What excites me at the moment, is also what scares me, Tuesdays 26 August I have my first open mike night. It’s not actually my first public reading, I once took my model cars to a care home, did a talk on them, and some poetry reading. I actually got paid for that and, gave the money to a local youth charity, this was a way of fixing my rage at the youths who stole my car. Quite a neat solution really, being paid to help the elderly, using that to help youth, and helping to fix myself all at the same time. The care home thing only lasted four or five months (once a month) The home had a change of management and I wasn’t asked back.
If the open night thing goes well, I may find a way to use it to raise money for my charity. Or on the other hand, read on…..

Big Bill, Nell and the Jack of Hearts.

I’m writing this from my prison cell, with a broken arm, and nose as well. They arrested me for public disturbance, all I tried to do was my little performance.

“Get off, get off “ they were all shouting, the crowd getting ugly the pressure was mounting. Tomatoes were thrown, some of them in tins, then that woman with a stick, she’d had too many gins.

“Just let me read you this” I started to say, that’s when the chair was thrown, I ducked out of the way. They dragged me off the stage, I stumbled and fell, into the arms of a woman called Nell.

Nell’s boy friend Bill one of the biggest of fellows, he folded me up like a concertinas bellows, I was lifted up and passed around the room, that’s when I passed out, from that blow from that broom.

The police needed a handy scape goat, I fitted the bill, Nell’s boyfriend too big, no they wouldn’t arrest Big Bill. So I sit here now behind these steel bars, waiting for Nell to smuggle me a file in her bras.

Nell fell for me, she just loved all my writing, if we can only escape Big Bill without any fighting, I’m going to give up poetry I m not enough of a man, no more tomatoes for me not fresh or in can.

All words by Meadowhead Bard, writing as The Jack of Hearts.