Paul Sutcliffe Blogs

Blue tigers by Paul Sutcliffe copyright (c) 2016 He went in search of a Blue tiger Somewhere near the Ganges … But how near? Sleeping in ashrams On mountains Waking up Bothered by goats And woken by the twitter of a subcontinental ... 

Shining light (c) Paul Sutcliffe 2015 It came from the east Or the west If one found oneself on the other side Like the styx You wanted to cross but you had no coin This light Stunned Shrivelled And shone even into the deepest ... 

Looked like Borges Copyright (c) Paul Sutcliffe 2015 I saw him from a hidden window Well, hidden to me as much as I remember Through ivory broken towers of toppled greatness I espied him, walking, slouching, breathing away He was ... 

"Things That Might Have Been" by the great, Jorge Luis Borges I think of things that weren’t, but might have been. The treatise on Saxon myths Bede never wrote. The inconceivable work Dante might have had a glimpse of, As soon as he’... 

The Anti-Realists…………. short story © Paul Sutcliffe. 2013 They spake in foreign languages. We did not know where they even lived. Mexico City was still small in those times. I walked up Calle Turin where it met Marsella and saw that tin... 

Incident at Restitution Falls short story © Paul Sutcliffe A dog; a speck of a thing. It arrived in some sort of bus, unkempt, mottled, needy. A dirty mutt. Making noise and disturbing the breathtaking, natural peace. The falls, like shado... 

You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the ... 

Trees swaying In a bright breeze You set off, no maps, no dreams, no world-to-come Over rock and dale and then higher, still A moon in orange, almost brittle Shrill Waking in dawn's dewy reign Sleeping under stars that do not know your name ... 

Fade to gray © Paul Sutcliffe Black,dark,ebony Rich.purples and Crimsons Flowing into night White,wispy,curling,twisted, Frail and moribund Clouds Have passed Oh yeah We fade to grey …………Fade to gray  

The Bluest House © Paul Sutcliffe In, or rather, near, the village of Troiscroixsandamarria, lived three families of troglodytes that had no desire for a house, until one day Jean de Croc de Arazanes arrived from the province of Navaranna. Th... 

Sten Gun at Amiens © Paul Sutcliffe Swift had never been to Amiens. He certainly wasn’t sure how to pronounce it correctly. Just waiting for some frog to turn his nose up at his attempt. No doubt the natives knew even nook and cranny, every R... 

Abandoned Churches © Paul Sutcliffe. Up the west coast. We drove through mango groves and uninhabited highlands. Scrawny parrots and a sky as rain-sodden as a Somme boot. We hadn’t expected this. All the way back from Paduna and El Cirro, we co... 

Time Breaks © Paul Sutcliffe Time breaks In your hands Morning call Birds a-singing Your feet soft on the dewy fells Moving between dung and hedgerow Time breaks In your hand Cyclist pelting across the trail Cows broo-ing Moo-i... 

River’s Edge © Paul Sutcliffe Beaver, otter, stoat, Weasel, weevil Deer, dog, Dogged doggerel Dogging, dirty drivers Doing it Al fresco Barbecue smells Wafting over From Reality TV housing estates Wafting Burger, sausage Bacon... 

Eleffant © Paul Sutcliffe 2014 Ferocious Flappy-eared Warring, warrior, vexed Get out my place………….Naturalists!!! Get your truck and your camera Get out of my face A thousand A thousand and one of me Running over Lombardian ... 

Writer’s Block © Paul Sutcliffe Matter Convex patterns And little numbers Something in a Chemistry book Few understand A block, dense, And heavy Hard to move You stubbed your toe Words flowing out of a sunshine mind On rain... 

Wanderers of the Stars © Paul Sutcliffe 2014 The camp had been set up in a hostile manner. Jones and Smith, both of them travelling under assumed names (Parsons J. and Parsons D.) had both started to contract a type of dengue fever. Their quar... 

Acid skies © Paul Sutcliffe 2014 Paint the sky I did Paint the wall She did Paint the town All did Paint it black white did painted lady a Mexican night you won’t forget paint your wagon bearded men whose hands are forged in... 

H -Point © Paul Sutcliffe 2014 H Point A place of secrecy Overcoats and scratchy syllables H Point Where two strips joined by the midpoint Cause men to take up arms and Fight H Point Something from a novel Written by a man ... 

Persian Meadow © Paul Sutcliffe 2014 A picture on a dirty, snottied wall Pock-marked wall Bullet holes Hole in a tiny framed pantry Spied the meadow outside A picture hanging slanted On a suburb café wall Men in goats hats Faces ... 

ZEN © Paul Sutcliffe 2014 One hand claps Clasps Empti-ness Empty….? Empti…? Ness. Wholeness Roughness Kindness One-handed-ness Clapping A bell rings A bell in Seoul In Tongnimmun In the evening bluest blue Ash skies no... 

The Mind Readers Café © Paul Sutcliffe 2014 They are reading Your mind Before you buy Before you order Reading your mind And Ordering your drink For you They are noseying on your day Telling you what you need What to buy Even... 

