Author: The Haphazard Writer

Oh that the lights were as bright!

Oh that the lights were as bright, as hot oh but they are only faded stars, caught and strung. icy white, cherry red, and yellow glow in imitation of warmth – they are but cold and not so bright. Tinsel, baubles, wrought glass and crystal angels all, all are cold.   Red, white, green stripes, … Continue reading Oh that the lights were as bright! →

Screw Sounding Too Worthy

I don’t want to sound like the Grinch, but your hand printed wrapping paper and mouth-blown baubles, your black Friday, panic Saturday and stampede Sunday, your artfully positioned Gisela Graham, your personalised lazer-cut tree decorations, your £50 Frozen doll, flashing reindeer, snowmen, fairylights and gingerbread house   – Smugly done, self-congratulating –   are irrelevantno, … Continue reading Screw Sounding Too Worthy →

Orpheus Complex

Don’t look back, don’t look or you’ll lose everything forever, gone, in a burst of sulphur dragged back into the abyss to fade and decay to an empty carcass wandering without thought or memory. Don’t look back, don’t look, you’ll lose everything. But you itch you squirm to glance, to peek to remember what was, … Continue reading Orpheus Complex →

Dark Place

I wrote this on the spur of the moment after for about the 4th time this week I sat down to join my family watching tv and was confronted with yet another rape scene. If like me you're easily triggered, I'd advise that this poem is dark, and, at least for me, the very incarnation of my ptsd/trauma and is potentially deeply unsettling for anyone else going through the same.

Lovesick Sonnet

A realistic appraisal of the traditions of courtly love which is frankly, horrifyingly relevant to the present day (we've all had suitors who can't hear 'no').

I was Isabella Linton

“Well come on then. This is what you wanted isn’t it? Take off your dress.” We stood in the chapel in front of one slatternly miner’s wife and the vicar, he in his finery, me hooded and cloaked, trembling at my own audacity. “With this ring I thee wed.” He said, forcing it over my … Continue reading I was Isabella Linton →

A Lullaby

When you are so far away, When you cannot sleep, These gifts are what I'll send to you Until next we meet:   The ruby ribbons that swathe the sky At the fall of the morning star, And the cooling velvet touch of rain To break the spell Of a heavy sleepless night.   I'll … Continue reading A Lullaby →

The Forsaken Ones, 6 years on

I began writing this novel when I was 16, finished it at 17, and then proceeded to wait until my first year at university to say, 'to heck with it' and publish it via amazon. Talking about it now is difficult. Sometimes I clam up, become red faced, and profess myself to be thoroughly embarrassed … Continue reading The Forsaken Ones, 6 years on →