David Hadley's Blog, page 171

Free: Poetry Book -This Brief Life of Sparks

Available Free for the next few days:

This Brief Life of Sparks

A Collection of 100 poems by David Hadley.

David Hadley's poems have been published in Stand, Eclipse, Envoi, Poetry Nottingham International, Raw Edge and several other magazines in the UK and US. 

Several of his poems have also been cherry-picked by the editors at abctales.com.

Some comments on David Hadley’s poems:

“your lovely poem awoke my own memories”
“An elegant poem”
“wow well done”
“That was beautiful.”
“That captures my ambivalent feelings about morning! Love those last five lines.”
“This is simply gorgeous, poignant and bittersweet. Thank you for this”
“Lovely and delicate, like your dancer.”
“This is a beautiful poem, hadley! I love the two-stansa structure and whole reflective, traquil feel. Well done ;)”
“I like the way you write - sounds a bit strange, lol, but true.”
“very Keats like … much enjoyed.”
“another scorcher!”
“Lovely rhymes and rhythm, quite a warming feeling, good stuff!”
“What a beautiful picture you paint with your words.”
“Wow, this is pure perfection. I absolutely love this poem. You use a whole different dimension here- a unique story told in familiar ways. Each stanza, each line and each word is in perfect harmony. This is what I call craftsmanship. Well done.”
“Absolutely beautiful. I'm awe struck, well done :)”
“I really like the way this evolves… The line: 'Silence speaks like a sullen child.' is great,”
“really enjoyed, beautiful :) Especially the last lines.”
“I found this strangely haunting.”
“absolutely spell-bounding stuff.”
“I liked this, especially the last few lines”
“This is a nice piece of work - well done.”
“Thoughtful and thought provoking.”
“I like this. Can identify with the little things forgotten when waking and lost.”
“an interesting - and thought-provoking -piece.”
“fantastic! Love this line: 'where all the rules are torn / to scatter like coloured confetti '”
“An excellent evocation of the dreamworld.”
“'it's harder than you think to close / the doors of all those memories.' So true...”
“I think this is a beautiful poem…”
“Good one.”
“beautifully poetic, I really like this.”
“"Running the sands of my life / through my opening fingers" lovely lines”
“Brilliant stuff. Loved it.”
“I liked this. There is a good truth in this”
“Eloquent, beautiful.”
“Lovely words.”
“This is stunning, I've read it over and over again and will do many times today.”
“Great. Love the opening lines, turning a cliched image into a new, fresh one. This so mirrors my own reflections on where I am. Fabulous write”
“I love the first two lines. Gripped my attention straight away. A lovely poem. Well done.”
“That's really good.”
“Quite heart-rending.”
“I love the refrain - so song-like and yet sad!”
“I enjoyed this, Hadley. Some nice imagery here.”
“Really poignant.”
“this is a really good read. I love the descriptions, I can almost see her! Well done.”
“Simple words, simple form; complicated things.”
“Enjoyed the complexity behind these thoughts”
“Very touching and nice...”
“That is just such a beautiful image”
“simple, pure, evocative”
“Reading this makes me uncomfortable. That's what makes it interesting!”
“A very well written solid piece of writing here.”
“I really like this poem.”
“This was beautiful in a kind of sombre way”
“Beautiful poem - rich in imagery.”
“Such a beautiful take on the detritus of war, I really like this”
“So rhythmical, lovely and lulling, sounds like a sad lullaby”
“I like this poem, telling of the wind’s character.”
“this is lovely Hadley - really enjoyed it”
“Lovely.”
“This is a nice cosy poem, thinking of Autumn not far away, and longer nights to come. Enjoyed very much.”
“I really liked this poem. You have given it an air of mystery, as this woman looks out on the world she cannot quite trust. Very descriptive and poignant.”
“This is a beautiful poem and yet it is unbearably sad.”
“'And then we fall apart to lie alone'.. Great line. Lovely poem. Nice job.”
“Some brilliant images and beautiful words here”
“what a true day to day picture you paint with this poem, it rings very true.”
“Stunning”

Also available free here.

