Law! Indeed! Trump! The first full service president! Place to stay. Food. Chinese manufactured clothing and jewelry. Central Park brand corkscrews (trust me, a Trump brand). Wine from the Trump vineyard in Virginia (where they employ off-shore workers). And, had he not run his airline into bankruptcy, ‘Fly Trump!’ Also coming soon to a monopoly…
I’ve browsed a lot of poetry and flash fiction over the last few months. Often the writing is sound grammatically, with an interesting plot to go with it. Yet, as soon as I see a cliche, in all it’s vulgarity, I’m chucked, head-first, out of the narrative. It always stuns me. Cliche is so easy to…
I’m very hungry. This is a table. Is this a fast train? Why is not moving? It’s moving. Why are we not eating if this is a table? A mother sits on her phone instead of talking to her four-year-old son. I catch the little boy’s eye and he looks fed-up. Like he has…
Christmas is not a new idea. The Romans held celebratory winter feasts and gave each other gifts 2,000 years ago. Hanukkah is a celebration of a victorious battle over 2,100 years ago. Ramadan marks the month that the prophet Mohammed had the holy book revealed to him by God. Other cultures, such as the Chinese,…
I used to despise poetry. I refused to read it, let alone write it. For three years I studied poetry at university, because for whatever reason, I was half decent at analysing the stuff. Plagued by “this happens because of this,” or, “don’t write that, you can’t do that in a poem unless you’re experienced,”…
I see so many people writing articles about what to do and what not to do when you’re writing. These may be helpful for a new writer, but it is best to break free of these rules as soon as possible. The very purpose of writing is to break those rules. Stamp on them. Take…
To the girl on the train, we are not thinking about fucking you. We aren’t superstars. Instead, to fall in love, buy better shoes. Following the drunks from pub to pub. Receding hair leaning on the bar. No one has turned on the jukebox. Who’s mum fucking died in here? Sniff. He goes to…
The fish caught my bait. Poor old Inspector. Is he a halibut, by any chance? Or a squealing fox? A squealing fox on the end of my rod. The hard old rod. Ready and poised. I put the glass of water down and follow the two figures out of the door, and then follow them…
I’ve been asked literally a couple of questions about planning in the past. How do you plan? What do you plan? When do you plan? Each story has a start, middle and an end. Whilst you are writing your story these three elements will become so confused and muddled and interlocking that as you finish,…
A rat runs off with the bit of sausage I have just ripped off with my teeth and thrown on the ground next to the electrical generator, which is humming, and grumbling disagreeably with my feeding of the rats. He said he’d meet me here, but there six other people on the platform, and none…
Seal Matches 