Friday, February 28, 2014

686 : The Silver Trough.

Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were: aspire, beast and slurp.

The Silver Trough.

When they first aspire to govern,
Bright-eyed and oh-so keen,
I believe they feel a calling,
‘Til they meet the party machine.
It kills
Any urge to cure our ills
It’s appalling—
The faithful, I know, will scoff, 
But the beasts patrol the coven
And slurp from the silver trough.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
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Tuesday, February 25, 2014

685 : A Paste Limerick, or two.

Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.
She provides the first line rhyme word,
The rest is up to us:


A wallpapering woman spilled paste
That trickled down south of her waist.
She explained to the guys
That while sex was unwise
She was stuck up rather than chaste.

◊◊◊

The tassels were held on with paste
So her nipples were nicely encased.
But the erotic effect
Had a practical defect
As her breasts drooped down to her waist.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
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Sunday, February 23, 2014

684 : The Life Saver

Munus Island #lightthedark
Sunday Whirl (Wordle #149) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

eggs, trust, test, not, high, course, peep,
mug, trial, form, bring, blown, stick


The Life Saver

I
Popular wisdom says that you shouldn’t
Put all your eggs in one basket.
But what if you only have one basket?

II
It is an act of blind trust
To board an old fishing boat
And set course for a foreign land.
But the decision is not hard
When the horror being left behind
Is greater than the unknown
That lies ahead.
Do you stick it out?
Watch your life and loved ones
Be blown apart?
It is really a case of all or nothing.
Save what eggs you can.

III.
As we sit in our 
Comfortable homes
With our mugs of organic tea
Watching the TV shows that let us 
Peep into the fake lives
And contrived high drama
Of fictional people
It is worth remembering 
The real trials of real people
The horrible form these trials take
And the desperation

That has driven them
To leave the land of their fathers
In search of safety.

IV
It is a test of our humanity
That we are willing to provide
That safety.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
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Friday, February 21, 2014

683 : Stacked Against Us

Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were: feral, insatiable and shred.

Stacked Against Us

We, as a species,
Are faced 
With a problem—
With an insatiable appetite
For resources,
For energy,
For growth.

We must deal with
An economy
Gone feral,
Driven by the need,
For growth,
Blind,
Relentless,
Growth.

But we live 
In a  bottle garden
Where unlimited growth 
Is unsustainable,
Where there is not 
A shred of evidence
That we can continue
In our headlong
Push for growth—
Growth of population.
Growth of consumption.
Growth of pollution.
The bottle is only so big

The odds are stacked against us.
The logic is stacked against us.
But, blinkered and fearful,
We rush ahead.
Hopefully.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
---


Wednesday, February 19, 2014

682 : The Apartment

Image: Universal Studios Lot, Instagram by sessepien  (Modified)

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads invites us to write a quatern.
The Mag provided the image prompt.


The Apartment

They’re side-by-side but still apart,
The product of a building art
That gives a person somewhere to stay
But, in effect, locks them away.

Forming a body, but lacking a heart,
They’re side-by-side but still apart.
You can lie in bed through the night
And listen to some strangers fight.

The occupiers will seldom meet
As they scurry to and from the street
They’re side-by-side but still apart,
And interactions are à la Carte.

They’re called ‘apartments’ with good cause,
Boxes huddled on successive floors,
An architectural mockery of Descartes,
They’re side-by-side but still apart.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
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Thursday, February 13, 2014

681 : The Ideologue

Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were cruel, ghastly and unkempt.

The Ideologue.

He’s more callous 
Than cruel—
Ideological.
How much harm 
Can he really do
In just a 
Three year spell?
We’ll see
Just how dry 
Our life can be.
But who
Wants 
Such a ghastly nation?
Where, 
Unkempt and unemployed, 
You’ll subsidise 
The corporation.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
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Sunday, February 09, 2014

680 : The Stream

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #147) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

gather, grasp, gutsy, routine, stream, body,
flow, invisible, pluck, list, ring, type


The Stream

[Narrator]
In the sprawling mess that is a city,
People gather like fish in schools
While we with an odd type of curiosity
And, invisible, peer into their limpid pools.
Watch the ebb and flow of daily bliss
See the humdrum routines and their ilk,
See her give the perfunctory kiss:

[Fish]
“And don’t forget to bring home some milk”.

