Dom Conlon, poet & author

Category: Poems/Stories

  • Happy New You—a New Year poem

    The gap in the curtains– Open your eyes. The stretch in a bed– Open your body. The waft of toast– Open your nose. The clatter of a spoon– Open your ears. The cream on the milk– Open your mouth. Open your mind. Open your heart. Open yourself to a new sight, a new feeling, a…

  • Orry and Dice—a Christmas Story

    a story from The Edge of Christmas “What if Father Christmas killed your sister?” rry stopped seeing magic the night Santa killed his little sister. For seven years, three hundred and sixty-four days, twenty-three hours and seventeen minutes he had seen magic everywhere. He saw it in the forest at the bottom of the garden.…

  • The Magician

    I made my parents disappear, And did not cry a single tear. When at first I missed my dinner All I got was slightly thinner. But now it’s time for cake and tea I wish I had them here with me. — Illustration courtesy and copyright Jools Wilson. See Jools’ work here.

  • The Chain Witch

    A Story from The Witch Cord 1. These weren’t the best of times to be meeting in secret. The harvest was in and the line between day and dark was drawn tight as a thread. But best not say that. Tight as a thread meant knots, and knots was what had caused Hilda all that…

  • The Stitch Witch

    A story from The Witch Cord Private Teddy Francis, 47th regiment, was the first to be fixed. The fighting had taken its share of young men along the Black Sea but Teddy Francis was, thankfully or otherwise, not among its number. The price extracted from him was sorely given nonetheless. His right leg had been…

  • The Grudge—a nonsense poem

    I once held a Grudge but it ran away. I’ll never forget that miserable day. —

  • The Scout Witch

    A story from The Witch Cord That night brought something out of Henry Sampson, and there weren’t a one of us what wasn’t surprised. Though it were thirty-five years ago, and though I’m the only one to remember him now, it don’t change the fact he was the about the wisest, kindest Cub Scout Leader…

  • Three nonsense poems from the wild

    1. If you herd a buffalo don’t stop to say hello, just run away and shout ahoy! it’s time to flamingo. 2. So wildebeest, or won’tdebeest Serengetit on his own? And if he does then would you stay to throw another bone? 3. How many elephants can we fit upon a continental shelf? One more,…

  • A Domboid—a maths poem

    I am that shape we never learned in school, with all the angles of uncertainty jutting out as though a child had missed a lesson early on but kept on drawing nonetheless. Why not start again, a teacher might have said, but I kept me hidden, a mess of lines sagging into an old man’s…

  • The Wild Photographer

    Do you see that creature by the river just there, His glassy eye glinting in the cold morning air? He’s waiting and watching for when you might pause, Then quick as a fish he’ll go SNAP with his jaws. —