Author: Richard Ankers

Richard M. Ankers is the English author of The Eternals Series and Britannia Unleashed all published by Next Chapter. Richard feels privileged to have had stories and poetry published all over the world. He lives to write. A prolific writer, a constant source of clearing his mind, Richard has created this website to share just some of the many poems and prose he has written that would otherwise have fallen by the wayside. Reading and writing have always been Richard's main love along with the pursuit of keeping fit, running, walking, and anything that provides a spectacular view. Running in the rain with his headphones on whilst dreaming up some future storyline is just about perfect. It would be nicer still if that run was in Switzerland or Norway, but we can't have everything. Oh, and coffee, lots and lots of coffee.

Anonymous

She had no status, no place in this world. She barely had a life. Then again, neither did I.

We met one Easter morning and had married by tea in an unorthodox ceremony involving a stray cat who fussed our feet like catnip. It then peed on the floor. We laughed like hyenas. The pastor didn’t. The next day became our anniversary, and the next, and the next. Not a great legacy but something. We all must have something.

We left the city for the coast on an empty bus, a move in direct opposition to the latest trends, and got off at the last stop because the driver made us. He smiled as he did so like a man in the know.

We found a tiny house with a bed, a toilet, a door, and a view. This was all we required. This and each other.

It began soon after.

She forgot my name by Halloween and my face by Christmas. My voice went last. Perhaps it reassured her? A somnambulist by day, worse still by night, she wandered. I wandered with her when I could. It was only a matter of time.

New Year’s Day. I found her mangled body upon the rocky shore. She’d stepped from the cliffs as though them our lawn, whilst the sea fret tickled her eyelids and vindictive gulls egged her on. I was sad, but not inconsolable.

I buried her deeper than I ought, marking her grave with a simple cross of two bound sticks. There, I scratched the message: To My beloved Wife.

Later, when malicious gossip made the pastor aware of my situation, he visited one gloomy afternoon.

“It’s untitled, anonymous!” he exclaimed.

“What is?” I replied.

“Her grave, man. Her grave!”

“As was she.”

“Because she had no name?” he ventured, calming at my obvious heartbreak.

“Because I never needed it.”

The End

Thank you for reading

Richard

Haiku 3

We pour from ourselves
as raindrops blown into streams
searching out oceans

Thank you for reading

Richard

Six Word Stories: A Trilogy of State

Image courtesy of Suhyeon Choi on Unsplash.com

Part 1: Freedom

We dreamt. We believed. Peaceful revolutions.

Part 2: Alliances

Darkness gathers beyond the flickering candles.

Part 3: Liquidation

Hopes in held breaths, never released.

Thank you for reading

Richard

November Mists

November mists descend as a widow’s shawl

The Summer long gone, hidden

–

Tossing aside the fallen leaves

Snapping branches heavy with sorrow

–

Easing flocks into the sky, departing

Securing the waters to prevent their return

–

This is how Winter arrives uninvited, unannounced

Emerging from beyond this gloom

–

From Gaia’s last deep, clearing breath

And a possible sparkling future

–

It is welcomed in an unwelcoming way

Postponed only by our own interventions

Haiku 2

russet leaves falling

sundial casts no illusions

sighing from his chair

Thank you for reading

Richard

This Dark Tide

image courtesy of Lester Salmins on Unsplash.com

This Dark Tide

I concentrate, close tired eyes, breathe

Feel the air enter sinuses all of a rush

Surge down my throat like the North Wind a gorge

Pool in otherwise forgotten lungs like stagnant water

The accompanying rise and fall lifts a grumbling gut

Expands a chest with pigeonesque pomposity

It’s all fake, but proves I’m alive until sliding away

A moment. A dream. A thought. An almost.

This dark tide has infiltrated troubled shores

Revealed only by a spotlight moon, an inner eye, and sent scurrying

The clouds soon regather and it begins anew

This is the way, the looping thrum of existence

And I wonder: Is this really life

Unsavoury Games

Unsavoury Games

The Look

There was something unsavoury about her smile, an unavoidable diagnosis of disgust. Whilst she revelled in self-centred superiority, the world might’ve burned. The others played on.

The Feel

She felt wrong. The whole thing felt wrong. As if having swallowed a live worm when expecting a jellied one, she wriggled within. I’d have wretched, but she was watching.

The Fact

She’d done nothing other than sit there politely minding her own business. I hadn’t sought her, nor looked upon her by any other reason than an accident. She happened upon me. This was the simple truth.

The Result

Evasion proved the smarter side of valour. I slipped away to another table like a furtive rat, eager for some space and a place to breathe. She followed. Why the hell had I chosen this casino?

The Game

She sat and asked the time. I made a point of looking at her watch, but she ignored it. I gave her the correct hour but added twenty minutes. She laughed a crescendo.

The Cost

I woke to an empty bed and an emptier wallet. She was long gone. I wasn’t annoyed, though. I blamed myself. She enjoyed her games, always had. I savoured them, too, once, but less so after we married.

THE END

Thank you for reading

Richard

Bamboo Hearts

Bamboo Hearts

This bamboo heart, strong but hollow

Lost to remote places, devoured

Gorged upon by strangers

As lost to this metal jungle

Though willingly, as I am not

Its thudding repetition deafens

Until the silence stops

Forgetting to Breathe

*Stunning Image courtesy of Daniel Jensen: Unsplash.com*

On nights when the moon shines brightly and the moonbeams swallow my every exhalation, I pretend. Never for long. Never forever. I imagine myself with her of the dark swirling shawls and alabaster features, the one who’ll love me forever. I smile and close my eyes, but I always wake.
She’s the one at the end of a heartbeat, the girl with hollowed-out eyes. She’s eternity in a sweeping, celestial moment, forgotten to most, but never to me.
I’ll know her when the others falter. As millions tumble into abyssal pits or spiral in updrafts the opposite way, I’ll cling to the cliffs like an eagle, fractured granite marking my way. My free hand will reach out and she’ll take it in her bones for fingers. She has to! She must! And I’ll let go without hesitation, the already cold blood in my veins burning a hello.
“Take me,” I’ll plead.
“You’re already there,” she’ll whisper.
And I’ll smile, sing, pass on without protestation. I will, my friends. For life is the dream and death the reality. How I hate not forgetting to breathe.

The End

Thank you for reading

Richard

Obscure Cathedrals – 100 Word Stories

Photo by Ananya Bilimale on Unsplash

There were towers of cockeyed proportions springing from the ground at spasmodic intervals. Where the sun caught them sharpest, they glinted like stained glass windows, a most unnatural woodland. They swamped even the once-great mountains as if them just undulations.

Animals had taken advantage of this place, making squalid homes for no other reason than having nowhere else to live. A molehill shone with its tin dome. An owl’s oil drum echoed.

This was the world humanity had gifted them, our legacy to Mother Earth, obscure cathedrals of dumped filth. At least they no longer had us to deal with.

Thank you for reading

Richard