dressed to the nines
you wore only pearls
moonlight dipped around your
deep collarbones
lips smeared
a curve that is far from a smile
but a satisfied frown
emerged
one dog
then two
quite a few more
with lace round their necks
and a smooth hint of gore
they barked silently, painfully
left them at ease
they dropped to the ground
you dropped to your knees

Patrick (Lucky Stars) O'Hara set his disabled grandson up on the old horse's back. Contrary to his moniker Paddy was anything but. His luck had run out. His son had just died of leukemia, and his grandson was now fatherless. His "daughter-in-law" had run off long ago. Couldn't handle having such a disabled son, and a sick husband. Paddy had never liked her anyway.

Patty looked at the child's wizened body. The cruelty of scoliosis. The doctors said it would cost vast thousands of dollars to straighten Bobby O'Hara's spine. Money Paddy absolutely did not have.

His sad gaze shifted from the boy to the horse he was sitting upon. Oh what a magnificent creature you were, 8 Ball! His own retired racehorse. What was once a stone black coat was now mottled with white. The figure eight shaped blaze on his forehead had given him his name. Not to mention the way he took off at the Starting Gate. As if someone had goosed him with a cue stick! And he bounced off the turns in the track as if he had a spin on him that was absolutely deadly. 8 Ball loved to run! He was unbeaten in every race that he entered. A real Dark Horse. With no particular lineage whatsoever. 8 ball just had Talent. And the track owners hated it. Most races were rigged. And Paddy O'Hara didn't play the game.

So they set up a race. With a big race horse named Red Rodger. This horse was also unbeaten, and had a promising future. But Red Roger's jockey was told to lay his horse down... Right in front of 8-Ball. So lay down he did. Killing Red Rodger and severely injuring 8-Ball. There was a lot of speculation about the race. Especially how the jockey riding Red Rodger had jumped from the horse just before the accident happened. He said his foot had slipped the stirrup. No one could prove otherwise. So red Rodger was dead, and 8-ball was very effectively out of the game.

8-Ball, being a sweet natured horse, stood stolidly as a little boy patted his withers. He looked back at him with his gentle dark chocolate eyes and nickered with what Paddy could have sworn was tenderness...

He heard a frustrated whinny behind him. Looking back he saw what he expected. The F-tch was back.

Lady Genevieve Summerfield-Fitch looked down her long nose at Paddy. Astride the most magnificent jumper O'Hara had ever seen.

Gentleman Jim was an astonishing animal. The dappled grey of rainclouds on a milk white sky... and his lines were flawless. Not to mention his lineage. His dam was Proud Nelly, and his sire was none other than Seafront View. And The Gent was as good as his name. He wasn't hare- brained like some horses which became ******. This was a well-tempered, almost intellectual horse. He worked WITH his rider. Practically thinking his way through a course. And it was no surprise that Gent won more awards than you could shake a club at!

But Gentleman Jim's rider was anything but his counterpart. She owned him, but she was no lady...

All of a sudden Paddy's gaze shifted again... this time in the far distance to take in an apparition. A small blonde girl... hair the length of her knees! Running like the Hound of the Baskervilles was after her! She closed the distance between them so rapidly O'Hara was almost dumbfounded!

"I... must... buy... your horse", the child panted.

"He's not for sale..."

Suddenly Paddy saw who the youngster was running from. Back in the middle distance was an ugly bald-headed creep. The spider's web tattooed over the left side of his face was enough to change Paddy's mind... he'd give the girl TomTom, though. He was a good, swift horse....

... then, before he knew what happened, his grandson was sitting on a chair by the stables and Blondie was astride 8-Ball!

"Hey! That horse is old and LAME!

"Not anymore." The blonde girl said simply. She pressed something hard into his palm. "And he's now mine".

As 8-Ball wheeled around to go out the gate something... happened. Was it O'Hara's imagination? The Ball's coat got darker! And shiny! His "game" leg seemed to... straighten...

When he made it out to the trail with his small rider he bunched up his flanks and took off Like a bat out of HELL!

The young blonde girl's long hair streamed out behind her like a sail as she took on the seat of a hockey... PERFECT FORM!

Paddy looked down at the hard object the girl had pressed into his hand. It was a classically cut emerald, dark as the hills of Kentucky. And bigger than any Paddy had ever seen...

There were tigers, bears and elephants,
The day that the circus came,
And dwarves and clowns in our tiny town
It never would be the same.
The people stared as it passed on by
It was like a grand parade,
If only we’d known what was going down,
It was time to be afraid.

The tent went up in the open field
Behind old Barney’s store,
And lines of booths for the local youths
At a penny or so a draw,
While lines of coloured bulbs lit up
Where the fairground rides were set,
And musical hurdy-gurdies sounded
Just like a passing jet.

Then girls in flimsy bikinis flew
Up and under the top,
A giant net underneath them, yet
In case that one might drop.
The Ringmaster with his hat and whip
And his giant, curled moustache,
Kept all of the ******* riders straight
In line, and under his lash.

The elephants were herded in
And stood on their great hind legs,
Trumpeting sighs, and rolling their eyes,
Just like a dog that begs.
The clowns raced in and disrupted all
Clambering over the seats,
And roused the crowd, that laughed out loud
At all their ridiculous feats.

At ten, the tent had begun to whirl
And the audience went still,
As hounds had bounded in and around,
The Hounds of the Baskervilles.
A massive bell had begun to chime
The Ringmaster’s coat turned black,
He grew in size right before their eyes
And some had a heart attack.

