Tales from the edge of the morning sky

Send us Fan Mail October fields  before the fall,  ploughed deep  and long  ‘afore winters call,  for the skies  are wrapped  in a thousand stars,  of spring and time  soon to be, and remembered,  in the stillness  and passing  of hurrying hours beside the silent waves  and restless sea.   And so to leave  this month of days,  the door,  the windows open,  the trees afire,  in this dawn,  the firs...

Send us Fan Mail Barrels and kegs, bobbed in a dispersed crowd of debris. The winds howled and raged, the sky stripped and torn, as the rising moon seemed to race across the beaches like ships overhead.  They were knee deep in the waters that frothed and foamed around them. There were fewer cries of help now, the rocks just off shore, jagged and razor like, had done their worst. Men lay on the bea...

Send us Fan Mail The dog pulled on her line, her owner called her back, but she pulled insistently towards the pile of clothes on the narrow footpath. She walked along the edge of the fields most days, enjoying the changing weather, the patterned skies, the whisper of distant waves and the shining light of the sea. ‘What is it? What is it?’ She implored Cassie, as she pulled harder this time, her...

Send us Fan Mail She turned and for what seemed like an eternity she looked through him, the ghost of himself, back to the other place and time from where he thought he was from. He could feel her bringing him into focus. He gaze like a lens bringing firmness and purpose to his own. Slowly, so slowly it seemed, her eyes recognised him. The distance of place and time fell away. He was with her. At...

Send us Fan Mail She was on her knees now as he swam the last yards to the shore. He was exhausted, heavy and felt as much a part of the elements as he was within himself. ‘Perhaps,’ he thought out loud, ‘I was always here. Always now,’ he swallowed water, choked, the brackish salty water tasted like the metallic skies that raced over head. Emily’s screaming pulled him from his introspection, and...

Send us Fan Mail Again, he had the choice. And this time he stepped over himself. Flicking off his shoes, tearing his shirt off, releasing his trousers to the sand at his feet he ran and plunged deep into the beckoning waters. The water was surprisingly warm, but heavy and still. The thickness of it made him struggle at first until he stopped fighting. A crowd of birds had flown into the sky as hi...

Send us Fan Mail The mizzen, main and foremasts pointed like crooked fingers to a moon that had risen in bouts of blindness, high ahead, in the rush of clouds, ragged and broken, tearing in blinks of shadow, darkness, and fleeting moments of broken light. The roar of sea and sky flung the silence that they shared into the beaten grass beneath their feet. They were standing now. Supporting each oth...

Send us Fan Mail ‘John, John,’ she whispered again, ‘Are we there yet?’ He turned and looked out across the fleet, beyond the skies and to the edge of his world. Quietly he whispered back ‘Almost my love, almost, take me back, take me back to the storm once again.  And all at once, the sky seemed to seethe and  darken. As if the world had been shaken, held in the grasp of ferocious hands, the view...

Send us Fan Mail He felt her hand press his own. Reassurance. Affirmation. He never really knew. Each time anew. The grass was over grown again. Few people came here. Even fewer knew the place as he did. The immense skies, a constant theatre of changing clouds, above the great moving silence of the sea. And behind the great berm, the haven for all with wings and calling, the lagoon of calm and unr...

Send us Fan Mail Fleet Almost hidden. Along the path, beside the cottages, parallel to the cobbled road, the sunken old church was hidden from view. The bend in the road took most drivers, walkers, and the occasional cyclist, past the new church to the camping and caravan park that huddled, straggling in knots along the thin strip of land that separated the folding waves of the fields from the lag...

Send us Fan Mail Tonight (Time and Distance) It’s windy tonight.  The telegraph wires rolling under the skies, skimming clouds, racing inland from the sunsetting west.  And the road winds, grey in haste and evening black, a distant car growls and blinks, hurrying homeward before the hiss and blow of the last of showers.  For above, there is a racing moon behind the skies, the silence of stars, the...

Send us Fan Mail Six bells Six bells, the first call  to morning, I’d never believe  it was so still  and July,  for the early morning  is with mist  and wreathes  of hanging clouds,  the summer heat  has simply gone,  slipped under  the warning bark  of crows,  for the earth  is wet,  with furrows  of running water,  like afterthoughts,  forgotten thoughts,  empty thoughts,  the runnels  of memor...

