DCLXXXIX - A Bridge Too Far.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Built by migrants.

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #157) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

bones, twice, stolen, water, rocking, open, mess,


aches, bridge, sink, sway, limb, sharp.

The text in green is from the 

Australian National Anthem.

A Bridge Too Far

Australians all let us rejoice

For we are young and free

We've golden soil and wealth for toil,

Our home is girt by sea:


Across the waters to our north,

In frail and rocking ships,

Desperate families on open decks

Make slow and risky trips,

Like generations come before them

Fleeing guns and bombs and whips.

Our land abounds in nature's gifts

Of beauty rich and rare,

In history's page let every stage

Advance Australia fair,

But this is no bridge to a better life:

They’re put into a cage.

A sorry mess, remotely placed,

To sink from sight, backstage.

A sharp and sad reminder

Of our leader’s Christian rage.

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,

We'll toil with hearts and hands,

To make this Commonwealth of ours

Renowned of all the lands,


And there they stay on stolen time,

To ache and sway alone.

Not humans to receive our care,

Just limbs and flesh and bone,

Twice expelled from safe refuge

And nowhere to call home.

For those who've come across the seas

We've boundless plains to share,

With courage let us all combine

To advance Australia fair.


In joyful strains then let us sing,

Advance Australia fair.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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DCLXXXVIII - Capricious Love

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

to use the three words of the week in a composition.

The words this week were: animate, impassioned and pervert.

Capricious Love

An Animated Affair

Impassioned, the accused asserted

His innocence of the crime:

Of having a lady for sport,

Of having a beastly good time.

For a lark, in a park.

In short, the case he presented

Was – “Can it be perverted

If the goat consented?”

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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DCLXXXVII - The Turning

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #156) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

swear, turns, chant, porcelain, limbo, wrists,

tumble, papers, gaudy, briefly, deeply, moonlit

The Turning.

It turns relentlessly, no purpose is shown,

A revolving collection of all that is known.

But in a small quiet backwater, tucked away

Things tumble, not turn, in strange disarray.

◊

Life’s like a circus on set up on a field

Each tent has sideshows, slightly concealed.

Refined old ladies hold Chihuahua pups,

Sipping Earl Grey from porcelain cups;

Unshaven men who smell of old beer,

Sleep on flat boxes, beneath the old pier;

On the moonlit banks of a river we find

Lovers swapping fluids, of the bodily kind;

While in a police station, beneath a strong light,

A felon swears blue he’s been home all the night.

Fresh-faced youths, stand tall in the choir,

Chanting obedience but harbouring desire. 

There are sweet little children in gaudy pajamas,

Hearing stories of knights, in bright, shiny armours.

Disasters bestow unimaginable sorrow

Which the papers will cover, just briefly, tomorrow

Then sport is returned to fill the front page

And the victims dispatched to a limbo, off-stage.

Some folk feeling so unloved and unmissed

Pop poisons; or jump; or cut open their wrists.

Seniors embrace beneath the warm covers,

Much older now, but still happily lovers.

Guys on soapboxes harangue those who’ve neared

With views deeply held but generally weird.

Each life is different in how it is told,

No-one is certain how theirs will unfold.

◊

While we each are different in how we are wrought,

The product of nature, reworked by our thoughts,

We are but a candle that briefly burns.

Coldly indifferent, the universe turns.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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DCLXXXVI - Wolverine

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

to use the three words of the week in a composition.

The words this week were: horrible, moody and listless.

Wolverine.

Listless, edgy, and on the prowl,

Moody in the extreme;

Lunar cycles make her howl

In a way that curdles cream.

She presents as an exhibition

But despite these outer looks

I have a horrible suspicion

She bites the heads off chooks.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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DCLXXXV - A Bit of a Scrap

Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.

She provides the first line rhyme word,

The rest is up to us.

For no reason in particular,

I kept the first two lines common.

A fellow got into a scrap

When found with a girl in his lap,

His wife wasn’t impressed

That the girl was undressed

And gave the old bastard a slap.

A fellow got into a scrap

When found with a girl in his lap,

His wife hit him again

When he tried to explain

The girl was just having a nap.

A fellow got into a scrap

When found with a girl in his lap,

“She was at a loose end

And she needed a friend

So I am just filling the gap.”

A fellow got into a scrap

When found with a girl in his lap,

His wife shot him quite dead

With a round to the head,

Saying “Nah, your story’s just crap!”

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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DCLXXXIV - All right, good night.

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #155) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

barrier, detail, diamond, pleat, power, strap,

swing, suspend, tough, unit, waterfall, zip

All right, good night.

We don’t know

We will probably

Never know.

But we can imagine the details.

First Class, all diamonds, 

Pinstripes, pleats and fur.

They get the metal cutlery

And fine tablecloths.

Their pearls swing as they walk.

Then there is business class,

The people with real power,

Good cutlery too.

But a leaning to the practical

Frugal with their money

But not wanting to tough it out

In the economy class battlers

Back behind the curtain barriers.

And there, in economy,

People sit, packed in,

Elbows pulled to their sides,

Knees against the seat in front,

Tables down, with a tray of 

Soft inoffensive pap,

Befitting a plastic fork,

Watching equally soft,

Inoffensive pap,

On the video unit

In the seat in front.

Common to all of these

Diverse peoples

Is a shared destiny.

They waited together,

Albeit in different lounges,

The boarded together,

Albeit by different doors,

And now, strapped into seats

In a large metal box

Suspended in the sky,

They travel together.

After a fashion.

In a control tower

A message is received

Acknowledged and then

The channel goes dead.

Just a loud angry hiss

Like a waterfall

In a jungle,

A rushing sound,

Going nowhere.

Then nothing.

Zip.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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DCLXXXIII - The Food Pyramid

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

to use the three words of the week in a composition.

The words this week were: gaunt, vile and decompose.

The Food Pyramid.

Overweight 

And far from gaunt 

Consumers to the core;

We publicly 

Label things as vile

While privately 

Seeking more.

At some cost.

Proportion 

Has been lost.

Fertile,

Whole food 

Will decompose.

While the junk,

The advertisers flaunt,

Will outlast 

The Pharoahs.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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DCLXXXII - Born to Rule

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

to use the three words of the week in a composition.

The words this week were: cunning, degenerate and emaciated.

Born to Rule

There’s a kind of 

smugness there;

A cunning smirk 

or two.

A high sense 

of entitlement,

With ribbons, 

regal blue.

Not coy,

They ignore 

the hoipolloi,

Intent

To rule 

by selling fears

Backed by 

degenerate affairs

And emaciated ideas.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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DCLXXXI - A Blunt Quartet

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #153) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

sting, grind, natural, addition, plenty, warning,

rival, course, quartet, broken, response, blunt

A Blunt Quartet

To change is a natural desire,

To leave the daily grind;

We gladly jump from pan to fire,

To see what we will find.

All warnings are ignored, of course,

The rival camp seems warmer;

Not a response to a better force,

Just weary with the former.

The morning after is a sobering place,

Of crudely broken dreams.

With plenty of regrets we have to face

As we realise what it means.

There’s additional pain, both sharp and cruel,

Of this brave new spring—

As a nation we voted for these fools,

And therein lies the sting.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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DCLXXX - Did the earth move for you too, dear?

There have been earthquakes in Los Angeles recently.
It set me thinking...

The couple were intimately locked

When the building was seismically rocked.

The man was seen to withdraw 

And run out the door,

Leaving the poor woman, half-cocked.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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