Author Archives: Tony Single

GUEST POST // spring by John Flanagan

break a leg young thing
this is your moment
after all those morgue afternoons
rehearsing old school mystiques
fine tuning your pauses
making each phrase count

your entrance upstage
deliberate slight in silhouette
moving into light and out
making us sit up

a stir
a single shoot
peep of crocus
hiatus
second delivery
you hold our breath in yours

delay the extended arm
purple patch declamation
flourishes of yellow madness
in winterspent fields

in the morning we’ll blog and tweet
your budding craft
your youth

by JOHN FLANAGAN
© All rights reserved 2018

Open-Source Poetry Two #1

Dear Readers,

It looks like we’re pretty desperate. For the sake of poetry, we’ll readily bear anything. The last round brought us an invasion of cockroaches. We wonder what will happen this time…

A bout of saporous lolly acne? A rain of worthless bitcoin that darkens the skies for months? Our legs dancing an endless Eskimo jig? It’ll be worse than the ten plagues of Egypt from the Old Testament!

Still, this won’t stop us from providing you, our Dear Readers, with a safe haven for your collaborative efforts. “Collaborative efforts?” we hear you say. “What collaborative efforts? And to what purpose?” Well, let us fill you in…

1) We provide the first line of a poem.
2) You write the next line.
3) You submit your line via the comments section of this very post.
4) We pick the line we like most and add it to the poem.
5) We publish the first and second lines in a follow-up post.
6) Steps 2-5 are repeated until we have a masterpiece!

See? It’s the very definition of supercalifragilisticexpialidocious! So, have fun! But, please, whatever you do, don’t fling us in dat dere briar patch! We can handle pretty much anything but not rejection!

Вензель

She looks in the book like into a mirror

Вензель_нижний

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2018

Enormous, Disgusting, A-Hundred-Maws and Barking

Dear Patrons (current, future, and not-on-your-life), we’ve been hard at work behind the scenes on our next big project. Sure, we like pretending we’re two wags who couldn’t give a hoot about our responsibilities, but that simply isn’t true. In fact, we’ve been sweating over a few things, and are determined to please you with at least three new books this year!

(Yes, we’re hopeless optimists who cannot accurately count the number of hours in a day. Sometimes it’s twenty-six, and sometimes it’s only nineteen. Anyway, we won’t give up. Tick tock tick tock…)

Today, we want to show you a cover idea that we had for our first project which will be a new poetry collection. We were all fired up over this idea, but when Tony put it together, we quickly realised that it wouldn’t be a good fit and discarded it unanimously.

However, you needn’t think that the image itself was pure crap. (Of course, we wouldn’t be offended if you did.) Take a look over at our Patreon page. Form your own opinion. And don’t worry, entry is free and the exit is too. If you’re curious to see what the cover for our new poetry collection WON’T be, then scratch that itch!

(Yup, this is another pathetic attempt to lure you to our Patreon page and panhandle for more pelf.)

PS: Please feel free to blame the title on Tati. She tried to explain to Tony about ‘Чудище обло, озорно, огромно, стозевно и лаяй’ but he was way too busy to listen to her. (Actually, he was just being a little dense, but let’s not tell anyone about that!)

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2018

penury (partygoer’s purgatory)

it is noisy with whoopee at the bar
it is hot with tamale and saucy with noodle
air thick with ciggy smoke mixed with cheap jokes
yeah, take another toke to forget you’re stone broke

the bar counter shrine is hungering for blood
the bar counter priestess is offering free ribs
heretic heads adorn the timber door stud
and chalices are hoisted over manly beard-bibs

no matter where you go, there you are
no matter when or how, your whole kit and caboodle
you would blindly revoke with a pig in a poke
yeah, fake another hoke to forget you’re stone broke

the bar counter butcher is washing hands in the mud
the bar counter baron is pushing for first dibs
a hangman’s noose dangles from the withered redbud
and malice does roister over the barrow and crib

a battered jukebox gives you a nasty jar
a wooden mug bites your thumb with a sharp toodle
you get sober and woke, and you cast off your yoke
tho’ nothing can ever cloak the fact you’re stone broke

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2018

Oops!… We Did It Again (cult of crucifixation)

Erm… hullo there. (This is rather awkward…)

Dear Reader, the stuff that was originally posted here has been removed.

We have done this because said stuff has since been included in one of our published books. We hope you’ll believe us when we say we’re not trying to be stingy. No, this has been done to honour the people who have already spent their hard-earned money on our eBook creations.*

If, however, for some reason you’re unable to buy one of our books, and feel you’ll die without seeing this piece of writing, then please contact us via admin@unbolt.me. We won’t allow our Dear Readers to fade away in the dark. We’ll send you the piece in question, and it will be absolutely free. All you need do is ask.

* Of course, we would be like two happy puppies if you too decided to buy one of our books.

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2018