1343 - Allegro Non Troppo

 

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

This weeks words are: 

remote, misty, scrape, slippery, candles, fresh, dust, magic, minor, strum, string, follow

Written with love for my daughter, Lydia.

Allegro non troppo.

We are stringed instruments

That the god of fortune strums.

The double helix sets the tune

Life then sets the harmony and drums.

The past can be slippery, obscure,

Misty, distant and remote,

But scrape off the years of dust

You will find it fresh beneath that coat.

The helix leaves a clear tune to follow,

The past is gone, so best move on.

The helix twists, a thing of magic.

No minor chords in its sweet song.

So many candles have gone unseen

Birthdays, first and in between, are stacked

So many thoughts of what might have been.

Now is the time for the second act.

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1342 - Wombats Don't Eat lettuce

 

Wombats don’t eat lettuce.

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” 

– Aesop

It was a simple act,

Done on an impulse.

The outer leaves of a lettuce

Were presented, as an offering.

Nothing.  Marsupial indifference.

◊

But life’s like that, isn’t it?

Or, at least, it should be.

Little acts of kindness

Thrown like bottles

Into the tumbling sea of life.

Maybe they are found.

Maybe not.

Sometimes the message arrives.

Sometimes not.

But that’s not the point—

Just keep throwing.

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1341 - Not in the spirit.

 

Image by ChatGPT

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

This weeks words are: 

hungers until garden frayed tattered belonging spirits body salvage history walk stories

Not in the spirit.

"Until the lions have their historians, 

tales of the hunt shall always glorify the hunter,"  

-- African proverb.

History is a succession of stories.

Agincourt belonging to England;

Caesar a tattered body in the forum;

The garden of Eden, snake and apple;

Moses walked the desert for forty years,

A trip Google says should take six hours.

In a society that hungers for glory

The fabric of truth is frayed but protective.

Until we have a way to verify the stories

There is no way to salvage the truth.

But we don’t want the truth,

We want the triumphant, the glorious

And so the stories live on.

Somewhere, ancient spirits 

watch and weep.

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1340 - To all in tents...

 

Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

To all in tents...

There was an old bugger named Jim

Who headed to the coast on a whim.

With three ladies in tow

There was no way to know

What the Fates had in store for him!

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See you in a fortnight.  Perhaps.

1339 - Einstein's Sauna

 

Image by ChatGPT - no idea where ºA comes from.

Poets and Storytellers United has the prompt "Opposites".

I take the view that a lot of what we consider opposites

are not really opposite at all.

Background note: 

34ºC = 93ºF,   55ºC = 131ºF

Einstein's Sauna

You surely cannot be serious?

You'll be certified: mad & delirious.

The day's getting warmer

And your having a sauna?

It's all relative, says Albert, politely.

It's fifty five inside, let us say,

So when you leave to continue your day

The thirty four's a relief

(Though it is rather brief)

It's all relative, says Albert, quite rightly.

◊

I tried this and it really does feel nice to step into 34ºC from 55ºC.

1338 - The Sea Within

 

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

This weeks words are: 

stirs, scents, unrelenting, nudged, magic, stretch, face, words, space, edge, sense, end

The Sea Within

Currents.

Currently flowing.

Waves. Beating, unrelenting,

Wash over me, through me.

Words, emotions, senses, 

Stir, nudge, jostle me

Fight for space in me

Tumble through my mind.

Sounds, tastes, even scents,

Toss and turn, end on end.

It is both magic and scorcery.

But I must wear it, face it.

It takes me to the edge,

Teeters and then re-centres,

Stretches me, contracts me,

Creates me.

Deserts me.

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1337 - My Favourite Things

 

The Poet's and Storyteller's prompt is "what delights us".

My favourite Things

(Apologies to Rodgers & Hammerstein.)

All types of cheese and sesame snaps,

Red wine in glasses and crispy lamb flaps.

The ability to silence a telephone's ring—

These are a few of my favourite things

Watching a cat walk, eating cream slices

Uncomplicated electronic devices

Magpies that chortle and choirs that sing—

These are a few of my favourite things

Home made spaghetti and parmesan cheese

A day without pain in either of my knees

Breasts that bounce like jelly on springs—

These are a few of my favourite things

When the soup burns

What the cat brings

When I'm writing bizarre

I simply remember my favourite things—

And pour a glass of Pinot Noir.

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1336 - Tapestry, Unstitched.

 

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

This weeks words are: 

Cloaked, ruins, ancient, lace, communes, stitched, spirits, wind, drive, curling, icy, ground

Tapestry, Unstitched.

In the tapestry of life, we're all connected. 

Each one of us is a gift to those around us 

helping each other be who we are, 

weaving a perfect picture together.

-- Anita Moorjani

Communes in the bush

Green tea, tofu and reflection.

Ancient ruins in the jungle

Cloaked in a fig-tree lace.

Spirits soar by the sea

The wind is driving, icy.

A fire on the ground.

Smoke curling, swirling, gone.

Are they all linked?

Yes and no.  But mostly.

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1335 - Details? You want details?

 

Details?  You want details?

Husband:

What's for dinner?

Oh, by the way, Betty's had a baby.

Wife:

A baby!  

Boy or girl?

What name did they give it?

How long was the labour?

How long was the baby?

How heavy was the baby?

Did she need painkillers?

Was it a Caesarian?

What hospital is she in?

What colour was the delivery room?

Was there music playing?

Husband:

Um...

Wife:

You didn't ask these questions?

Husband:

Um...

Betty's had a baby!

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1334 - No News is Good News

 

The Poet's and Storyteller's prompt is "holding your breath".

No News is Good News.

