Ode to Birmingham Central Library

I sit in the beating heart

Of all knowledge

Wrapped around me

Stairways to the mind

Essence of imagination hanging

Heavy in the air

Like a contagion

Drawing you in

Calling to your soul

Encased in wires

A tangle of dreams

Stars that welcome

All the lost souls

All those

Yearning to be free

The gracious good

Of the public free library

05/09/2013

S J Menary

Dear Mr Wrong

Dear Mr Wrong

Why did you do it?

Why did you cut me to the core,

Drip vital blood to the floor,

Break my heart, as trivial as it sounds,

Crushed into a thousand pieces on the ground.

Dear Mr Wrong

Did you know the power of you actions?

When you inflicted wounds too deep,

Never to heal, ever to weep,

Watch the skin knit back together,

Deep down still bleeding forever.

Dear Mr Wrong

I must bitterly thank you!

Thank you for giving me back myself,

I may not have fast cars, fashion or wealth,

But I am me, on centre stage,

And not the wall flower you put in a gilded cage.

Dear Mr Wrong

Did you ever know?

How I fantasised about,

Coming to your house in the night,

And blowing up your computer,

And with a big knife I’d neuter…

Probably not

Or you would have called the police.

Dear Mr Wrong

What went wrong?

Was it the spark, the sex or the friendship that left us first?

Were your regrets the worst?

That this monster you had grown,

Had a mind of her own?

Dear Mr Wrong

Do you ever miss me?

Think of me?

Wish you could give me a call?

Because I don’t miss you at all.

05/09/2013

S J Menary

Challenge 3 – Lost love

This week’s challenge involved writing a rhyming poem. Love them or loathe them, people love to argue about whether or not poems should rhyme! I don’t usually write poems that are specifically designed to rhyme, so this one was tricky! With the aid of a good rhyming dictionary, I wrote this piece which I think came out alright in the end.

The inspiration for this one has come from a variety of sources. I think it is a subject that touches us all at one stage or another in our lives:

‘It had been six months since she died,

And it didn’t matter how hard he tried,

He just couldn’t get Mary out of his mind,

Plagued by the feeling he’s been left behind.

He still heard her favourite song,

Playing all night long,

To Kalamazoo they swayed,

Dancing down Leamington Parade.

But she was gone now,

And he couldn’t understand how,

He could ever sleep again,

Without her in his arms’ domain.

He wanted to hold her tight,

Squeezed with all his might,

But all he touched was cold hard air,

And the bitterness of knowing she wasn’t there.

Christmas came and went,

With friends and sons and money spent,

And he found himself staring,

Hoping, wishing, daring…

In Hamleys window there she sat,

With a bow round her neck just like that,

Crimson shimmer, Mary’s favourite colour,

And it made his heart grow fuller.

He paid the clerk and took her home,

Soft and warm and no longer alone,

He laid her flaxen head upon his bed,

And snuggled up behind her furry head.

Holding teddy close and still,

He whispered ‘Mary, darling, I love you and I always will.’’

22/08/2013

S J Menary

Colney Hatch

Through the course of my research for the archaeological poem published earlier this month, I came accross an article about a little known disaster that happened at Colney Hatch Asylum in London in 1903. This was one of the worst asylum fires in the city's history, and the 52 women who perished have largely been forgotten.

This story, and others like it, inspired me to write this piece of flash fiction.

I stand and watch the asylum burn. I know I should feel angry after everything they have done to me, righteous even in its ultimate destruction.

But I just feel numb. Black belches of smoke vomits out of the shocked window frames, hinting deep inside at the fiery beast’s glowing heart.

Jenny was right. She was always right. One day, she had said to him. One day this place would all fall down around me, and I alone would stand firm.

I don’t feel firm now. I feel soft and limp and thin, and all the stark elements around me are threatening to cut through me like paper.

I hear the others, whooping and laughing and screaming. Running riot as they career out of the asylum.

I’m not supposed to call it an asylum any more. It’s a hospital now. It gives them better press to call it that. Not that it has really changed. It is still a place to hide away the broken ones, so we don’t offend the senses of the ‘normal’ ones.

The normal ones. Ha. The normal ones are the reason those on the top floor are burning in their beds right now, strapped down and drugged out of their minds. Locked doors and collapsing roofs.

They’ll call it an electrical fault. A patient to blame, smoking when they shouldn’t have been. But I know the truth.

