Category: contributors

Maybe a cook book set in a sassy, SAUCY
kitchen, where a unwitting PEACH
will be, via a hand much SURER
than mine, of its skin STRIPped.

In the same book, in an anecdote, a PARER
held at the specific angle – le CLASP
de la Cuisine – will surreptitiously shear a SHARD
from a non persona grata piece of beef JERKY

Or a thriller-noir, a fairground MELEE
in driving rain where the sun once SHONE
will bring the reader to a questioned CHECK:
how did the villain manage the slippery sideways GLIDE?

Or a medical nonfiction, where the author asks for the LEAST
pain, please, agonised as he sees the vast ARRAY
of surgical equipment, the X-ray of his BOWELs,
the professor asking, ‘How are we doing, MATEY?’

The romance: she slurping bowls of GUAVA;
he leaping from surrounding FLORA;
she a secretary of the genus LEGAL;
he a farmer, earthy, smelling of ONIONs.

The DIY handbook for the Everyman, whose QUALMs
have brought him desperate to its pages, where, shouting VOILA!
he sees the answer to his boat’s perpetual leaking: ‘CAULK
it!’ shouts the author, ‘You’ll soon be GOING!!’

Finally the YA fantasy, the frequent WHIFF
of stinky beasts, the loathsome snakes that CREEP
through every scene, the use of the BLUNTed
sword to conquer – which works better than the half-learned SPELL.

‘Hang it all, that makes me ANGRY.
Surely even you must be AWARE
that a stone’s value is known by its CARAT.
Plainly there is an infinite CHASM
of understanding between us; you a CHARD,
a plain green vegetable; me a CHILI
full of fire, tied to Reason as a CLEAT,
always, always ready and EAGER
for further knowledge, a star-GAZER,
no slave at Reason’s table, but a GUEST.’

Have you finished? So full of GUILE,
so manipulating, a hero in the GUSTO
of your own dire pride. Haven’t you HEARD
that your name is whispered at the KIOSKs,
your reputation has been KNEED
in private places, your fury needs a LEASH
to hold it, and that you are LOATH
to admit to the least fault. LUCID
I may not be in thinking, but LUCKY
am I not to be linked to a METRO-
sexual of your ilk, a man so NOISY
his brain chugs like a gluggy PUREE.
Not a single place of QUIET
resides there. WorSE, DAN
Cupid, bored, sits lonely in the SHADE
while shattered lovers fade upon the SHELF,
tarnished where once they SHONE.’

‘My love, my standard deviation, my SIGMA.’

BLAND, gray is the landscape;
DUSTY the car, the gravel roads.
FRUIT in the passing orchards,
LAYER on layer, has that tint of the
LOWLY, like men rising, who are
MINERs, from the pit at day’s end.
QUOTH my friend, sweating, ‘The
SCRUB ahead seems a sweet place to
SLEEP, to make camp. Open. Clear. My
SNOUT finds it out. I take my
STAND upon the very air itself, I
SWEAR by mine own career as a lion
TAMER it will go well with us.’ My
UNCLE – wrecked, panicked,
UPSET – groans. His antipathy to my
WACKY friend clearly shown.

‘ALTAR my suit, tailor. It’s too big around the
CHEST.’ ‘I can alter it, sir, make you look like Walter
DRAKE. Would that
DROOP your demeanour or
ELATE you?’ ‘Don’t be daft, man. I have to
EMCEE an important conference and I can’t look like a
FISH, You know, a fish about to
FLAIL around in something far too big for it.’ ‘I
GUESS I could do it, sir, though it would
HAUNT me to think that the
MICRO thread would be misaligned, like a
RIVER running, disappearing, then running. It would
SMOTE my heart. My long tailoring experience,
THERE, in that back room, would be affronted.’ ‘Your maxillary
TORUS will be affronted if you don’t do as I ask. Hurry man, my
YACHT sails on the noon tide.’