1591 - Drink

Mad Kane poses a regular limerick challenge.

The key word this week is ‘drink’.

The neighbours all love to assess

How proper your grief and distress

But forget what they think

And have a good drink,

They're not there for you to impress.

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I'm fond of a red, I confess,

Favouring more rather than less.

And I do love the chink 

Of a celebratory drink

Knowing nothing exceeds like excess.

.

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© 2023  J Cosmo Newbery

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Please note: This is a writing exercise: the neighbours are really lovely.

1590 - The Playlist

 

 The Sunday Whirl presents the following words for us to use:

ascending morning head dreams between hand road storytellers poem potion feather three

The Playlist

A common theme displayed,

Poems of love and longing;

Laments of unrequited dreams,

Prayers for warm belonging.

The storytellers bare their hearts,

Asking for compassion;

Can we head down that road

In a truly honest fashion?

Emotions ascend to dizzy heights

To rescue from the rubble,

These singers of the sad laments:

But morning bursts the bubble.

The recipient of this playlist

Few can understand

The dark, foreboding shadow

Of its cold malignant hand.

We are, as they say, caught between,

With no answers so to speak.

We close our eyes and bow our heads

And tears run down our cheek.

.

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© 2023  J Cosmo Newbery

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1589 - The Flight of the Cuckoo

 The Sunday Whirl presents the following words for us to use:

hope feathers flight sight guise desire chime beyond spinning open springs drive

The Flight of the Cuckoo

The chimes punctuate the passage,

Of time and life and flock.

Only death knows what lies beyond

And each day tends the clock.

We think we are important,

That we’re all made of steel,

But the world will keep on spinning 

With no-one at the wheel.

The question is an open one, 

That humans will survive?

Are we cuckoos in the earthly nest,

Consuming to deprive?

So what drives us on?  Desire, I guess,

Just some immortal twist:

To know we made a difference,

To know we will be missed.

Ego in the guise of caring

Will reluctantly admit:

It no-one’s there to miss us,

What is the point of it?

The chimes punctuate the passage,

Of time and life and flock.

Only death knows what lies beyond

And each day tends the clock.

.

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© 2023  J Cosmo Newbery

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1588 - Finding Roses

 

The Sunday Whirl presents the following words for us to use:

mist creek belt shadows forest summer still rising crow filters time sentinel*

Finding Roses

“I am a forest, and a night of dark trees: 
but he who is not afraid of my darkness, 
will find banks full of roses under my cypresses.”  
-– Nietzche

The forest is quite still and dark,

Or so at first it seems.

But wait. And hear the rustling trees,

And burbling mountain steams.

Cypresses watch upon the woods,

Sentinels in the midst.

While shadows from what light there is

Play games upon the mist.

There is a clearing in this forest,

Where cypresses ease their grip;

You’ll discover banks of roses there,

That well reward the trip.

.

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© 2023  J Cosmo Newbery

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*I confess that I didn't use them all.