Sort of to the tune of The Piano Man 

It's six o'clock and the news has come on,

The stories are alarming and grim.

There's chaos and mayhem

And world wars are about to begin.

The stories are dark and so fearful,

The main common factor is death.

Maybe there's a story of kindness and hope

But I wouldn't be holding your breath.

Chorus

Give us some news 

That will give us a lift,

The current would hardly be missed

There must be a good news story

That will stop us from slashing our wrists.

The news reader sits there quite calmly.

But the war in Ukraine is unending

And the Gaza affair brings only despair,

I ask could the world be now ending?

I can't help but sense it's unreal

There's no end to the stories of woe

I want to pack up and quietly depart

But I haven't got somewhere to go.

Chorus

Give us some news 

That will give us a lift,

The current  would hardly be missed

There must be a good news story

That will stop us from slashing our wrists.

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1333 - On the other hand...

 

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

This weeks words are: 

sighs, fire, flip, ravaged, blue, floor, emerge, mask, ashes, soak, skin, weave

 

On the other hand…

"We suffer more often in imagination than in reality"

-- Seneca

 

Objectively, we have emotions, feelings.

Subjectively, masks often emerge to hide them.

Objectively, when learning new things, we make mistakes.

Subjectively, we wish the floor to open up and swallow us.

Objectively, we have been soaked to the skin,

Subjectively, we respond with a flood of tears.

Objectively, we have been robbed.

Subjectively, we feel violated and ravaged.

Objectively, we tried but didn’t win.

Subjectively, second place, our mouth tastes of ashes.

Objectively, we are retrenched for economic reasons.

Subjectively, we have been fired and judged as wanting.

Objectively, we are left out of the team.

Subjectively, we are disappointed, we sigh, feel blue.

Objectively, someone tooted us on the road.

Subjectively, we flip the bird and disparage their parentage.

Objectively, life happens.

Subjectively, we weave meaning to it.

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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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1329 - The Open Window (Repost)

 

Poets & Storytellers United have a prompt "Substitutions".

This is something I posted in 2012.  

It's theme is more that there are no substitutes.

The Open Window (Repost).

There is a sense of disbelief:

The window is wide open,

Your things are in disarray;

Drawers are open, 

Turned out on the floor.

Intimate items scattered.

Someone has been here, in your room, 

Past your defences.

And valuables are missing.

Money, money is nothing.  

Memories, how do you replace memories?

Pawned for $20 in a bar somewhere.

Days weeks months later you go looking for something —

And can’t find it.  Is it just lost?  Or was it stolen?

You will never fully realise everything that you have lost.

Death is like that, 

Like being burgled.

You never fully realise everything that you have lost.

◊

1328 - Nighthawks

 

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

This weeks words are: 

quivers, limbs, scattered, yellow, twirl, hearts, streak, faint, bags, three, howls, long

Nighthawks

Three customers.

Sitting in a yellow-lit fishbowl,

Behind a long glass window,

Unnaturally free of posters.

A single and a doublet.

A man, sitting solo—

Perhaps heading home.

Perhaps told to pack his bags.

Body language is reflective.

No quivers, no energy,

Just reflective.  Resigned.

Sits and twirls his coffee.

The couple, together—

Are they really, though?

They, too, are reflective.

Body language suggests 

They may be just companions,

Their hearts are not engaged.

She may be holding his hand,

Almost reluctantly. Furtively.

Perhaps the waiter is a dampener.

Perhaps going out on a limb

In such a public place is a risk.

But there they are.

Together.

The street is strangely clean,

No papers scattered around.

No howls of dogs here.

The lights throw streaky shadows,

Giving only the faintest hint

Of surrounding businesses.

That’s the way of things, I guess.

Life presented in a tableau.

So many questions.

So few answers.

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1327 - The Was And The Will Be

Poets and Storytellers had the prompt: Memories & Dreams.

The Was And The Will Be.

Memories are a delusion—

They are so very tidy.

Memories are so deceiving.

They embrace us.  That’s why we

Hold them—

Our hearts embrace and mould them.

Grieving thus comes naturally.

A consensual collusion

With what can never be.

◊

Dreams are a comfort 

most infernal,

Useless without a plan.

Are they too just a delusion?

The universe mocking man?

Often.

But it’s not a case when

A fusion adds body to the dreams.

Once a dream becomes internal,

The gods withdraw, or so it seems.

◊

1326 - Alone

 

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

This weeks words are: 

breath, cruel, escape, river, away, sorrow, kitchen, licked, dust, whispering, spin, gown

Alone.

“When you lie in bed and cry, the tears tickle your ears”

– Margaret Kennedy.

The mind is not cruel

But it is not kind either.

It has no agenda.

It’s a landmine, waiting.

Everything is a trigger.

◊

Dutch irises bloom,

They were planted for her,

Her beloved white dogwood,

Unfolds its kissing flowers.

The wedding gown.

Nothing too fancy.

Laura Ashley, off the rack.

Kept safe. Packed away.

But now, what do I do with it?

In the kitchen,

Favourite soup bowls,

Blue, with a handle.

We used them every day.

I still do.

A bra…

(You have a pair of pants 

Why not a pair of bras?

But I digress.)  A bra

Hangs on a door handle

In her study.  Still.

Memories.

Gathering dust.

◊

Everything has a connection.

Sadness, regret and sorrow.

Tears that reach your ears

Puddle there.

Salty little ponds.

I lie in bed at night,

Warm but no escape.

I her her clock chime.

My fault, I wind it.

Voices whisper and spin

Salty memories.

These warm salty tears.

Not a river, a trickle

Remember when there was

A breathing beside me—

Like so much in life,

You never know when

Something happens 

For the last time.

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