Author Archives: mkmacinnes

About mkmacinnes

writer/ghostwriter

Who needs drugs?

Posted on by
Reply

Let’s go on a day trip.

To the country?’

No, not exactly. We just nip to the place

where the very walls vibrate their way

from being oh-so-matter-of-factly Georgian

and into a realm of bristling auras and dizzy spells

and sages who know there’s a very fine line between heaven and hell.

.

The Beast lurks in every corner,

the carpet waxed while the moon is on the wane.

It’s hard to feel relaxed

when the Eye that Sees All is upon you

in the name of the infernal Pantheon,

who shall remain shameless

but who we all know and love

as they watch from above

the chess-ridden hall of nameless pawns

who were shot down in flames.

.

And the Book of the Dead teeters

on the brink of a shelf-ful of dust,’

while Madam Blavatsky, screwed to the wall,

struggles to think.

Tales of alchemical lust in the back rooms linger ….

Here lies deceit – and exploded hearts,

every …

so often …

missing …

a beat.

.

It’s not very hard in a place such as this,

to enter the twilight,

cross the veil into the Abyss,

beyond the pale

where devils kiss.

.

Copyright Morgan MacInnes (c) 2000

The Power of Suggestion

Posted on by
Reply

blood

MANY full moons ago, in Ninety-eight or thereabouts, I stumbled on a late-night episode of Dark Skies. In those days, The X-Files was more my thing – Dark Skies was just a little too dark for my liking. I was just about to flip the channel yet again when I realised that the main female character was in the process of reliving an alien abduction – that’s the one where Kim undergoes hypnotic regression, only for this gi-normous Hive implant inside her head to cause her nose to bleed. I don’t recall whether or not I watched the rest of the episode. And I certainly haven’t the stomach to wade through an entire season online only to discover that the implant was in fact quite minescule …

Some time in the wee small hours, I had a dream. I remember nothing other than that I took some kind of road trip in which I missed chunks of time. And waking up on a riverbank full of faerie folk. Then I woke up for real.

Once I had given up trying to remember any other details, I finally managed to drag myself out of bed. I had a work meeting that day, so in order to look the part, I spent longer than usual straddled across the toilet seat applying my make up (my bathroom was tiny and the best light could only be achieved by perching the mirror on the window ledge behind the cistern).

Imagine then my horror and disbelief when just as I am putting the finishing touches to my lips, a gob of fresh crimson appears as if out of nowhere and splashes onto the groove beneath my nose then onto the cistern.

“Holy shit.” The force of the recoil from my reflection in the mirror causes me to catch my foot on the floor mat and narrowly avoid glancing my lower back off the side of the bath.

Needless to say, I have since been exceedingly picky in my night-time viewing habits. As for horror movies, never EVER again. Noo siree …

 

Copyright © M K MacInnes 2018

The Poet

Posted on by
Reply

I follow the path of poets of old.

Their voices beckon me into the fold,

Many cut short in the days of their prime,

but nevertheless remembered in rhyme.

.

For somehow in the throes of death,

They cry out with mortal breath

“O kindred spirits, living or departed,

carry on the work I started.”

.

For aspiring poets share a trait,

a common tendency to emulate

to the point of near obsession

those who leave the headiest impression.

.

Now inspired to the point of distraction,

I write of comrades wounded in action

of rescues effected in countless battles,

mothers and children herded like cattle.

.

I do not know from whence it comes,

the cries of the dying, the pounding drums.

These are the things that came from before,

days long since gone, ages of yore.

.

I have no desire to write of such things

as flowers and trees and tiny birds’ wings.

In poetry books they have their place,

but me I will write, by the gift of God’s grace,

of karmic desire and brave young men,

journeys beyond and back again.

.

Written during my Wilfred Owen phase!

Copyright (c) 1998-99

Kiss

Posted on by
Reply

kiss

IT BEGAN with a kiss. Not a passionate embrace but a soft brush on the cheek.

The feeling of warmth and love from an old friend lingered on beyond the dream and well into the following days …

Like a little seed, the feeling grew and grew until I longed to be with my old friend. All the while, I thought to myself how sublime that Cupid should strike without even so much as the presence of one who I hadn’t heard from in years …

The phone call came three weeks later. He came round for a few beers and we shared stories. He’d sent me a distress flare of sorts three weeks earlier, he said. Yes, I definitely got the message, I said. And then the rest was history.

Copyright M K MacInnes 2018

The Cairnpapple Mystery

Posted on by
Reply

Take me to Cairnpapple,

where the stars knowingly wink

and the sky drops little hints

of more universal love

than it knows with what to do,

where spy satellites blink –

in disbelief perhaps

of what they know is true.

.

I hear the earth moves at Cairnpapple,

trembling to her very core.

Some primal rhythm re-enacting

in divine blissful harmony.

Mother Earth’s ground

herself into a frenzy, crying out for more,

as once more golden dawn

penetrates her hallowed mound.

.

So little death at Cairnpapple …

Ripe within the heavy womb

of the sleeping goddess

the stirrings of a new world order,

her Moon reflected in a stray grey hare.

And the Reaper, standing by the ancient tomb,

smiles on with a wry knowingness

of a new vibration in the air.

.

Yes, take me to Cairnpapple,

where powerful waves wash o’er

this mind-blown microcosm.

Wild energies pulsate,

as all is satiated, drowned

beneath the windswept Tower,

and the World that was can pass away

and we are nowhere to be found.

