Three 50 word stories to enter into blog collection.

 Abbey had walked those streets for years, as a child she had stood outside Marvel's corner shop wishing for treats, not the clinking bottles her mother always grasped on her drawing back of the shop door like a stage curtain. Now she slept there, wishing on stars for a toothbrush.

The kitten. The sole object of her attention, doting  parent created a doting pet owner. Always it was stroked, and loved by the child. The fleas ended that, it had to live outside in the shed, the memory gets vague there, it ran away, she still cries fifteen years on.

A club, somewhere, small town minds and a short skirt. The blonde waitress doesn't mind being touched up, the visitor does. Barry puts his hands where he likes and throws a "lesbian" when they are removed. A blush & departure swiftly by the visitor, Barry follows, returns with a black eye. 

Memories can be 
bitter or
sweet or
both.
But you can't keep them forever
they're like bubbles,
You have to keep making new ones.

Principles vs music taste.

I can stand the rain on my window.

I can.

No longer will I "stand by your man".

...Or my man, or anyone's.

He hit you, and it felt like a kiss?

Seen that bruise on your face love?

You must be taking the piss.

The valleys and peaks
Of your toes and knees
Under crumpled black sheets.
Scattered with paisleys.
The morning light, glints dust
Around your face
Your smell; oil paint
And a spice I cannot place.
I you had never touched a paint brush
from that day to this,
you'd still smell like paint.
As if you'd baptised the smell of
Royal Blue #42 into your skin.
Our thing, you take the coloured glass oval
that hang from string around your neck,
and press it to your forehead.
"This is my magic third eye.
I can see the world through this eye".
I believed you.
Next the ceremonial placing of the
Tea Cosy,
upon your head.
Now bishop of all from the headboard, to your toes.
You're solemn.
"How old are you Grandad?"
"Ohh" the answer caught in your chest
I wait with baited breath...
"Older than God".
I didn't believe you.

No allowing for success;

deserved or not.

Not a second spared

to contemplate the

sabotaging menace

that lurks and squats

in the same squalid

corner of the mind,

self esteem used

to occupy,

and love won't find.

Not a second given

to the cause of self.

Not a healing word

in the inner prism-

mind made prison.

Not a thought of

love could pass above

the drowning suds-

a diluted result

of the person that once occupied

the tenancy of me.

Not a second glance at

the wanton hatred of

the mirror...

Not a thing left for myself.

I walk past myself,

screwed up in a ball

and thrown on the floor,

everyday,

and spit out

piteous prophesies predicting

whats is next to decay.

The First Poem I Was Taught.

The Lady Of Shallot-Alfred Lord Tennyson

Picture, if you will dear reader, a nine year old Pippa avidly awaiting her Year Five literacy lesson. The poem chosen by Mrs Brighouse, a short solemn slip of a woman, was The Lady Of Shallot.The poem was taught to us over four classes, one for every part. The overhead projector was creaked out by two sycophantic 'helpers' picked from the class of about twenty five. Projected through the dusty light on to the paper covered blackboard was the first poem I ever learnt about in a class room. Mrs Brighouse read out the AAAABCCCB form in her soothing tone and the poem rose and fell and fluttered down to our ears in an RP accent like a lullaby.

The poem its self enthralled me took me in with it's delicate imagery and lulled me into a false sense of security only to spit me out with the bitter sweet ending. I had a general liking of the macabre and mystically sinister from an early age & this poem had me. At first I wanted to be the Lady of Shallot, then I wanted to be the weeping willow, then the words, by the last lesson I knew I wanted to of been the one to write this mystical story that drew in the listener and read like a sweet song in its melancholic, beautiful rhythm.

That was that really, it wasn't as if I had just begun to like poetry, it was as if I have just discovered what I had loved all along. Me & poetry were old friends, it seemed. Although it would take many years for me to discover my exact taste in poetry had it not been for Mrs Brighouse, Lord Alfred Tennyson, those two hours in that class room & and the Lady of Shallot herself, there's a chance me and poetry would of never made this life long companionship which we have today. In that simple way, amongst those primary colours, snotty noses and conkers & marbles, my passion was uncovered to me, in the form of this stunning classic British masterpiece.

On Seeing A Photograph Of An Old Friend.

I knew you'd sparkle one day.
Outside those high fences of that school.
Outside the small minds of that village.
Lessons and books couldn't teach you how to live.
And now...my god, now, well just look at you.
A thousand heads would turn if those
That dictated your self esteem could see you now.
They couldn't predict your viberance. Full colour.
Neither could you.
But, I...I always knew you'd sparkle one day.