Send us Fan Mail Storm It’s here,  ominous,  the sky deepening,  the black dusk in dark fists  of clouds,  thickening blindly,  overhead.  Everything is still,  waiting,  a great thirst  covers the brittle,  dry,  and empty earth,  even the birds  have stopped  singing,  hidden in the forest, seemingly empty  of life, and silent  in the hushed quiet  of a million voices  closed, in the futile gras...

Send us Fan Mail She walked She walked  along the sidewalk in the early morning of December, beautiful through the dull,  the dark  and grey,  her face  a picture  of springtime,  the promise  of summer  who walked beside her, never having  gone away. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me...

Send us Fan Mail Broken Sky Lightning bolts the rattle battle  of thunder storms spectacular castles,  and cathedral clouds,  Another day  to end. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do give me feedback! p1964km@googlemail.com

Send us Fan Mail Blind Immaculate,fresh sneakers, perfectly shaved, slicked back hair, crisply ironed shirt- only the cane and the way he felt his way on board the now familiar 207 bus, made it clear to anyone who was watching.  His partner helped him: as he lightly touched her elbow she guided him up the steps, and to the outside front seat, slightly to the right but behind the driver. She sat ne...

Send us Fan Mail Cobalt Moon. I stepped onto the terrace, the still and silent evening wrapped in grey echoing the church bells that chimed in steps and distances across the deepening  shadows thickening into the emptiness, the last breath of Spring, the falling memories and blossom of the passing month of May, And hidden in the hush, the green, the places where the wind left and went away, I saw...

Send us Fan Mail Sleepy Summer Afternoon It’s a lazy,  sleepy afternoon,  the villages  are empty,  flowers, in colours  of summer,  curtsy  and nod  in the baking sunlight,  radiating off walls  and shimmering rooftops, and,  as if uplifted,  a single buzzard  flies  and swoops  overhead.  It’s so warm,  the distance  is translated,  from far  and away,  to the here  and now:  a band of  light ab...

Send us Fan Mail Awakening Awakening hints  of morning, the coming  of heat  through  the thinning  morning cloak  of cloud,  steel  of sky,  and springtime  grey, above high upon the Maple  sings the blackbird lifting the dawn of life and light, this day. Feel free to contact me. Be nice to know who my audience is and perhaps you can suggest some further topics or themes for my writing! And do gi...

Send us Fan Mail Thunder Rain I heard  the thunder  last night,  deep growls,  and dragons like flames,  hidden, in the shattered  darkness,  splitting the sky  into splinters  of storm, and light,  I looked out  through  the window,  my face  a shadow, facing myself  outside  of myself,  and saw  the silhouettes  of rooftops,  the shocks  and silences  of trees  standing, in the dead of night. Fe...

Send us Fan Mail Moon, Kite and Wings And there  above the roof  of heaven split,  the scratch  and travel  of a different kind,  aloft in modern times,  with pencil wings,  silver fuselage,  streaking in white  and across  the evening sky,  and behind  the slow,  silver dark  of a passing  summer moon,  in phases removed  and reflected,  reaching behind  the temporary  the here and now,  the turn...

Send us Fan Mail For  the briefest of moments  For the briefest  of moments,  the emerald green  was lit, by an opening door,  Spring walked  from the west, bathed in silence,  light and  of summer gold,  the trees,  their leaves,  each of the millions  of blades  and grass,  lit in fires  of incandescence,  as she stepped  from the edge  of the evening sky,  and walked through  the shadows,  the...

Send us Fan Mail Sounds of… Sounds  of cicadas,  the soft  gentle fall, of a summers  day,  the last  blackbirds  singing,  closing  the afterglow,  a last tractor  mowing  the meadows,  the flutter  of swallows,  the laughter  of neighbours,  the perfume  of blossoms,  the smell  of hay,  and above  the clouds,  incandescence,  opalescence,  the yellow  smudge  of an evening  sun,  the day ends ...

Send us Fan Mail I only noticed,  the grey  of sky,  the steel  of cloud,  the fractured light,  in the hours  that chimed  and called upon the city rooftops,  their echoes of time,  the closing  of yesterday,  for the trees  were silhouetted,  the woodland, in knots  and fists,  of gales, of night  and rages  of wind, when she  simply turned turned to rain and fell  upon the silence  and softly s...

Send us Fan Mail High Rain Something  about the morning,  rain from the west  across the sullen skies,  seems November  has returned,  summer’s lost  her way,  hiding behind  the clouds,  blushing behind  the dawn,  hiding her modesty,  closing her eyes. For below  the fields stand  empty, along  the churning river,  the trees weigh,  heavily with raindrops,  and tapestries  of springtime  in flou...