737 - A Pig Wrestling Boycott

Poets United Midweek Motif : Boycott

A Pig Wrestling Boycott

There are those 

Who seem to require

Conflict at every turn;

Unconcerned

For the harm they cause

Or the bridges 

They burn.

They fight

With a cruel 

Perverse delight

Because

They have one basic aim:

To drag you 

with them 

Into the mire—

Best you don’t play 

That game.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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736 - Master Jack

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #171) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are: 

dabble, thrill, whack, hallowed, blasts, stained,

hunt, unfolds, shallow, center, skill, reveal

Master Jack

This is the tale of Master Jack,

A thrill seeker, of sorts,

He dabbles in all kind of things

Like making beers and ports,

He’s tried to paint and made stained glass

But never took to sports.

He’s whacked in nails, he’s cut up wood,

He’s hung and centred prints,

He’s mixed strange potions in his shed,

Then ignited them with flints.

The blasts that came from some of these

Are talked of ever since.

He played with words and written things,

Poems, prose and letters;

His favourite task on a rainy night 

Is to bravely try to net a

Pun or double entendre,

The naughtier, the better.

He’s poked fun at hallowed icons,

He’s pruned a lemon tree,

He’s made a shallow garden patch

He’s sailed upon the sea,

He’s built a robust barbeque

That will outlive World War III.

He’s made the perfect omelette,

He’s emptied out the drains,

He’s eaten deep fried guinea-pigs,

He’s slept upon a plane.

He’s unfolded paper road maps

And refolded them again.

Yet when his deathbed beckons him,

To look back on what he’s done,

At all the skills he’s tinkered with,


He’ll say it has been fun

But examination will reveal

That he hadn’t mastered one.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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735 - Freedom

Freedom 

Freedom 

Is a relative thing,

And, rather than displayed,

The bars 

That seem to hold us in

Are, 

Overall, 

Self-made.

These rods,


A  gift 

From meddling gods,

Begin

To melt 

And fall away,

As we embrace 

The coming spring

And shun 

The winter’s grey.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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734 - The Social Club

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were: liberal, profane and quarrelsome.

The Social Club

We all err on occasion,

And, driven by civic pride

Or perhaps some dark social guilt,

We join committees,

Volunteer to help some

Worthy Cause.

Sometimes the profane—

School management,

A club secretary, or worse,

A junior athletics coach.

Sometimes the more secular—

Church cake stalls,

Opportunity shops,
Liberal Party canvassing,

And the weekly meeting organisers.

Invariably, as a seemingly

Immutable law of nature,

We meet up with one,

Two, or sometimes, alarmingly,

Even more of The Ladies.

The Ladies run the show.

Large pigeon-breasted women

In floral frocks, with permed 

And largely indestructible hair,

Always quarrelsome,

Always strident,

Smelling of Camay soap

And the last dregs of Blue Grass,

Never ever able to understand

Why you have no wish

To go door to door,

Selling lamingtons.

They are the rocks of our society

On which many a good deed

Has perished.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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733 - Le Tour

Poets United Midweek Motif is "Le Tour de France".

This is the time of Tour de Fronce,

Avoid it if you have the chonce—

Ev’ry year, the same design,

An endless bloody conga line

Of sweaty men in Lycra ponce.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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732 - The Forest

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #170) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are: 

magic, forest, swarm, storming, words, without

hangs, while, thrive, passions, creature, jump, hum.

In a week of bad news 
From Gaza and the Ukraine,
The mood is sombre.

The Forest

There are demons in the forest,

Creatures of passion and venom,

Creatures who thrive on conflict,

Creatures who wait, impatient,

To swarm like impatient ants,

Wait to jump at the first opportunity

Without sense or sensibility.

Tribal foot soldiers,

Fed words of hate;

Words intended to engender fear 

For people they have never met,

People accused of witchcraft and magic,

Of eating the new born,

Of worshipping cloven beasts.

Or so they believe.

◊◊◊

We all have such an inner copse,

Where the air hangs heavy with suspicion,

Where fears breed and multiply

Ready to emerge

Like an avenging army 

Storming over the surrounding fields

While knowing little,

And learning nothing,

Of the local villagers.

Innocent bystanders.

Collateral damage.

◊◊◊

There is a murmur in the forest:

The hum of activity,

The hammering of metal,

The stamping of feet,

The throb of anthems.

The birds are leaving

And the sheep in the fields
Graze fitfully.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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731 - Nocturnal Emissions

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were: fraught, honourable, nocturnal.

After a few late night sitting in the parliament,

the Australian Government took the foolish,

but ideologically driven, step of

removing the price on carbon pollution.

Sadly, too many of them think God will save them.

Nocturnal Emissions

The honourable crew decided,

In a manner rather fitting,

To return us to a darkened state

With a late night sitting.

The science was roundly derided,

The lies were unremitting,

The guillotine gagged debate,

The party whips were spitting.

And so they sat, this gallant bunch,

Lawyers, doctors, bankers,

And took a fraught and backward pace,

To ignore the climate canker.

