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Editorial

Guest judge Jack Cooper received your entries with thanks, and attacks the tough job of judging - read here...

18th September 2018

Deciding on a theme for Hour of Writes is a tricky business. It must be precise enough to inspire writers to create pieces with clear connections to the theme, but broad enough that each entry will be unique. Of all things Attack And Receive could have been inspired by, it came from a playing card in the franchise that dominated my childhood: Yu-Gi-Oh. With such an aggressive phrase, I was hoping for war, embittered couples, and intrigue. I was delighted to find all this, alongside some whimsy.

I was immediately drawn to Entry 3155, which explores a situation too many of us will be familiar with. It reminds us that those who suffer from violence often turn to violence, that this cycle is not easily broken. Entry 3155 also shows that there can be a lot of power in simple language.

Entry 3160, Red Poppy Boy (gets what’s coming to him), has a lovely rhythm that drives the reader through a story of addiction and consequence. This can be seen especially in the second stanza, with: ‘an A1 stealer / all state receiver / a total syringe believer’. Successfully employing rhythm always makes a poem more compelling.

With Entry 3163, we see a regular structure and rhythm used to great effect. The images were very vivid, essential for communicating a story with such a degree of movement and as many changes in scene. I particularly enjoyed the shift in scale in: 

‘Zipping through the midges and the dragonflies / We crest the spikes and fall into a murderous scrum’,

making the poem more dynamic and cinematic. 

For me, Entry 3159 was the obvious winner. Gentle and concise, the piece takes us ‘inch by inch’ through a race. The poem is dense with imagery, and it is a credit to the author that they evoked such a strength of feeling in me with so few lines. I keep returning to: 

‘The last water gone / Like legs / with nothing left / except blisters, cramp, / tiredness beyond enduring’, 

drawn by its subtlety of rhythm and simplicity of language.

Thank you to everyone who entered. Judging this competition was a wonderful excuse to sit down, have a cup of tea, and immerse myself in varied poetry and prose. You each responded to the prompt differently, making this process an absolute pleasure. I hope you all continue to write great work for Hour of Writes, and for yourselves.


****

About The Judge

Jack Cooper works at the University of Oxford, in a laboratory that uses the sexual courtship of fruitflies as a model to understand core features of development and behaviour. His poetry has been longlisted for the National Poetry Competition, and shortlisted for The New Poets Prize and Segora Poetry Competition amongst others. Stephen King, Final Fantasy, and K-Pop are the great loves of his life.

You can find him on Twitter at @JackCooper666, and on Instagram at @JackCooper0696

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Ephemera

Love is a Game
Roger May started this week with his computer at full speed. Outside, February's crew cut lawns filled the university quadrangle with vivid green, young men and the ever-delightful young women. .. His large glass office window aanother piece on his pandora bracelet of journal articles, permanent tenure, travel, board positions and research grants. He moved the mouse into research mode. It was Monday morning tea time and his life was a full tank. He had so much to offer. Love is a game and he liked a challenge. Time. It was time to put a systematic evidence based approach to attracting the right partner. A partner for him. Not the bloody al gorrr ithm . If love was a game then dating site algorithms made it like a nuclear war – and he needed code breaking skills or advanced intelligence to get anywhere.
In silence his keys started to recraft his profile.
Fifteen years of blissful independent living had healed what the profiles called ‘baggage’.
One woman had said she carried her own baggage. Perhaps he’d borrow this phrase. ‘Lets see I could say I only have light carry on baggage’.
A rather satisfying set of images and descriptions flew up and into his face. The two sided match making worked well today.
He gazed. Nigella the tax accountants profile spoke of fun and an active lifestyle. And then despite all his optic confidence his mood slipped. His baggage burst open showing its stuffed dirty contents. Did he? could he? Could he have been the cause of his divorce? Was it some monster home movie that he shone on to his ex wife, that caused him to run away and leave her? Had he, in some way, distorted who she was? And then he caught himself. No, impossible, it was the ex not him. She was just so quiet, such a homebody,onstantly wanting to stay in and cuddle or watch a movie. The womans favourite place was under a blanket in bed with a cup of tea and her favourite book. She hated talking on the phone, writing texts, and attending university events. The time he had bought her a Christian Dior dress to wear to the annual university staff dinner, hoping she might put it on out of guilt she jus said
‘forget it’.
'If you wear your beige polyester suit one more time, I'll cut it up and burn it on the balcony!'. Yes, he had shouted these words quite loudly.
And she did wear the Dior, but later he realised that it was not to please him but because she hated wasting money—the day after, she donated the blue Dior to the local animal shelter for fundraising.
Ok well 'fun'. He was a fun person. Most nights he worked and perhaps his life was a little empty and maybe every now and then he felt a little lonely. His children did worry about it . But what did he do that was fun? The best laugh he’d had recently was with his online therapist who said
‘Machine learning only gets to know your surface optics’
‘So?
‘ Well human truth and daily feelings are like a type of reality incontinence, they seep out into conversations and so people start to not trust.’
Fun Ok. He wrote ‘enjoy being a family man and having fun with the kids’. Last week he had spoken to both of them after a two year period of not speaking.

