1984 CAMPBELL’S KITCHEN

(project reflections 2011) 

Several years of working for KFC

A fast food Tycoon I am minded to be

The UK population so loves fast food

 CK’s is bound to capture the mood

The Drive Thru is already in the USA

Why not do the same in little ole UK

Publicity in newspapers & on TV

No likely downside that I can see

Cooking skills thin & catering knowledge thinner

This project has to be an all time winner

So much money from an oil rich Sheikh

How can I possibly apply the brake

Buying fast food.. without leaving the car

Is this the UK citizen’s bridge too far

McDonald’s success isn’t going to die

I believe it was always worth a try

© Kenneth Campbell

All rights reserved

DON’T LOOK BACK….

...Thraki had tears in her eyes and didn’t look back as she sat perched in the front passenger seat…Kerim would drive the trio to a point on the coastal road below the mountain village of Lapithos; he would then remain in the Morphou farm house and manage the orchards until Thraki’s anticipated return…

© Kenneth Campbell

All rights reserved

extract from CYPRUS REVISITED, 2006 Book 10 ‘The Greek escape’ page 273 by Richard Murray (Kenneth Campbell)

Evening Hours

Don’t look back

As shadows creep from bushes,

Stretch, coalesce,

To form that final, impenetrable dark.

Watch;

The afterglow is burning

 Vermillion, gold, ice-green.

Listen;

The thrush still sings amid the cherry blossom.

Wait;

When the blue midnight is alight with stars,

When moonlight silvers a summer sea,

Then

Rest in peace.

  

© Gill Dunstan

All rights reserved

Beloved of Martin Weir

Healing weather will soften,

wear the edges of the chiselled letters

that scar the memorial stone

A shepherd’s shadow

breasting the summit of Little Mell Fell

falls tall before it, into evening.

For eighty two brutal, beautiful

years he’d been bound to his land

his sheep.  He hadn’t looked back.

 © Sophia Roberts

All rights reserved

Don’t look back

Don’t look back

the psychiatrist said,

the past is here in the present.

With your help, we’ll make a story of it.

It may go back before your birth,

what your parents wanted for you,

their unlived lives.

It will take a long, long time

and a lot of money.

© Valerie Taylor

all rights reserved

Don’t Look Back

“A word to the wise: don’t look back.

“Why?  Because they are following us.  Whispering, conniving, hatching schemes.  Believe you me, knives and tongues are being sharpened.   And they’re cunning and getting closer

“What!  You looked?  And no-one there you say? 

“That’s strange.  They definitely were when I turned round.”

© Tim Scott

All rights reserved

To write is to serve, to put your heart and soul into service.

"To write is to serve, to put your heart and soul into service. Who do you serve? The collective human heart and soul, the inner life of others.

Like all service, writing is hard work. You must funnel reams of words through your fingers, laying down sentences like an athlete lays down miles. You must go on your knees to the mysteries of creation, like a priest before the altar.

You must develop practices that cocoon your inner, imaginative life, protecting it from assaults by the outer world — including your own longings for money and fame — so you can keep on giving. You must read widely, and emulate writing masters, until you’ve worked out what it is that only you can say.

And how you’re going to say it.

Do all this well and you’ll find your service to others also serves you, all the days of your writing life."

Joni Rodgers, founder of The LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY AUTHORS