Happy campers

Be happy?

Red lights flashing

Her insipid bingo voice

Calling calling calling

Dear god please shut up

That screaming brat

Be happy

Holiday internment camp

For the mentally deranged

You must have fun!!

Useless parents

Neglecting volume-challenged kids

Be happy!

Please

I beg you

No more birdy songs

In overly amped up

HAPPY dance rooms

Be happy!!

Propagandists demand it!

Blue shirts smiling frantically

Desperate for your approval

YOU MUST BE HAPPY!!!!

Or we are all doomed

To be fed to the corporate monsters

Gnawing rancid dumpster mouths

Snapping for their tea

Be happy…

Sit in your caravan and fear

Because they are coming for you

With fake smiles

And tourist information leaflets…

 

18/09/2013

S J Menary

Urban Erotica

Just a hint of soft black lace,

Touchable, strokeable, perfect face,

Her eyes, dark lashes,

My heart, it dashes,

In my chest, palpitations,

Mouth dry, body straining with sexual frustrations,

Her lips, red, wet,

I’m breaking out into a cold sweat!

This is sex on paper!

Mind racing with things I’d like to do to her,

As I walk on past, my mind a blur,

She whispers in my ear, the holy grail,

‘70% off at the Debenhams blue cross sale’

It occurs to me that she is such a bore,

Just another billboard whore.

 

18/09/2013

S J Menary

Book Review: The Boomerang Effect by Lindy Spencer

The Boomerang Effect  by Lindy Spencer is a great crime novel, which is so different from the norm. Set in small town America, the story follows an ensemble cast as secrets from their past are revealed, slowly layer by layer.

Beginning with a single mindless crime which leaves a young woman in a coma, the ripples radiate to affect every corner of the world Lindy Spencer creates. The characters are highly believable, with three dimensional qualities and flawed pasts that are realistic.

She ties all of the threads together, interweaving an intricate plot that leaves the reader guessing right to the end. Without giving too much away, the whodunit will surprise you!

What is great about this book is that it really gives a vivid and honest portrayal of life in a small American town, without being romanticised or overly descriptive. As a British reader, I found it particularly good that I was not overwhelmed with American pop culture references. These can really put off a UK audience.

The novel was both down to earth and unpretentious, and a real breath of fresh air in the oversaturated crime genre.

Ode to Birmingham Central Library

I sit in the beating heart

Of all knowledge

Wrapped around me

Stairways to the mind

Essence of imagination hanging

Heavy in the air

Like a contagion

Drawing you in

Calling to your soul

Encased in wires

A tangle of dreams

Stars that welcome

All the lost souls

All those

Yearning to be free

The gracious good

Of the public free library

05/09/2013

S J Menary

Dear Mr Wrong

Dear Mr Wrong

Why did you do it?

Why did you cut me to the core,

Drip vital blood to the floor,

Break my heart, as trivial as it sounds,

Crushed into a thousand pieces on the ground.

Dear Mr Wrong

Did you know the power of you actions?

When you inflicted wounds too deep,

Never to heal, ever to weep,

Watch the skin knit back together,

Deep down still bleeding forever.

Dear Mr Wrong

I must bitterly thank you!

Thank you for giving me back myself,

I may not have fast cars, fashion or wealth,

But I am me, on centre stage,

And not the wall flower you put in a gilded cage.

Dear Mr Wrong

Did you ever know?

How I fantasised about,

Coming to your house in the night,

And blowing up your computer,

And with a big knife I’d neuter…

Probably not

Or you would have called the police.

Dear Mr Wrong

What went wrong?

Was it the spark, the sex or the friendship that left us first?

Were your regrets the worst?

That this monster you had grown,

Had a mind of her own?

Dear Mr Wrong

Do you ever miss me?

Think of me?

Wish you could give me a call?

Because I don’t miss you at all.

05/09/2013

S J Menary