Those Watercress Sandwiches

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Well, as you can no doubt imagine, a fair amount of the wainscoting had to be repainted and some of the more elderly of the academic gentlemen needed a fresh hosing down with disinfectant, but still all things considered we got off lightly. I, for one, did not fancy creosoting the entire History Department, even after the recent cutbacks, some of those emeritus professors have some rather tricky recesses, alcoves and cornices, making it very difficult to work the creosote into them, especially with a large brush.

Still, I digress….

Although, the doctor has promised me it will clear up if I take the course of tablets until they run out.

So, moving on….

Or, not.

No, hang on, I remember now. It was that night you and I shared those watercress sandwiches whilst half-watching the ending minutes of some reality programme or other.

No, it doesn’t matter which one, they are all the same…..

No, listen, anyway you said….

No, it was the one where the putative chefs have to dance on ice with a z-list ‘celebrity’ whilst creating a soufflé out of a section of MDF and three rolls of flock wallpaper in order to get a job helping to run a market stall… or at least, from what I saw of the programme, that was what it seemed to involve.

Anyway, as I was saying…..

Bugger.

See, you’ve made me forget now….

Still, the watercress sandwiches were nice.

The Plague

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‘Hmm….’ The shopkeeper looked at me. ‘What sort of thing are you looking for, exactly?’

‘Something… Something… something that will show my anger, my wrath, my displeasure,’ I said, feeling the anger returning.

‘Ah, right.’ The shopkeeper looked around his wares. ‘One of those.’

‘One of what,’ I said.

‘Oh, we get a lot of that from… hobbyists like you.’ He leant forward over the counter. ‘Let me guess… some sort of intelligent life is it, giving you the hump?’

I nodded. ‘How did you know?’

‘I’ve been in this game a few years now,’ he said. ‘My grandfather started this shop; there isn’t much we don’t know.’ He looked around the shop again. ‘We’ve seen it all.’

‘Humans,’ I said.

‘Ah,’ he said, nodding. ‘Humans….’

‘What?’

‘Humans, they are always the worst. Some of them even get the idea that you’ve made them in your own image.’

‘Cheeky buggers,’ I said.

‘You’ll have to be firm with them, otherwise they’ll start taking over your whole creation.’

‘I know,’ I said, sighing. ‘I made this nice little… garden … sort of place for them, just a pair of them, y’know. Next thing I know bloody civilisations of them all over the place.’

‘Typical,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘Have you thought about a flood?’

I nodded. ‘They built boats.’

‘Hmmm….’ He turned to the storeroom at the back ‘Hang on,’ he said.

I waited.

‘Try this,’ he said on his return. He put a box down on the counter. The box shook, shimmied, and bounded. He put his hand down on it. The box bulged and shifted under his hand.

‘What’s that?’ I asked.

‘Frogs.’

‘Frogs?’

‘A plague…’ he said, opening the box carefully. ‘…of frogs.’

I looked in the box. ‘Six is not much of a plague.’

He sucked his teeth. ’ Sorry squire, can’t get the parts… you know how it is….’

I thought for a moment. Last time I’d looked at my creation some of those crafty humans had started inventing the wheel… admittedly it was triangular, but it was only a matter of time…. I looked up at the shopkeeper. ‘Wrap them up, I’ll take them.’

‘A wise choice, sir.’ The shopkeeper said, beaming at me.

The Days are Barred and Bolted

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Some mornings it is hard to find a way into the day. The day has its doors bolted shut and all its windows locked. The day is waiting, there, in front of you but there seems to be no way in. You are stuck out here in the dark and cold of the night; where strange nocturnal creatures haunt the shadows, waiting for you to step away from the day and return to the night.

You used to know the secret of mornings; how you could get the door of a day to open to you and welcome into the warmth of a day that felt as though it was there waiting for you.

Now the days are barred and bolted as you wander lost inside the night, looking for that path that will lead you back to the day; looking for the route that will take you back to your daytime world.

The dark, cold nights have stretched their black blankets over what used to be the route back to the day and now you cannot even see the warm welcoming light from its windows. A light guiding you back to that one place you know you will always be safe; the one place where the night is shut out and kept safe beyond the doors and windows.

New Book Out Now: Sex, Pies and Sticky Tape

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Sex, Pies and Sticky Tape

Here we are back, once again, in Little Frigging in the Wold: England’s most perverse, erotic and excitingly-moist village, for some more tales of rural life, with more adventures and tales featuring Grand Uncle Stagnant, Old Feebletrousers, Strom Thighhammer, the cake shop manageress and many more of Little Frigging’s residents.