FRANK NEENS by Paul Sutcliffe (c) 2013 A woman. At the window. Staring. Then shouting. “Look at my tits!!! Look at my tits!!” Neens froze in the chi kung position. Yes, he could only lip read, but that seemed to be exactly what she w... 

The Spice Islands © Paul Sutcliffe 2014 Birds landing They get here Free Wet birds huddling together On a frail shoreline Cheese moon rising Over lush Ever-rising hills Softlight falling on waves Lapping up over long silences... 

The Comforter by Paul Sutcliffe You were sick And I helped you Lost and forlorn Blown by gusts of a thousand knots over dale, ocean and mountain peak self-harm attacked devoid of ways forward seek the comforter the one who bi... 

Dreams of a Mayan Temple © Paul Sutcliffe 2013 Leaving Buenos Aires was easy. The Fokker smelt of something between kerosene and wood shavings. The ascent had been swift – like reverse submersion. Air baptism. Yes – it was my first time. Cr... 

Brasilia © Paul Sutcliffe 2013 Cubes Cuboid Streets with no names Angels with dirty faces In a hot baking Sun Shapes Of modernity In the middle of Nowhere Managing Such a large Expanse of Thick jungulous land Jack... 

The Lions of Japan © Paul Sutcliffe 2013 Somebody said: “There are no lions in Japan”. Richardson, was the first of the Jesuits to enter Hokkaido. He had been there for a month, living off wild berries and musk-ox. At a little, tiny... 

The hand of the Lord was with him………..by Paul Sutcliffe © Paul Sutcliffe 2013 Fear Abstract fear Pulling you Wrenching you Back The man who could not speak Suddenly He spake! He shall be called ‘Yohanan’, What did you come o... 

I will take refuge in His loving heart by Paul Sutcliffe © Paul Sutcliffe 2013 I will take refuge in His loving heart When all else fails I will take refuge In his mercy I will seek the lost and the broken…………He said If a man l... 

The Hunters of the Ape-mans by Paul Sutcliffe © Paul Sutcliffe 2013 We arrived in a March hotter than hell. Green rushes and fluffy puffed-up clouds and the caw-cawing of a bird unknown to us were the things that I recall of that opening... 

Blue Period by Paul Sutcliffe…© Paul Sutcliffe 2013 Washed up Paris streets Rain comes down Like lemon-squeeze Blue Only blue Your models The poor But you will Overcome The blue And the sadness Of Notre Dame  

The Siege of Bizans © Paul Sutcliffe 2013 The river flows on - Nonstop - Into the night, like time on a strip, where no one knows the destination. Who is driving? The morning creeps up slowly. And through the window comes the light, bathin... 

Taxi by Night Copyright Paul Sutcliffe 2013. We got in in silence. We got out in silence. We passed the Halic and cypress trees flailing like wounded soldiers and small hummingbirds, running by the windows, guided us to our destinatio... 

Camino de Santiago (Night of Secrets) by Paul Sutcliffe: Copyright Paul Sutcliffe 2013 Aeons pass on crusty, cobbled, catatonic highways and bye-ways Trampled upon Down, down, down….down Mashed-earth from thousand-feet of sodden, ... 

Sands of Time by Paul Sutcliffe © Paul Sutcliffe 2013 Caravan of beasts Far on the horizon Still moon……All cream Hangs in the black They move through time Knife through butter Only the wind Only the wind Sighing A look A g... 

Return from Zanzaleta by Paul Sutcliffe (C) Copyright Paul Sutcliffe 2013 That winter was harsh and cold. Not yet ten degrees, but years in the tropics had me soft. The bus was full of campesinos and two mutt-ugly Swedes. Dogs stared up at... 

Night of a Thousand Years by Paul Sutcliffe Stars Like sons Legendary, seemingly immobile Flickering through your window As all of the wars began Nights Like a thousand years Passing without seams And your face, now old Still l... 

The Sound of Dilbert Pipes By Paul Sutcliffe The smog from the power station never eased. Dilbert Pipes. What kind of name was that for a power station? It spewed out its bile day and night. Cloudburst in deep ashen greys, the amount of dayli... 

The Mazies It’s better to start off like you mean to go on. That’s what you hear isn’t it you know real talk, like they do in the movies. Who’s ever heard of a detective that does philosophy? And more to the point, who gives a shit? If you’re lo... 

The Tyrant of Moldolbian by Paul Sutcliffe. (Copyright 2013) In the castle keep High above Stony- angled ground You look out with screwy-eyes on the world you created Elysian fields where Fragile tiny lambs gambol And red suns ... 

The Mystery Religions/ A short story by Paul Sutcliffe. Copyright Paul Sutcliffe 2012 We started at Nippur, and carried along the Refuisakyriotos River until Mempho. The night was dotted with twinkling, already-dead stars, and the hum of animal d... 

The Library Paul Sutcliffe © 2013 The library loomed up from nowhere. One minute the streets were Spartan, functional, emptied and devoid of design. The next dominated by the presence of ‘the building’. A beast of the city. A sm... 

Exit to Cairo. by Paul Sutcliffe, (Copyright Paul Sutcliffe 2013). Stands in corner of that room looking out towards the Nile. Sweating, drinking from a filthy chipped cup. The fan swirling and the stench It’ s early e...