Notes on a Serviette: July 2013

Wednesday, July 31, 2013

592 : The Leap of...um...whatever

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads invites us to write about fish.

The Leap of..um…whatever.

“Swim little fish, swim if you can”,

The rhyme ran through his head.

So ‘round and ‘round the bowl he swam—

What a dreary life he lead!

That was until the fateful day

When a bowl came on the scene

That contained a fishy lady,

The first he’d ever seen.

To visit the fishy lady

Became is life-long goal

And so this forward fishy man

Jumped straight into her bowl.

“What do you think you are doing?”

She asked in mock distain,

But inside she was pleased he’d come

And hoped he would remain.

But goldfish are amnesiacs,

And thoughts quickly bid ‘adieu’.

The fishy-him turned to the fishy-her

And asked “Who the hell are you?”

---

Sunday, July 28, 2013

591 : The Temple Ruins

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #119) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.

The words this week are:

one, wove, scarce, revisited, rain, rooted,

crows, vegetation, last, cells, eroded, strength

The Temple Ruins.

The jungle has moved in.

Vegetation has reclaimed the temple.

Giant figs have rooted, grown,

And embraced the crumbling façade

With the strength of a mother

Welcoming a loved one back to the fold.

Over this, rain throws a dismal cloak.

The atmosphere is stifling,

The rats are in control.

Some people we know

Are like places we have long left

And should not be revisited.

Distance lends an enchantment

That does not last upon returning.

The magic they once wove is faded,

Eroded by time,

By experience,

By life.

The jungle has moved in.

Vegetation has reclaimed the temple.

Superficially they are unchanged,

Same cells, same bones, same hair.

Encased in an unfamiliar robe,

The humourless robe of the mean.

Goodwill is scarce.
Different rats.

They look at you with malevolent eyes,

Eyes a crow would envy.

---

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

590 : Save Your Breath

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were Apologise, Derelict and Medicate.

Save Your Breath

Don’t apologise for base rudeness—

Each day you matter less and less.

I’ll neither retreat from the plain

Nor medicate away my pain

Life is better, I must profess,

Protected from your bitchiness

By friends who helped me reassess—

As I don’t expect any change

Don’t apologise.

Any remorse will not impress

I’d be derelict to acquiesce

And put it all in place again.

As you deserve but scant disdain,

And I’m not about to reassess:

Don’t apologise.

---

589 : The Consoling Muse

Red Dirt Girl commented on the apparent

Impact of my current muse in recent works.

It set me thinking.

The Consoling Muse

I have always been

Vaguely jealous

Of painters and sculptors.

Their muses are all

Scantily clad, if at all.

So much more

Accessible,

So much more

Available

So much more

Hands on,

As it were.

Poets are the poor cousins

When it comes to our muses;

Our muses can be miles away

Unseen

Untouched

Unsullied and,

Unfortunately,

Fully clothed.

Doesn’t seen fair.

But we have one advantage

Over the daubers and chippers:

We can have negative muses,

Muses that bring out the

Vocabulary of hurt,

The words of indignation

From the lexicon of grief.
So much easier in words
Than in oils or stone.

A scant but significant

Consolation.

---

Monday, July 22, 2013

588 : The Swooner

One Single Impression has the prompt 'Swoon'.

The Swooner

Narcissus was so overcome

With his own reflection

He swooned,

Enchanted by the sight

Of such sweet perfection.

Poor Boy.

Self-love will only destroy,

Invite mockery from the crowd.

A lesson of value to some

But lost upon the proud.

---

587 : Two Sides of the Jonquil

Photo via Red Dirt Girl, I think.

Two Sides of the Jonquil

The promise of spring,

The first bulb to appear in my garden,

The jonquil has a simple elegance,

An old world purity, about it

That is quite enchanting.

It is, therefore, ironic

That the gelatinous slime

That exudes from its stem

When it is cut

Is both bitter

And toxic.

But then,

How often is that the case

In our daily life?