This book includes over one hundred stories involving inter-village competitive orgies, the erotic use of foodstuffs, how to extract as much money from tourists as possible, the naked pogo-stick steeplechase, mid-air and deep-sea perversions, the use of the fetish unicycle, medieval woodland perversions, the erotic use of cardigans, achieving match fitness in an inter-village orgy squad, accountancy fetish night in the village hall, and – of course – the best way of sellotaping a Cornish pasty to an assistant librarian for erotic purposes and much, much more.

Buy here (UK) or here (US)

Some comments on David Hadley’s writing:

“Wonderfully weird.”
“brilliantly funny story. I love it.”
“good god, I haven’t laughed so much in ages. “
“very funny, I had a good laugh at this story”
“Clever, and very funny.”
“really funny, had a right good old laugh at this
story.”
“This made me laugh so much, tears came into my eyes….”
“I just sprayed barely masticated tomato all over my keyboard from laughing too hard”
“highly creative and hilarious as always”
“lol this is so funny.”
“another one of yours I truly enjoyed, “Old Feebletrousers” love it!”
“This is a very funny story, it made me laugh.”
“Absolutely brilliant. Thank you”
“This piece produced a lot of giggles!”
“Yep! This was a real funny piece, it had me laughing….”

Arrival

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Sandra dropped her bag on the bed, opened the window and then flopped onto the bed herself. ‘We are here…. At last.’

‘I don’t dare believe it.’ Ian left the suitcases just inside the door and sat down in the nearest chair. ‘Are we?

Sandra‘s smile was weary. ‘Yes.’

Ian looked around the hotel room. ‘Right….’

Sandra lay back on the bed and kicked off her shoes. ‘Well, then.’

‘Aye.’

Sandra turned her head towards him. ‘What, is that all?’

‘What?’ Ian stared up at the ceiling. ‘What is all what?’

‘Is that all you can say?’

‘Isn't it enough?’

‘But… after al the trouble, all the difficulties we've had getting here.’

‘That's just it.’ Ian sighed. ‘I'm tired.’

‘Tired? How can you say that at a time like this?’

‘Because it’s true, I am tired. I want to go to bed.’

‘But… well, its not even properly dark yet.’

‘That doesn't bother me,’ Ian said, getting to his feet and moving over to the bed. ‘Anyway, I won't notice when my eyes are shut.’

‘Huh. I hope you aren't going to be like that all the time we are here.’

‘No, of course not,’ Ian replied, lying on the bed next to Sandra. ‘I'm just tired from the journey, that's all.’ He shuffled closer to her on the bed and stroked her arm with his fingertip. ‘Anyway, don't you fancy a little lie down together, eh?’’

‘Why are you looking at me like that? What are you doing?’

‘I'm taking your clothes off.’

‘I thought you said you were tired?’ Sandra grinned at him.

‘I am, but there are some things you can do lying down.’

Sandra half sat up so he could pull her top off over her head. ‘Oh, yes. I think this is going to be a good holiday, after all,’ she said, leaning forward to help unfasten Ian’s trousers.

A Reasonable Excuse for Any Lateness

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Possibly the only reason why she had the parrot was because of the threat of incipient terrorist attack, either that or she felt she needed some kind of post-feminist critique of her pastry-making technique and – after all – it was a female parrot and it had tenure at one of the more prestigious French universities during the period in question.

However, transporting a parrot on the back of a moped through some of the busiest thoroughfares of a major French metropolis is not a matter for the neophyte, especially if that neophyte is wearing a skirt of such shortness as to distract the taxi drivers from their business, no matter how diligent they usually are.

After all, we know taxi drivers the world over are not the sort to compromise their professionalism by leaning out of their open car windows to express their opinion on the suitability or otherwise of an attractive young lady’s mode of dress, even if she is accompanied on her excursions by an extremely voluble avian companion and one – furthermore – not disinclined to share its more robust opinions with any interlocutor on the urban thoroughfare.

Anyway, the resulting pile-up was the reason why I was late for our meeting at the café, and why there was an errant parrot feather stuck to my trousers….

Well, that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

Monday Poem: The Heat Oppresses Us

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The Heat Oppresses Us

The heat oppresses us
pulling us down

towards the least
that can be done.

