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Bryn Fortey

The April Editor's Pick Poet is Bryn Fortey

Please feel free to email Bryn at: brynfortey@yahoo.co.uk

Bryn

THE MUSICIAN

He loved his Double Bass
All six foot
From scroll to endpin
Moulding his own body
To fit its voluptuous contours
Seeking maximum contact
With the maple, spruce and ebony
Of its expert construction

He loved his Double Bass
Either caressing the strings
In a mellow accompaniment
To a hunched and blind pianist
Or curling his pizzicato fingers
In a wild rockabilly helter-skelter

He loved his Double Bass
Until the day it forced
Its full hipped body into his
Strings slicing through flesh
To the rhythmic splash
Of blood and gore

He loved his Double Bass
Until the day it loved him back

THE HOUSE AND LAKE

The house of high ceilings
Stood empty now
The green lake too

Here had lived giants
But hastily placed
Cameras and tripwires
Revealed nothing

The house of high ceilings:
A place of ghosts

The green lake:
A bowl of poisoned water

Nothing moved
Nothing lived
Bar myself
And my pointless surveillance

Hoping to find nothing
Needing to find nothing

DUMMY

The dummy:
A teaching implement, was a private joke

He left it sprawled in an attitude of death
For me to find in that half-light
Where reality and pretence blur at the edges

I scribbled a note: Goodbye cruel world…
Creating a tableau with my centrepiece
Collapsed, pen in hand

It was next, when my joking adversary
Was placing a noose around its neck
That the dummy spoke

“No,” it whispered
“Not me…you!”

Plastic hands reached out
Fingers suddenly supple

FOOTFALL

Even night-view goggles barely penetrated
Not that expectations were high

Drone acquired information was sketchy
In a world where darkness ruled

But footfall was established procedure
So down they went just to tick the boxes

Black and barren the drones had said
Not of any special interest

But then the landing squad
Blipped out of existence

All hell broke loose…

Bryn Fortey comes from the Welsh region of the U.K. His short stories have appeared in many anthologies over the years and his poetry in a number of small press magazines. His poem“A Taxi Driver On Mars” was placed first in the 2009 Data Dump Awards for science fiction poetry published in the U.K. It was Rhysling-nominated the same year. “Siren Women Of Tremulan III” was Dwarf Star-nominated in 2007.
   
Recent short story appearances have been in Terror Tales Of Wales (Gray Friar Press), edited by Paul Finch and Kneeling In The Silver Light (Alchemy Press) a truly international anthology of WW1 stories edited by Dean M Drinkel.
   
2014 also saw the publication of a debut collection, combining short stories and poetry: Merry-Go-Round & Other Words from Alchemy Press.

merry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

merry