[Narrator] 
But before he’s even left the street
She’s on her phone to ring a friend,
Though it’s really more of a passive bleat:

[Fish]
“Do you think this week will ever end?”

[Narrator]
In front of the mirror, a teenage girl:

[Fish]
“My body’s awful, gross and fat!”
I’m the most ugly creature in the world,
The magazines have told me that”.

[Narrator]
When dissatisfaction is on the run,
Parents are just like their teens.

[Fish]
“I think I’ll have a boob job done”

[Narrator]
Then just sit around their TV screens
Illuminated with a ghostly glow
They grasp the issue and freely scoff:

[Fish]
“I cannot stand the trash they show!”

[Narrator]
But don’t pluck up the will to turn it off.

[Fish]
“Next year’ll be different, just you wait!”
The opportunity will not be missed!”

[Narrator]
But when they’re pushed to the starters gate
They quickly abandon the resolutions list
In the dull comfort of daily routine
Few will fight to reach a dream.
There are no gutsy salmon to be seen;
The fish are all swimming down the stream.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
---

Friday, February 07, 2014

679 : The Brick

Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were accelerate, rogue, and passive.

The Brick

Consider, if you will, the brick;
A passive sort of block.
An over-baked lump of clay,
A better class of rock.

No rogues are found in Brickland,
They’re conforming little swines.
They join the right wing parties
And vote on party lines.

They stay exactly where you put them,
Slothful, cold and stiff;
They only ever accelerate
If you push them off a cliff.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
---

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

678 : Nouvelle Cuisine

Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.
She provides the first line rhyme word,
The rest is up to us:

A fellow was making a scene,
When partaking of nouvelle cuisine.
“The portions are so small 
They’re not there at all,
You can’t even see where they’ve been.”
---
A bit of a flurry of limericks in the comments section too.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
---
.

Sunday, February 02, 2014

677 : Noah's Emissaries

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #146) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

balance, edge, alternate, former, open, others,
sense, potential, tiptoed, synergy, bucolic, miss

Noah’s Emissaries

Shipped out into the world
Two by two,
House by house,
Neat and clean, 
A little too much so, if truth be known.
Where others have hidden 
Behind curtains,
Would have tiptoed away,
I would have opened my door 
And shown them in,
We had a synergy, we did:
Game on.

Tell me, I used to ask them,
Do you believe in Zeus?
Or Ra?  Or Shiva?  Or Mother Goose?
Is golf played in heaven?
And what of fairies, elves and trolls??
And what do the placid lions eat?
And is the bread flat or leaven?
Are there raging thunderstorms
And hot and stormy summer nights?
Can I still roast my meat
Or is lunch forever salad rolls?
Do pretty flowers ever die?
Can my Granny see me have a shower?
Are Brussels Sprouts there, as well?
Or are they the exclusive food of Hell?
And do those folk with Alzheimer’s disease
Spend eternity looking for their keys?
I often sensed they were a bit on edge
And tried to hedge their answers too
But these are the questions,
That, on balance, 
I needed them to give me answers to.

Those door to door 
Purveyors of an alternate religion,
With their bucolic visions
Of a sunny and grassy heaven,
With lions beside the lambs,
All sunshine and light,

And young children
Gambolling through 
Fields of flowers—
They don’t visit me any more.
They are former visitors now,
I think my gatepost bears a mark
“Demons live inside this park”
So they don’t visit as before,
Two by two, at my door,
They had such potential
To explore the things 
So distant from
The daily list of 
Hum-drum chores.
I miss them 
Now that they have gone.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
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