Happy campers

Be happy?

Red lights flashing

Her insipid bingo voice

Calling calling calling

Dear god please shut up

That screaming brat

Be happy

Holiday internment camp

For the mentally deranged

You must have fun!!

Useless parents

Neglecting volume-challenged kids

Be happy!

Please

I beg you

No more birdy songs

In overly amped up

HAPPY dance rooms

Be happy!!

Propagandists demand it!

Blue shirts smiling frantically

Desperate for your approval

YOU MUST BE HAPPY!!!!

Or we are all doomed

To be fed to the corporate monsters

Gnawing rancid dumpster mouths

Snapping for their tea

Be happy…

Sit in your caravan and fear

Because they are coming for you

With fake smiles

And tourist information leaflets…

 

18/09/2013

S J Menary

Urban Erotica

Just a hint of soft black lace,

Touchable, strokeable, perfect face,

Her eyes, dark lashes,

My heart, it dashes,

In my chest, palpitations,

Mouth dry, body straining with sexual frustrations,

Her lips, red, wet,

I’m breaking out into a cold sweat!

This is sex on paper!

Mind racing with things I’d like to do to her,

As I walk on past, my mind a blur,

She whispers in my ear, the holy grail,

‘70% off at the Debenhams blue cross sale’

It occurs to me that she is such a bore,

Just another billboard whore.

 

18/09/2013

S J Menary

Book Review: The Boomerang Effect by Lindy Spencer

The Boomerang Effect  by Lindy Spencer is a great crime novel, which is so different from the norm. Set in small town America, the story follows an ensemble cast as secrets from their past are revealed, slowly layer by layer.

Beginning with a single mindless crime which leaves a young woman in a coma, the ripples radiate to affect every corner of the world Lindy Spencer creates. The characters are highly believable, with three dimensional qualities and flawed pasts that are realistic.

She ties all of the threads together, interweaving an intricate plot that leaves the reader guessing right to the end. Without giving too much away, the whodunit will surprise you!

What is great about this book is that it really gives a vivid and honest portrayal of life in a small American town, without being romanticised or overly descriptive. As a British reader, I found it particularly good that I was not overwhelmed with American pop culture references. These can really put off a UK audience.

The novel was both down to earth and unpretentious, and a real breath of fresh air in the oversaturated crime genre.

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