---

Sunday, July 21, 2013

586 : Tabula Rasa

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #118) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.

The words this week are:

repair, slate, time, driven, think, night, no

mesh, tear, room, longing, key, become

Tabula Rasa

No matter what you think,

Even though you may wish otherwise,

There comes a time to acknowledge

That things are beyond repair,

That what once meshed so well,

No longer does.

Tabula rasa,

The blank slate,

Is the key to moving forward,

To making room,

To making space,

Ready to welcome a new start;

Moving out of the night of tearful longing

Into the bright day of hope and change.

It is not always a case of being driven

To become something new

But by being repulsed

By remaining with the old.

---

585 : A fellow would frequently play...

Mad Kane has a regular limerick challenge.

She provides the first line,

the rest is up to us.

A fellow would frequently play

The field, when his wife was away.

When found in a position

Of vigorous coition,

She buried him the very next day.

---

584 : The Potato and the Fork

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads invites us to write a love letter

between two inanimate objects. This is more a love story than a love letter,

but on a quiet Sunday morning, close enough.

The Potato and the Fork

In the darkness of the kitchen,

When all the work was through,

A piece of cutlery took the chance

To do what love must do:

He meekly asked a potato

“What sort of fruit are you?”

The spud, it was the starchy type,

Not one for idle talk,

It mixed with all the proper folk,

Like lamb and beef and pork,

And felt it had a place in life

Above a common fork.

But the fork, it still persisted

(Though you have to wonder why)

It summoned all its courage

And had another try—

“Potato dear, I must confess,

You're the apple of my eye!”

“Sod off, you little prong-y thing!”

(The reply was rather tart)

“My mother told me of your type

And I’m not about to start;

You get behind my defences

Then pierce me through the heart!”

“Not true!” the fork cried, in dismay,

“Your mother has it wrong!

My uncle was a tuning fork

Here, let me sing a song!”

He then sang of his forky love,

Of passion hot and strong.

Oh, the potato, she was smitten,

Her heart was all aflutter,

In the face of the fork’s hot love

She melted just like butter,

“That’s not a good analogy”

Her Mother’s ghost would utter.

It’s said in war and also love

That everything is fair, 

And so it came to pass one night,

Upon some dinnerware,

The fork fulfilled his destiny

And skewered his pomme de terre.

---

Saturday, July 20, 2013

583 : Simplicity

Sunday Scribblings has the prompt 'Wander'.

Simplicity

“I wander lonely as a cloud”

Wordsworth relayed one day.

A host of golden daffodils

Rewarding his foray.

He knew a very simple truth—

Distilled,

The essence of life’s quest:

Of all the pleasures we’re allowed,

The simple ones are best.

---

Friday, July 19, 2013

582 : Squeeze

Haiku Heights has the prompt 'Squeeze'.
Sadly, by the time I got around to it,
the prompt site had closed.
Moral: juice your fruit when it's fresh.

Life is a ripe fruit.

There is so much to squeeze out

If you care to look.

---

581 : Respect

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were Assign, Pretense and Traverse.

Respect

Without a doubt, it’s a fine pretense,

The face we show the world.

We all assign a pretty mask

While behind, the truth is curled.

Respect

That no-one is perfect.

Don’t ask

To cross the outer skin,

To traverse beyond their defences,

If only to reject what lies within.

---

Repost - Tending the Crops

"A Hind's Daughter" - Sir James Guthrie.

Tending the crops.

The farmer tills his fields,
Puts fences round his lot,
Knowing that his future yields
Will rise up from this plot.

He tends to his land,
Improves it where it needs;
For the crop that he has planned,
He lovingly picks his seeds.

For the farmer wisely knows
That what he plants he reaps,
No use planting aloes
If he wants to harvest neeps.

Now there’s a magic vigour
To a farmer’s crop bestowed:
The harvest's always bigger
Than the cup of seeds he sowed.

