1200 - Stressful

 Stressful 

A colleague told me she felt 'stressful'.

I had to agree.

A lady who presented with a dress-full

Declared that she was feeling quite 'stressful'.

I think she meant 'stressed'

But, by the way she was dressed,

The first was most certainly successful.

   .

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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery

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1199 - Past Lessens

Past Lessens
An anniversary.

What better than a rondeau?

But don’t forget that life goes on,
Events should end once they have gone,
Yet the human mind is a queer machine,
Sometimes kind but often mean,
It drags things back from the beyond
To make you relive and dwell upon
The unpleasant things you’ve undergone.
It’s time to wipe the blackboard clean,
But don’t forget.

And this is the strange phenomenon,
To learn our lessons, pro and con,
But not fall into that dark ravine,
To learn the lessons but shun the spleen.
To not forgive would be quite wrong.
But don’t forget.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1198 - Lilliput II

Lilliput II

Why am I amongst aliens?
Who are these people?
Why are their values so foreign?
They lead me to weep 'til the dawn
(Sleep, tragically forelorn)
Wherein I lament the lost dreams
As a new dark ages begins,
Fear trumps vision, it seems.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1197 - Sunny Morning

Sunny Morning

Breaking old habits.

Have you ever woken and found
That what had hung over you,
That what had clung onto you,
Had disappeared in the night?
You’ll like it if you do.

It’s not so much delight,
It’s more a sort of relief,
An absence of the angst and grief
That darkened life around—
Missed, 

The way you don’t miss a thief.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1196 - I Call Bullshit

I call Bullshit

It seems that’s bull, as in bully.

The phrase is meant to point out lies
That others feed to us,
Things they’d prefer we didn’t spot,
Rather than to discuss
The facts, where it seems they're not exact.

It’s not a weaponised way to hit
Every comment, all replies—
So, now, I am calling bullshit.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1195 - The Last Frontier

The Last Frontier

The facts

Will never change

A mind,

Those numbers,

Graphs and words—

They just bounce right off

The boney wall,

Ignored, or worse,

Misheard.

So how

Can we

Be allowed

To call,

To convey

Our deepest fear

For the future of our kind,

To get past

The guarded ear?

   .

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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery

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1194 - Probably Not

Probably not.

Haiku Horizons: Sorry.

Words cut to the bone—
Even more than actions do.
Would a 'sorry' help?

Just another word;
So weak in every sense.
It cannot repair.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1193 - Predator

Predator
On receiving medical news.

Imagine a river,
Wide, inviting, shimmering
Calm on a quiet, balmy morning.

Every day, relaxed,
You strip off your cares,
Your dusty, soiled garments
of yesterday
and slip gratefully
Into the fresh waters
Of a new day.

Imagine this,
This daily ritual.
Refresh and renew.
The river of life.

One day, a local asks
"Did you know
There is a crocodile
In the river?"

Nothing has changed.
But everything has.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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Peace.

1192 - Something has gone terribly wrong...

"Something has gone terrible wrong" 

LNP Party spokesperson, election night.

There is some comfort in knowing

That fear and greed and hate

Does not have the capacity

To win our main debate.

It's sad

But it was all they had.

And a pity

That they could just condemn.

But the end result was showing—

We're more mature than them.

  .

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© 2018 J Cosmo Newbery

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For the international readers:
In Australia, the LNP are the repository of
right-wing religious extremists
and use the colour blue. 
Largely Republican in outlook.

The ALP is the left-wing progressives,
sometimes called Socialists
but a badge worn with pride here,
and use the colour red. 
Largely Democratic in outlook.