Category Archives: Creative Writing

Step Into My Parlour…

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Quietly he laughs and shaking his head,
Creeps closer now, closer to the foot of the bed…

Step Into My Parlour…

For this week’s Song Lyric Sunday Jim at A Unique Title for Me is asking that we highlight a song with emotions as the central theme. The song I have chosen is filled with anxiety and fear. The tension builds as the lyrics progress and is augmented by the creeping arrangement of the song’s instrumentation.

Robert Smith and The Cure were one of the most influential bands of the 1980s. From early Goth culture, along with other bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees, to superstar status as the decade wore on. Smith was known for his lush lyrics, cutting-edge experimentation and trend-setting styling.

In 1989, The Cure released their eighth studio album, “Disintegration“. The album would become the band’s biggest commercial success charting at number three in the UK and 12 in the US. The album would include the hits Pictures of You, Lovesong, Fascination Street and the anxiety-filled track I will be highlighting today, Lullaby.

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Blind Rage

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Violence against women is all too prevalent in society today. It is not acceptable that many women still live with that reality every day and we must all work together to eliminate it. Unfortunately, scenarios like the one in my #weekendwritingprompt are all too common.

Content Warning: Strong sexual and violent themes implied, including violence against women. Content could elicit strong emotional reactions, reader beware.

Blind Rage

The room stopped momentarily as the exquisitely dressed Ella made her provocative entrance. Not 48 hours earlier she had dumped me insisting I was a small spiteful man and now this, as if to mock me.

“Who’s the vindictive one,” he thought, his blood boiling as he slipped into the restroom behind her. “Let’s see how that dress looks coloured in red…”

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Sandcastles

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Sandcastles

White sand coastline,
As far as the eye can see,
For miles in each direction,
Liberating and free.

Sunset on the ocean,
Waves relentless along the shore,
The ruins of a sandcastle,
A reminder of another world.

A dream world of desire,
of fantasy and fire…

One hundred million stars,
Sparkle across the sky,
Moonbeams drift across the water,
And the imagination wanders away.

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What the Heart Wants

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What the Heart Wants

I remember the first time we met. It was the first day of 11th grade, Mr. Grady’s second period Math class if memory serves. My family had relocated from the west coast over the summer to accommodate my Dad’s big promotion. I despised my new home but it got better once school started, in part because of Darlene. She walked right up on the very first day and introduced herself to the new kid in town. Before long I was just another guy in our circle of friends. One of the gang. Hell, Matt and Chad are my blood brothers to this very day.

I know Darlene crushed on me for a few years before giving up the ghost. She never did come out and say it but I knew she was interested. We never dated unless you count me taking her to the high school prom. She’d broken it off with the douchebag varsity quarterback and didn’t want to go alone. Knowing I was going solo, we struck up a deal to make a grand entrance and light the night on fire. She deserved a proper prom, so we went all out on a gown (already purchased for the d-bag), a tux, a limo, the whole nine yards. It was high school romantic as fuck. I think she even tried to kiss me during Stairway to Heaven, but my eyes were fixed elsewhere.

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Tree of Life

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Tree of Life

Limbs dark and cold thaw in the spring air, lifeblood stored in my subterranean network pushes towards the sky; so sweet and abundant that I can spare a drop or two for you.

In the new warmth, tiny buds form and push outward, filling the canopy and blotting out the sun from the path below.

Branches teaming with life, caterpillars feed on the leaves that breathe in carbon and exhale oxygen; beetles and weevils prefer the dark spaces hidden beneath my bark; robins, woodpeckers and jays nest and rest and feast and hide within my cover; and squirrels burrow in the hollow recesses of my long dead core.

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Lessons for Daughters

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This poem was written with a friend from my teenage years in mind. I remember when we were heading out for the evening her father remind her of this lesson. If she found herself in a compromising situation, she held the upper hand and could outrun a guy with his pants wrapped around his ankles.

Lessons for Daughters

Be wary of the suitor,
Whose fancy you do tickle.
It’s your virtue he’ll purloin,
Then bolt off like a scoundrel.
He’ll talk sweet ‘n try to woo you,
And beg you for a sample.
If you find yourself in peril,
All caught up in a pickle.
Remember, you’ll outrun him,
Once his pants are ’round the ankle.

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A Common Fate

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A Common Fate

Carbon floods the atmosphere,
Blankets the cerulean veil.
Oceans, rainforests exploited,
Industrial Man, tipping the scale.
Smothered and left gasping,
Mother Earth’s lungs begin to fail.
Rush headlong towards extinction,
Forsaken and unable to exhale.

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Ride the Wild Surf

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Ride the Wild Surf

The sun, the surf, the salty air, and the sand between my toes.
Colourful umbrellas, surfboards and bikini-clad girls everywhere.

“In the wake of the Beach Boys’ success, many singles by new surfing and hot rod groups were produced by Los Angeles groups. Himes notes: “Most of these weren’t real groups; they were just a singer or two backed by the same floating pool of session musicians: often including Glen Campbell, Hal Blaine and Bruce Johnston. If a single happened to click, a group would be hastily assembled and sent out on tour. It was an odd blend of amateurism and professionalism.”1

This week Jim at A Unique Title for Me, host of Song Lyric Sunday has asked us to look to the beach for inspiration. The song I am highlighting is “Surf City.” Released by Jan and Dean in 1963, the only other band from the surf era to achieve any real commercial success. Jan and Dean’s success would be cut short when real life would mimic one of the band’s other songs. Jan Berry would crash his Corvette not far from the location prominently featured in one of the band’s other hits, “Dead Man’s Curve.” The accident would leave him with brain damage. Berry would eventually overcome the effects of the accident but Jan and Dean would never achieve the success they saw prior.

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Unfulfilled Promises

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Unfulfilled Promises

If there was one thing Violet was certain of it was that Ernest C. Stottlemeyer, or Ernie for short, was a procrastinator. She loved the man but things needed to change.

Vi waited in the dark as Ernie returned from the Brunswick and dropped his bowling ball at the door.

“Put the damned ball away,” she said startling him. “Starting tomorrow,” she paused while reaching to electrify the lamp. The light illuminating the ‘Unabridged Lexicon of Unfulfilled Promises’ she cradled in her arms, “Starting tomorrow Ernie…”

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Forgotten (Revisited)

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Republished for Fandango’s Flashback Friday. Being relatively new to blogging this was the closest I could find to an April 15th post. Although I had published the odd thing from as early as 2013, Forgotten, which first posted on April 5th, 2020, was my first attempt at fiction, the first blog prompt I’d ever participated in and really was the first entry of the current incarnation of Greg’s Blog. I posted to Sonya’s #threelinetales many times before the last challenge posted on December 30, 2021. Hope you enjoy one of my early posts.

Forgotten

Day by day, she numbs her loneliness in the reflections of a lifeless computer screen.

In a far corner, I sit silent, alone and forgotten.

Oh, how I long to feel her soft hands pulling at my (heart) strings, filling the room around us with her beautiful song.

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