A short story about a real place. With thanks to Daniel Frank for use of the header image (not of the actual location). Continue reading
Author: N. P. Ryan
Walking the Dog
With thanks to Juuso Salminen for the header image. As is often the case with the image used, it’s chosen for its own merits as much as its relationship with the words. When first seeing, I thought it digital, a black on white image, not a photograph. Apparently much hanging around on a freezing cold lake was needed to get it.
Like the photo, the following is also true. Though it took place in the early 90s during a summer when I lived on a council estate in London. Numerous flats in different buildings of various sizes and ages looked onto a communal area with grass and also a high-walled brick area with benches built in. Meant as an outdoor meeting area, local kids used it to play football as the high wall at one end made a great goal where the ball bounced back instead of flying off into the distance anytime someone scored or missed (I often joined in while Ed—a Rottie named after Eddie Cochran—did his business). Continue reading
Strangers in the Afternoon
Inspired by bumping into an old friend, the below could be considered a sequel to Two Gods. With thanks to Vlad Bagacian for the use of the image, an excerpt of a larger photograph that can be seen fully in the link.
Cleopatra Down the High Street
Poetry without comment beyond thanks to Osama Elsayed for the use of the image x
Walking with the Weekly Shop
vs. War
The Shop next to the Tower on the Top of the Hill
A poem written in November 2020, prompted by what exactly I can’t remember; there is truth to a degree in the words, and while this matters not to the reader, a need to expand on the actual facts took hold, from which followed a jaunt across the tobacco industry, teachers always being a-holes, a picture of my favourite gate, cheap snacks, Big Foot, how I used to live in the Lord of the Rings, laughing at my mum (sorry, mum), a real size but pretend Canadian Parliament, the world’s first dinosaur statues, and London’s most popular gorilla.
SÖNUS: Usurper of the Universe
Whirring into life like a comet lowrider being fired up, Usurper of the Universe is an ever expanding cloud of trippy space dust gritty with derision. Who, or perhaps what, is SÖNUS is a question the answer to can change with every listen; the six track album as much space rock opera—a beer and bong infused version of Queen’s Flash Gordon score with SÖNUS playing both band and Ming—as a frustration-driven social commentary not only on the world we currently live in but always have.
Anxiety
Winter Tree
I didn’t enjoy Christmas. I rarely do. This year had the added ‘bonus’ of me reaching the age my dad died at. I also realised it isn’t Christmas per se that isn’t liked. True, much of it isn’t, like the panic and stress about who goes where and what happens when they’re there, but really it’s that whole time of year weather thing previously mentioned (links below). The meal and all the drinking, any going out and socialising (assuming I can get past the leaving the house bit), I love and can’t ever recall a time of sitting morosely through any of that.
N. P. Ryan 