Above: SHIRL’S CAFÉ & TABAC I’ll not be blogging for a couple of weeks or so. You see, having been forced by irksome airborne germs to cancel our usual lengthy summer sojourn across La Manche to a better place, crazy woman Shirl concluded we needed a break, a holiday of sorts. Spending good money on … More AN INSIDE OUT ESCAPE FROM LOCKDOWN
When I last closed my drowsy eyes it was to the accompaniment of an apt, from my biased point of view, cryptic song. The song was new to me, yet notwithstanding my poor state of being, I fell in love with it at once. Its title? ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ sung originally, I was … More THE REBIRTH OF THE BLUE-EYED CAT
Before, in the putative asylum of her bedroom whether alone or in the company of lovers the one of curious Grecian genesis would always keep alight the loose hanging shade-less bulb As a vocal self-proclaimed freethinker those who understood these things thought this her greatest contradiction The ignorance of brawn afforded him an ability to … More CARDBOARD CITY
During the occupation of Paris the actress Arletty had a relationship with Hans Jürgen Soehring, a Luftwaffe officer, and gave the famous riposte to a member of the French Forces of the Interior interrogating her after the Liberation: ‘My heart is French, but my ass is international’ It seems that the French authorities had Ms … More THE SNOW WHITE TIGRESS by Mike Steeden
DAZED VIOLET EYES Memories flung into a harvest time bonfire, an immaculate enforcement of shameless remorse Reconciliation is but transparent breathing space, twixt hostilities estranged lovers endorse The waning moon, her closest confidant, the ubiquitous sun her silent nemesis On a ‘seen better day’s’ hopeless mattress, she favours his sex, not his kiss The albino … More DAZED VIOLET EYES
A long, long time ago in a land where night was always day and day always night and where the clocks ticked anti-clockwise there was once an old blind man who collected all the spare daydreams others no longer had any use for. He kept them in a stovepipe top hat bequeathed to him by … More EKTA’S MIRROR
I met an absolutely gorgeous swoony sort of chap just the other day at the garden centre where I was busy fondling a sapling whilst at the same time shedding a tear for a wilting bonsai. With so many people about I had, of course, kept my kit on. Anyway the chap I met worked … More THE SAD DEMISE OF JESSICA DOWNLOW – THE TREE HUGGING SUICIDAL POET
DISCOVERING NANCY London, England, Midsummer 1941: Was London the dullest city in the whole of Europe? Perhaps ‘dullest’ was the wrong word? The question irked. Afterall the natives of the East End were far from ‘dull’. Intuitive, sharp-witted comics as they were they could get away with murder and, in reality, often did that very … More DISCOVERING NANCY
she is blithe in Fantasia now not a care in the world be it of forged legend or of unfeigned history the word of the vanquished is legitimate evidence of a reflection of what once was essential the open door heralding impossible freedom turning the door handle she found it locked foul words and a … More TO THE TUNE OF THE GUARDS WHISTLE
Cairo between the two world wars hustle and bustle and open doors The old walled city of a thousand minarets about the great Citadel of so very few regrets Sublime Islamic creations upon which greedy eyes must feast tobacco burning in a sheesha the naïve one will get fleeced Pickpockets and charlatans the thrill of … More THE BLACK SHEEP OF THE EMPIRE