Active. Lets see active lifestyle. At this point he stopped. This really was going to far out of who he was or is. At ten he’d been thrown out of the basketball team for ducking when the ball came to him
Good commicator tactile and affectionate. That finished the profile and then lovely Nigella sent a message.
Please check out my profile; would love to hear from you …
She: Roger, lovely to connect here. I am wondering what you do. .
I was hoping you would get in touch. You can find out more about me here: [link]
She: I am not able to find that on google. I keep getting that the page does not exist. You will have chat here about what you do.
Strange.
She: I have had another look and its not coming up for me.
The address seems correct, just checked
You can also check this. There’s a couple of more pictures there…
She: Pictures are fine but don’t tell me about you. So what is it that you do?
Its in the link
She: You are getting me to chase up everything on the internet instead of chatting on here. The purpose of this site is to chat here which you don’t want to do. Sorry but you don’t want to talk on this site and you are making me work to find out about you. Good luck.

He closed the computer, groaned and then cancelled his subscription to Elite singles. Perhaps he was better off just staying at home. Maybe he’d call his ex wife.

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Recent ShowNotes

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Puzzles… And… Games

Last week's competition

Featured Entry

by writerCZAIBOHENW
Sometimes – when you look at me funny – I imagine we’re game pieces.
Like you’re a dark blue plastic disk
Small enough to fit on my tongue,
And I’ve got dice in my hands covered in sixes.

I stand still as your mouth bleeds black paint.

I squeeze my fists so hard they fuse,
Your breath tastes like tar and I’m covered in it.

Pawn.

I don’t like the way you smile – with those licorice teeth.
Make me the iron to your battleship,
smoothing out all these creases,
turning this ocean into

A little plastic disk, dark blue.

PAWN!

blank canvas turned oil spill
from your bubbling saliva.
file me down
into a little cardboard square
so I don’t quite fit the way I used to.
into my own clothes,
into this bed,
flat – like a paper doll,
my words just sound like
letters, in the wrong order.

my throat full
of black paint
my stomach full
of black paint

And you look straight through me.
With those dark blue discs.
Like being swallowed by the ocean.

Last Week's Winner!

Winning entry by RoryP
John almost didn't see it at first. He was walking, thinking about life and how he should spend the rest of his when he realised Rosie was no longer by his side. Looking back, he saw her sniffing at the base of an old oak, lightly pawing at the dead leaves and earth beneath.

"Here girl." He called, but she didn't hear him. Almost twelve years old, too old for a Lab really, she needed a surgery he could not afford. The vets had suggested euthanasia, and so he had had to stop taking her.

"What is it, eh? Leave the poor thing alone."

But there was no squirrel, or mouse, as was her customary victim. Instead, half hidden amongst the debris of the forest, he found what looked like an ivory chess set. The board glowed in the evening sun, and upon it sat thirty-two intricately carved pieces. They were all in their starting positions, as if waiting patiently for the game to begin.

"Well I'll be damned." He said to Rosie, who had since lost interest and was rolling gleefully in a nearby puddle. "Do you think someone left it here by mistake? Seems an awfully strange place to be having a game of chess."

Rosie, satisfied with her new look, did not respond.

For a moment he considered taking it back home with him. It was a small village and surely before long he would have been able to find the owner. Then he remembered something his wife had shown him many years ago. Little trinkets hidden around the countryside. Geocaches, she called them, where hunters would replace what they found in little boxes with items of their own. They had even found a few themselves, he seemed to recall; a fridge magnet depicting the mountains of India, and a marble figurine that looked remarkably like Rosie.

