Sunday, June 30, 2013

560 : The Phantom


Mad Kane has a regular limerick challenge.
She provides the first line,
the rest is up to us.

The Phantom, who slept on a board
In the space where the organ was stored,
Would sing from his heart
The whole villain’s part,
For Christine, the girl he adored.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

559 : Weight for it! Weight for it!




Weight for it! Weight for it!
A little Sunday morning rant.

Have you lost weight?
No, damn it!
I haven’t ‘lost’ any weight.

I’ve thrown it away,
Pushed it away,
Told it to leave
When it begged at my door
Disguised as a nice cheese
Or a profiterole
In search of a home 
And a place to rest, 
On me,
For a long time.

Losing weight?
Sounds a rather 
Careless thing to do.
No, this is a premeditated act.
Callous, hardhearted, in fact.

I have learnt
To ignore the pathetic pleas
From the whining and dining 
Little shitake in butter sauce
To take it back,
To take it in.

Like Sisyphus, pushing a cupcake
To the top of the food pyramid,
This may go on for a while.

But have I lost any weight?  
No, I know exactly
Where it has gone.

.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

558 : Table for Two.


Prompted by, but not entirely in keeping with,
Imaginary Garden with Real Toad’s prompt “Love after Love”.
Written largely, but not entirely, for my mother
Who will be ambushed by “So Far, So Close”.


Table for Two

Memories of all those we’ve loved
Will never truly fade;
They may recede from daily view
But are poised to reinvade.

Well meant but a word, a song, a scent—

And you, 
Ambushed by this refresher,
Are, without any warning, shoved
Backwards through a thresher.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

557 : A Regret


A Regret

The position was an honorary one,
The pay, at best, was lean.
With time, you had to to sever
The bonds that ran between.

And yet, I will not forget,
Never regret, 
The smooth and, too, the rough.
Sadly, I realise, now it’s done,
I never thanked you enough.

.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---



Saturday, June 29, 2013

556 : Vacant.



Vacant.

The door is unlocked
And swings open noiselessly.
The house seems empty.
No carpets.
No curtains.
No furniture.
Footsteps are hard
And echo as you enter.

Hello?  No answer.
Is anyone here?  Silence.
No signs of life.
No signs of former life.
Except for one thing,
On the sink,
An empty yoghurt container,
And a plastic spoon.

The gravel crunches,
As if mocking me,
As I leave.

.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---



555 : Creature of Habit.



The alarm is off.
It is Saturday morning.
Why am I awake?
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Friday, June 28, 2013

554 : So Far, So Close.


Imaginary Garden with Real Toads has the prompt "Loss".

So Far, So Close.

I couldn’t have been much further away,
Up a volcano in Ecuador,
If it hadn’t have been raining
I wouldn’t have known at all.
A spare moment to fill, 
A chance checking of the email,
Yes, even up a volcano in Ecuador,
And the world turned upside down.

The stomach tightening ride to Quito,
The frantic efforts to retrieve our passports 
Despite tales to the contrary 
The Cubans were very helpful.
The eighteen hour transit at Santiago
That seemed like it would never end.
The dash from the airport to the hospital.

And there you were.

Plumbed.  
Drugged.  
Unconscious.

And so you remained until the machines
Told us that you had left the room.

I so wish you could read my poems.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

553 : I Don't Understand


dVerse Poets challenges us to use an Anaphora in a poem.
Anaphora is the repeated use of a starting rhyme.

Amateur psychologists may be tempted to analyse this work.
Put down your inkblots.  It is just a fictional work, 
in response to the prompt.

I Don’t Understand.

Why do you behave this way?
Why do you refuse to say?
Why is every day so grey?
Why do you so want to flay?
Sigh in dismay, I don’t understand.


Why have you become so cold?
Why have the grudges you hold?
Why are your emotions so controlled?
Why is there pain you haven’t told?
Cry every day, I don’t understand.


Why have all the pent up malice?
Why hide away in the icy palace?
Why do you seem so very callous?
(Why is the only other rhyme phallus?)
Try as I may, I don’t understand.

.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---



Thursday, June 27, 2013

552 : Don't Press Me.


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were Garbage, Imperative and Traction.


Don’t Press Me
"Koko!  Bring me my list!"

Oh my God!
They speak such garbage!
Journalists I mean.
Everything is imperative,
Indignant or Obscene.

They rail,
They rant,
They hound,
They trail.

They give traction to the lobbyist.

These merchants of cheap verbiage
I'm sure they'd not be missed.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

551 : Crescendo


Haiku Heights has the prompt "Crescendo"

The pressure mounts up,
And, reaching a crescendo,
Denouement follows.

---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

550 : Step Back.



Step Back 

Take a step back now faults are seen
On what had seemed so white and clean,
Had seemed to be the nicest kind
Of its type that you could find.
Alas, a mirage lies past the screen,
The grass beyond is a faded green.
The world becomes much less serene
As troubling doubts creep into your mind—
Take a step back.

Reality is cruel and mean,
It makes you see what was unseen,
To see a world that's misaligned,
And realize that you have been blind.

As you teeter on the ravine,
Take a step back.

