Never to Understand

I do not understand Nor am I understood I stand alone in a crowd Of alien faces spouting gibberish While my marble exterior is carved With glyphs no one can comprehend The city grows around me But they don’t know my message I have watched them grow But I don’t know their purpose We confront…

Undigested Dreams

The smiling shower curtain dolphin looked me up and down ‘You fat,’ it said ‘Yeah? Well, you flat,’ I retorted The shower curtain dolphin sniggered with its shower curtain dolphin friends They then proceeded to eat the shower curtain fish and swam off the shower curtain Leaving the brightly coloured coral Which promptly experienced a…

Review “Death Masks” by Jim Butcher (published 2003)

“Death Masks” is the fifth in the Dresden Files, a series of books written by Jim Butcher that follow the character Harry Dresden, a wizard living in modern-day Chicago. The books follow a fantastical world that exists alongside the normal world, with magic, a wizard council, vampires, werewolves, demons and all the usual magical creatures.…

Discovery In the Dark

Wake up in the middle of the night Need to go to the bathroom So up I get, one step, and then Squish Oh god what have I stepped in? Hop hobble to the bathroom, light on And see what’s what Wash my foot in disgust Back to the bedroom, light on Survey the furball…

Better than you think – the films of Val Lewton

We’ve all heard of the so-called B movie, the low budget films, churned out at speed by studios, usually with pretty terrible plots and casts. Often that is quite true. Sometimes, however, these second-class films can produce something impressive, such as a selection of movies produced in the forties for RKO studios by Val Lewton.…

Entropy

Nothing lasts forever All that lives must die All that is must cease It all ends in entropy, so the scientists say Order to chaos, structure to wreckage This endless obliteration Is the breaking apart of all that exists At the end of all things There will be nothing at all No order, no chaos…

The Stone that the Builders Rejected

Scattered stones in an old quarry All the good stuff has been taken Hacked out, hauled away Leaving the scraps, the offcuts The good-for-nothing leftovers Not fit for purpose Yet the builders’ rejects Are lifted up and dusted off Shaped and polished and made ready To become cornerstones of new creations A new builder sees…

Compass

Ever used a compass Finding your way by the trembling point of a tiny needle That you can barely see Or you could be lost Wandering aimlessly in the wilderness No food, no water, no hope Life doesn’t come with a map Leaving you in the desert without guidance (Why isn’t there a map?) You…