Ed Blundell worked as a teacher of English, a school inspector and as Director of Education for the town of Stockport. Ed has had short stories and poetry published in over thirty magazines. His poetry has featured in The Horror Zone, Popshot, Orbis, Psychopoetica, Carillon and Purple Patch. His stories have been published in Abandoned Towers, Death’s Head Grin, Hello Horror, Death Throes and several other UK and US zines. He gave up searching for the meaning of life after discovering there wasn’t one.

Rusdston

Dark road, narrow, edged with trees,
Bends, dips, twists, turns, signed “with caution,”
Snaking across wide, endless fields,
Above, the deep bowl of cloud scudded sky.
Suddenly upon a rise, the church,
Wrapped in lichen walls,
Silence, sleeping dead beneath
Weathered, mouldering headstones,
A sign says ancient monument.
I stand where many others stood
Wondering at the soaring megalith,
Rooted deep in the guts of earth,
Dwarfing everything around,
Serving a purpose lost in time,
Raised before this church’s god was born.

[image: The Rudston Monolith Late Neolithic Standing Stone | Steve Speller]