Submissions by The_Silly_Sibyl (Tommy or Tuppence)
POEMS AND SHORT STORIES
STORY POEM
Published
11th Apr 2021 3:13pm
11th Apr 2021 3:13pm
The Summer Guests
If you stand in the garden on a summer afternoon,
she’s there. Always still,
in a dress like a scrap of ephemera,
white and silken, spider-webs,
woven by Arachne to cover her servant’s nakedness.
On the wrought-iron table would be lemonade and biscuits,
a smartphone left in the dying sun,
tossed there by a hand impatient to be done
with daily connectivity. The timeless quality
of love is what our summer ghosts have taught,
she in her Grecian spider-web and he,
a dapper-suited man emerging always from the path
that winds between...
she’s there. Always still,
in a dress like a scrap of ephemera,
white and silken, spider-webs,
woven by Arachne to cover her servant’s nakedness.
On the wrought-iron table would be lemonade and biscuits,
a smartphone left in the dying sun,
tossed there by a hand impatient to be done
with daily connectivity. The timeless quality
of love is what our summer ghosts have taught,
she in her Grecian spider-web and he,
a dapper-suited man emerging always from the path
that winds between...
#ghosts
18 reads
3 Comments
NON-FICTION PROSE
Published
11th Apr 2021 2:59am
11th Apr 2021 2:59am
BOOK REVIEW Tender Is the Flesh (2019)
for more reviews of horror fiction, see my blog: thelibraryatborleyrectory.wordpress.com
A simple bit of advice: don’t read this novel while eating a Big Mac, or really any meat dish, fast food or haute cuisine. Tender Is the Flesh, an Argentinan novel about a world where animal meat has been declared inedible and replaced with human, is one of the most disturbing novels I’ve read. This is due as much to how the content is delivered, in spare and clinical prose, as the content itself. It’s a dystopian novel like few others, making some of even the most fearsome fictional futures...
A simple bit of advice: don’t read this novel while eating a Big Mac, or really any meat dish, fast food or haute cuisine. Tender Is the Flesh, an Argentinan novel about a world where animal meat has been declared inedible and replaced with human, is one of the most disturbing novels I’ve read. This is due as much to how the content is delivered, in spare and clinical prose, as the content itself. It’s a dystopian novel like few others, making some of even the most fearsome fictional futures...
#prose
18 reads
0 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
5th Apr 2021 3:15pm
5th Apr 2021 3:15pm
The Daughters of Baal
Amy lit candles and Becky arranged them in a circle on the coffee table. Outside the balcony doors, on the street below, people were arguing. Neither girl heard them. Amy began to chant the words as she read them from a leather-bound book.
‘The daughters of Baal’ is what she called herself and Becky, which made Becky laugh. From emo fangirls to daughters of Baal. Under Amy’s direction she burnt a little wooden cross in a pewter dish. Rejection of the new God, embrace of the old.
Amy and Becky had known each other since they were children growing up on an estate...
‘The daughters of Baal’ is what she called herself and Becky, which made Becky laugh. From emo fangirls to daughters of Baal. Under Amy’s direction she burnt a little wooden cross in a pewter dish. Rejection of the new God, embrace of the old.
Amy and Becky had known each other since they were children growing up on an estate...
#gothic
#ShortStory
34 reads
2 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
29th Mar 2021 10:30pm
29th Mar 2021 10:30pm
A Poem from the Crypt
dedicated to the slow death of the Comics Code Authority, established in 1954 as a response to the violent and macabre content of horror comics including Tales from the Crypt
Western comics died back when
the clock read nineteen-fifty-four.
The people called on stately men
to save our children, change the law,
and burn these technicolour coats.
(In years before the audience
had read with eager eyes and hands
of murder, stalking, severance
of dainty blonds on Cali sands
and patriarchs in Central Park.)
The necromancer's...
Western comics died back when
the clock read nineteen-fifty-four.
