Scholars and Scoundrels: 2015

She materialised along a foggy riverside.

Stabbing stilettos echoed at the midnight hour.

She was distant at the feet of the clock tower,

Splashing through rain puddles, or maybe piss,

Or broken innocence on those deserted streets,

Where scowling policemen walked the beat.

She didn't answer when I called out her name,

Fading into the shadows of the cold sombre night,

Where memories remain like a stubborn flame,

When we used to dance underneath the city lights.

A flicker and flash took us to the past.

We sat together at a table in a corner,

In a place where everyone knew my face,

Amongst the last of the big time drinkers,

Who often witnessed my falls from grace.

She spoke of what she thought she knew,

For she couldn't grow into what she knew.

I recall the time I saw her by a fountain,

On a brisk autumn day in the city centre,

Where she was with a failed comedian.

I wasn't sure at first, but it was her,

With her smile withered away,

And all I could do was turn away.

I fell upon her name in a newspaper,

One white morning in the winter,

Sat by the window in that corner.

They found her in a land faraway,

Washed up on a bay under the sun,

After they killed more than her time.

I see her on the streets around here,

That form her presence back here,

Where she comes and disappears,

In moments as fleeting as life itself.

She comes and goes with the wind,

Which blows through these streets,

Whipping the flames of memories.
The fearsome fires flicker and flash.

Blazing, burning, they turn me to ash.

My novel, The Devil's Nest, is out for pre-order right now at the great price of $2.99. It is available on Amazon Kindle and the free Kindle reading app for computers and mobile devices. The release date is May 11, 2015. This post contains the first chapter in its entirety, and links to pre-order The Devil's Nest will be at the bottom of this page.

CHAPTER ONE: MAYHEM

“Go Down Fighting” - Half Life (Never Give In, 1989)

“Sex and Violence” - The Exploited (Punks Not Dead, 1981)

My vision blurred and I became lost in a puddle of blood. Crawling on my hands and knees, the room spun around me. Premonitions of powerlessness clouded my panicking thoughts. It's a scenario that one might envision themselves in while reading exaggerated bar fight stories on a message board at two in the morning, but this wasn't an online forum. This was real and raw.

My blood already spilled onto the floor and my brains were scrambled by a baleful man – someone who not only smelled of, but looked as if they were made of cheap cigars and whiskey farts.

The patrons looked down at me in the gloomy and uproarious cauldron of The Devil's Nest. Tinges of regulation-breaking cigarette smoke and cannabis caught my nose. Then a foot drove into my ribs and turned me over onto my back. I took another kick to the ribs, but got my hand high enough to graze their nut sack. My fingertips clipped them through their blue denim jeans. It was a rash attempt to buy myself time and get into the fight, but it only pissed them off even more. They knocked me back down with a chest-crushing stomp.

I laid in the glass that was broken over my head moments earlier. The shouts for violence intensified. A silhouette of my attacker emerged, and their burdensome figure formed in the very little amount of light that emitted from a bulb hanging pathetically from the basement ceiling. The towering man wore a Boston Red Sox ballcap, because he's most likely a bandwagoning dipshit who got into them in 2004. His longish hair spilled out from under the hat and looked dry like straw. His terrifying angular face was sweatier than a priest walking past a playground. A scar under his left eye stood out on a relatively young face that was aged by alcohol – a monument to brutality. He stood over me and lifted a fire extinguisher over his head. This was Ozzie Scroggs - “The Mad Dog.”

He supported that nickname further by mercilessly slamming the extinguisher on my nose. A thunderous pop rose out of the onlookers. Drowning in the inhospitable existence, I put my hands up in defense. Ozzie threw the extinguisher down with such vigor that it wasn't of much use. I felt my nose break and the thick, dark red blood clogged my breathing, flowed over my teeth, into my mouth, trickled off my chin and ran down the back of my throat. I tried to sit upright to prevent the blood from going down my throat too much, because I already felt sick to my stomach. It mixed with the dozen or so pints that I drank throughout the night. Drinking all the whiskey in my flask wasn't such a good idea either.

Ozzie's big left foot, made heavier by his Irish Setter boot, knocked me unconscious before I could take in the crisp smell of its leather. It's difficult for me to recall how I got to lying on some dirty snow in the pub's dark back alley. Crawling to my hands and knees, a gentle touch of my nose brought on a grinding pain. Blood dripped from my nostrils and stained the snow. My neck struggled to prop my throbbing head.

I rolled into a sitting position, then felt a rutty cotton glove touch my right cheek. A grumble slipped from my mouth. My bruised cheeks swelled and made it hard for me to talk without feeling as if a pocket of blood was going to burst out of the flesh. I groggily lifted my head to see a scraggly old man, with long unkempt gray hair all over his head, and a musty odor that came off his tattered brown buttoned-up coat. The burdens of life hung on each wrinkle that hardship carved into his wooden face. Those wintry eyes examined me from top to bottom.

I looked around the hushed alley with trepidation, dazed and confused, trying to process the moment. The pitiless wind died down throughout the night, leaving us to our frozen hinterland. The only thing between us was the fog from our breath. My muscles tensed and, in a move triggered by nothing but the natural desire to survive, I put an arm up to get a little distance from the man. I braced myself for a mugging.

“C'mon, kid.” His voice was accommodating. He pulled my arm in a bid to help me off the ground. “This ain't no place for anybody. December in Minnesota ain't nothin' to fuck with. Come on...”

He threw my arm around his shoulder, dragged me to the sidewalk, then flagged down a cab. He threw me in the back seat, then told the driver to get me to the hospital, but didn't get in the cab for the lift. At least the bare minimum is better than nothing.

I barely remember what happened next, but I puked all over myself in the back of the cab. I do remember being diagnosed with a broken nose the next day. A cute nurse pulled slivers of glass out of my head with tweezers in the early morning hours. My mouth tasted of dry blood and stale vomit. My head banged in agony. All I wanted to do was take a shower and sleep in the warm comforts of my own bed.

This was all the result of a darts game gone awry. A fucking darts game. I had previous history with Ozzie Scroggs before, but a darts game brought our paths together again. It more than pissed me off. It reminded me of something that needed to be forgotten a long time ago, and made me feel more exposed than I ever wished to feel again. Becoming a better darts player wasn't going to be my way forward, but I couldn't let that night go without a response. This was bigger than Scroggs. It cut to my bones more than most will ever know.

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Monday, November 30, 2015

RYAN POLLARD'S FREE BOOK JINGLE HELL

Monday, September 21, 2015

ASHES - A POEM

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

THE DEVIL'S NEST, CHAPTER ONE - A PREVIEW

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

FRACTURED WORK OF ART - A POEM