A big thank you to the good folk at Sudden Flash Magazine for publishing my latest micro-fiction, Breathing in Circles.
Available here: Breathing in Circles
If you enjoyed this piece, please consider a small donation
to help further my writing life.
Thank you for reading
Richard
A big thank you to the wonderful editor of Feed the Holy, Barbara Leonhard, for publishing my latest think piece – because every now and again I do – The Shedding.
Please take a look at the other fantastic posts on Feed the Holy. You will not be disappointed.
Available Here: The Shedding
Thanks you for reading
Richard
Author: Richard M. Ankers
Massive thanks to editor, Barbara Leonhard, for publishing my latest think piece, (because every now and again I do), Isolation Becalms the Soul, in her wonderful new literary magazine, Feed The Holy.
Please do take a moment to read the fantastic works on offer. You won’t be disappointed.
PS. I hope you enjoy my own. 😀
Read here: Isolation Becalms the Soul
Again, thank you.
If you enjoyed this piece, please consider a small donationto help further my writing life. Every little is very much appreciated.
Thank you for reading
Richard
https://ko-fi.com/richardmankers
Steel ribs cage the beast.
Burst free, my enemy!
Reveal yourself to the world!
A ridiculous proclamation
born of a ridiculous man.
I splutter out like a wetted candle.
Exertion meets exhaustion, as
steam rises like ghosting breaths.
Only the melancholy escapes,
grey plumes of inner me.
The shell remains untouched,
unlike the damaged mind
which reaches tendrils of self
deep under a paper epidermis
to ink out everything they touch.
Dark, they are, seeking crimson
warmth and love, an
extension to this endless pain.
A revelation. A blunt gift.
The inner me is my enemy.
I repeat this patient mantra.
But the cage is unbending
and the will behind it raw.
After all, is passing not for
blurring speedsters, or
those avoiding the view?
I have neither a view nor
the time in which to travel.
This heart thuds an agreement
when I would wish It
a stone-cold death.
If you enjoyed this piece, please consider a small donation
to help further my writing life.
Thank you for reading
Richard
Crinkled thoughts attempt to unfurl
Words and letters – damn this ruination!
Divided by force, separated
Folded in upon themselves
Mountainous in their minuteness
Kissing the wrongness of the misplaced
Meeting parts of me I’d rather they’d not
Meeting the worst, as there is no best
Who am I kidding?
Crinkled thoughts can never unfurl
Thank you for reading
Richard
Photo by Stormseeker on Unsplash
Forgive me if I write this note in blood, for I have no ink with which to stain these pages. Thus, I pour myself upon them for you. Everything is for you.
My arteries have an endless supply of the stuff, even if it is not always my own, rich and unctuous. I would prefer the midnight depths of black, but what choice do I have? This place is ill-lit and blood shines brighter.
People take notice when words stand out from the crumpled, milk-white pages of another ruined book. They eye them not with the same suspicion as leaking red, but as though written by a doctor, important and necessary etchings. I am not a doctor, though. Nor am I necessary. I have been told this my entire life.
It has taken so long to slice the required vein, to drain myself, that I have now lost the will to write. I could record my voice, shout even, but the written word is so much more preferable. Dickens’ and Shakespeare’s works would not carry the same kudos if unavailable to the masses. Damn this endless malaise!
Hours have slipped past. I have no words left to impart. Unless I have, and you read them already, here and now. But words must carry details, information, promises and rewards. These words carry only doom. I apologise for this. Doom is in my nature.
I close the book. Stitch up my wound. Mire in melancholy just a little longer. But time is something I have, and it avails an afterthought.
I reach up from the depths and twist a star; they never like this. The brilliant beam of molten silver this act avails makes it all worthwhile. I step out into this mercury spotlight and steal said luminance. Or displace it, I’m unsure which?
Only light reveals me, for I am the darkness it would otherwise banish. Light is always the key, not words, nor books, nor me. And I realise as I hum a tune to the other so high above that I don’t need to leave a note. I am not required to forewarn you. Eventually, we shall meet regardless, and you and I can share as many words as we want for as long as we want. Or not.
I bow to Eternity. I wave to Infinity. Neither wave back. I then depart stage down.
‘Death has left the building!’ I wish to scream.
Instead, I snigger at those pathetic fools I wished to please, to reassure, to inform. Death never leaves the building, you see. He, by which I mean me, just waits outside the door.
Now, I am home. I am bleeding freely, if inwards, not out. Perhaps I shall write about it. After all, I bleed only for you.
Thanks for reading
Richard
Richard M. Ankers
The butterfly moon is not a moon per se, rather, a moment in time. A release of magic upon the sky. Those few minutes where a bejewelled night begs for more and those who watch her weep.
It begins with the moon.
She rises high, like a breaching whale who forgot to turn back at the waves. The gentle, titanium giantess flies, flies, sweeps into the sky to float as effortlessly as a child’s forgotten balloon. There she hangs. There she gathers the energies of the universe, brightens, lightens, burns milk-white. This is seen. She is always seen.
They appear as coloured raindrops falling up, not down. A few at first, the shoal gather pace. Vermillion and emerald, sapphire and citrine, wings flap and feelers feel. The moon gleams all the whiter.
They swim rather than fly. The moths and butterflies, for the two are inseparable on nights such as these, flitter and flap their way towards an obsidian sky the stars have vacated. They have bowed down to their celestial mistress, as have the spinning galaxies themselves. This night is aflame in the vivid colours of nature. Oh, what a joy for the milk-white queen.
The little ones circle her as a tide of fairy lights. They bob up and down as if blown by some unfelt solar wind around their cosmic Christmas tree. So pretty. So exquisite. The moon is, of course, the crowning jewel upon its topmost heights. This is what it has waited for, our moon. One moment in forever to truly enjoy the view.
She weeps silver tears at their passing. She fills the oceans, rivers, lakes, ponds, and the liquid souls of those who watch in awe through open curtains. Alas, it does not last, but the best things never do.
They do not fly down, but take one last farewell lap and head off into eternity. The moon waves each one goodbye.
As do we.
Never forget the little ones, they’re just as important as you or I.
Thank you for reading
Richard
I enter the fade like a fog the night
A ghost shrouded in net curtains
A dream made nightmare made more
Where hollow eyes look up, not down
Dark patches of midnight blotting a weeping moon
Here, purgatorial blooms proliferate
Surging in reckless monochrome
Sprouting wherever with no desire for shade
Never accepting death’s cascading sorrows
Never believing the simple truth
That there’s nothing to feel but feelings themselves
Because there’s nothing to feel at all
Thank you for reading
Richard
A big thank you to the wonderful Manuela Timofte, editor at Gobblers & Masticadores, for publishing my latest micro-fiction, Solitary Thoughts. I hope you all enjoy the read.
Please take a few minutes to check out the other superb works on offer.
Thank you for reading
Richard
Richard M. Ankers
Richard M. Ankers - Storybook 
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