Phoenix Ablaze

My heart bled into these pages,

Soaking them up

With all the rainbows and rages

Of thought-filled nights

And ill-thought actions.

My heart bled

Into your hands.

So, hold it close,

With all the rainbows and rages.

Hold it dear for the entire ride.

Pieces of Eight

Eight very different women, each with a secret, are closeted together in strange and unexpected circumstances. As time goes by, tongues are loosened and one by one they confess their various sins. Will tensions rise or can they bond in adversity?

Pig

“We can do what we like,” said the burly policemen to Bill. “We’re the law.” That sounded just the sort of job that might suit him. Do what you like with impunity, have a bit of power over folk, and get paid a half-decent wage at the same time. It was the moment of his epiphany, but it was a change of life that brought Bill into a larger game than the one he was used to, a world where more powerful people than he exercised their entitlements, a world where he was returned to a familiar struggle against unfair laws and the plight of desperate people. Using his native wit – and a GCSE in Latin, he would proudly claim – Bill treads a risky path to help foil organised people trafficking, sustained throughout by his sense of humour and an old-school irreverence. If you can’t beat them, join them, may have been his motto, but he learns that sometimes one has to accept there are certain elements of established society that will never be beaten. Bill, however, remains optimistic to the last, he has his own inner advocate for survival, and survive he will.

Pilgrim's Ark

“It was flared out as if it were a cosmic parachute.
In this firmament, where Earth was just another pinprick, an object chilled with veins of superfluid and superconductive memories traversed the final remnants of the Oort cloud.”

When software specialist Mike Brazier from SETI detects the arrival of an enigmatic visitor, it triggers an evolutionary chain of events. But, with humanity on the cusp of becoming a hive mind, their linked futures need a guiding hand.

As agitators exploit tensions between the augmented and the disillusioned, the path to survival must unfold covertly or awaken revolt. Can it be navigated without the help of Earth’s emergent conscious AI?

Pirate's Lair

Epic adventure on the high seas!

A young British aristocrat abandons his life of wealth and privilege in exchange for vengeance!

Michael d’ Argentan’s world is turned upside down when he learns about the brutal death of his beloved parents at the hands of the infamous Barbary Pirates! With a burning and passionate desire to avenge them he sets off on a desperate quest to search them out.

Along the way he joins the Bandaliers who are at war with the Barbaries. Honor, life and even love are at stake in his daring journey. A master swordsman, from one fight to another, nothing will stop him from fulfilling his mission.

The Barbary Pirates...the world’s most feared pirates of all time...UNTIL NOW!

Pluto's in Uranus!

Dave suffers from OCF – Obsessive Compulsive Fatalism.
Every day he is compelled to follow his online horoscope, and to actively seek out and participate in their prophesies.
One fated day, the signs are so compelling they embolden him to take a high stakes horse racing gamble.
The consequence of his wager will lead Dave into situations way beyond his control and comfort zone, and his path will be crossed by an intriguing hotchpotch of larger-than-life characters.
This eccentric bunch of strangers include a Benny Hill loving vicar, a transvestite, a hippy, a diamond thief, a sausage roll addicted Bank manager, an underworld female mechanic, an ’ungry man, some piranha fish, a chimpanzee and many others.
Pluto’s in Uranus! is the story of a ‘tryer’ whose lucky omens will come back to taunt him.
KUSHTI BOK!

Poems from Paintings

These poems were inspired by works of art, chosen across place and time for their intrinsic power and the challenge they present to provoke thoughts and feelings in the viewer.

Ideally, readers should find a reproduction of the painting – easily available on the internet – to contemplate, before reading the poem. The hope is that readers might become aware of previously unnoticed aspects of the work and be interested in seeing how their own responses match or indeed conflict with those of the author.

Thus, the collection aims to offer an invitation to contribute to an ongoing dialogue between the artist, the poet and the reader. All art forms open a window into other lives and ways of seeing; this interplay between the genres provides an opportunity to reflect upon much that lies beyond one’s own immediate experience.