He grew two horns on top of his head
That made him look like a goat,
And then a shimmering tail of dread
Slid out, from under his coat.
‘You pays yer money and takes yer choice,’
His voice boomed out in a bit,
The prayers prayed and the screamers screamed
As the floor sank into a pit.

The first three rows fell into the pit,
The rest of us stood and cowered,
While he just floated and cracked his whip
Over his pit of power.
And flames shot up from the pit below
To the chime of the Black Mass Bell,
We knew we stood at that terrible hour
By the Seventh Circle of Hell.

Our lips were sealed, and I risk my soul
And any future of grace,
By telling you all just what went down
In this, now devilish place.
You’ll see the field behind Barney’s store
Lies burnt, still black with their blood,
Where once the Devil’s own circus came
And set up in our neighbourhood.

David Lewis Paget

Hello Matthew,
Sorry I missed your visit the other day; I was obviously teaching and the office staff couldn't locate me.
It is encouraging to see I am now dealing with a published writer who will hopefully tell me what the book title is without my need for research.
Glad to see you have remembered that punctuation is a linguistic colonialist, for wNt of s better term.
I picked up your books yesterday and immediately gave one copy each to two year 13 students with the simple instruction to 'read this.'
The one you kindly inscribed I have taken home and intend to read over the October half term.
How's everything going?
Mr Bunce (or to use my colloquial Glaswegian first term, Tam)
Sent from my iPhone*


Hello Thomas,

no apologies necessary, it's well understood that a teacher is always untouchable when it comes providing an aqueduct of intellectual assimilation peppered with acquisition and relative hope for pedantic (missing the plural).

The apologies are all mine, I spent the week at the Cheltenham like ****** pusher, evidently not everyone is hooked on on poetry; but I did find the deviant art form that's known as "spoken word" a blast, i dare stand-up comedy to compare itself to the antics so hushed by society.

The part where you say: dealing with a published author... well, authored: but via my own expenses. Entitlements of the book being titled so? i was trying to remember how anyone gives up a good portion of their memory to remember something like the atom R               without the English softening, without the French harking up phlegm, and the age old Victorian trill            of the rolling Baskervilles... i tried to attire Grecian optics in how every child expands his capacity for memorising language on the basin of up-keeping and use: via the need to abolish hyphenated compound words, and against dyslexia that turn English into a complexity that's German, remnants of it remaining true with e.g. hydrocarbon, or chemists punctuating: or averting from the hyphenated ease: as truth goes: chemistry in English is a standard Saxon German. A lesson in finding enough eyes in a single tongue that might make me forcefully distinguish an N that's a V that's actually ν (nu), sharpened, and υ (a              u that's capital y that's less sharpened than nu that's Y that's upsilon - and that's lowercase gamma)... I hope some form of a kaleidoscope might be revealed with this revision of Copernican East on the moon.

I have more copies you can distribute, walking from that netherworld that's bound to be tamed with the name of Romford into the A406 region.

I hope you might find the inscribed opinion kindred to your own, its authenticity is based on how serious poetry is taken in the East, the western world has solidified itself in proclaiming poetry with rap, in turn poetry has become less rhapsodic, but that aside, I hope you enjoy the end-product, it's only a snippet of my work, evidently by the fact stated, I have more.

Everything is as everything should be. My 3 years in Scotland were a dream I wish I never woke from; I could not have wished for a more welcoming convent of lessened religious ridiculousness among people: churches turned into nightclubs and chandelier shops? Well, that's the bright-sprung reality of the Scotland I remember, and from what the journalists provide, it seems the story has just begun in terms of a youthful invigoration demanding a voice: yes, away from the infamous deep-fried Mars bar. I still remember that self-deprecating joke you made about how copper wire was invented: two Scots arguing over a penny (pulling it apart).

Well, if I over-economised my reply I apologise, otherwise I hope I can enshrine your legacy further, with the motto: don't teach them grammar (the subconscious)... teach them language, or what's lessened arithmetic rubric concern, and more: authenticity - a variant word for familiarity and a tattooing on one's locality as primarily organic: given the inorganic trend of globalisation. Can I offend with an informality? I will anyway: sounds like a ****** manifesto - in the end all I wanted to reply with was: thank you.

Well, thank you, for teaching me English without necessitating a concern for a grammar consciousness / an awareness of grammar: public school ponces can have their Eton mess funfairs: language is pure, pristine, palpable, and we're allowed our own interpretation of grammar, even Nietzsche said: we only believe in god as long as we believe in grammar... as said, I can provide more copies of the book, I'm duly counting the numbers in terms of representation, given that the book is but a snippet of the Σ, I can gain as much as I have already lost, which in practical wording equates to nothing.

Kind regards, dearest Tammy (inexplicable innuendo to follow without the appropriated seasoning to match,
                            in this grand era of political hoo correct ha); or otherwise intended in the more formal
acquisition of familiars -
                                              thanks, Matthew.

Lost that dull plot so many years ago,
Some guy named Heathcliff, a prim, proper room;
Something dark on the moors portending doom—
(No, wait—that was “Baskervilles”, different show).

A wuthering woman, her savage beau—
A conflict with tradition, hearts in thrall;
Romantic English swoons. Forgot them all
While seeking the plot beneath a willow.

Catherine? Constance? The heroine’s name
Escapes me evermore, and I don’t care.
A Brontë sister here receives the blame

For boring me with chick-lit and hot air.
That’s all I can recall. The novel’s fame
Would indicate there must be something there . . .