Mark Cantrell's Blog, page 42
January 11, 2016
BLOG: Writers That Don't Read Are Unnatural
A good book makes its own time
By Mark Cantrell
STRANGE but true: some people don't read books.
Well, each to their own, but some of these non-readers evidently feel they're too busy to settle down to read. Maybe they just haven't found the right books for them.
Personally, I find that a good book makes time for itself.
These days I commute, so I read a lot on the train. I read a lot at mealtimes too. For as long as I can remember I've shared food with a good book (so...
December 28, 2015
POEM: Concerns & Wishful Thinking Fade Like Vanity In Time
By Mark Cantrell
When I was young,
I longed to be older.
When I was old,
I yearned to be younger.
As a child,
I wondered what it was like
To be a grown up.
As a grown up, I struggled
To remember what it was like
When I was a child.
While I was alive,
I feared and eventually longed
For death.
When I was dead,
Concerns melted like the mist.
I was nothing, then,
But a memory,
Dwindling
In short-lived minds…
Mark Cantrell,
Stoke-on-Trent,
28 December 2014
Copyright © December 20...
November 28, 2015
PROSE: Mindless Pleasure Is Little Proper Sin
Think On Fleshly Pleasure A Prose Poem
By Mark Cantrell
There is little to be gained from the hard cruel word of make-believe; this world and the sub-sentient hominids that pass for man have little inclination or intellect for the higher pursuits of sensual cognition.
Only the data-flux animality of the raw senses and nerves, of electrons flooding the matrix of the lower lobes ever manages to stir their capacity for existence.
Beyond the dark recesses of a vestigial evolutionary relic,...
November 1, 2015
BLOG: In The Eye Of The Beholder
Image isn’t everything, there’s the story too, but if it catches your attention then it’s also caught the moment so here’s a little something about a photography competition that caught Mark Cantrell’s eye
SOME of the press releases that come my way at work really are eye-watering stuff. They're badly written, or flagrantly advertorial, or else they're so badly misfired it's laughable.
(I'...
October 10, 2015
FICTION: Fear Has A Fury When It Breaks
A Short Story By Mark Cantrell
THE young toughs were waiting for him again by the turn into his street, leaving no way for him to avoid the gauntlet of insult and intimidation.
They knew his route too well; all the best places to lie in casual wait for the ambush he couldn’t avoid. Work, shopping, life – such as was left – demanded he brave possible aggression at every turn. Sooner or later, that kind of shit just wore you down.
Tom d...
October 3, 2015
NEWS: Homeless Authors Reveal Ugly Truth Of Rough Sleeping
BOOK signings are a special milestone in any author's life. That's all the more true for a group of Manchester writers who contributed their real-life stories to a newly released collection called The Ugly Truth.
The title derives from the nature of the contributors' lived experiences, and their own personal back-stories go towards explaining the book's significance for those involved in its publication. The authors are...
September 20, 2015
NEWS: Raise Your Glass With Pride
FOOTBALL fans and equality campaigners will be raising a glass with pride next month when they toast the launch of an LGBT fan group and safe space with a pint of Best Bitter specially brewed for the occasion.
Campaign organisation Just A Ball Game? (JGB) has teamed up with Bradford Brewery to create the traditional English Best Bitter, which will be on sale at the micro-brewery and pub througho...
September 13, 2015
POEM: Surfing The Event Horizon Of Time
By Mark Cantrell
Down there,
Deep, deep
Beneath my feet,
Where I stand on the edge,
Toes overlooking the Abyss,
The hole beckons
With the vertiginous allure
Of its dark and endless depths.
Therein lurks the Truth
Of it all:
Emptiness
In Eternity,
The void of oblivion
Waiting
At the far-point singularity
That is infinity.
Here, on this edge, are we born,
Bound in orbit to its deep centre,
Held by the gravity of life,
There is never
Any stepping back
From this brink.
All I have to do
Is...
August 31, 2015
ARTICLE: A Drunk Is Just What You Need At A Job Interview
The drunk who wandered in off the street First impressions count, especially during a job interview, but back in his job-searching days, Mark Cantrell encountered one prospective employer that hadn’t quite got the hang of it…
THE man had no name. He was a stranger in a room of strangers, but when he walked into the office I glanced up from my copy of the Borough Local News and inadvertently caught his eye.
Nobody looked back.
The man behind the eyes was comatose...
August 22, 2015
POEM: At That Cynical Age
Beneath the crust
Of cynicism,
Burns bright – still – the furnace
Of youthful
Idealism,
But the soul is bewildered,
Dazzled by the confusion
Of life, the frenzied
Dizzying myopia
Of bewildered comprehension,
While the flesh
Is world-wearied
And heavy
With disappointment and not-quite
Despair.
Give me fuel, some spark for the tinder,
And mayhap, the burning ideals
Of old,
Locked, still, in the crusted crucible,
Will explode to sear clear the shell
Of blackene...