Poems from Poems

These poems are a response to a wide range of well-known poems from across the ages. They are written in the same poetic form as the originals and offer a modern perspective on their central themes. The reader is invited to look up the original – perhaps to re-read a loved poem or to explore unfamiliar ones – and see how far attitudes have changed over time. The environment is a particularly poignant topic, as so many older poets were consoled by its seemingly enduring beauty in troubled times. Another theme is the belief in the afterlife, which was central to many of the earlier poets, and the contrast with our own largely sceptical age. There are also, of course, universal themes such as love, death, change and parting.

The tone aims to echo each original, with satire and humour mixed with more serious and reflective moods.

Poetic Retribution From Mars

The leadership of a country under an immense pressure from the world community to reform its atrocious political system, decided to send a spaceship loaded with world-renowned scientists to undertake a make believe research programme on the moon for a period of one year. This decoy did not go as planned and the spaceship, which was largely controlled by computers from Earth, could not land on the moon. Unfortunately, an attempt to bring it back to Earth failed when it bounced off the Earth’s atmosphere and proceeded to fly away at an ever-increasing speed. The marooned scientists developed various means of passing the time while they awaited the inevitable death. However, after nearly a year of wandering through the universe the spaceship landed on a planet, which turned out to be Mars but with conditions completely at variance with what is known on Earth about this planet. What the Martians learnt about the socio-political conditions on Earth displeased them enormously. They therefore sent the scientists back with an ultimatum for the world’s leadership, asking Earth to change its ways so that an acceptable interplanetary discourse could be established. The leadership of the world threw down the gauntlet and embarked upon a secret mission to bomb Mars out of existence. This was detected by the Martians and set the two planets on a collision course, with the winner of the encounter not much in doubt.

Porter

This is the tragic tale of two souls that had been separated at birth. They had begun their lives being left by their mother to die on the steps of a millionaire's mansion. Fortunately, the owner had found them when he had gone to water his beloved roses and had heard the babies crying. He eventually managed to adopt one of the twins, the boy. His name would be Varcy. The other twin had been adopted by an American couple.

One day Varcy had seen a girl practising her yoga on the top step of the Guildhall situated next door to the Crown Courts. Varcy fell immediately in love with her and felt as if he had always known her. One day she had gone and the Guildhall had closed its doors forever. He had mourned for her and then his life had spiralled out of control into the depths of despair.

Varcy had to attend a meeting on behalf of a friend and had seen the girl seated at the bar gazing into her champagne glass. Varcy had approached her and when Porter had spoken to him his ears had been caressed with the sound of her American accent. Porter had told Varcy that she had been a Lawyer practising in the States. They had left the hall hand in hand and their ardent life together eventually began.

Porter became a very naughty passionate provocateur and Varcy her submissive but sometimes he would not always submit and Porter had loved that. They had loved life and all that it had to offer them and it had offered them a great deal.

This amazing unconditional love story now unbolts its doors for you to enter.

Post Mortem

This new collection of pieces by Alan Blackwood can hardly be called short stories; they are gem-like concentrations or distillations of a series of images erotic, sad, darkly humorous, that Alan calls ‘vignettes.’ They will have the reader turning compulsively from page to page to find out what on earth he’s going to come up with next. It’s literature in a world of its own.

Postcolonial Metaphysics

Postcolonial Metaphysics is a debut poetry collection with a difference. The poems in this collection deal with contemporary political issues like colonialism, classism, migration, racism and social justice. This poetry collection includes introspective reflections about the philosophy of mind and the mind-body problem which draw on the author’s rich inner life. Other poems address the nature of mental illness to shed light on experiences which are often subject to stigma and misunderstanding.

Each of the poems in this collection engages with its audience and encourages readers to challenge their cherished beliefs and open their minds to new ways of perceiving the world. Overall, this powerful and moving debut poetry collection hopes to spark real change in the hearts and minds of its readership. The powerful poems in this collection are written to inspire the imagination of the readers and provide unique insights into the globalized and hyperconnected world we live in.