Once we come to the final crunch,

The Eden for which they hanker,

Will be a most unpleasant place—

The bunch of bloody wankers.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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730 - The Snake Lady

Poets United Midweek Motif ~ World Snake Day

The Snake Lady

A woman with her hair full of snakes,

Is a menace, ev’ry step that she takes—

All her social outings

End with screaming and shouting

And she gives her poor hairdresser the shakes.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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729 - The Old Soldier

The above photo (or something a bit like it)

was the prompt at The Mag.

The stairs, and their wear, made me think

of old things and repetition.

Sounds like a cue for a villanelle.

The Old Soldier

Fearful of all that lay ahead

And bearing the scars of pointless war,

He climbed the staircase to his bed.

He’d walked amongst the living dead

On a Stygian sea he’d washed ashore,

Fearful of all that lay ahead.

Many had died and many had fled,

Remembering all in this broken corps 

He climbed the staircase to his bed.

But he seldom slept, for the dread

That would drench him to the core,

Fearful of all that lay ahead.

With heavy heart and weary head,

As he had so oft before,

He climbed the staircase to his bed.

He could see the future, so it’s said,

Visions he could not ignore,

Fearful of all that lay ahead

He climbed the staircase to his bed.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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728 - Milk, with cream on top.

Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.

She provides the first line,

The rest is up to us.

A woman was lying on the floor

When her husband walked through the door.

He ruefully assessed,

As the milkman got dressed,

That his milk would be costing much more.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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727 - The Insatiable Boredom of Being.

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #169) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are: 

eclipse, piece, throat, shot, honors, lackluster,

side, cheeky, manufactured, millions, hike, room

The Insatiable Boredom of Being.

The fireworks shot high

Into the sky,

Exploded into millions

Of tiny stars

That twinkled briefly

And then, falling,

Faded to oblivion.

Only to be replaced, 

Eclipsed,

By the next one;

Bigger, brighter, 

More sparkly.

The insatiable desire

For manufactured

Entertainment,

Where each new act

To enter the room

Will be shown to be

Tawdry and lacklustre,

Compared to the piece 

Which replaces it.

Each new thrill,

New show,

New sideshow,

New cheeky titillation,

New lover,

New popular hit—

Cerebral, gastronomic or chemical

Must be a hike 

In the previous,

Must draw a gasp 

From the throat of the viewer,

Must draw the crowd to its feet

Applauding, 

Shouting ‘More’.

More.

More.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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Dear Dorothy Dix...

A strange SMS series yesterday.

I have omitted the first line

to avoid identifying the sender, 

she had asked me how the trip was.
In seven comments, a relationship
spiralled into the poo.  Incroyable.

I believe it was also a full moon.

Note: the comments 
are part of the composition,
but no new comments
can be added.

Dear Dorothy

Dearest Dorothy Dix,

The house was not made of good bricks,

A flippant response 

From the top of my nonce

Displayed just straw and not sticks.

Let me say further Miss Dix,

The reply just knocked me for six,

With a minimum of words

A crude blow has incurred*,

Should I go or attempt at a fix?

Puzzled of Melbourne.

Dear Puzzled of Melbourne, you clot!

Why on earth do you need to ask? Dot.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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* “va te faire foutre” = “Go fuck yourself”.

726 - Devil's Spawn.

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were: eerie, guarded, translucent.

Devil’s Spawn

The dark is filled 

With Devil’s spawn,

Eerie and provoking;

The nasty creatures 

Play on you,

Until drowning, 

Choking,

You fall—

Weak, 

To the words they call.

Hold true!

Guarded, 

If uncertain.

To the east, 

A translucent dawn

Rises like a curtain.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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725 - Thoughts from Paris.

Thoughts from Paris

The Moulin Rouge has plenty of girls,

With feathers and boas and pearls,

And sweet little tits

Of a size that permits

Dancing with high kicks and swirls.

◊◊◊

The country has so many cheeses

And foie gras, from well-fattened geeses,

And fresh crusty bread,

And wines, white and red—

A mix that constantly pleases.

◊◊◊

A Parisien girl on a bicyclette

Left me images, hard to forget.

Of a tall elegant kind,

Her coat billowed behind,

And long legs completed the effect.

◊◊◊

With so many sweet gateaux (and their kin),

It’s hard to know where to begin.

But what puzzles me more

Than the calories they store,

Is: how Parisiens keep so thin?

◊◊◊

The Metro induces strange habits,

To come and then go, as White Rabbits,

But as you board and alight,

Keep your wallet from sight,

As there are plenty there willing to nab it.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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724 - Meanwhile, in a park...

A lady with a lyre, for a lark,
Played by a lake in the park;
She then rode on a carp
While plucking the harp,
And the dress code was kind of stark.

◊◊◊

A mischievous fellow, for a lark,

Pissed on a lyre in a park.

Surprisingly he found

A vastly improved sound

‘Though the owner was, shall we say, dark.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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