.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Sunday, June 23, 2013

549 : A Tectonic Relationship



A Tectonic Relationship

The plates only have sex every few years,
Things are tense whenever they’re too near.
“But, tell me”, said the gent,
After a seismic event,
“Did the earth move for you too, my dear?”
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

548 : A Piece of his Mind


Mad Kane has a regular limerick challenge.
She provides the first line,
the rest is up to us.

A guy was annoyed to be fined
For giving a piece of his mind
To the arresting cop
Who told him to stop—
He didn’t, so now he’s confined.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

547 : Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!


Sunday Whirl (Wordle #114) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:  

tracks, edge, files, lie, mess, complex,
gas, forest, still, pale, answers, class


Liar!  Liar!  Pants on fire!

Children are such terrible liars.

The lies they tell are so transparent
And create a mess of loose ends:
Wrong tracks,
Muddy tracks, 
Back tracks, 
Side tracks,
That lead you beyond 
The edge of credulity.

But still, they would have you believe them
Even though they fail the basic
If-this, then-that test:
What? A dog ate your homework?
Shouldn’t you have a dog, then?

They file a complex forest of loose ends
That defy explanations
And answers to any questions 
Breed only more bizarre explanations
That make the first pale by comparison.
Oh, I see, an imaginary dog.

But they are a gas, a joy to watch, 
And in a class of their own.

Adults, on the other hand—

Well, they are no better.

.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---



546 : Wrinkles


One Single Impression has the prompt "Wrinkle".

Wrinkles
Age imprints more wrinkles in the mind
than it does on the face.
- Michel de Montaigne 

On the rollercoaster of life,
Where, on some days, dramas build 
In unpredictable way’s,
Others are, most thankfully, joy filled:

We’re bent by the events we’re sent.
And stay crinkled, not immaculate.

While life passes by, both joy and strife,
Wrinkles just accumulate.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

545 : The Crystal Ship


to incorporate a Jim Morrison song title into a writing.

The Crystal Ship

The crystal ship that we live on,
That carries us from when were born,
Is a tough but brittle sloop
That seldom tells us what to do,
Or the course to set our bearings to,
Or what currents we can count on
And leaves us there to dwell upon
The nagging demons who also crew
The crystal ship.

The winds we catch are not foregone,
We have little choice but sailing on,
Some days the skies are clear and blue,
Others, storms we must pass through,
As each one of us travels upon
The crystal ship.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Saturday, June 22, 2013

544 : Buddhist Soup


Haiku Heights has the prompt "Lunch".
This time of the year we produce some stunning 
but unrepeatable soups from leftovers.


Buddhist Soup.

Bowls of warming soup,
Made from sundry leftovers,
Reincarnated.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Friday, June 21, 2013

543 : Life



Life

A balancing act --
The heart will pull you one way,
The brain, the other.

.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Thursday, June 20, 2013

542 : The Zombie Army


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were phantom, agile and flaccid.


The Zombie Army

The convulsive genital sneeze
Propels the phantoms of mankind,
Only semi human but still determined;
Relentless, agile and blind.

Billions storm the battlements
But only one will have succeeded.
The rest are just left to die;
Superfluous and unneeded.

The commander of the forces
Stops once his goal’s obtained,
And slips into a peaceful sleep
Contented, flaccid and, well, drained.

.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

541 : Post Hoc



Post Hoc

The victors create the records
To ensure their place is set.

The losers cower from the blows
But they will not forget.

Both sides construct the next divides
And so history is altered.

A fence constructed afterwards
To prove the horse has bolted.

---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

540 : The Enigma



Haiku Heights has the prompt "Enigma"

She smiles so sweetly,
Is so kind in many ways.
Why am I bleeding?

---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Sunday, June 16, 2013

539 : The Professor Expounding.


Mad Kane has a regular limerick challenge.
She provides the first line,
the rest is up to us.

A professor would often expound
A theory, long proven unsound.
He thought a man oughta
Swim well underwater
But sadly, in trying, he drowned.

---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

538 : The Voices


Sunday Whirl (Wordle #113) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:  

moonshine, anything, scoop, cave, shatters, wake, 
giggle, cut, load, sense, splits, crazy, chattering


The Voices.

The moonshine plays on the meadow,
As I lie in bed, awake.
A thousand voices chattering,
Leaving questions in their wake.

In my sombre cave of fat and bone,
A host of goblin’s whispers churn,
They then overload my senses,
Giggle at my concern.

They dance a crazy, frantic dance
Where anything can be,
They scoop and dive and then contrive
To cut up my sanity.

The alarm splits the revelry from the dawn,
Shattering the dreams gone by.
So now I recall that I couldn’t sleep
But can’t remember why.


---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---


537 : Family Pet



A family is a unit composed not only of children
but of men, women, an occasional animal,
and the common cold.  
- Ogden Nash

Family Pet

Ogden say the family unit
Includes the common cold;
It seems to fight all attempts
To evict it from the fold.

It mocks.
(And you can’t just change the locks).

So, hence,
Resigning to our lot,
We formally adopted it
And named the bludger “Snot”.

---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
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