Jane Jago's Blog, page 37

Out today – Songs from a Tone-Deaf Minstrel

Songs from a Tone-Deaf Minstrel, poems from love songs to limericks by Jane Jago

Do you find life both amusing and frustrating? Are you an oddly-shaped peg in a regular hole? Do you march to the tune of your own band?
If any of this is familiar the poetry of a tone-deaf minstrel may be right up your crooked alley.

Ghost 
Creature of mist
Dances with night
Flirting with death
Flees from the light
Cries in the wind
Sings to the grave
When morning arrives
Dies like a knave

The poems take a somewhat...

Jacintha Farquhar Advises on Writing Social Intercourse

Jacintha Farquhar, maternal parent of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV offers important life lessons to those who like to think they’ve got what it takes to write a damn book…

Yes, it’s me, Jacintha Farquar, the unfortunate mother of the abominable Moons – that’s Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV to officialdom and ‘IVy’ to those fools who think him capable of stepping out of his self-centered and self-satisfied little world long enough to offer them some tenuous parody of friendship.
Well as...

Autumn’s Lost Gown

The streets are a-dancing in autumn’s lost gown
A scatter of leaves that sprinkled the town
Blown with the crisp packets to catch on a hedge
Swept with the dogends under each ledge.
Played with by the children, in drifts in the park
Lifted by blustery winds for a lark
Packed by the tramp of feet, wet from the rain
Swirled down the gutters and blocking the drain.
Golden and orange and yellow and brown
Streets filled with the beauty of autumn’s lost gown.

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Dying to be Roman XX

Dying to be Roman  by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook is a whodunit set in an alternative modern day Britain where the Roman Empire still rules.

Another tap came on the door and a sentry stuck his head in.
“Bryn Cartivel, dominus.”
“Who?”
“My decanus,” Dai provided.
“Send him in then.”
Bryn came in looking, Julia thought, a bit nervous. Dai obviously agreed with her because he barked out a laugh, which he covered quickly.
“What is it?” Decimus shot a disapproving frown at Dai as he asked the question,...

Granny’s A-Z – G is for Greedy Gits

Things that make us go poop…

Granny and the ‘ladies’ darts team of The Dog and Trumpet alphabetically collate their collective contempt for the inhabitants of the twenty-first century.

G is for: Greedy bastards (yes, I changed it in the title for those of a delicate disposition)

Having no wish to stray to deeply into the faeces infested water that is politics, we will, for the purposes of this rant, make the sweeping generalisation that all those with political ambition see their politi...

100 Acre Wood Revisited – Middle Class Rap

Things are not quite how you might remember them in the 100 Acre Wood for Christopher Robin, Pooh Bear and their friends…

***** ***** *****

Jane Jago

Ian Bristow Inspires – Draco

Writing inspired by the art of Ian Bristow

About his feet the little people quaked and cried. He curled his lip in scorn. 

He felt a strong desire to cook the soldiers in their metal cuirasses but chivalry demanded that he kill only where necessary so he reined in his fury.

Instead, he turned his face on the invading king and allowed himself one roar of rage.

The man fell to his knees and covered his eyes.

“Die infidel.”

As the king grovelled, a ballista twanged thickly and the...

Drabblings – Regret

Telling an entire story in just one hundred words…

It’s been cold in the house since Karina left. There’s an emptiness. A Karina-shaped hole through my heart, just as the cushions on her favourite chair still show the marks of where she sat.

I never stop regretting the argument. What did it matter she’d bought herself a new shawl? 

If I could take it back…

I still light the lantern each night, I’d not want to think she might pass this way and miss the house.

Footsteps outside.

...

Jacintha Farquhar Advises on Writing Cultural References

Jacintha Farquhar, maternal parent of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV offers important life lessons to those who like to think they’ve got what it takes to write a damn book…

Yup. Jacintha Farquar. Again. Here to moan in your lugholes about whatever turgid pap you writers seem to think you can hurl at us poor readers with no comeback.
I mean, here to help you aspiring novelists hone your art and improve your technique.
Honestly.

Cultural References

You, yes, you, stop looking away as if...

November’s Sunshine

November sunshine’s more of steel than gold
Pellucid light that drips through cloud
And slides as subtle gleams
Transmuting green below and blue above to grey
Enwrapping all in chastest shades
Drawing more of shadow into each day
And close about the naked trees
Discarded twigs and leaves
Acorns, chestnuts, all next season’s seeds
And smoke that lingers in the clinging mist.

Eleanor Swift-Hook