Author: Matthew J. Richardson

Stories in Golddust Magazine, Literally Stories, Idle Ink, Writer's Egg, CafeLit, McStorytellers, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Down in the Dirt, Close to the Bone, Shooter, Soft Cartel, Fiction Junkies, and Heavenly Flower Publishing

Along the Margins | Poetry

Along the margins

of those great English, wind-brushed fields of barley

lay sunken streets,

the ringroads of rural Suffolk.

Here, where sun and moon rise and stare

at obsequious, nodding herringbone spikelets,

the countryside jostles and hums.

Amidst dog-eared booms

and weed-clogged culverts

and the shredded chaos of fly-tips innumerable,

fauna shuffles, hurried and unhurried.

A water vole snuffles,

slips from the cluttered hedgerow,

bubbles clutching thickset fur, feet scrabbling.

Dragonflies dart,

eye-slipped and iridescent,

hurrying to destinations unknown.

The sweeping fox,

the low-slung, lockjawed badger,

lords of the field, drink and pad away, their hunting undone.

Above, bats flit between shattered shards

of nighttime sky

whilst the always surprised owl

sits aloft, watchful for an unprotected scuttle

in the moonlight.

A rural cast, driven to pastoral peripheries,

centred for a while.

Thanks for reading folks. Recent short stories include ‘The Silver-Lined Ridge‘ and ‘A Shadow World‘.

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, Down in the Dirt, and Shooter magazine. He has a Professional Doctorate in Education. Matthew blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.

Leaf and Linen | Haiku

An ancient, thick cobweb in the corner of a small garden shed, more linen than thread. The cobweb is so thickset that it is more of a mesh than a web. The shed is disused and messy, whilst the cobweb looks thick and as though it has been there for years.

From the trees and into the shed with a couple of haiku…

Wide shot of a large oak in a field, which is bordered by a dry-stone wall. There are dappled shadows underneath the broad canopy. The oak stands alone amidst miles of open farmland.

Leaf

Leafy carapace,

shifting in the warm breeze.

Dappled shadows dance.

An ancient, thick cobweb in the corner of a small garden shed, more linen than thread. The cobweb is so thickset that it is more of a mesh than a web. The shed is disused and messy, whilst the cobweb looks thick and as though it has been there for years.

Linen

More linen than thread –

spider’s trap, muffled and chaste.

Ambition thwarted.

Thanks for reading folks. Recent short stories include ‘The Silver-Lined Ridge‘ and ‘A Shadow World‘.

Matthew Richardson is a writer of short stories. His work has featured in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories, Close to the Bone, McStorytellers, Penny Shorts, Soft Cartel, Whatever Keeps the Lights On, Flashback Fiction, Cafelit, Best MicroFiction 2021, Writer’s Egg, Idle Ink, The Wild Word, Down in the Dirt, and Shooter magazine. He has a Professional Doctorate in Education. Matthew blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.

Perfume | Book Review

Cover of 'Perfume'. A figure of a woman is covered by red flower petals

Perfume

Patrick Süskind

263 pages

Paperback

Penguin Books

1987

ISBN: 9780241973615

Review

‘In eighteenth-century France there lived a man who was one of the most gifted and abominable personages in an era that knew no lack of gifted and abominable personages…’

I wanted to love this book. On spec I should have; it is driven by an ambitious, fresh idea – a man with the most refined sense of smell, sniffing his way around Paris, the French countryside, and murder scenes. Grenouille is our protagonist – an orphan disfigured with smallpox scars and dirt-poor into the bargain. So far, so compelling.

Continue reading “Perfume | Book Review” →

A Shadow World | Short Story

A shadow world, drawn long. It grows after the sun has crested, seeping out from the church spire and the echoing viaduct. Slow at first, it crawls across the cobbles, pushing against the midday glare.

It advances, just as it retreated. The gloom reaches long-fingered down alleys and into closes – pre-dusks slinking eagerly behind the gable-end and the high, dusty hornbeam. Up drainpipes and across windowsills the shadow slips, glazing no bar to its progress. 

Continue reading “A Shadow World | Short Story” →