Each movement
takes its toll

on movement
in this airless world.

Where even breathing
becomes a chore

and time drips like sweat
down the melting clock face

and sticks us
tight against these sheets,

as we watch the window
waiting for the curtains

to indicate a breeze
has come to rescue us.

The Penguin Always Eats Omelettes

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'Once or twice, or not depending on how heavy it is, but with my knees you'd be lucky to get much change out of a fiver, especially in the early flamingo season.' Soon, everyone will be familiar with the opening scene of The Penguin Always Eats Omelettes, predicted to become the biggest grossing film of all time, at least until something bigger comes along. The film is based on the best-selling Norwegian thriller of the same name. The Penguin Always Eats Omelettes is a violent, blood-soaked multiple murder mystery set in the violent and seedy underbelly of the Norwegian penguin-rental industry.

The film, as no-one in the worldwide film audience is interested in Norway, was reset to the far more glamorous location of exotic downtown Wolverhampton. Here the hero of the film, Larch Larchensonsonson – renamed Stud Dobbinwang for the film's mainly American audience - works in the UK's burgeoning fried breakfast industry as a former celebrity egg poacher down on his luck and working in a backstreet breakfast café.

After many script changes, the film now only seems to resemble the book in its title and the number of young women seemingly desperate to get out of their clothes for some of the most improbable reasons in some of the more unusual locations in cinema history. The film tells the tale of how Dobbinwang accidentally discovers, in the alley behind his kitchen, the brutally-murdered corpse of Wolverhampton's most notorious dealer in bootleg fried bread to the town's cafés.

When several witnesses come forward, all claiming they saw Dobbinwang standing over the body with his spatula in hand; the police immediately accuse him of the murder. Having no choice, but to go on the run to clear his name, Dobbinwang flees Wolverhampton with Trollope Honeythighs, the large-breasted waitress from his café, which starts off a desperate chase, leaving a trail of murder and mayhem that brings chaos to Wolverhampton and its ring road.

Of course, everyone in the city had heard rumours about the corruption in the breakfast provision industry and how the city’s bacon inspectors were demanding protection money from the cafes, in return for turning a blind eye to the egg poaching, but Dobbinwang had no idea just how high up the corruption had spread.

The question is, though, can Dobbinwang and Honeythighs escape the mob, the police and the local government trading standards officers long enough to clear Dobbinwang’s name and yet leave them enough time to have sex in as many of Wolverhampton’s exotic locations as possible before the final showdown between the forces of evil and the man who, as Honeythighs says, ‘seems to have the only honest spatula in town.’

Whatever you do, make sure you do not miss what will be the ‘must-see’ cinema event of the year: The Penguin Always Eats Omelettes!

As Obvious As One Would Have Hoped

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Even then, it was not quite as obvious as One would have hoped. Although, Two thought it did seem straightforward and Four thought it was the best she’d ever seen. Three, as usual was off in amongst the trees doing something rather obscene with C… again, although, this time they’d had the courtesy to find some bushes to do it behind, so as not to frighten some of the more easily-perplexed of our local woodland creatures, some of whom have not quite got over the sight of C - in those boots - the last time.

One was still struggling to get her moped to start as Two got her yo-yo out and began practicing some of the more recondite moves associated with the device. Four got the sandwiches out and we sat down together for a quick picnic before any of the others realised I’d managed to bring a pork pie with me.

It seemed quiet, peaceful, there and after the sandwiches, Four lay with her head in my lap reading Blake whilst I told tales of my adventures with simultaneous equations to Two, who had already grown bored with the limited possibilities inherent in the mastery of the yo-yo and was now, she told me, thinking of either working in the city for her father’s firm or becoming a terrorist, both of which would require a new hairstyle though, and she was not sure if she could cope with that.

The peace was shattered then by a scream from C, followed by a dirty laugh from Three who ran out, stark naked, from behind the bushes holding what looked like C’s underwear held in a pair of tongs. She ran off down to the river and dived in, with C giving chase, even though he still wore the boots, which made sharp cornering, especially in waist-high bracken rather fraught with danger of him skidding uncontrollably into a silver birch.

I lay down then, still with Four’s head in my lap. I closed my eyes and wondered if a story could - without coming to any kind of conclusion, point or purpose - just end….