LYING IN WAIT

Unlike the Psalmist's 'Valley of the Shadow of Death', Murder Mile is a place where a Theosceptic walks unaccompanied.

                   

MURDER MILE            

I’m fast approaching Murder Mile

and can’t resist a rueful smile:

who ever thought I’d live so long.

These days I simply limp along

in puzzlement that I’m not dead

but I expect to be waylaid 

soon by some thug or else his mate,

those brutal swine that lie in wait,

with sharpened blade and filthy tongue,

if you’ve the cheek to not die young.

For verse of a different kind, why not visit: https://www.facebook.com/richard.fleming.92102564/ 

DOT, DOT, DASH, DASH

A short poem written whilst on holiday in France where, unlike Britain, the rail network is affordable and appears to work. 

BY RAIL

The scenery is moving fast,

the present changing into past

so speedily it dulls the mind

as what was there is left behind.

The distant hills, the greenery,

the hulking farm machinery,

the cattle, sheep, sometimes a horse,

are dashes, dots, a kind of Morse

transmitting messages, the kind 

received by the subconscious mind.

Enthralled, I watch this moving map,

abandoned novel in my lap.

For verse of a different kind, why not visit: https://www.facebook.com/richard.fleming.92102564/ 

ON TARGET

Here's a humorous antidote to the depressing headlines that confront us these days.

 

AUNTY GUN               

It must be said about my aunt,

she wasn’t very tolerant.

If, on the beach, she saw a sight

that she deemed rude or impolite

she’d fetch a rifle from her kit

and promptly take a shot at it.

In consequence, chaps in tight briefs

adorned with slick Speedo motifs

or ladies, vast, bikini-clad,

that, in aunt’s view, were twice as bad,

were struck in his or her kazoo

with pellets from her 22.

For verse of a different kind, why not visit: https://www.facebook.com/richard.fleming.92102564/ 

HUNGER GAMES

I've not posted Flash Fiction for quite a while so here's one from the archive, an early attempt at the genre, based on a bit of local hearsay about a derelict cottage in County Down, Northern Ireland.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS   

The police said Old Walter’s death wasn’t suspicious: heart attack it seemed.  We knew they were wrong but couldn’t prove it.  

That bastard, Rutter, had bullied the old boy unmercifully, using his status as Estate Manager like a bludgeon, once even threatening to have Walter’s beloved dogs put down. 

We all feared Rutter’s rages and felt sure that one such outburst had provoked Old Walter’s collapse.

The rumour that Walter’s life savings were hidden in his cottage sent Rutter there immediately, not caring that the poor man had only been dead a week. 

Using his master-key, Rutter entered the cottage and, to avoid interruption, bolted the door, then, for good measure, pushed a heavy cupboard across it and began his search. 

He only remembered the dogs when the first one lunged at him. The other two Dobermans, starved for a week, circled him hungrily.  

AT LOGGERHEADS

A modern yet timeless theme for today's poem.

THE QUARREL

Some conflict forced the two of us to choose

to step apart or try to reconcile. 

Hot-headed, both of us, we let the booze

decide for us, both guilty without trial.

Friends sought to intercede, provided cues

for us to meet: we missed them by a mile.

When one said yes, the other would refuse,

the reasons or excuses, versatile.

We neither one would wear the other’s shoes.

Resentment grew and, with resentment, bile

that poisoned everything: each would accuse

the other of disloyalty and guile.

A thought occurs, which we dare not speak of:

that hatred is the dark sibling of love.

For verse of a different kind, why not visit: https://www.facebook.com/richard.fleming.92102564/ 

NOT FADE AWAY?

As I approach my eighth decade, the number of friends and relatives now deceased is high. Each individual is remembered, of course: that's their immortality. 

When my generation and the next are gone, however, those memories will die with us.

REMEMBER ME

A much-loved childhood friend, who died too young,

smiles from a faded photograph today:

along with other snaps, his sits among

dead parents, aunts and uncles, an array

of family pets in amber, monochrome,

all trapped forever, or till I’m deceased,

like insects, in this stout, unwieldy tome.

Should I feel shame that somehow I have ceased

to think of him, to mourn his tragedy,

his early exit, unrehearsed and swift,

he who, back then, meant everything to me?

Has fickle memory cast him adrift

as one does a glass bottle in the sea,

its message, scrawled in hope, remember me?

For verse of a different kind, why not visit: https://www.facebook.com/richard.fleming.92102564/ 

ALL CHANGE

This one's autobiographical but it all happened so long ago that I suspect that the other participants may well be pushing up the daisies by now. 

TEENAGERS

That rotten night, the party in full swing,

a teenage girl, with whom I was in love

or thought I was, who’d kept me on a string,

discarded me as though I were a glove 

and danced with my best friend. I felt a fool,

humiliated to be cast aside

so publicly, for she was cold and cruel

as only teenagers can be. My pride

took such a hammering, I almost wept,

but love’s skin-deep so, when the music played

a new girl asked me for a dance, I leapt,

and, having danced for half an hour, she stayed

then, three weeks later, I moved on from her:

it’s no holds barred when you’re a teenager.

For verse of a different kind, why not visit: https://www.facebook.com/richard.fleming.92102564/