I can hear the fire fighters coming now. I slip into the shadows, and disappear. My shadow trails like a black cloak, the orange fire tendrils clinging to the hem.

19/08/2013

S J Menary

Challenge 2: flash fiction without adjectives or adverbs

To a writer, adjectives and adverbs are stock and trade. If you are of my generation, just the mention of an adjective or adverb leaves you reaching for a dictionary in a cold sweat. Which one is a decribing word again...?

But these are the very lifeblood of a novelist's craft. Which is why when my writer friends challenged me to create a piece of flash fiction without using any at all, I couldn't resist the challenge. And just to make things a little more difficult, I needed to use dialogue without any identifiers like 'he said' etc. Nothing like an impossible task first thing in the morning to wake you up!

So here is my attempt:

‘Ayes’ dunna seen ‘im.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Aye. Tis t’ truth.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Ayes’ dunna care!’

‘Well you should!’

‘Isna my dog.’

‘Billy is missing!’

‘So? Ya shuda kept ‘im on t’ lead.’

‘I did! But, there was a cat, and, oh…What am I going to do now?’

‘If youse gonna blub, I’m outta here.’

‘Please, stay and help me to look?’

‘Well, I’s got ta be sumwhere…’

 ‘I…I…’

‘’e’s probahbly not far, now, bab. Did ya look at t’ stream?’

‘No, let’s go there and check.’

‘T’ field needs draining. Water’s in me boots.’

‘I know. Mud everywhere. We should be able to see his tracks, though. Billy! Billy! Where are you, boy?’

‘There, lass!’

‘Billy! What were you doing under that bridge? Billy! Let me fuss you, boy! Thanks for helping me to find him, Mister.’

She looked up, and around the park. But the man had disappeared.

 

Challenge 1: Mundane flash fiction

Regular readers of this blog will realise, fairly swiftly, that my writing tends towards the darker, more melodramatic elements of the human condition.

As a result, my fellow writers challenged me to write a piece of flash fiction that was definately NOT dark, magic, or melodramtic. I must admit, I was fairly certain the end result would be mind-numbingly mundane. I think this is precisely why I FAILED!  However, I was quite happy with the result. See for yourself:

‘You would never have guessed that the electric carver he was using to cut her kebab had been used to stab Big Al on Saturday night.

She waited for him to put the slightly stained implement down, and hand her the brown paper bag.

            ‘Three fifty, love.’

            ‘Here.’

            ‘Ta, bab.’

Walking the short distance to the post box, she put the bag on top. She slipped her letter into an envelope. She had told him about what happened. About the unfortunate fact that Big Al’s spleen had been found in the guttering. It was a shame it had happened at 3:30. The Headmaster across the road was furious. Apparently blood spatter in the window of Bilton Chippy was less than conducive to learning. 

Sealing the envelope with a kiss, she printed the address on the front.

            ‘HMP Onley,

            Serious Offenders Unit,

            Onley.’

That will make him smile, she thought to herself as she popped it in the box.’

Memoirs of an excavated skeleton

I feel it on my chest

Constricting

Crushing

My ribs splintering under the weight

And all around me is darkness

Soil in my mouth

My eyes

My heart

And still I reach up my straightjacketed hand

Desperate for a drink

Dying of thirst

The endless urge gnawing at my throat, eating my flesh from the inside

What I wouldn’t do for one glass of whiskey

One breath of fresh air

One gold coin in my pocket

The memories of that godforsaken pool

Of the crazed loons, that gurgled and pissed in its waters

The chains that bound us to those frozen stone walls

Straw beneath our feet

The so-called physicians that stole from us

Our blood

Our vomit

Our sanity

Our minds

I hear them digging above

Scratching, searching, looking for me?

And the gleam of stark sunlight will one day cut through

And reveal to the world what they did to us

They will not be able to hide forever

Too much drink dulled my senses,

And now my head is full of stagnant, raging memories

Nightmares of the raving

My only joy condemned me

Hurled into a prison for the damned

Stripped of my rights, my clothes, my positions

Labelled forever more:

A Lunatic of Bedlam

12/08/2013

S J Menary



2013 Liverpool Lime Street Station Crossrail Excavation Project on the site of the former St Bethlem Hospital (founded 1247), the first dedicated mental health hospital in England, and the orgins of the corruption 'Bedlam'