No man steps into the same river twice – Heraclitus of Ephesus

Outside of a dog, a book is a man’s best friend, and inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read anyway – Groucho Marx

Dog Days: I

Going back, to places we were happy, once
The fields, bare, along the roadside, en route
All flat, mown, sere, this late in harvest,
As summer piles a year’s confected clouds
On top o...

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And in whatever houses a cat has died by a natural death, all those who dwell in this house shave their eyebrows only, but those in whose houses a dog has died shave their whole body and also their head.  The cats when they are dead are carried away to sacred buildings in the City of Bubastis, where after being embalmed they are buried - Herodotus

Somehow, we’ve acquired a statuette o...

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Sometimes there are moments,

Like this one in the car park

An afternoon of eternity

Seems fixed in the moving of a cloud

Over the rooflines of town;

Or in that plane that droned across the sky

The morning of Aunt Sadie’s funeral.

Why should they etch themselves

Acid-deep onto the retina of memory

When all those other days

Days we’d looked forward to...

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IKEA is hell; or rather,

Hell must be very like IKEA.

It goes on, and on, forever,

All the signage is demonic, unintelligible

Written in Enochian or runes

Like the Lord’s Prayer said backwards.

They even sell black candles; to make things worse

The demons are all Swedish

With staring eyes like Moonies or Branch Davidians

And the torments include m...

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We are pleased to announce the publication of the latest
collection of poems by Steve Rudd

ALBION is available from The King's England Press directly at www.kingsengland.com at £7.95 (print edition, 9 in x 6 in, pbk., 59pp, ISBN 978 1 872438 65 8)

Or, if you prefer, there is an e-pub edition available from Lulu Inc at £3.99 (see button below)

Steve Rudd was born in Hull, East Yo...

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Free short story for "liking" my writer's page!

Yes - it's shameless self promotion time again!

Because I need to drive up the number of "likes" on my Steve Rudd author page,

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Steve-Rudd/221481391210989

I'm now offering a limited edition of a one-off free pamphlet of my short story entry for the 2012 Sunday Times Short Sto...

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OF THE MANY STAGS

All poems start with a lump in the throat

Said Robert Frost; well, the lump I’d speak, my lump,

Is a lump of rock, in Clyde water, fourteen hazy miles clear

Of the blue coast of Ayrshire; a granite knot

That binds up all my memories in a bundle.

A slice of my life, on screen now,

One-sixtieth of a second, Lamlash Bay, me and the dog

...

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On the day of the royal wedding (29th April 2011) and on the day before, the police arrested dozens of people pre-emptively. People who had not committed any crimes were arrested, often handcuffed, and detained in police cells.  – News Report

I’d like to race in the ‘Lympics
But I’m guessing I must stay put
Because I’m in a wheelchair - 
I have no athlete’s foot

I’d like to jump ...

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Those that tend fires require

A special form of patience

Watching through the window, winter-long

While the rain streaks; patience of a saint

Then, after bare grey days, at last

Catkins on branches unfurl daily until

The stumbling bee finally arrives

Late and cold like the spring at last

And the badger comes at night, or dusk

Rooting u...

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Getting dressed, in chill before-dawn dark

One of those dull cold mornings, cursing,

I put my foot straight through a trouser turnup:

Now, my pants hang, sag, sadly over shoe,

Adding to my general dereliction -

A stitch in time was needed, ah yes

If only we knew, with perfect hindsight

The point where we should have stuck

The needle in, to inter...

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Now that I’m pushing sixty, I spend time,

Much more time than I used to, looking back

Instead of forwards. Back, over my shoulder,

Down the hill of years,  there stand long-demolished pubs

Where we sank our first illicit pints;

Snogs at the bus-stop, or the last train home...

Was that even me, those years ago?

I’m not looking for my lost youth,

I know exact...

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Have they been wheeling and waiting for me, how long,

Over these bare February branches,

skeletons they will neither roost in

Nor pick at, wood-bones for which they have no use?

Waiting all the while the silver water slides as rustled silk

Right to left, under the old viaduct at Parton?

Driven by massive air

That I can only guess at, from Greenland, arctic, God...

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The only things that matter in life

Are time, and suffering, says my friend Maisie,

Herself a philospoher, with two degrees,

One in philosophy, so she should know.

And time is fascinating, she says; odd choice of word,

Personally, I used to have no time for time,

It passed me by like a river flowing round a stone,

Until I got my new clock; new to me, that is

...

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