The White Wraith

For all those so inclined, here is my new book, bright and shinny and available to download HERE in an INSTANT! SH.

The First, Again, Because it Sounds Good

A verb. A verb? Don’t scream a verb at me, I wouldn’t know what one was if it grew teeth and decided to bite me on the bottom. Not that a verb should want to do such a thing, from what I hear they are the more quiet, retired and reserved members of the literary world. But saying that one did, in all essence of the suggestion, wanted to sink gnashers into my arse, I would have a jolly firm word to say about it. I Just wouldn’t be entirely sure what that word was. Sure, it all seems like fun, the dreamy sun basking in the bluebell sky, casting lashings of warmth down on your pasty thigh regions. But when push comes to shove, shove comes to picking the bugger up and hurling him off a bloody tall cliff, preferably a white chalk one, just in keeping with the tradition of the damn thing. SH

The First

As it was said, or was not said to me, the world is one man’s blunderbuss as it is another man’s buttered toast. You can try and mix it all together, wield it forth as a sharpened weapon, or if you like it can be enjoyed at your leisure. It needn’t surprise me or you that anything that’s said nowadays can be labeled as genius or complete bollocks. It centrally has nothing whatsoever, a cormorant’s fart on Tuesday, to do with what was said or written, but is graded by what others say back about it. You’re typical tripe is still typically tripe, but the guided in gold legend that is created for it by a plethora of thirteen to fifteen year olds it taken as market standard. I wish I’d had the time to banty on more about this, but I probably will, so lest yourself move away from your cotton trousers for the day, I’ll pick this up another time. Indeed. SH

You Suck

The glue, it seeped like molten lava, down the page and onto the floor. Alas, he had done it. My homework was ruined. I was going to be dead. The slimy bastard, his nose so high and ugly told tales of perceived excellence, just stood there with a mask of innocence slapped there on his face. If I were a buzzard, or a tiger perhaps, or even a mouse, anything with claws enough to be used I would have ripped that mask and skin with it too clean of that putrid little skull. His thinness bothered me. His shadow bothered me. His presence bothered me. There was nothing I could do. S.H.

Huffington Post and Self Promotion

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/neil-ayres/how-well-do-we-really-wan_b_1281507.html?ref=uk-culture I think to stick out from the crowd in literature does not require the public to KNOW you, but to KNOW OF you.

Get up you useless waste of - oh, mother, it's you ...

Drip off, take shelter, walk along, just ride. Why he decided to utter those four strange two word phrases at that particular time was a bridge too far for my meagre comprehension to wrap around at such an early hour in the morning. And by early I mean 11 am. And by 11 am I mean 11 AM! It's funny how sleep seems to take on a rather tragic character when you forget to meet him after work for drinks. He gets annoyed. Sleep would rather you met him, on time (or near enough) in all your splendour (or lack there of) and when the sun doth shine, precisely EACH and EVERY night. When you miss an appointment he’s been known to shake his head in fettered pity and sprinkle out simple words into your ears like ‘pleb’ and ‘tool’, just when you were thinking of getting to know the guy again. SH.

Sky

He threw his hands up high in the air, as if trying to hold the sky in place. SH.

Blank

His face was blank; a colourless poster, a starless night sky.

Lost Tweet

This is from a tweet I twittered earlier in the year. I don’t know what I was on when I wrote it, but whatever it was I clearly need to find some more!

Under the darkest moon,
Beneath the smouldering leaves,
The grasses burning in snow,
Wrapped by feathered sheet,
She sleeps in a frigid bed.
S.H.

Captain’s Speech

I hereby declare, for all those fettered and not, to go among the sun on this of all the days, to seek their tidings, to grasp their glories, and to reach into the abyss of all that was hence before unknown. Yorkshire follower make yourself known, to the skies, to the trees, to the trampled grass that lays in wait for battles of far off days. The paths you tread now are worn to the bone of the earth by those within thousands of years past by, their victories no less potent in the hearts of us all than those which you forge each day to the next, a lift of your hand like the lift of their sword. Let the bleak day come and have it cast away like sea water spattering off your bow, a luckless thing of ash and ruin. Today let you be free, free to seek what tries so desperately to hide from your ever weary eyes, what has outrun your fingertips like the stag from the hunter’s bow. Lest this day be forgotten, and forever will it be remembered, in the tails of old and the songs of children, this is the day we take the air back, the space we dwell within, and keep it there until and ever again we may be needed to snatch it back from whichever daemons’ foul grip. S.H.

The Hero Walks

A gentle walk across a sparking bridge. The trees leaning over the banks like nosy neighbours gave a shuffle, as if they were quickly trying to change their position while I wasn’t looking. I gave them roughly three more seconds of my suspicion before my path began to openly crave my attention. The Sun was falling towards the western hills and kicking its last few rays across the freshly showered bridge, the stones like glass that had been stained with bronzed and coal colours, all mixed around with a painters brush. The river ran, as fast as it could, below my feet, fleeing, it seemed to me, a deathly foe placed higher up and deeply set in the mountains. S.H.

Help, I'm going to be sick.

