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Poem: Have A Look In The Chemist’s
We don’t just do prescriptions – we’ve many other things – We’ve pick-me-ups and calm-me-downs, we’ve bandages and slings. There’s ointment for your skin, hay fever tablets by the score; Warming creams and cooling gels for muscles feeling sore. We’ve syrups and we’ve powders to help with ’flu and cough; Body-building pills if you can…
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Short Fiction: The Cobra Crown
Sweat dampened her hair and trickled down her neck as she slung a shoulder bag across her body. The red light in the darkroom didn’t help, intensifying the heat surging through her. Urgency drove her racing pulse, and the vital importance of her mission made her clammy hands tremble. She looked at the timer, willing…
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Poem: Tickets, Please
The stadium holds 64,000 Two tickets was all I desired To go see my favourite musician For the last time before he retired. I desperately wanted those tickets; I’ve been a fan many long years I knew that if I couldn’t get them I’d most likely end up in tears. There was only one way…
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Short Fiction: A Random Click of the Shutter
Everything in the bungalow was neat and pristine, except the photo frame. Its glass was clouded from her fingerprints, but she didn’t care. She’d taken the snap at her daughter’s wedding, miraculously capturing an unguarded moment of laughter between her husband and her daughter. A random click of the shutter became the treasured image of…
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Poem: Getting In
He tried password – it didn’t work; He tried 1234. He tried his place of birth but got No further than before. He tried his mother’s maiden name, His father’s mother’s too; He tried his first pet – and his last – But still it wouldn’t do.
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Memoir: My First One in Real Life
I was twenty-two years old, and about eight stone wet through. I was wearing a home-sewn wrap-over skirt – small brown and white flowers and green leaves on a black background, the hem finished off with cream broderie anglaise. The top half of my skinny frame was covered by a sleeveless v-necked t-shirt, over which…
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Song: You Can’t Call It Music
It’s something special, I know, and I don’t want to bore, But I guarantee that you’ve heard nothing like me before. But I have a talent – unusual thing – ‘Cause everyone shudders when I start to sing… I can scatter a crowd; People pray that I don’t sing out loud.
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Short Fiction: The Washerwoman
The men do not take the trouble to get to know me, but they are fascinated by me. They bring their easels and brushes and colours and stare at me as I work. If they want me to stop so they can catch the light from the water as I heave a sodden sheet from…
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Poem: Eat Your Heart Out
When we planned our kitchen, my husband said to me: ‘Get it how you want it – it’s the only chance there’ll be…’ I took him at his word and let my credit card run free And now I have a kitchen which teems with gadgetry… My kitchen’s the equivalent of my old man’s garden…
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Poem: This Is The Jewel
This is the jewel you held to the light To waken its soul for a wide-eyed young child; You kept me enthralled with your tales of its travels Through kingdoms fought over by warriors wild. This gem had been kept in a cave by a wise witch And countless the times it was borrowed and…