Tales From Beyond The Town: Pocket Editions #16-#21

I had six different colours of card. So I made six different tiny tales.

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Pocket Tales #16: Tales From The Sea

Carousel

The circus was washed away in a storm. Now the horses only turn with the tides.

Clowns

But at least the clowns no longer laugh.

Vents

Everyone liked the word ‘vents’

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Pocket Tales #17: Tales From The Beach

Instead of buckets, paper bags, But the spades were still plastic.

View From Above

You cannot escape the watchful drones

Beak

The gulls were not amused

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Pocket Tales #18: Tales From The Fields

In the long grass
the cat
dreams it was a lion

Barrows

Waves of earth
two thousand years old
full of bones older still

Dandelions

They float
They are lighter than air

Slow Worm

It snakes, despite itself

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Pocket Tales #19: Tales From The Woods

From above everything looks green.
But when you’re in it, it’s brown in every direction

The Walls In The Woods

Everyone loves the walls in the woods
Old boundaries between forgotten kingdoms
Identities and purposes no longer known

Bole

A beautiful word for a beautiful a thing

Above/Below

There is no difference
between the above and below

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Pocket Tales #20: Tales From Mars

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Pocket Tales #21: Tales From The Candle Flame

Look into me
and think
and wish
and wait

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Notes:

1. Tales From The Sea was written between the 16th and the 19th of June, 2023 (mainly due to drawing all those jellyfish)
2. Tales From The Beach was written on August 3rd, 2023
3. And the other four were written on September 4th, 2023
4. Previous Pocket Tales can be found here: #1-#4, #5-#9, #10-#12, #13-#15
5. If you want to chart their steady decline

Endless Knights

Endless Knights (also here) is an infinite Arthurian knight generator, for all your heroic knightly needs.

The descriptions of their deeds are largely adapted from Tales From King Arthur by Andrew Lang, and Le Morte D’Arthur by Thomas Mallory, while the illustrations used are by Aubrey Beardsley (from Le Morte D’Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory); Henry Justice Ford (from Tales from King Arthur and The Red Romance Book by Andrew Lang); and NC Wyeth (from The Boy’s King Arthur).

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Notes:

1. This was made in late August – early September, 2023
2. It is essentially An Abundance Of Beasts, but with knights of the round table

Tales From The Town #125: A Reading (or, Resilience Training)

“The sun shone sleekly through a silver sky,” Tina said, as she stood steadily on the stage (a chair).

“Booooooo!” Claire shouted out from the back of the room. “BOOOOOOOOOOO!”

“The moon mellowed meekly above a murmuring meadow,” Tina muttered, immovably.

“Awful,” Ethel heckled. “Just awful! You’re awful, Tina! You should be ashamed!”

“The rocket reflected repetitively as it rotated around the revolving rarity,” Tina roared, resolutely resilient to the rising reproval from the rowdy rabble.

“Rarity is another word for anomaly,” she added belatedly when there was silence from below.

“Best poem ever,” Daniel swooned. He clapped enthusiastically and then continued clapping enthusiastically for quite some time. “I love it! More! More!”

Tina ran crying from the stage.

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Notes:

1. Written on June 22nd, 2023
2. Previously, in reading news

Tales From The Town #124: Jellyfish

Have you ever wondered what a jellyfish thinks? Because a jellyfish hasn’t

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Notes:

1. Written on July 4th, 2023

a trillion / quite tiny / little poems

a trillion / quite tiny / little poems (also here) generates untold billions of quite tiny little poems in a miniature haiku format of 4 then 3 then 4 syllables

or at least it tries too but sometimes the source poems get their meter completely wrong for reasons i am simply unable to explain (reason/explanation: i am quite poor at poems)

the 174 source poems can be found in six small anthologies here, here, here, here, here and here

(this means rather than a trillion tiny poems there’s only 5,268,024, but maybe 5,268,024 is the secret definition of a quite tiny little trillion or somethging, maybe, perhaps, possibly)

anyway occassionally it blurts out something surprisingly beautiful

though more often as not it just churns out rubbish

please do not hate me