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Contents

Poetry
Icarus Wings : Shaun Allan
I Wonder : Shaun Allan
Attraction : Paul Morran
Furnishings : Paul Morran
Liquorice : Paul Morran
In the Still of the Night : Debbie Panks

Fiction
Melody's Melody : Karen Mossman

Serial
Down by the River : Karen Mossman
Part one of an exciting new serial set in the deep south of America

Icarus Wings

On the wings of Icarus
I fly.

I am risen up
by your touch
and your lingering taste
and your breath

I soar in your eyes
and swoop in your hair
I dive at your absence
and plummet at your despair

Then I glide

as you smile

And on Icarus wings
I fly

Shaun Allan ~

I Wonder

I wonder
When I close my eyes,
Does the world go to sleep?
wonder, if it does,
What does it count,
Instead of sheep?

I wonder

When I close my eyes,
Does the world cease to exist?
Gone in a second,
Brief moments unmissed.

And I wonder

When I close my eyes,
Does the world just disappear,
Leaving not a trace
To show it was ever here?

And I wonder

When the world closes its eyes,
And can no longer see,
I wonder,
What happens to me?

Shaun Allan ~

Attraction

We have nothing in common
this woman and I
she hard-bitten fun-loving
me other-worldly shy

so now how this difference
whenever we meet alone
a yielding a softness
in her face or in her tone
of voice
a somehow tenderness
in the very fabric of her dress

it happens without warning
I discover a longing
to take her in my arms.

Paul Morran ~

Furnishings

On a wall the mirror
gives back the spacious cool - reflects
on the tenants of deep shadows - re-echoes
the muted sparkle of decorous crystal - views
with an old-fashioned clarity
the aged chrysanthemums

shining like dark jewels in the gloom.

Paul Morran ~

Liquorice

I will name the names of Liquorice the dog
you may call him "Lick-lock" or "Licks" when he is playful
and then again "Oil-slick"
"Smelly-belly" even
"The-Devil-in-disguise"
a thin disguise
when he flashes his fangs and his eyes glow cold like headlamps

but when you observe what is due to his dignity
you will give him his right and proper title
"The man".

Paul Morran ~

In the Still of Night

Tonight,Tonight,
The stars are shining bright,
The moon a marble dinner plate,
Alight the sky tonight.
An owl does hoot,
High in a tree,
Glistening leaves,Aware to me.
Spiders webs, fresh dew adorned,
A badger creeps out of his set,
Greeting foxes and rabbits met.
While Moths and fireflys come out to play,
When dead of night takes over from day.
As we asleep in snuggled beds,
See other visions in our heads,
But as the night to day transforms,
The beauty that for night is norm,
Hides to greet another dawn.

Debbie Pank ~

Melody's Melody

Mickey walked up the stairs in the direction the receptionist had told him. He hoped he was right, it would be a mystery solved. If he was wrong, he might just make someone's day.

This had been a good year for him and his band Blue Jam. Their album had been in the charts for most of the year. Almost every track had reached the top ten with two number ones and they'd had a sell out tour all over the world.

He'd noticed a few days ago that the artwork work for the album sleeve was credited to Melody Williams. Could it be the girl who'd lived next door to him ten years ago? She used to sketch, in fact, he still had the one she did of Blue Jam rehearsing in his cellar.

Mickey knocked on the door, his hands suddenly clammy. She was obviously expecting him as she sat at a large drawing board, her hands in her lap. Her long dark hair almost hiding her face. "Hello Mickey," she said, rising to her feet.

"It is you, then," he said, recognising her immediately.

She came towards him, hands still clasped together. I wondered if you'd ever make the connection. She came to a stop in front of him. He was not a tall man himself, but she tiny.

"I always knew there was something vaguely familiar about the art work, but I only looked up your name the other day. We've had a busy year," he told her.

"I know," she said quietly, "I've followed your career. I..." The telephone rang. "Excuse me."

Mickey turned to look at the work around the room. It was very good, very varied. Record sleeves just a small part.

"Yes, by the end of the week, yes... okay, leave it with me," she was saying.

When she replaced the receiver, he said, "Look, I can see you're busy. Let's get together sometime, eh?"

There was a pause before she answered, "No, I'd rather not." He looked at her with surprise. Nobody turned him down these days. "Why not?"

"Because," she was embarrassed. "Because, I don't want to dig up the past. I'm sorry."

"I tried to find you, Mel. They told me you were in an institution and not accepting visitors."

"Look," she said turning away, "I've got a lot to do."

Now he'd found her, he didn't want to lose her. "I would've helped, you only ever had to ask?" He was hoping she would change her mind.

When it had all come to a head, he'd been away. There should have been the death penalty for what that man did.

"No!" she said, her dark eyes flared, "I said no. Please just go, Mickey."

He gazed at her for a long moment, before digging into his pocket for his card. If you should change your mind... She didn't take it, so he dropped it onto the desk.

Mickey saw how his visit had upset her and was embarrassed at his thoughtlessness. He turned and left.

