Tag: writing

Cling and Kick | Haiku

The first chill fingers of winter have crept round the door in Scotland this week. Two haiku to match…

Frost on the inside of a windowpane.

Cling

Intruder frost has crept

Inside, clinging latticed to

Frigid windowpanes.

Read more: Cling and Kick | Haiku
Empty wire birdfeeder

Kick

Windless swaying of

Just-left feeders, kicked into

Shy parabolas.

Thanks for reading, folks. My recent short stories include ‘Sunset Hours‘ and ‘November Cold‘.

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, and Shooter magazine. He has a Professional Doctorate in Education. Matthew blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.

November Cold | Short Story

My father disappears on the train between Neilston and Kilmarnock. He does this without leaving my side, without his elbows ever lifting from the plastic tabletop where they prop up his phone. Dad vanishes in a carriage busy with beery, jostling men talking to him about Killie’s injury crisis and whether I am his wee lassie.

In the pub Dad stands pint in hand, watching the horseracing. I’m given a packet of Quavers and the barmaid asks what time my mum is getting back from her Girls Night Out. Then, the weary walk through the terraced houses as the gloom gathers and the November cold creeps. Dad holds my hand loosely as the pavements become crowded.

Continue reading “November Cold | Short Story” →

There’s No-one Here | Poetry

There’s no-one here at the moment.

Just sterilised, shadowed corners and

Rows of steel doors, all closed.

Those stories, pushed along drawer runners,

Running no more

In this halfway house, this budget hostel.

A first chance to rest

Brought to bear by flame and earth.

Thanks for reading, folks. My recent short stories include ‘Sunset Hours‘ and ‘Crib Stuck‘.

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, and Shooter magazine. He is a doctoral student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father. He blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.

Sunset Hours | Short Story

The mountainside gloams around the man. He sees it in the dulling of the red-brown autumn heather. It is in the greying, the blueing of the chill air. It is in the sound of the ben quietening.

The man already knows what the evening, what the night will look like; he has seen it once before. Umber and steel and fathomless blue and breeze and movement and yawning space. The man also knows that he will not see nights beyond the one approaching.

Continue reading “Sunset Hours | Short Story” →

Crib Stuck | Short Story

One can always tell by the calves. There they are, facing away from the arete. They are hiker’s calves – seemingly hewn from volcanic rock and looking set to erupt out of the socks encasing them. No mere holiday walker, he. An athlete he might be, but calves don’t lie and this pair, high up on the arete, are spasming in the summer heat.

He’s crib stuck, the lad. Not unusual, particularly on this lonely arm of Snowdon. The boy – young man really – has got it bad. White-cuticled fingers clawing at the top of the knife-edged ridge, chest pressed as low to the mountain as possible, eyes wild and with pupils dilated like discuses. He’s looking for security, for the wide open wind to stop battering at his kagool. All nine-hundred metres of near-vertical drop yawns behind him, whilst ahead and over the crest of the ridge lies only more space, more air. This is about as bad a case as I’ve seen, and not made any better for the lad being alone on the mountain.

Continue reading “Crib Stuck | Short Story” →

Storm and Song | Haiku

What appears to have been the Scottish ‘summer’ is now apparently at an end. The first of what I imagine will be plenty of Autumn haiku are below…

Rain running down a window

Storm

Violent spatter

Against a square of slate sky.

Bulbous autumn storms.

Fire embers glowing

Song

An empty grate, yet

That smell of red embers, of

Songs sung, lilted verse.

*Thanks for reading, folks. Images courtesy of David Wagner and Peakpx. My recent short stories include ‘Rendered Soft‘ and ‘Across the Glassine‘.

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, and Shooter magazine. He is a doctoral student at the University of Dundee, a lucky husband, and a proud father. He blogs at www.matthewjrichardson.com.