 

Copyright (c) Morgan MacInnes 1998

Brothers in Arms

Posted on by
Reply

templar

TO THE strains of Dire Straits, I am surrounded by battle in its last throes, a sea of mud everywhere. These fields of destruction, baptisms of fire, I’ve witnessed your suffering, every man has to die …

But not just yet. A trapped horseman is pulled from between his fallen mount and the mire. Am I the one being pulled or the one doing the pulling? I can’t tell which of us is which.

I do not know where I am or who I am other than that I am a man. And I know not how I know but the other man is Rab …

* * * * *

BOTH RAB and I fluttered in the same social circle. For me anyway, the sense of having met before was instantaneous.

It was while walking along a busy street only days after our introduction that I was hit with the cinematic picture of horses flopping about in the mud and an intense feeling of loyalty, brother to brother. I had never had a ‘vision’ with audio before.

Somewhere between a week and two weeks later, I meandered through Leith Links, on my way to the house of the mutual friend who had introduced us. Having never taken that particular route before, I scanned the open green and surrounding buildings. As I did so, got a strong impression of mud where there should have been grass.

The answer to my immediate question came quickly and without the asking. It was my friend who told me that here in the middle of the 16th century, the French had occupied Leith, until they were forcibly removed by the English army in 1560. Like most Scots, I had never heard of the Battle of Leith Links, or rather the Siege of Leith.

A short time later, Rab and I found ourselves blethering – as we were prone to do – like there was no tomorrow. Only this time our conversation took a more spooky turn than usual. Ghosts, dreams, you name it. The situation was ripe for bringing my battle vision into the conversation.

Thing is, Rab beat me to it …

“I’ve been having this recurring dream,” he said. “Well, actually, it’s more like a vision coz I only get it when I’m awake during the day.”

I know what he is going to say. Baited breath.

“I’m in a battle and I’m being pulled out from under a horse.”

I felt my face turn to rubber. It must have blanched, for he said “Not you as well.”

Up to that point, I had told no-one.

I choked “Was it a muddy battlefield?”

“Yes,” came the whisper.

Copyright (c) M K MacInnes

The Sarah Connor Complex

Posted on by
Reply

ASTEROIDMILLENNIUM Fever was in full swing and it seemed that every man and his dog expected a cataclysm of one description or another by the time the year was out. And just to make sure that even the most logical-minded got sucked in, there was Y2K. Although steering clear of prophecies or New World Order bullshit, I had got wind of a great almighty asteroid heading straight for us. On the 29th of August 1999 to be precise.

I was quite frankly at that point where I had had the world up to my chin. I didn’t want to be in it. Not as it was. All around me what had the cheek to call itself a civilisation was ready to implode, just like all the others before it. If not now, then at some point in the not too distant future. And I almost wished it would. Get it over and done with and all that so that whoever was left could start over.

Being the over-thinker that I was, I prepared myself mentally. Assuming, of course, that I even survived it. And being the self-analyst that I was, I called this my Sarah Connor complex. Syndrome would have been more accurate but complex sounded so much better.

29 August 1999

INSPIRED ages ago by my utter lack of preparedness for life in the wilderness, I had bought Lofty Wiseman’s SAS Survival Guide and built up my ready-for-anything tobacco tin and small ready-for-anything rucksack. I had the tools, Armageddon or no Armageddon. And at least if nothing happened, I wouldn’t make a complete tit of myself.

It was a clear starry evening when a friend and I enjoyed a warm goblet of wine in front of a hot fire. With no intention of bracing myself, I had accepted her invitation to stay over and chat into the wee small hours. She had no idea of the impending asteroid strike and I didn’t discuss it. After all, without proof I didn’t want to scare the shit out of anyone. I felt no anxiety as such, just a sense that whatever was thrown at me, I would deal with it. Bring it on.

In the meantime, maybe I could anaesthetise myself a little … just not too much …

Night came and went. The next time I opened my eyes, I felt a mixture of relief and disappointment.

Bollocks, we’re still here.

Copyright (c) M K MacInnes

THE LOST SECRET – 8-16 October 2012

Featured

Posted on by
3

EVEN before I switched the TV back on to find respite from my reeling mind, I knew that I was about to be confronted with a Gerard Butler movie. Which one was it going to be?

Ah, The Ugly Truth. Now there’s a surprise.

* * * * * *

IN AND out of a semi-foetal state, I was unable to eat or sleep for days. New fragments of misplaced memory dropped into place like fallen leaves.

Thrown from one emotional extreme to the other and at times questioning my sanity, I could not understand how I could possibly have forgotten such a thing. For the life of me, how could I not have known that Gerard Butler was Gerry?

How could I have sat through Dracula all those years ago and not recognised him?

As the dishes mounted and the routine I had carefully built over months fell to pieces, I continued to rack my brains. The composting worms I had nurtured as if they were my babies died …

Copyright M K MacInnes 2020

The Lost Secret – extract

Posted on by
Reply

WHEN I published my first short story collection, Close Call: Short and Bittersweet, five years ago, I dedicated it to ‘the two Gerries, without the shadow of whose memory this my first book would never have seen the light of day’. My brother asked me who the other Gerry was and I told him it was a veiled reference to our late mother’s schizophrenia (she was a Gerry too). Well, that was only partly true. My choice of words was designed to be ambiguous. So in effect, I lied … the other Gerry was Gerry Butler.

Learn more here.

The Lost Secret – first Amazon review

Posted on by
Reply

first review

“I got this first two chapters just to check it out and wow! it hooked me from the get-go. I definitely want to see where this book goes! It’s like a dreamscape, where you are almost awake but still dreaming and thinking “Wait! Wait! What was that?” In other words, I am loving it and will be buying the [full] book when it comes out.”

USA, 8 August 2020