Driving home, his stereo for once quiet, his mind back to the day he first met her. She couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen. He'd heard a noise in the back garden and went to investigate. He caught her climbing over his fence with a fist full of flowers. She was so startled at having been caught that she fell and landed on his rockery. He'd put up high fencing to protect his privacy. Blue Jam were already well known around clubland and the last thing he'd wanted was fans peering in at windows. He'd been angry, but the terror on her face and the blood on her arm stopped him voicing it. Instead he had taken her into his kitchen and mopped up the blood and tears. And there began his strange relationship with Melody.

When Mickey arrived home, he took a hot bath. It was a luxury to be able to take one without watching the clock. For the last twelve months the clock had governed all of their lives. Photographic sessions, interviews,rehearsals, travelling andconcerts. Although he loved it all, he was tired. Tired of the decisions, tired of being at everyone's beck and call. In the bath he dozed amongst the soap suds, enjoying the peace. When the water cooled, he got out, dried himself and put on a towelling robe. In the bedroom he turned on theTV and lay on the bed flicking through the channels. He watched MTV for a while before falling asleep.

The sound of the telephone woke him some time later. "Mickey?" said a soft female voice.

He was suddenly fully awake. "Mel?"

"I want to apologise. I was rude."

"It's okay. I probably gave you a shock turning up like that."

"You did and I associated you with everything else. But I was wrong. You were my saving grace."

"We were good friends and I was probably even in love with you."

She gave a little laugh. "I didn't want to be come dependant on you, It..."

"You should have," he interrupted. "I wouldn't have turned you down."

"You'd have ended up hating me."

"No I wouldn't," he insisted. "Nobody could have hated you."

"Somebody did." He fell silent remembering her brutal step father.

"Anyway," she said quickly. "I just wanted to apologise for being rude."

"Have dinner with me, Mel. Let's talk."

"I don't know," she whispered.

"Look, it wasn't your fault. You didn't have any control over your parents." The phone went silent.

"I know, it plays over and over in my mind like a broken record," she said.

He looked at the clock, it was almost seven. "Look, I'll come and get you and we'll get a take away."

"All right," she said. "I'm still at work."

It didn't take him long to dress. Maybe now he could put right some of the wrong.

He'd come home from a wonderful tour of the south, to find the man next door had murdered his wife. Melody had been so traumatised, she couldn't speak.

She was waiting in the door way with a smile. They stopped to pick up pizza causing a stir as he was recognised. That seemed to amuse her and she chuckled most of the way home. As they swung into his road, he turned to see her ashen face.

"I'm sorry," he gasped, "I never thought.....we could go somewhere else."

How stupid of him! He'd never moved, he still lived next door to the house it happened in.

"No, never mind," she said, clearly shaken.

They went straight through to the kitchen and Mickey began opening the pizza boxes. Looking up he saw Melody sitting in the same corner. He would come home from gigs to find her sitting at his back door. He eventually gave her a key. He always found her sitting in the corner of the kitchen waiting for him. Now her eyes looked back at him with that same haunted expression. "Are you all right?" he asked.

"I'm just exorcising a few ghosts," she said. He was exorcising ghosts himself.

In those days, what went on behind closed doors was the business of the family. He didn't want to think too deeply about it. But he'd done his bit. He provided her with a refuge, provided her with a shoulder to cry on. Only she rarely cried, she never talked about their cruelty, their unnatural behaviour. Sometimes thought, he could heard her crying through the wall, sometimes he came home and saw she had been crying, but when she saw him, she always smiled.

"Mickey, I have something to tell you, but it's not easy." She got up from the corner, and stood by the piano.

"Tell me what?" He had the first stirrings of doubt.

"About what happened."

"I haven't the stomach for gory details," he said, but it wasn't that, he just didn't want to face his own guilt.

There were tears in her eyes as she began to speak, he didn't want to hear, but couldn't find the words to stop her.

"You're not making sense, Melody," he said eventually.

"That's because he didn't kill my mother - I did." Mickey felt his heart miss a beat. He held his breath as her words reverberated inside his head. The colour left his face.

Melody was staring at him, tears spilling down her cheeks. "Say something," she muttered. Finally he let out his breath. He opened his mouth and no words came out. "Mickey, I'm so sorry," she whispered, "I couldn't tell you, you were helping me, I was afraid."

He came round the piano to where she was standing and grabbed her arms. You murdered someone and said nothing! She was sobbing and gave him a million reasons why her mother deserved all she got. Finally he watched her leave. The air was full of promises, empty promises. It was clear to him that her dad must have loved her very much to take the blame. She had said he would get parole soon and they would be together. Mickey didn't want to think about that either. He threw the pizza's into the bin, then turned on the tape recorder and sat down at the piano. It was like a burden had been taken from him.

He began to play, softly at first, like a breeze rustling through the trees. As the music filled his head it rose to a faltering crescendo. The words would not be easy, but Melody's Melody was destined to be Blue Jams finest.

K.J. Mossman ~

Down by the River

As soon as Shelby stepped off the bus, she knew she was already too late. The feeling at the pit of her stomach was almost unbearable.

"Ma'am, you okay?" the bus driver asked as she swayed slightly in the early morning heat.