And so, rather than taking it away, he carefully moved the white's F pawn forward two squares and left.

At home, he gave Rosie a bath, cooked a meal of fried eggs and beans, and tried to settle down to read a book. Each time he tried, however, he couldn't get through more than half a dozen words when thoughts of what he had found distracted him. He'd never been much of a chess player over the years, assuming that he had little skill in this regard, and that to develop any would require a level of attention he could not afford. Still, the mystery intrigued him. Had it been placed there intentionally, and if so, who by? Was there perhaps a prize to be won, or something to be lost if luck did not go his way?

If only his wife had been there. She would have loved this. He remembered when she had tried to teach him chess strategy not long after they'd got together. Even then he hadn't cared for the game, enjoying the lessons not for their intellectual challenge but for the chance to spend time with her. To hear her talk passionately and get caught up in a world he did not understand. It was too late now, of course, and he wished he had paid more attention. Maybe then, he would have been able to make her proud.

The next day John returned with Rosie to the forest at the crack of dawn, and sure enough, the game had progressed. On the opposing side, glistening with dew, a black knight stood before its row of pawns. Glancing around to see if the perpetrator had hung back to watch, he played his counter-move. Keep it simple. A bishop came to protect the queen. Then, taking the note he had written late the night before from his pocket, he placed it jutting out from one side of the board.

It was a long shot, he knew, but grief had instilled in him an element of desire that went beyond the rational. In life he had had little time for her superstitious beliefs. Whenever she had come to him with horoscopes or psychic premonitions he had dismissed them as childish illusions. Now, he was trying to make amends for his actions. As he returned home he recounted the note he had written.

"To my darling Steph,

I doubt you will ever read this. You are in a grave not far from here. You are returning to the earth, as they say, and it is foolish of me to try and reach you. Still, I thought I should try. Do you hate me now? I still remember the last argument we had, and how your face looked when I said I was leaving. It was such a terrible thing to say. If I could take it back, I would. If you are angry with me, I understand that, too. I would be angry with me. So, if by some miracle you are reading this, and if even more you do not wish to forget all about me, I would like to propose a deal. We will carry on the game I believe you have started. I will return here every morning as early as I can. I will not come looking for you. I will not try to trick you in any way. If I win, you will allow me a chance to explain myself. You will come to me in whatever form you are able to take and we will talk. That is all I ask. On the contrary, if you win, I will leave you alone. As much as it will pain me, you will not hear from me again, and I will have to learnt to live with the damage I have done."

Over the course of the next few days, John emersed himself in the world of professional chess. At the local library he used the computers to research certain strategies and moves. Using the sketches he made of the board in the forest each morning, he would play out possible sequences on a board back home. The stakes had been raised. Despite his philosophical beliefs, he was now playing for much more than mystery or ego. He was playing - nay fighting - for the closure he'd dreamt of through two years of mourning. What he had said to his wife was inexcusable, but part of him believed that this alone was a path to possible redemption.

After two weeks of the same routine; rising early, leaving with Rosie for the forest, assessing the position of the board and carefully deciding on his next move, then, dropping Rosie at home, spending the rest of the day hunched over at the library computers, the game was coming to a close. The note remained under the board, now half disintegrated by rain and insects. Each move was taking immense concentration. It seemed that each time the sophistication of his play increased, it was rebuffed by an even more advanced mind. White than black raising the level of the game, always leaving him on the back foot.

On his penultimate visit to the forest, John saw that he was doomed. With one more move his king would be cornered, and he would have to admit defeat. It was over. For almost an hour he sat beside the board, trying to think of a move that could avoid the inevitable, but it never came. In the end, he left without making a play. One more day, he thought. One more day before he was ready to handle the truth.

It was with great reluctance that he returned the next morning. In one hand he held a note. The words of farewell he had never got the chance to utter while his wife was alive. When he reached the board, however, something was clearly off. Where the day before each black piece had stood precisely in its dedicated square, they were now laying on their sides, some having rolled off into the foliage. As he neared, John saw the second unexpected change that sent a coldness snaking down his spine.

There, tucked nearly under one corner of the board, was a white envelope. With shaking hands he tore it open.

