Biding time until reapers weepers dispersed The mourning departed to spread grief song
I linger until silence befell cemetery gates Beyond the ceremonial bound
In observance Solitary silence Spiritual widow I’ve waited…
Making way across the damp green Souls stick in the mud sinking Making my way to you One last time
Love out of sight Residing now on opposing dimensions Held in the brevity of penumbra Lovestruck in shadow Your dark spell, loves curse
By the mound afore you I stare into your pit Imagining the pits of your eyes behind the box Pondering the transparency of your boxes of fabrication Heart-shaped carpentry, weak to these sorrowful eyes
My love on a fine line Kneeling with my hands in your mud bed I climb into your grave Lay atop of your box poured with flowers you hate
Deep in the hole upon my loves burial bed Breathing in the fumes of your death Feeling deaths whispers swarm my head
Love eternally buried in me Beyond the finite blood and bone Can you feel the heat penetrate your cold corpse? I lie in your pit Widow death shroud On top of my love…
Just dropping by with a quick 2020 writing (or more subbing) wrap up since it seems to be the thing to do!
On my first year actively subbing and writing for specific calls, this has resulted in 58 pieces accepted for publication. 42 of these have been published this year – 8 Short Stories, 13 Flash Fiction, 20 Drabbles and 1 Poem. The remaining 16 accepts will be out in 2021.
I have been lucky to have my work appear alongside some cool folk from around this wee planet. Thankful and grateful for the opportunities and encouragement from my friends, family and writing community. Writing wise it’s been a pretty fun year — I’ve learned so much and developed some new skills along the way.
Newly released for the death of 2020 – The Sirens Call eZine is out now! Celebrating a world of horror and dark fiction from around the globe, Sirens Call Publications have put out issue 52 containing 130 pieces of Horror and Dark Fiction. All honouring the theme of death. I am chuffed to have one of my own stories Snake appear in this issue. Snake first appeared in Concoction: A mini Anthology of shorts which is still available in print and ebook from Amazon worldwide. To get your hands on The Sirens Call eZine – where you can read online or download your copy FREE – head to their site:
Shadows engulf mother Earth, shade and still-cold stretch through half the globe as Batara Candra embraces her most impossible love, Batara Surya. Two halves of a singular coin. Coming together only briefly once every eighteen years. A passing lingering embrace that ripples waves of darkness, causing tides to threaten to turn, waves of anarchy and torrents of cold panic; what if they never let go?
Doomed love or doomed planet by total eclipse — an impossible love where no-one truly wins. Love must pass through the penumbra, saving this world from suffocating darkness or burning light.
Gnashing and gnawing at my innards Viscera shredded; trauma tombs embedded Stitch in bells, weigh down the nauseating flapping Jangle a euphonious jingle Steady placement of chinked shield Conceal agonies.
U-bend blocked There my guilt brims Shame for wishing away rapid cell division Liquor and voluntary scalding Natures way away Life folding poured out Out of Order; terror of disorder
For two, a freshly dug hole The morning after Mourning follows Nipping at heals with the snow A hollow in another garden There, a piece of my heart lays A depression for my first’s succession
She wants to see my torment on display To harvest in morbid grief games Pretend she’s just the same Catfish loss-mother Conspiring tiring Yearning to reap from the suffering leaks of my soul Observe my lamentations trapped in a fishbowl To don a cape, be in control Prodding my wounds, infecting
Imitation empath storing stories Catalogued, indexed, held hostage Latching of grief vampires Sucking ephemeral life’s marrow Chipping stones off my bones
An archaeologist scraping the shovel No delicate brushing of bristles Attention desperation Desecrating my pain Self-appointed steward on my cradles grave.