"Yes, yes I'm fine, thank you," she responded. The feeling passed quickly but she was left with a sense of foreboding. The sun made her squint through her dark glasses as she began the long trek down the dusty road.

This small Kansas town was repressive. Since the death of her mother Annie-Clare, life with her drunken Pa had become unbearable. Shelby was cursed with a gift, a gift that left her open to taunts and cruelty. Life would have been intolerable if it had not been for Mary-Jo. She too, suffered taunts as people did not understand her. She had a simplicity that they mistook for stupidity. So she and Mary-Jo had befriended each other.

Mary-Jo had written her long scrawly, barely legible letters. For some time now she had spoken of Ricky, and how happy he had made her. Ricky was an outsider. The town did not like him, did not trust him and Mary-Jo was condemned for loving him.

He lived in a trailer near the river. As Shelby made her wary way over there she thought about what Mary-Jo had said about him.

When he was a boy he had lived with his mother outside town. The house had mysteriously burned down with his mother and her lover inside it. They said he torched it himself, but no one knew for sure. He grew up in an orphanage where his reputation as a bad boy steadily grew.

As she approached he was coming out of the door. Quickly she took in his tall, thin appearance. He wore denim jeans and jacket with an old vest underneath. His dark hair was long to his shoulders, his dark eyes broody.

"Are you Ricky?" she asked tentatively, although she knew he was.

He looked her up and down sullenly. "What if I am?" he growled.

"I'm Shelby," she told him as he pinned back the trailer door.

"Is that supposed to mean something?"

"I'm Mary-Jo's friend? "

"Oh, that Shelby," he said going back inside. She hesitated before following.

The trailer was surprisingly neat and spacious inside. He had sat down in front of the television, the sound too low to hear.

"I'm looking for Mary-Jo," she explained, standing awkwardly in the doorway.

"She ain't here," he replied without looking up.

"Have you seen her?"

"Nope." He still did not look up, then he said quietly, "You ran out on her."

Shelby swallowed nervously. "She didn't mind, she understood."

"She minded, she minded very much." He turned to her and she felt uncomfortable as his eyes travelled round her body. She sat on the bunk and fidgeted with her fingers.

"She said she was in trouble - wanted me to come," she told him.

"Oh yeah? That's gallant of you." His anger made her uneasy.

"She's my friend and she needs me." He glared at her making her wish she had not chosen those words.

"Her friend?" he repeated.

The guilt that Shelby felt for leaving in the first place, still played on her mind. "Please, Ricky, you don't understand."

"No," he said looking back to the television.

"I know something's wrong. I thought she would be here."

"Well, she ain't and I'd prefer it if you weren't either."

Getting to her feet, Shelby felt a little braver. "It doesn't matter what you think of me, but I know you care for Mary-Jo..."

Ricky was up off his chair in a flash, Shelby flinched and stepped back slightly.

"What the hell do you know? I might care for her, but if she cared for me..." He stopped as they heard the sound of cars. Ricky looked out of the window and cursed. Shelby was frightened, sensing more than she knew.

Two cars screeched to a halt and within a moment the trailer was full of police. Ricky tried to run. It was natural for him to run. Shelby watched with horror as he was violently hand-cuffed and dragged outside. She had forgotten how brutal the police could be.

"Leave him alone!" she cried despairingly as they dragged him away.

"Well, well. If it ain't little Shelb?" said a familiar voice and Rawden Hughes laughed. "I thought you'd gone for good." Shelby flinched her eye catching his badge and his promotion to Sheriff..

"That's right," he said noticing where her eyes went. "I'm the big boy now. Maybe you know where Mary-Jo is?"

"If I did, I wouldn't tell you," she told him following them outside anxiously. Rawden s face darkened and his bushy eyebrows knitted together.

"I'm the law round here now, girl. You have to tell me."

"I've just arrived, I don't know anything," she said hoping that he could not see her trembling.

"And if you know what's good for you, you'll leave again, today," he told her as he got back into the car.

As she watched them screech off, she caught the curious look Ricky shot her.

She and Rawden Hughes went back a long way. She was indebted to him and he never let her forget it.

Her father was sitting next to the fire, staring at the flames. He was sober. He did not look up as she entered. The place smelled, or, looking at his clothes, it could have been him. She turned her nose up slightly.

"I thought you'd be back. You shoulda' let me know. I'd have picked you up from the bus."

"Yes, well, I didn't know you'd be sober," she told him looking round, nothing changed.

"A whole year and no word?" he said as she sat down in the high backed chair feeling tired.

"I came back `cos of Mary-Jo." She watched him light a cigarette and draw heavily on it.

"You're a fool to come back here." he said staring moodily into the fire.

"I should never have left Mary-Jo," she said wistfully.

There was tension in this town and it frightened her. Closing her eyes Shelby leaned her head back on the chair.

In her head she saw the swirling of water; tears of betrayal and shame. Shelby shook her head to lose the image and quickly opened her eyes. Her father was watching her, his cigarette almost finished.

"Don't fight it, Shelby," he said quietly. The sound of her heart was pounding in her ears. "You ought to talk with that crazy boy she's been hanging around with."

The following day Mary-Jo's body was found in the river.

K.J. Mossman ~