Monthly Archives: November 2018

Changing Hues

The colour of my words

Is an ever-changing hue.

It shows what I am thinking

In the things I say and do.

 

Bright and cheery colours

Of Yellow and of Gold,

Mean my spirit’s lifting

My stories will be bold.

 

But when the colours deepen

To Purple and to Red,

Then my story changes

The tales may conjure dread.

 

Blues and greens are colours

That suggest a kinder tale.

I pray I’ll do an awesome job

Of which you could avail!

 

Black’s a colour on it’s own

A Darkness it implies.

Should I write a missive

When on evil it relies?

 

Join with me I pray thee,

And wander through my words.

Enjoy the rainbow I employ

With all those nouns and verbs.

The Mollybush Nude

 

By Jim Read

When a painter struggles to sell his work, with his career waning, he chooses to paint nudes. Jim Read’s THE MOLLYBUSH NUDE grasps at ideas we all ask ourselves: how did life get this way?

Bill Burnon, a sixty-three-year-old landscape painter, and Marion Barkley, a fifty-nine-year-old diner owner are separated by six hundred kilometres of highway. Nevertheless, they are as close as the wind on a spider’s web. Bill and Marion have loved each other passionately since they were seventeen and thirteen, but only in a limited measure: always a summer, a modest stretch of some months, shorter or longer depending on their unfailing ability to irritate the heck out of each other.

When Bill’s gallery manager suggests painting nudes to give his career a much-needed boost, he goes with it. He plans to paint a series of nudes. Deeply, Bill wants to paint Marion, but when he approaches her about the notion, she rebuffs him — her rejection forces him to find another model.

Turmoil and jealousy haunt their love when Bill selects Libby for his paintings. She’s younger. She’s mysterious. She’s troubled. A friendship develops between Bill and Libby as Bill wrestles with his new artistic endeavour.

What happens next, nobody in Mollybush could’ve expected.

 

I have known this man for almost 60 years and there is one truth I have always accepted: he tells a good story!

His book will be available November 27 at:

Chapters.indigo.ca

Amazon.ca

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon.com.au

 

Other countries may have it as well.

 

You can read a selection of Jim’s archived published short stories by visiting his blog at http://www.jimread.ca.

Signs

 

 

I wish that I could see

A signpost up ahead

“Well done girl you’re winning!”

If only it had said.

 

Instead I fear the opposite

The signs are very clear

“Caution, Speed Bumps Ahead”

I’m in a new frontier.

 

“Stop, Proceed Slowly”

My love life does it mean?

I’m really not that kind of girl

It’s not where I have been.

 

“Wrong Way” “No Exit”

My future perhaps?

“Dead Zone” ahead

There appears to be gaps!

 

“Wide Turn” ahead

Are you talking about me?

“No Turn Around”

I’m confused now you see!

 

“Do Not Turn Left”

“Do Not Turn Right”

“Road Work Ahead”

It’s one hell of a fight!

 

Confusion sets in

As I’m ordered about

Signs are everywhere

Upon my chosen route.

 

 

A statement on life

These signs seem to be

We can choose to listen

Or we can choose to be free.

 

A caveat I must declare

If freedom you embrace

“Caution” up ahead

A hefty fine you’ll face!