The Written Word Group

  Bishop sat hugging his glass of water at the bar. King was chugging on a Cuban cigar. The bar was empty. Another sunny afternoon on the Mojacar Playa strip. Their Nite Club, ‘The Abyss,’ didn’t open for punters until late. The problem now was a lack of punters with cash. Their regular trade of Irish, Russian, and Spanish mobsters had all gone to ground. Europol was throwing them all in jail. Which was a huge disappointment to Bishop.  The front door suddenly opened. He checked the mirror behind the bar. He was met by a vision straight out of the movies. She was tall. At least 5’10’’ and all legs. She was wearing the miniest of red mini skirts. Red high heels and a large summer hat. She didn’t look like the type to take prisoners. King recognized her from the Spanish TV. Kathleen Hinkley, a US movie star, and now a Spanish TV star. She had a bodyguard dressed all in black walking behind her. He appeared to be carrying a briefcase. “So, this is the Mojacar Chess Club,” she...

Hey man, look at all these people, this is so cool baby. My name is Niilhaasi Ooki, that’s Creek Indian for Moon Water, that’s the name my Guru gave me when I went to India man. Boy was it cool back then. I represent the H.A.C.Party and this is my manifesto. That’s the Haven’t A Clue Party and that about sums us all up, cause I don’t think anyone here has a clue to what they’re letting themselves in for man. The first thing we’ll do is put baskets up on all the lamp posts and fill them with flowers, then we’ll give every house two baskets each, one to hang either side of the front door and fill 'em with flowers, and we’ll buy a tanker and we’ll go round every day in the tanker and water the baskets. We’ll encourage people to grow their own fruit and vegetables, to go green man. We’ll get rid of that old tar-mac playground at the school and put grass down. Clay lane, instead of resurfacing it we’ll grass it. Incidentally that field down the lane with the weeds is my hay field, green...

    It was bound to happen. How they'd got hold of an Ion-Ramjet and into space was a job for the Earth Cops. But now they were out there, loose in the Solar System. It was Space Marshall Territory.My area of expertise. They were squatting on an asteroid named 16 Psyche that had habitation facilities belonging to the Federation of Green Solar Mines. And they would not move. They wanted the usual pay-off. The romantics were calling them Space Gypsies, Intergalactic Gypos. They had a Gypsey Space King and a Royal Charter they called, The Manifesto.  Which entitled them to loot and steal anything not nailed down within the Solar System. These were the same Tar laying, Cider drinking, Sheep stealing Knackers they had always been. Homeless and on the road since Cromwell burned and killed his way through Ireland. "To Hell or to Connaught" was his war cry. How they got to be confused with Romany Gypsies is anybody's guess. The horse and caravan might have been the merge mome...

  Life Lessons learnt in Yoga Class A poem by Jeremy Patton We are cobra, we are Sphinx, we are  child, we are tree We are Thursday, we are yoga, we are Warrior Three, We thread the needle, doggedly downward dog, we cat,  we cow, Our teacher says, “in this position you can choose your own movement now.  You can choose stillness or…” What?! I make my choice before any other path is proffered, I reach out and grab the first thing I was offered, I chose Stillness, “I Choose Stillness!” It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m sitting in the sun My eyes are growing heavy and soon my wife will be gone to some unspecific aerobic, “The garden needs a tidy and the kitchen needs a clean There’s plenty to be done and other tasks between, The dripping tap needs fixing and the kettle needs a fuse There’s more than you can manage, so you’ll have to choose” And as the car pulls away, I calmly make my choice, I stretch and yawn and declare in a tiny sleepy voice “I choose...

  Falling off a log A love poem by Jeremy Patton For my wife on her birthday  Give the gods a new protractor  And a gold propelling pencil A quill, a chisel, and a gum eraser And the latest laser cut stencil Allot the eons till the end of time Add three more days just to be sure To plot a curve with shade and line And draw the arc, descending, pure.  Then fell a tree in the furthest forest Drag it to the river through field and bog With saw and adze keep just the best And into the river drop the perfect log Grease the pole with fat, oil, and tallows And stand me on the rolling wood Push me out way past the shallows Into the torrent, the raging flood And as my fall follows the gods’ perfect line My body flailing into the raging torrent’s care I realise, easier than this fatal decline Is loving, each day, my darling Bear