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[bobbystevenson]

A Perfect Place To Be

Another new morning in Deal. I haven’t checked the telephone, and I sure as hell haven’t switched on the TV with all that news. So I lie there and wonder if my lucky dip has won the Lottery, and I decide that it has. Until I find out otherwise. So I will buy that villa in Barbados and the flat in the city. And I can see the smiles on my pals’ faces as I hand them cheques for lots of money. No…

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[bobbystevenson]

1977

Christmas that year had been sad and disappointing. Sad, because it had been the first one without his mother, and disappointing because his cousin, Fred, in England had promised to ship a copy of the Sex Pistols’ Never Mind The Bollocks and it still hadn’t arrived. He’d have to hide it when arrived since his father had become real religious since his mother had been taken. His father had wanted…

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[bobbystevenson]

You'll Make It

You’ll make it, I know you will,You’ve come too far and now is not the time.If only you stopped and thought about it allThe walls you’ve climbed, all the troubles crossedAll the failures faced, all the little victoriesAnd one day soon you’ll make it acrossTo where you can start againI know you willYou’ve come too far, to stop.bobby stevenson 2023

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[bobbystevenson]

THE UNLOVED

They knew you see; they had always known.They had come from somewhere out there. Some folks said they had lived underground; others had said that they were from Atlantis.One guy went on the television and told the world that he had been abducted by them and that they came from a star second from the right and straight on till morning. But we all kinda knew that he was plain crazy.What wasn’t…

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[bobbystevenson]

CRAZY

I know when I first saw him, it must have been back in Washington Square around the early Sixties. The story I heard was that he’d been brought up somewhere upstate. His grandpa or his great grandpa (I ain’t sure how long these things lived) had been brought back from the War and kept in a garage in Saugerties. He’d been taught to play the banjo for cents and dimes, and he could dance too. At…

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[bobbystevenson]

THE LOOK OF STRANGERS

There are those amongst us who slip into to this life like a well-worn glove, who very rarely question its strangeness and in most circumstances prefer to take everything that it offers. Then there are people like me, Michael Andrews, sometime author, sometimes happy but mostly otherwise confused. There are days when I intentionally tell myself I’m stupid so as not to think too much, so as not…

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[bobbystevenson]

Being There

To hold the sky from falling on your head,To make you safe as you dream in your bed,To stop the world from breaking your heart,To help you build a most beautiful start,These are the things I wanted for you.But being there,Just being there –Is the best I can do.bobby stevenson 2022 

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[bobbystevenson]

SHE DISAPPEARED

She disappeared long before she disappearedShe never sent a postcardShe just leftWithout remembering any of our namesShe never knew who I wasJust the man who lay beside herOn the bed wishing she would remember meThen one day in the hospital my dadGave her some crispsShe said ‘why don’t you give them to Bobby’She had come back to say goodbyeAnd then she was gone foreverI still keep those words…

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[bobbystevenson]

The House of Laughter and Crying

The House of Laughter and Crying

THE HOUSE OF LAUGHTER AND CRYINGNow I’m not saying this story is true, but I’m not saying it’s a lie neither – mainly because I don’t want to be sued by any of you folks out there. I am just saying that it is, what it is. If you push me on it, I’ll just have to say that it’s the rabid memory of an old man and leave it at that.So let me start the story by telling you about the house.From the…

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[bobbystevenson]

THE BEST OF ALL SUMMERS

THE BEST OF ALL SUMMERS

Some things remain with you forever.When I was ten years old, my father took me on a trip in an old battered car and caravan, and although I didn’t know it at the time, my father was dying. He was only forty years of age and he was dying of a brain tumour.What can I tell you about me back then? That I was the only son of parents who never got around to marrying? That I lived with my two sisters…

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[bobbystevenson]

THE ROOM WHERE ALL THE GOOD THINGS ARE

THE ROOM WHERE ALL THE GOOD THINGS ARE

Martha had a room, one that she would refer to as a ‘spare room’. Not that the size of her house allowed for such extravagances – she had a kitchen, a little area to sit, a small toilet at the rear of her house, and a little bedroom upstairs. Next to that was Martha’s spare room.When she and Ted first got married, it had been kept ready for a little child. Ted told his wife that he ‘wanted’ two…

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[bobbystevenson]

WONDER

Tonight I saw a solar storm, Which brought the heavens to its knees, And seared the eyes and hearts of those who watched. I tasted nectar and ambrosia. And sat with kings and gods, And talked of words with Shakespeare. Tonight I flew with Orville Wright, And gasped, As air beneath us passed. Then ran across the Milky Way, And shouted at the stars. Tonight, I fought my enemy, At the…

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[bobbystevenson]

AT THE TOP OF THINGS

AT THE TOP OF THINGS

I want to tell you about my world. What happened. Why we are, where we are. Perhaps as a warning, perhaps as a lesson, or maybe just to get all those strange things clearer in my own head. Whatever the reason, it might be worth you taking a few minutes, because I can guarantee that while you are reading this, they will be watching.In my place, where I live or, more properly, where I lived, we…

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[bobbystevenson]

YOU NEVER FIND SHOREHAM, IT FINDS YOU

YOU NEVER FIND SHOREHAM, IT FINDS YOU

I think I was probably about fifteen summers at the time. I’d been up by the Cross with Harry looking for bits of shrapnel that had fallen from the sky. This was the summer of 1947 and the sky had started to get blue again. The world had started to smile, once more.Harry had been called from the bottom of his hill by his grandfather (who had been a Sergeant-Major in the war) to tell him his meal…

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[bobbystevenson]

IF FISH COULD SCREAM

IF FISH COULD SCREAM

We live in twilight,We do,All of us who stay silent about these things,All of us who never speak up and say it’s wrong,So another one of us is taken from the river of life,And we thank the heavens that it wasn’t our turn,Not today, at least,Not this time,But someday soon, because we never spoke up,It will be our turn,And as the hook silently spears our mouths,We’ll forever wishThat fish could…

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[bobbystevenson]

Going Home

As I held her hand, she looked into my face and gently smiled.“I’ll be leaving soon. Going back. Going home.”She was love as far as I knew. She loved me, and I loved her.“All of us, each and everything on this Earth is only temporary. We are all made from the Universe. Particles. Elements. Our bodies come from many dying stars. You might live with a family, and not one of those people we love may…

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[bobbystevenson]

The War - 100 Word Story

The War – 100 Word Story

We sat nervously in the great hall of the university, staring at the little bowl in the center of the room – it innocently sat there with the potential to destroy all our student lives. Of our three buds, Jimmy went up first. His nervous hand dipped into the bowl as if it might bite it off. He looked over at us: ‘997’. Next it was Al’s turn. He rummaged to the bottom: ‘579’. Not so good. Then it…

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