The people called on stately men
to save our children, change the law,
and burn these technicolour coats.
(In years before the audience
had read with eager eyes and hands
of murder, stalking, severance
of dainty blonds on Cali sands
and patriarchs in Central Park.)
The necromancer's...
#PopCulture
35 reads
6 Comments
LOVE POEM
Published
27th Mar 2021 10:02pm
27th Mar 2021 10:02pm
Held
I dreamt of being held
by male arms and gaze.
The man whose arms
encircled me was kind,
but I could never find
a manly type like that,
not in pop culture
or thought. And those define
a growing heart.
I therefore tuned said heart
and caught another channel,
which came through in rougher
and less gentle waves.
A man who butchers hearts
and calls his lovers slaves.
by male arms and gaze.
The man whose arms
encircled me was kind,
but I could never find
a manly type like that,
not in pop culture
or thought. And those define
a growing heart.
I therefore tuned said heart
and caught another channel,
which came through in rougher
and less gentle waves.
A man who butchers hearts
and calls his lovers slaves.
#relationships
42 reads
2 Comments
FICTIONAL PROSE
Published
27th Mar 2021 2:38pm
27th Mar 2021 2:38pm
The Pale Hounds
a ghost story
Martin thought it was absurd that Mrs Baum wanted everyone inside by 11:00 PM, to not leave the club between then and 06:00 AM, or else stay in the nearby village at your own expense. Given that she was a sponsor of the country club and paying for her party's stay, he supposed she had the right, but it was still stupid and selfish. Why couldn't she understand that young people might want to spend the night at a bar, or some other place of entertainment outside the confines of a Victorian manor house whose television room looked like it hadn't been updated since the...
Martin thought it was absurd that Mrs Baum wanted everyone inside by 11:00 PM, to not leave the club between then and 06:00 AM, or else stay in the nearby village at your own expense. Given that she was a sponsor of the country club and paying for her party's stay, he supposed she had the right, but it was still stupid and selfish. Why couldn't she understand that young people might want to spend the night at a bar, or some other place of entertainment outside the confines of a Victorian manor house whose television room looked like it hadn't been updated since the...
#ShortStory
38 reads
6 Comments
STORY POEM
Published
26th Mar 2021 11:05pm
26th Mar 2021 11:05pm
You’re an Artist
Beauty is thee
And weird is me.
Lovely is he
And soil is free
When you’re dead.
A writer’s well-read
And a hack is just read.
And forgot. I’m bled,
You bleed.
Mine is plastic,
Yours is reed.
You're an artist. When you were born, it was in a room painted eggshell-white, with sailboats and teddy bears on the wainscoting. Your mother let you loose in the garden as soon as you could crawl and you interacted with butterflies, chubby little fingers and eyes filled with wonder probing the complex beauty of their insectoid...
And weird is me.
Lovely is he
And soil is free
When you’re dead.
A writer’s well-read
And a hack is just read.
And forgot. I’m bled,
You bleed.
Mine is plastic,
Yours is reed.
You're an artist. When you were born, it was in a room painted eggshell-white, with sailboats and teddy bears on the wainscoting. Your mother let you loose in the garden as soon as you could crawl and you interacted with butterflies, chubby little fingers and eyes filled with wonder probing the complex beauty of their insectoid...
#reading
50 reads
2 Comments
STORY POEM
Published
24th Mar 2021 3:17am
24th Mar 2021 3:17am
F D I O
For Aha, who suggested the theme. The story is taken from a Greek myth as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses
And so King Jupiter stealthily raped
the pale nymph Io,
whose kind but stern father, the river god,
had thought her in his care.
But Kings have plans that must be carried out,
libidinal and otherwise. And as he watched
her pale naked form,
rarely touched by natural rays
but kept concealed beneath
a canopy of leaves within
her father’s dense chambers,
he longed to own the hourglass
that stretched from...
