Blanket Trends

The patchwork quilt I show you,

each square lovingly sewn,

has input from all the family.

I’ve already seen yours,

and it has made me smile many times.

Now I’m showing you mine,

I catch the same twitch upwards to your lips

as plays on my own.

You finally know

how I’ve melted into your life

as if I’ve always been here.

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Spilt milk

I’ve seen many artists make portraits from coffee foam.

Shaping, contouring, scraping.

Letting the natural colour show underneath all that froth.

But what happens if the cup is spilt

and the liquid runs down the tablecloth

in a race to escape its confines?

Will it travel separately, several long tracks dispersing from everything they were before

yet leaving their mark on the cotton,

or will it pool together again to build up the image once more,

refined, certain, bold

to stand out

against the plain colour of its background?

This love

The page is white. Bright, brilliant.

Seeping onto it are reds, blues,

greens, purples, yellows.

There are no eyes,

but there are lips,

and an embrace, so close that the colours

merge, the figures

separate but still one.

Their clothes are plain,

because how can any garment

outshine the prism inside?

Jard Town, the home of Thordric Manfred Smallchance

Today I thought I’d do something a bit different, and talk a bit about the town Unofficial Detective, my debut book, is set in.

Jard Town is its name, and it was given by its founder, the wizard Kalljard, who since the town’s inception one thousand years before Thordric’s story starts, was High Wizard of the Wizard Council (yes, he really was that old)… until his untimely death at the beginning of the book.

Before that, it was just a small settlement surrounded by forest and thus full of forest folk, including the Watchem Watchems, who even at that time, loved to disguise themselves as shrubbery and put people on edge by following them around. But Kalljard put an end to all that, driving every creature away and building the foundations of the town in their place.

Now it bustles with normal town life, full of carriages, wizards, half-wizards (though for reasons of personal safety, they don’t openly admit it), bakers, builders, students, dry cleaners, police officers and many serious people. Nothing special, really. Except, of course, that no-one knows how hateful and ruthless a man its founder truly was.

At least, not until Thordric stumbles – somewhat by accident – onto the truth.

 

If you’re interested, Unofficial Detective is available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, as well as The Book Depository.