Yorkshire Writers' Lunch

  Holmes eyed his friend warily.   ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I will tell you the story. It was told to me by a very close friend, whom I shall call Gideon.’ Holmes leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in thought before he began.             ‘Gideon had been brought up in Sumatra, where his father was a missionary.   However, the eldest son, Gideon’s brother, David, died of Dengue fever, as later did his mother and a younger sister. Another child died in a fire and eventually the father went mad with grief.   Gideon was the only member of the family left. He returned to England to study medicine in London, which is where I met him. He put his life in Sumatra behind him and, in fact, never mentioned it for many years.’             ‘But surely he must have talked about his childhood? Or where he grew up?’ Watson asked. ‘Didn’t you ask?’  ...

  She was cold. I knew a lodge full of smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   Through blinding snow, we ran on towards smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   Wrapped in folds, we came upon scents of smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   Through the door and past hall clocks to the smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   Brass hearth glowing halo hot with the smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   She dropped her stole and I coughed full of smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   We both bowed at this phoenix cot praising smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.   Embracing gold and taking stock of the smokeless coal and dry kiln logs.

  I have become an app. app-arently. Presumably because I popped my clogs; no other reason makes any sense. I think I’m alive, virtually at least, somewhere in the “ether” I’m told. Not quite grasped that bit yet. Other than that it’s sort of a different normal once people get used to it. I have to be downloaded in order for people to interact with me; connect with me as it were. Unlike most apps it’s free plus no ads – cool eh? Sue! so you downloaded me…..How you doing? Did you go on the holiday without me? Yes, I did actually, a good time – Gerald went too What? Gerald oh my g … Well you weren’t here – it was platonic But you went anyway? Before or after I …. you know my funeral Why do you want to know that Right so before then; thanks a lot, wife. I had to or lose the money. What? We were insured. I thought so too but apparently you didn’t pay it….. Yes I did, on my card… oh damn I remember…. I was out of credit. Good job you had death insurance then, on...

  J22 Stiff scrubby stubble erupts Bristling below cornflower skies And piercing crumpled honey-dew blankets Which fall, billow and rise.   J23 Sludgy muddy Roman squalls Whip up waves which spit and lap. Western winds assail walls While crumbling concrete spans the gap.   J24 But my home is Victorian: Soot-settled, smooth and warm Black velvet, solid stone Soft to touch, seen-it-all.   J25 Soggy-sewage-winter leaves Cake crumpled steel skeletons And summer trout in Lincoln Green Brave the roaring river’s decibels.   J26 Shoppers and commuters congregate In this tight commuter belt. Commercial traffic coagulates In arteries caked in salt.