1332 - What a Wonderful(ly Cynical) World.

 

The Sunday Whirl presents twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.  

This weeks words are: 

scratches, screeches, soothes, fringe, image, sighs, locks, shiny, rises, swarm, ghoulish, night

I ignored all of them.

Poets & Storytellers invited us to write about the moon

I ignored that too.

What a Wonderful(ly Cynical) World.

With apologies to Louis Armstrong.

I see trees of green, red roses too

But trees can also be red and silver and gold

In Texas the roses are yellow, or so I’m told.

I see them bloom for me and you

Well, technically they bloom to attract pollenators

Birds, bees, and insects.  Curiously not alligators.

And I think to myself

A point of order, if it’s alright with you,

There’s no-one else that you can really think to.

What a wonderful world

The climate’s shot, the fascists are coming,

The cruelty in Gaza is simply mind-numbing.

I see skies of blue and clouds of white

But let’s not forget the sunsets of red

And the thundery clouds that rumble overhead.

The bright blessed days, the dark sacred nights

My days are lonely and extend beyond countin’,

Cue Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain.

And I think to myself

We’ve already been here, I don’t wish to moan

But your thoughts remain thoughts, encased in some bone.

What a wonderful world

The rich are getting richer, the poor left behind

The news is getting faker, the planet over-mined.

The colors of the rainbow

So pretty in the sky

Are also on the faces

Of people going by

Violet, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, and Red.

Not all thought to be healthy for the average passing head.

I see friends shaking hands, saying, "How do you do?"

“How do you do?” sounds posh, like the words of a car-yard con,

Best check your wrist, your watch may be gone.

They're really saying, "I love you"

Essential words for a husband to wife

But said to others can land you in strife.  

I hear babies cry, I watch them grow

In fairness to the babies, before they get older

They laugh, they burble, and they throw up on your shoulder.

They'll learn much more

Than I'll ever know

A debatable point Louis, education is now largely dismissed,

If it’s not on TikTok, it doesn’t exist.

And I think to myself

What a wonderful world

Yes, I think to myself

What a wonderful world

As far as I can tell that’s just a load of hooey.

Keep your thoughts to yourself, if you don’t mind Louis.

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1331 - Metamorphosis

 

The Sunday Whirl presents twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.  

This weeks words are: 

witchcraft, metamorphosis, garden, whirl, woods, fly, siren, sign, breath, stone, circle, why

Poets & Storytellers prompt is "The joy of walking away".

In this case it is "The joy of flying away".

Metamorphosis

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns.

-- The Odyssey

Why? is the wrong question.

How? Is more to the point.

There is magic afoot in my garden.

How a pudgy, multi-legged sausage,

Full of the half-digested greenery

Of my well-loved garden,

Encases itself in a circle, a case, of gossamer

A change booth, a most private retreat 

Only to re-emerge as a butterfly?

What witchcraft is this?

I hold my breath as it takes its first,

Before launching off, flying off,

More a wobble than a whirl 

Twisting and turning

Moving from plants to flowers to woods.

How can this melting and remaking happen?

A clear sign of my ignorance.

What else is changing without witness?

Were the tangle of wire coat-hangers

Once my strangely missing ball-points?

What am I to believe?

Is there anything set in stone?

And if they are, can I trust the stones?  

The siren’s say ‘come Ulysses, come closer’.

Are they really stones?  

My toe says yes.

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1330 - Nature's Inadvertence

 

The Sunday Whirl presents twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.  

This weeks words are: 

crusty, scrub, limbs, vanish, bones, exist, space, glitter, still, hollow, below, sense

Nature’s Inadvertance

We should remember that even Nature's inadvertence 

has its own charm, its own attractiveness. 

-- Marcus Aurelius.

The random fissures on a crusty bread

The dew that glitters on a spider’s thread

The limbs that blossom on a favourite tree

A joy awaits you if you care to see.

Watch ferns, fishbones and maiden’s hair,

Plants that existed before we were there

Attach to trees in both hollow and nook

A joy awaits you if you care to look.

The kitchen’s scent of a fresh-baked cake

The liquid motion of a passing snake

The native birds and their mating dance

A joy awaits you if you can spare a glance.

Mushrooms grow and then vanish again,

The smell of the bush after a rain

The living space where seeds germinate

A joy awaits you if you care to wait.

The scrub is still there, out beyond the town,

But no need to leave home to track joy down

It’s in the branches, in the ground below,

A joy awaits everywhere you go.

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1329 - Glimpses of a Dream

 

The Sunday Whirl presents twelve words for us to use in a creative writing piece.  

This weeks words are: 

wet, jump, secret, dream, bed, breath, secrets, lashes, fire, plague, glimpses, lies

Glimpses of a Dream

There’s a green-eyed fellow idle, to the north of Kathmandu.

There’s a bus of eager punters, heading west.

There’s Ash Wednesday and the bushfire hullabaloo,

There’s the pulsing bilge pump at poor Gael’s breast.

There’s the random plague that completely shut the city

And closed the rest of the world as well.

There’s the ancient escritoire, full of all that’s pretty.

There’s the dinner call, with the old school bell.

There’s the ominous arrival of the mechanical bed  

There’s the lovely baby stilton sent out through the mail.

There’s the son that jumped out of a tiny plane

But only once he had done it, went on to tell the tale.

There’s the blushing yellow Peace rose, flowering in the garden

A living yearly memory of her dear departed mother.

There’s her ironclad determination, not to let harden

Any part of our ongoing love for one another.

There’s the intimate moment on a warm and secret beach,

There’s the shark plane doubling back.

There’s the son who drank all the medicines in reach,

There’s the spurtle, poised for quick attack.

There’s Primrose, later known as Prim, the most elegant of cats.

There’s the picnic in the park, to see the Bard’s Macbeth.

There’s the pipe that burst in the ceiling of the Dundee flat

There’s the pathos of that last exhaling breath.

There’s the castle on the Overland, where lashes were the norm.

There’s the weekly formal dinner, with cuddles, by the fire.

There’s the table set so beautifully, with decorations of some form,

There’s ball of belly-button fluff, stolen from the dryer.

There are the wet eyes of the one who silently recalls and weeps.

There’s the marching for The Voice, with the home-made sign.

There’s the The Prince of Puddings, a haggis, on a bed of neeps.

There’s the New Year’s fireworks and playing of Auld Lang Syne.

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