So it is with life, my friends,
And our plots are far from scant.
Deal with what the season sends
And be careful what you plant.

Plant love and more of it ensues,
As a crop, it tops the scale.
But if it's the seed of hate you choose,
Best hope your harvests fail.

---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

580 : Expectations, Met and Unmet

Expectations, Met and Unmet.

Sitting in a country hotel,

On a business trip, of sorts.

The day’s tasks are done,

Dinner is finished,

The TV is off,

Winding down.

A time for coffee

And quiet reflection.

Expectations have been met.

But they were never high.

In search

Of something basic,

Something quite mundane

I rummage through the pockets

Of my travel case

And, unexpectedly, find a map,

A map and directions

To another country hotel,

For a business trip, of sorts.

A strategic trip in the scheme of things.

That, too, ended with coffee

And a quiet reflection.

And unmet expectations.

But they too were never high.

---

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

579 : The Tale of Samuel Morse.

This is the tale of Samuel Morse,

The plaintiff in a rough divorce.

Once he saw things were decayed,

He telegraphed, quite dismayed,

But alas he’d done his dash, of course.

---

578 : Intersection

Intersection

A chance meeting at a

Departure lounge;

A temporary intersection,

A temporal intersession.

A confluence of streams.

We talked, as one does,

And you shared a life.

A life of loves,

Come and gone,

Of dreams,

Now and then,

Of a life exiled,

Of a child,

Now gone,

But who lives on,

Loved on.

You talked with passion

With love,

With a certain sadness,

With more to be said

I suspect,

And then you were gone—

Back into the passing stream

Of life.

I wonder.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

Sunday, July 14, 2013

577 : Basic Instinct

The tabloids had a story a little while ago of a lady who,

on the surface was happily married, but regularly

killed off her lovers, both male and female.

Her husband performed as required to,

And he even had managed to sire two,

But free sex was permitted

And her chalet was littered

With the bones of those who aspired to.

---

576 : The Lock

Poets United had the prompt "Lock"

Locks

We set locks to keep people out,

Barriers to the wicked,

But lose a little of ourselves

While hiding in the thicket.

It can serve no useful purpose,

Distrusting all we meet,

It’s really not what life's about—

Freedom is a two-way street.

---

575 : Beauty

Haiku Heights had the prompt "Beauty"
Image from Facebook.

A phrase long held true—
Pretty is a shallow thing,
Beauty's from within.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2013
---

574 : Swings

Haiku Heights has the prompt "Swing".

Swing

Higher and higher,

The laughter of young children,

Gravity defied.

Be very careful

Or the pendulum of life

Swings back to hit you.

---

Friday, July 12, 2013

573 : Well Dressed

Photo from Lola's Loves

Vis-a-vis style, the French wrote the book,

Even more, they knew how to cook.

And who could forget

Marie Antoinette

With her ‘off at the shoulder’ look?

---

572 : The Lake

Poetic Bloomings has the prompt "Lakes, Oceans, Waterways".

The Lake

There’s a joy that few can know,

To move upon the lake,

To cast off your landlocked cares

And leave them in your wake.

The nights,

The sounds,

The smells,

The sights.

Now there’s a freedom that you’re wielding

And you can enjoy the calming glow

That the lake is yielding.

---

Thursday, July 11, 2013

571 : The Demons

One Single Impression has the prompt 'Demon".

The Demons

We all fight, in separate ways,

The demons in our minds;

Creatures of the dark recesses

That trade in the unkind.

Freud knew,

Our inner knows it too.

Stresses

Build upon the angst within

And so put fractures on display,

To let the demons in.

---

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

570 : A Measure of Trust

Haiku Heights has the prompt 'Measure'

"Never lie to someone who trusts you.

Never trust someone who lies to you."

― Deanna Wadsworth

As a basic rule,

To have a friend you can trust

Is beyond measure.

---

569 : Baptiste the Dragon

Baptiste the Dragon

Baptiste the Dragon was so kind,

As kind as kind could be.

