His smile was like pig-iron blasted from a stormy sky in winter. His tears were like silver mirrors, cracked and splattered on his taut plastic skin. Because she was as grudging as gold made lead by a malevolent alchemist. ©suzanne conboy-hill 2011 You may share but not sell, alter, substantially extract, or claim as your own. Continue reading Heavy Metal
The instructions said to open up my soul To pull aside the clattering shades, the dusty drapes Of my personal museum To cast light on fractured mirrors of truth and wishes * No! They didn’t That’s not it at all It’s not … That’s not what it meant * But the instructions said … And I draw up my knees to protect my heart from The thundering minds of curious and dispassionate scrutineers Bent on clamorous critique * Wuss! Who’s looking? It means nothing at all Just do it Nobody here cares * But there is caring, in this new … Continue reading The Box of Me
Hissing, spitting, wound up, bound up, looped and tied Into choices, their choices, I lied To get an operator, a person * Someone real to feel my exasperation but instead I get another endless list of choices Their choices * Press One for Returns, Press Two for Orders Press what for steaming, fire breathing, excoriating rage bordering on Murderous intent * All our Operators are busy but we really value your custom so Please hold For more Choices ©suzanne conboy-hill 2010 You may share but not sell, alter, substantially extract, or claim as your own. Continue reading Blondie’s Nemesis
Pads like little radiators, sneaking Snidely over the bed, catching threads In stinging claws that shred With innocence, the satinette covers. ©suzanne conboy-hill 2010 You may share but not sell, alter, substantially extract, or claim as your own. Continue reading Catching Threads
Punch the keys Mis-hit – crap! Back three spaces Screen freezes * Ctrl Alt Delete, feet tapping Impatience, password matches We’re in! * Office, clipboard, Internet Explorer (Version 9) So very slowly creeping back * How many open windows? Don’t you know That will screw it? Urgent update to send In 140 characters ©suzanne conboy-hill 2010 You may share but not sell, alter, substantially extract, or claim as your own. Continue reading Trivial Frustration
Piers is standing alone in a hotel room with a clock in his head which is about to go off. He is waiting for Dylis because he needs a few moments of her sunshine, the way it used to be back in the day, before he gives her the envelope that he will make her promise not to open until she gets home. She will giggle and pretend to rip it apart to get at the contents and he will fix that image in his mind. The last time he saw her though, before the clock when ‘forever’ was another … Continue reading Tick Tock
Re-purposed At the bottom of the shopping bag? No. Under the sofa? Nada. Down behind the cushions, then? Oh God, what is that stuff? Sloshed to papier mâché at 40C in a jeans pocket? Better not be. Chased down the garden by a freak wind? In the car, down in the footwell? Your footwell, then? No? Well where? Keep looking. You keep looking. The bird is looking; its beady eyes lasering a line through the branches at the scuttling humans below. It fluffs, pokes around with its beak, and nests its egg on the soft shreds of their wasted effort. _____ Conflicted … Continue reading Three Kinds of Lost
The ambient light is the colour of swamp fog; I am suspended from the ceiling in a net like a balloon at a solstice party; and there is a worm in my mouth. This has to be the mother of all hangovers. The worm is squeezed into the space between my upper and lower lips like toothpaste, sealing them shut as effectively as a dollop of glue. There is no smell – earthy or otherwise – and mercifully no taste either, but I have not yet been able to evict it. I have tried blowing but this just puffs out … Continue reading Sequenced Heir, Nipped Rind
Something odd was happening. The air had been tingling for days; fizzing when he wafted his hand across his face, and just lately leaving a faint after-glow in its trail. He’d taken to drawing out equations in the air to see how long the effect persisted, and if he could get a whole one up there before the first terms disappeared. ‘What’s with all the semaphore, Jeff?’ his pal Don asked from under a cocked eyebrow. He leaned in the doorway and watched as Jeff flailed his arms, like he was landing a jumbo jet in his kitchen. ‘Nothing,’ Jeff … Continue reading Copied Right
Nick’s body convulsed in a cough that scorched his lungs and expelled a glob of bright, wet material onto the sweaty sheet he held under his chin. He tracked its progress. The group of people clustered in the doorway tracked it too and took an involuntary step backwards. ‘Shouldn’t we have special suits?’ one of them said. ‘It’s only blood and spit,’ someone else remarked, although his laugh was a little strained. Shannon thought about it; the man looked red and hot but he was shivering. ‘Franklin, are you getting this?’ She angled her head-cam towards Nick and described his … Continue reading Incubators
Dr Suzanne Conboy-Hill 