
covers everything,
I step off the path into
the empty manor's garden.

Marble grave stones, overgrown.
I shiver. Who buries their dead
so close to where they sleep?

I crouch to read lichen
smothered words. Finger
spell single letters, trace
John and year of death, 1825.

Glance up and see you through cold breath,
you wear a cloth hat, beaten jacket and
face grey, tinged with ash, like a snow sky.
You bend, as if to weed, then stop frame.

I scream, in my head. “Look up! There
is a child who isn't meant to be here.” Look
at me, I breathe, you fail too.

Eventually, but through unseeing eyes you do.

This is too much for me and I run.

@ Marie Lightman

Thursday 14 April 2016

Part XIV and Hazel Connelly

(Almost at the half way point, Part XIV is a piece about death but whose death and who did this and why?)

(Our latest poet is my returning friend, Hazel Connelly who has submitted a poem to each one of the three Ghost Stories and has delivered a lovely tender poem called Ghost Story. Lots more of Hazel's peoms can be read at http://www.poemhunter.com/hazel-connelly/)

XIV


Past midnight
The paper said
The latest body was found
On the bend
Of the coach station
Touching the edge of the canal,  

Eyes ripped out
And left drained on the floor
Like somebody had been
Sucking gobstoppers
And gave up
Halfway through,

Bright white
with their mouth
So wide open
they must have cried
for minutes
and minutes

hoping somebody would come
and rescue them
last minute
before the killer finally
put them out of their misery

gazing into a curtain call of futures. 

***

Ghost Story


At the crossroad I stand
In the stillness of the night
The shadows gather round
You hover beside me
I know you are there
You whisper my name
From your ice cold lips
I caught a glimpse of you
Of your slender form
In the pale moonlight
I saw your raven black hair
Your ruby red lips
I know we will never say goodbye
You will stay with me forever
My child of the moon
Someday we will be as one..

© Hazel