Help! HELP! I'm going to be sick! This I said, I screamed, internally, old people next to me snogging. On the Tube platform, crowded and buzzing, they latched onto each other like great octopus tentacles round a stray fish. I had to, so horribly, my stomach pitched and rolled so, look back three times, and still they were there, in frozen and horrendous still life. Public is no place for such a thing to be displayed, and certainly not so close to me, in a place so public, by two people nearly twice my age. No prudish thoughts are in my mind, I can assure all of that, but this was truly creepy. Sorry, but I can't write any more about it, the longer I do, the longer my dinner has to plan to reacquaint itself with the light of day.

Ribbons and Lace

There is nothing to weep for, the time has long past us by. There is nothing to stamp on, the the creatures have scampered away. There are no tassels on the edges, no ribbons lined with lace. The day is off, tomorrow is on. Cross your heart, hope not to die, no precious words, no useless cry.

The Bitter Salts

The bitter salts are left to flutter like flickering lights, highjacking the wind to throw their shards at new homes. Formulate, if you will, and interview for yourself in ten years time. What would you say? Would you even need to say anything at all? Would one look at your decade plussed counterpart be enough to answer all your queries? Not a breath nor word need to be uttered but a look that says you’re going to be fine. Better than fine you’re going to get what you need, what you long for more than want.

If Only

Of all the McDonalds in all of the world, she had to walk into mine. It had been a full two months since the business in the countryside, and only now, once every day rather than once a minute did her face ever stampede into my mind, like a herd of wilder beast, and I had called myself quite settled. I was sat to the side, but quite near the front, so could see who came in and I could see who ordered. I myself was on a steady diet consisting of a large chocolate shake and an similarly named potato prepared side. I was at the end of my fries and was fishing at the bottom of the brown bag they had been sat in, searching for thy cheeky bonus you usually find, a few stray chiplets that have dived out of their red and yellow cardboard home. It's at a time when you think you've had the last, but a quick rummaged gifts you a welcome little surprise. But today, as if a precursor, the fortune telling fries, there was nothing at the bottom of my bag but emptiness. And then she walked in. Irony complete. What was it first that I noticed if not just her essence? It wasn't a mere feature as it was the conglomerate. If held to sword point I'd say it was the hair that first set it off. But on the canvas of a Van Gogh is it not the brightest colour that the admirer is first drawn to? Then the rest of her being flew into the space like a rushing skylark, simply beautiful. Her eyes did not see me but there presence was never a tone to be avoided, as it rang through the air so sharply, the sight of them both filled up my stomach and emptied out my lungs, a withered shell repaired now faced with what it was that shattered it in the first place. My skin contracted in a million different ways and the crackling fireworks retuned to my veins. I have no recognition nor inclination of how her head might have risen if she had seen me that day, if anything, and most likely, not at all. But all this was there for but an instant, a pure second, a fair blip that flashed indeed months of feelings all by my minds eyes with insurmountable speed but for an infinitesimal crumb of time. It was over. That was how things would most certainly stay. Time to get along with my day.

Call Me Anytime

You’ve still got my number. It’s the only thing you can’t take from me anymore, because you’ve already got it.

The Deepening Fog

Tell me of this, the wheedle the warp, the beadle and snap, the warbling bird that sat above my head. I cricked my head and held it to the sky. The clouds were made of branches, crooked and beautiful. The ground was damp and dark, a mess of dead leaves. The light cut lines of dull grey through the air. I set off again, a weight in my boots that has seldom been there before, but neither a surprise to my heart. The cold was manageable as no wind scratched through the trunks of the trees. I held a simple pace, over hillock and round creek, the crystal light a deepened fog. I’d gone for at least an hour before I looked down at what I was wearing. A tattered suit and totally inappropriate shoes, a gun in my jacket pocket. I stopped and pulled it out, a black and frigid lump of metal, I had no idea how it had gotten there. But considering I had no idea how I had gotten where I was too, the heavy weapon in my possession was a small task at hand. S.H.

About A Girl

I want a girl who wears black t-shirts ... silver shoes and blue tights.
A girl who swears without swearing.
Who cries when she wants to and also when she doesn't.
Whose eyes turn the others away, and reel me in on home.
Who laughs when she shouldn't, and smiles when no one else will.
Who sings in the supermarket at the top of her voice.
Who runs from everything, but is afraid of nothing.

Go Home

Bah humbug and malice and trolls. Muddy skies and filthy streets. Still they change nothing, make only themselves feel better, and the Ones on the top of their towers continue to do what they want. Don‘t think you are changing anything. The Ones are there to do what they want, not what you desire. Even if they do let their tossed coins fall down on your favoured side, it is never because you were there, with your tousled hair and brightened eyes, but because they wanted to change or let themselves move that way. You can never sway the vote with such petty actions, no more than it is possible to reprogram a living entity with computerised thoughts. You cause may be worthy but your time is wasted. Go home, love your family, look after yourselves and rethink what you can do to really make a mark to the better, for us all, for us all.

Pudding Pie

He shook his head, like pudding pie, a jumbled sludge of softened crust and doughy centre, clear thought at the minute a figment. ‘No time for this,’ he thought, his mind too tired for words or thought or anything of use. Use. It was useless to think of how she had done this, what ‘this’ had been. He knew it was coming but still he had sat, atop a horse made of mashed potato, the tidal wave of gravy so ready to come. She'd rolled him, kicked him, thrown him all over and out. He wouldn't do it again, he wouldn't wait, this was something that did not need to be undone, but something to be built upon.