He breathed no fire,

Played songs on a lyre

And had sticky buns for tea,

For tea,

And had sticky buns for tea.

Baptiste the Dragon was so kind,

As sweet as a baby lamb.

He would hold open a door,

And would never snore

And offered his seat on a tram

On a tram,

And offered his seat on a tram

Baptiste the Dragon was so kind,

All sugar, with no spice.

He was so bland in every sense

Even St George took no offence,

And children asked his advice,

His advice,

And children asked his advice.

Baptiste the Dragon was so kind,

He loved to smell the flowers

He’d bathe in the sea,

Drinking chamomile tea,

And read poetry aloud for hours,

For hours,

And read poetry aloud for hours.

Baptiste the Dragon was so kind,

But there’s a lessen for those of his ilk.

He was completely beguiled

By a sneaky little child

Who ate him with a glass of milk,

Of milk,

Who ate him with a glass of milk,

---

568 : Rhapsody, in Sky Blue

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads has the prompt 'Rhapsody'.

Rhapsody, in Sky Blue.

It is a lovely day!

The sky is clear and blue.

Past the solstice;

It is cold,

Frosty and, in its own way,

The essence of mid-winter.

The trees have lost or

Are belatedly,

Reluctantly,

Losing their chequered garb.

And the first bulbs bravely push

Through the cold soil

Into the pallid sun.

The cherry trees

Are in blossom.

It is lovely to be out,

To be walking without care,

To watch others, with dogs,

Or strollers or wired for sound

As they, as if unaware of the

Beauty around them, walk

Through the midst of,

Through the mist of,

The mid-winter day,

Oblivious.

They are missing so much.

And yet, in their own way,

They are happy.

---

567 : The Trawler

Mary, at Poetry Jam, put up

the prompt ‘A Bird’s Eye View’.

The Trawler.

Old, ugly, lumbering.

The trawler drags its nets

Over already fished waters,

In search of yet smaller fish.

Above, the gulls circle,

Watching, crying indignantly.

The catch is mixed:

Fish, certainly, of various sizes,

Old bottles that once held perfume

Or wines from the sunny hills

Or perhaps letters from the marooned.

Above, the gulls circle,

Watching, crying indignantly.

Plastic, less endearing,

Old netting, bits of ships,

Lost and long forgotten.

Flotsam and jetsam.

Like all vessels of this type

It smells.

Above, the gulls circle,

Watching, crying indignantly.

---

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

566 : Smoke & Mirrors

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #116) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.

The words this week are:

voices, impossible, scare, climb, risk, listen,

where, smoke, happens, pressure, might, orders

Smoke & Mirrors

The voices in the night,

Nagging,

Teasing,

Hinting at what might

Or might not,

Happen.

It is impossible

Not to listen,

Not to succumb to the pressure

Of the ceaseless

Chattering.

And then,

Come the morning,

Come the dawning of the day,

The light does not scare them away.

They still linger,

Nagging,

Teasing,

As you drive,

As you climb the stairs or

Almost anywhere.

They catch you unawares.

Ambush you.

Scare you.

Order you to listen

As if they are the only ones

That matter.

There is no smoke

Without fire,

Or so they say,

But in this fragmented

Kaleidoscope of the fanciful,

There is a risk that you

Are just fighting

Smoke and mirrors.

---

Monday, July 08, 2013

565 : The Sand Dragon

Haiku Heights has the prompt 'Sand'.

Fears are built on sand.

Even dragons wash away

With the swelling tide.

---

Thursday, July 04, 2013

564 : Merlot, the Magician

A little ditty to clear the brain,

Even if the wine doesn't.

Written after a long day,

Also long after the witching hour.

Merlot, the Magician

When the brown stuff hits the fan

And is flung around the room,

When the storm clouds fill the sky

And the sense is one of gloom,

Never mind.

Even though you are inclined

To cry.

Something learnt over time:

Nothing so sets it right again

As a glass of good red wine.

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