This year, my first attempt at NaNoWriMo didn’t hit the goal. Winter always seems to be a time of heightened drama, in opposition to the slower, warmer, more reflective side I long for at years end. Quieten the noise, slow down the pace. It doesn’t seem to matter the ingredients placed in the cauldron; there’s no slow and steady blending and simmer, it’s a sporadically exploding bomb — spewing shrapnel into the eyeballs and the roof, and right now it’s barely holding up. With that my focus was and still is in tatters, December may be more about finding all the pieces again and trying to fuse some sanity and peace. Anyway, my Backyard Asylum novel project only reached 14k – quite a distance from the 50k goal! I beat myself up throughout November with exhaustion and lack of creative time to drive into it. That’s been quite prevalent this entire year more than just the month, but it did feel more saturated. Such is life; she likes her curveballs and depression likes to wrap her fingers around my throat for periods of total torment. She’s a cruel demon indeed. So, it’s been a case of prioritising basic practical needs over desire. Although creativity is certainly a need, when it’s embedded deep, which fuels desire — without the sparks of passion there is little will to trudge through the more mundane, life has to be more than that — the fight continues. I’m rambling now, this slump shall pass! So, while Backyard Asylum is written in my head, I have to sacrifice some sleep, muster some energy from the ether and hit the keys — though maybe without the daily word-count pressure, which did me no good this first time around. Regardless, I am happy with what’s down for this WIP novel — its bones are horrific in a promising way. There’s a lot to work through and develop, but I’m confident it will in time progress so I can nail this first draft and go deep into sculpting and editing through the rough edges. The characters have meat, and there’s some strong scenes pinned already. I spiralled off into research more than physical writing a little more than planned, such is the ‘panster’ way. As much as I tried to avoid the temptation, I have my eye on a few open-calls for short stories. Nothing new and substantial has been written on the front yet, but there are some ideas stewing, so I’ve some snippets of poetry to go back to and work on to develop into a full-blown piece.
In summary, my first NaNoWriMo died in week two. But, the story itself will come into being, I am pleased with what’s been written so far, it’ll just take a little longer to get there. It’ll be a priority for 2021.
Claustrophobic, locked in.
Mirrored headstones line the grey road.
Buried alive, suburban death-row.
‘Did you hear about so and so?’
Blurred race of parallel lines standing still.
Masking — one fanes will.
Mimic gimmicks with lacklustre flare.
Another unforgiving snare.
Teeth scraping bone.
Smile while blood flows soaking frozen toes.
A trend-setting bush, a coat of paint.
‘Oh, look together we’re dammed saints.’
The season of outdoing the clone next door.
Marching down the line of uninspired duplication — snore.
Bored.
Trapped.
Locked down on cookie-cutter lane.
Painting beige with grey, painfully mundane.
Disgusted with one’s own disdain.
It really is insane.
1st of November is here and it’s NaNoWriMo Time! The month of writing will be focussed on my project ‘Backyard Asylum.’ 50K word target over the 30 days, no editing allowed – just writing!
Good luck to everyone participating I hope very many goals are utterly smashed!
I like a playlist as I live and write — every project has its own, and as with the story and characters this too will evolve. Here is where it’s at for Backyard Asylum;
I am delighted to have three of my own pieces published in this Halloween issue of ‘The Sirens Call’ alongside a host of creative writers and artists. Check out this beast of a horror/dark fiction eZine FREE via The Sirens Call original post above! Enjoy!
Rolling rumbling tumbling of the muscle Steadfast working out the dead
Waiting through waves Expulsion from womb to world; inner-outer dimension switch
Existence given visibility Life unviable; dead tangible
The ticking clock veiled agony; pulse-quickening within the neck Swimming through minutes in viscous shards; stark, exposed in wait
A sudden burst to cemetery-serene-silence Shock of expectations met, tension swells and pops within the void
Her body expelled, revealed Limp, still, disturbingly perfect
Few eyes lay upon her — none with such desperate thirst as the child-loss-mother Tattooing details to memory Cerebral and uterine imprints Memories outlived instantaneously
Tiny fingers, toes, torso, fused eyes, jaw, ears… All except the beating of the heart Virgin lungs void of air in this, her death hours stare
My pathetic heart beats so hard it chokes the throat The muscle has pried itself from within its cage, making way up to swell in the gullet
Don’t take her away… Emotion sickness swells drowning from the inside Even dead, she’s still the baby; even dead, she’s my baby, still
Must give her honour of life…somehow Gemini mother; creator, reluctant reaper
Now her death feeds life Entangled in root tendrils within the earth Forever reaching within and upward
The true heart of something that doesn’t have to beat Her cycles visibly viable
Bleary eyes can’t always see their praise of stars Despair wracked the heart for a time
Peace isn’t only for the dead…
She sways in the wind now; dancing grace Energy shared, scattered through leaves and bellies of beasts She worms and she soars through them
Not the life imagined; energy shifted, realigned Heart-wrenching, gut-punching beautiful
