Dream fantasy, by JVC

   I am in a broken-down lift with members of the England women's cricket team. I can see Heather Knight, Danni Wyatt-Hodge, Lauren Bell, Lauren Filer, Maia Bouchier , perhaps Sophia Dunkley and Linsey Smith and some others, so it must be a very large lift. We have been stuck there for some time, and one of the girls gets panicky, but I calm her down and suggest we have a sing-song. Then, as is the way with dreams, the scene shifts and we're playing blind man's buff: I am blindfolded and the others circle round me, giggling and slapping me before retreating out of reach. I say that if I catch someone, I'll claim the right to kiss her. I do eventually grab hold of one and kiss her: I think it's Lauren Filer, but at this stage I wake up.

What should I make of this?  

Surrender, by Dennis Clarke

“Hello! I know who you are; you’re detective inspector Robertson; but you don’t really know who I am. You think I’m a harmless old woman called Suzi Marginton, and that’s true enough as far as it goes; but you’ve probably also heard of me as Sheba, after the Queen of Sheba in the Bible. Yes, that’s right: I’m the person who supplies all the drugs in the town. Or rather, I used to. Surprised to see me? You’ve been after me for years, but you never even got close, did you? But now I’m here.

  “Let me explain. You’ll concede, won’t you, that we only ever traded cannabis and LSD: no harder stuff. And it was always clean; never cut with anything dangerous. Furthermore, we never used violence. This town was peaceful for years, wasn’t it? Bur now times have changed.

  “A new group’s trying to move in and take over. They call themselves the Elite. Sometimes they spell it backwards: ETILE. You’ll likely have seen this sprayed up on a wall, and wondered what it means; now I’m telling you. This mob pushes skunk, heroin, crack cocaine: anything you can name. And they’re a violent mob: there’ll be killings on our streets soon, if you don’t act quickly.

  “So I’m here to tell you this; and I want you to arrest me and lock me up. Because, right now, I reckon it’s the safest place for me to be.”   

Pagan Philosophy, by Peter Shilston

 (Dedicated to the people of the Caucasus, which I visited many yaers ago)

The people are like their mountains,

beautiful, but untamed

implacable against those

who do not show them proper respect

They know that

to leave an insult or injury unavenged

serves only to invite more.

Silly people in the cities

may talk of dying for a cause

but a seious man knows that

if your cause is to triumph

you musy kill for it

In the end we all die

but what better way to die

than in defence of your home

sword in hand

surrounded by the bodies of you enemies

The only true immortality

is when children yet unborn

tell stories of your mighty deeds

The mountains and their people

once inspired Pushkin and Lermontov and Tolstoy

and now they inspire

Vladimir Putin

- a serious man

.

Injury Time, by Matthew Stewart