And so King Jupiter stealthily raped
the pale nymph Io,
whose kind but stern father, the river god,
had thought her in his care.
But Kings have plans that must be carried out,
libidinal and otherwise. And as he watched
her pale naked form,
rarely touched by natural rays
but kept concealed beneath
a canopy of leaves within
her father’s dense chambers,
he longed to own the hourglass
that stretched from...
#mythology
46 reads
2 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
21st Mar 2021 9:08pm
21st Mar 2021 9:08pm
What is a story?
A story is what happens
when a man with a gun
walks into the room.
It’s as simple as
“The man walked down the street.”
The only effort is
deciding what he does next.
Writers aren’t special,
just practiced, and paid.
They do what everyone does
every day
for free. Except that their stories
aren’t even true.
(Which is probably why they get paid.)
when a man with a gun
walks into the room.
It’s as simple as
“The man walked down the street.”
The only effort is
deciding what he does next.
Writers aren’t special,
just practiced, and paid.
They do what everyone does
every day
for free. Except that their stories
aren’t even true.
(Which is probably why they get paid.)
#books
55 reads
8 Comments
OBSERVATIONAL POEM
Published
19th Mar 2021 9:59pm
19th Mar 2021 9:59pm
Lovely Corpse
Every writer would come along with ideas, someone always suggested a character get raped. I said, ‘The thing is, that character’s already been raped.’ There was this big silence, and my boss said, “When was she last raped?” Sexual violence, violence against women, was the go-to for creating any drama. And it went on the quote wall: ‘When was she last raped?’” - From Line of Duty to The Fall: why can’t TV shows stop killing women? (Zoe Williams, The Guardian, 2021)
“Prepare your bosom for his knife.”
That’s Shakespeare, that.
Can’t argue there.
And what if it...
“Prepare your bosom for his knife.”
That’s Shakespeare, that.
Can’t argue there.
And what if it...
#MeToo
56 reads
4 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
9th Mar 2021 5:07pm
9th Mar 2021 5:07pm
the Jerusalem I know
the England I know
or see
- firstly through the bitter lens
of want
and then with eyes trained on
a distant field
requiring for perfect exposure
a light burnished by Summer’s heat
or Autumn’s fade
or just as with today
the afternoon’s decline -
is always within sight
but out of reach
for example
while eating lunch
at a harbour
with a broad and empty promenade
and watching a slanted field
framed by trees
beyond the water and
shimmering slightly
or see
- firstly through the bitter lens
of want
and then with eyes trained on
a distant field
requiring for perfect exposure
a light burnished by Summer’s heat
or Autumn’s fade
or just as with today
the afternoon’s decline -
is always within sight
but out of reach
for example
while eating lunch
at a harbour
with a broad and empty promenade
and watching a slanted field
framed by trees
beyond the water and
shimmering slightly
#spiritual
46 reads
2 Comments
SPIRITUAL POEM
Published
8th Mar 2021 9:06pm
8th Mar 2021 9:06pm
the astonishing light
I wish I could show you, when you are lonely or in darkness, the Astonishing Light of your own Being“ - Hafez, Persian poet, 1315 to 1390
whatever you are
you’re a soul
by which I mean a personality
bound up by time
and slowly unravelled until
you rise out of your shell
I don’t know if there’s butterflies
or furnaces or clouds
or anything at all
often I suspect
there’s nothing much after
but if I could
and if I knew the pain that you were in
I’d take you to a dark forest
and walk with you...
whatever you are
you’re a soul
by which I mean a personality
bound up by time
and slowly unravelled until
you rise out of your shell
I don’t know if there’s butterflies
or furnaces or clouds
or anything at all
often I suspect
there’s nothing much after
but if I could
and if I knew the pain that you were in
I’d take you to a dark forest
and walk with you...
#suffering
37 reads
2 Comments
DU Poetry : Submissions by The_Silly_Sibyl (Tommy or Tuppence)