"I'm sorry." It read. "I am not your wife. Or if I am, it was so long ago I do not remember. Time works differently here. We do not have mornings and evenings, days and nights. Nor do we have the same identities as we held in life. Forgive me, but I fear I have allowed you to believe something truly harmful to the conscious world, and only now do I see the truth. This game was intended simply as a way to pass the time. I wish I could give you the answers you need. I wish I could come to you as you ask and listen to your story, but alas our time is over. The game, as you must have seen on your last visit, is over. I hope you will accept my meagre offerings of apology. Under the board you will find enough money to cover poor Rosie's treatment.

Until we meet again.

Yours sincerely,
The Player."

Featured Entry

by QueenC
Love is a Game
Roger May started this week with his computer at full speed. Outside, February's crew cut lawns filled the university quadrangle with vivid green, young men and the ever-delightful young women. .. His large glass office window aanother piece on his pandora bracelet of journal articles, permanent tenure, travel, board positions and research grants. He moved the mouse into research mode. It was Monday morning tea time and his life was a full tank. He had so much to offer. Love is a game and he liked a challenge. Time. It was time to put a systematic evidence based approach to attracting the right partner. A partner for him. Not the bloody al gorrr ithm . If love was a game then dating site algorithms made it like a nuclear war – and he needed code breaking skills or advanced intelligence to get anywhere.
In silence his keys started to recraft his profile.
Fifteen years of blissful independent living had healed what the profiles called ‘baggage’.
One woman had said she carried her own baggage. Perhaps he’d borrow this phrase. ‘Lets see I could say I only have light carry on baggage’.
A rather satisfying set of images and descriptions flew up and into his face. The two sided match making worked well today.
He gazed. Nigella the tax accountants profile spoke of fun and an active lifestyle. And then despite all his optic confidence his mood slipped. His baggage burst open showing its stuffed dirty contents. Did he? could he? Could he have been the cause of his divorce? Was it some monster home movie that he shone on to his ex wife, that caused him to run away and leave her? Had he, in some way, distorted who she was? And then he caught himself. No, impossible, it was the ex not him. She was just so quiet, such a homebody,onstantly wanting to stay in and cuddle or watch a movie. The womans favourite place was under a blanket in bed with a cup of tea and her favourite book. She hated talking on the phone, writing texts, and attending university events. The time he had bought her a Christian Dior dress to wear to the annual university staff dinner, hoping she might put it on out of guilt she jus said
‘forget it’.
'If you wear your beige polyester suit one more time, I'll cut it up and burn it on the balcony!'. Yes, he had shouted these words quite loudly.
And she did wear the Dior, but later he realised that it was not to please him but because she hated wasting money—the day after, she donated the blue Dior to the local animal shelter for fundraising.
Ok well 'fun'. He was a fun person. Most nights he worked and perhaps his life was a little empty and maybe every now and then he felt a little lonely. His children did worry about it . But what did he do that was fun? The best laugh he’d had recently was with his online therapist who said
‘Machine learning only gets to know your surface optics’
‘So?
‘ Well human truth and daily feelings are like a type of reality incontinence, they seep out into conversations and so people start to not trust.’
Fun Ok. He wrote ‘enjoy being a family man and having fun with the kids’. Last week he had spoken to both of them after a two year period of not speaking.

Active. Lets see active lifestyle. At this point he stopped. This really was going to far out of who he was or is. At ten he’d been thrown out of the basketball team for ducking when the ball came to him
Good commicator tactile and affectionate. That finished the profile and then lovely Nigella sent a message.
Please check out my profile; would love to hear from you …
She: Roger, lovely to connect here. I am wondering what you do. .
I was hoping you would get in touch. You can find out more about me here: [link]
She: I am not able to find that on google. I keep getting that the page does not exist. You will have chat here about what you do.
Strange.
She: I have had another look and its not coming up for me.
The address seems correct, just checked
You can also check this. There’s a couple of more pictures there…
She: Pictures are fine but don’t tell me about you. So what is it that you do?
Its in the link
She: You are getting me to chase up everything on the internet instead of chatting on here. The purpose of this site is to chat here which you don’t want to do. Sorry but you don’t want to talk on this site and you are making me work to find out about you. Good luck.

He closed the computer, groaned and then cancelled his subscription to Elite singles. Perhaps he was better off just staying at home. Maybe he’d call his ex wife.
My Notes

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