Underneath the Bridge of Heartache the saintly take their shelterIn the dark tunnel of delusions white-face clowns aim to provokeThere’s a Best Ragweed Hotel made up of just cardboardWhere a ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ Madam comforts the broke On the merry-go-round favoured by ‘bruise easily’ loversThe pipe organ plays cacophonous rhapsodiesSteam powered wooden ponies all … More UPSIDE DOWN
Happy days were here again. Almost. On her way to the shrine of plaudits, she paused. Quizzical thoughts and salty tears of long-lost joy. The sign that had caught her eye, she the one who made daisy chains for death row convicts and homemade chewing gum for the toothless ancients, read, ‘Henceforth and forthwith providing … More ‘I FOUND THIS ON MARCH 9’
A COUNTRY NAMED ‘LONDON’ Humourless Satire with a soupçon of French France allowed…after all, proper Londoners own multiculturism I met with a streetwise professor who was on my side…or was it the other way around? Matters not and regardless, we vented our respective fury upon each other as well as the very ground where inexplicit … More A COUNTRY NAMED ‘LONDON’
The potential of a life of clinical debauchery had its delectable merits, more so when one had the ear of The Pope. Better that than a lifetime of tedium, kneeling upon cold stone with glued palms and eyes closed tight dreaming only of forbidden celestial flesh. Given that hara-kiri was not of his fancy it … More THE HOUSE OF VIVID MEMORIES
Photograph by Natalie Shau ‘We are our choices’ – Jean-Paul Sartre Hellish hard to determine what, if any, section of a new book one should impart in an attempt to expose it’s blanket disposition when I am naught but a fanciful old fool and my co-author is currently glued to her weeding and seeding only … More AN AUDIENCE WITH THE EMPRESS
‘WHATEVER HAPPENED TO EVE?’ by Shirley Blamey & Mike Steeden “Clouds above, what is this bloke on? He only introduced a new book a week or so ago…now another? Is the man off his head?” Probably I am, however in my defence this one is more than a tad different from its forebearer. Firstly, a … More ‘WHATEVER HAPPENED TO EVE?’
‘…When I am on a pedestal You did not raise me there Your laws do not compel me To kneel grotesque and bare…’ Leonard Cohen from the song ‘Avalanche’ “Taken aback by the exclusive wilderness that eclipsed my ‘Paradise Wasted’ I footslogged best I could, ever onward knowing this neck of the woods was not … More EVE’S CONFESSION UNDER CAUTION
To the best of her knowledge Maurelle was French. At least in this dreary realm that was her chosen persona. The bilingual from birth or those unveiled for the sake of reasoning are more often than not puzzled, unsure of their pedigree. Besides, French after all is the language of love and that of those … More MAURELLE
After an unseemly war, indeed any conflict worth its salt, holding hands with the foe in a see-through wrought iron creaky elevator makes for the perfect imaginative indignity. More so when the mechanism is empty of surplus pounding hearts, black widow spiders on heat and coy venomous snakes. Yet when bereft of such additional intrusive … More RADIANT FREAKS
The town square, a pernickety, delicate blend of Renaissance and Art Deco construction yet at its centre an ill at ease belfry atop a Romanesque steeple within which a bell chamber housed nought but hibernating bats, muddled moths and the occasional drifter with no fear … More UNDER A BLACK BERET
- MIKE STEEDEN - 