1879 - Scuttle Rebuttal

 

Scuttle Rebuttal

Clouds don’t scuttle across the sky.

I just fail to understand why

Some poets insist that they do.

These are adept wordsmiths who

Should know better than to try

To take a fluffy cloud and apply

Words that sit awkwardly awry,

Totally ignoring the truth that’s due—

Clouds don’t scuttle.

Crabs will scuttle, if you drop by.

Cockroaches too, but late at night.

People at airports scuttle too.

But clouds just drift across the blue—

Putting paid to that poetic lie.

Clouds don’t scuttle.

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1864 - When The Brain Runs Free

 Image: a Photoshop fiddle of an image found in an 

Angela Weston's post to AI Art Image Hub on Facebook.

dVerse has the prompt "Dream Interpretations".

My first rondeau for a while but seemed the ideal form for a dream.

When Brains Run Free

When brains run free strange things occur

I watch them pass, as a flaneur,

Marvelling at all the things I see—

Butterflies who are sipping tea,

A camel dressed as a chauffeur,

Buildings that melt and socks that purr,

An elephant climbing up a fir…

Things appear that should not really be

When brains run free.

Whistling past in a phantom blur;

Some just once while others recur:

My brain doodles with wicked glee—

What it means is lost on me.

What’s real, or not, rarely concur

When brains run free.

◊

Repost - The Blackbird of Remorse

 .

You've heard of The Bluebird of Happiness.

You've heard of the Pigeon of Discontent.
You've heard of the White Dove of Peace.

A Rondeau 

With the recent visits by Mr Wong

a repost seemed fitting:

 The Blackbird of Remorse

With steely eyes, it watches you
Despair mistakes and endlessly rue
The choices made, now viewed aghast;
Right at the time but time has passed.
The bird is harsh and oft untrue
In the scorn it piles on you
For things you cannot now undo.
It cares not and attaches fast,
With steely eyes.

What’s done is done, the options few
To retrace our steps and start anew.
You can but endure the questions asked
By the watching, critical cast:
These birds don’t leave, they just accrue.
With steely eyes.

.

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© 2012   J Cosmo Newbery

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1199 - Past Lessens

Past Lessens
An anniversary.

What better than a rondeau?

But don’t forget that life goes on,
Events should end once they have gone,
Yet the human mind is a queer machine,
Sometimes kind but often mean,
It drags things back from the beyond
To make you relive and dwell upon
The unpleasant things you’ve undergone.
It’s time to wipe the blackboard clean,
But don’t forget.

And this is the strange phenomenon,
To learn our lessons, pro and con,
But not fall into that dark ravine,
To learn the lessons but shun the spleen.
To not forgive would be quite wrong.
But don’t forget.
   .
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© 2019 J Cosmo Newbery
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1051 - Friends

Sunday Scribblings 2 prompt: Benediction

Friends

A small blessing on a dark night,

A hand to hold until the light.

Such are things that ease the way

As we travel forward through our day:

Amidst the gloom are pools of light,

Which help us to endure our plight

And enjoy instead the simple delight

as a stranger who may nod and say

A small blessing.

Our life can be a constant fight

Against forces who think it quite

Fun to take our rights away.

Push back against merchants of dismay

And treasure friends, hold them tight.

A small blessing.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2017

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955 - Breaking the Cycle

Armistice Day, 2016.

Breaking the Cycle

Lest we forget, 

Our minds blinded

To what those on the front line did

By the comforting haze of time

War is not pretty, 

Not some bedtime

Soothing story 

Of how the high-minded troops fought, 

Struggled and grinded out 

A path to victory 

(as we defined it)

They fought and died in the grime:

Lest we forget.

Remember what those at Lone Pine did

And other battles that come to mind.  

Did we understand this very human crime?

We must reject war for peacetime

And be constantly reminded—

Lest we forget.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2016

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909 - An Unheated Life

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week are: grave, firm and heated.

An Unheated Life

Before the grave there’s not much time

To make sense of this pantomime,

This charade where we all must play

Roles, some given, often cliché,

Roles where we seek some sort of rhyme

Or reason, to explain wartime

When we deserve a life sublime

But must battle through every day

Before the grave.

The firm promise of a lifetime

Is absent, is just a ‘sometime’

Promise, given in an off-hand way

By authorities of the day

Who ask no more but overtime

Before the grave.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2016

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860 - Modern Slavery

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week are: pacify, rage and scarce.

Modern Slavery

Maintain your rage with what you see

As zealots gut democracy.

You cannot pacify those fools

By asking they obey the rules

That do not come from times BC,

That are not of a theocracy,

A book has told them what should be

And if allowed, they’ll make us mules—

Maintain your rage.

As ‘priests’ they hope that we will be

A compliant society.

When the doctrine’s taught in the schools

Are both harsh and wilfully cruel,

Freedom’s a scarce commodity.

Maintain you rage.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2016

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782 - You Never Know

Photo from Nepal by Samantha Chin.

You Never Know

You never know the prints you leave

Or even if the snows will grieve

When time and times erase

Your clear but superficial trace.

When we can no longer perceive

That certain presence you would weave

Only then will we believe

But hope still lives in that empty space—

You never know.

We harbor the hope that we can retrieve

That sense of life, that joie de vivre.

An enticing thought we can’t erase

And draw comfort from its warm embrace;

Maybe simple, maybe naïve.

You never know.

 .

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2015

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760 - Left Luggage

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were: barren, worry and intense.

Left Luggage

Waiting for God with a vacant stare

Your mind has wandered who knows where.

You have long lost your early bloom

And now test-drive an early tomb.

It’s not exactly intensive care—

They hose you down and comb your hair

And leave you strapped into a chair

In a sparsely furnished room,

Waiting for God.

“You’ll have no worries” they declare

But quietly hope that they wont go there

They leave you there to meet your doom

And never share the twilight gloom,

Life’s a pretty barren affair,

Waiting for God.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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742 - Les Invalides

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were: liberated, muddy and vicious.

100 years since WWI and we have learnt nothing.

Les Invalides

Lest we forget the fallen dead

Who died for what our leaders said

Was a cause both good and grand

Only to die in some muddy land,

So far from home and so misled,

Only to receive a wound instead.

There they fell and slowly bled,

Liberated by a death unplanned—

Lest we forget.

And those who didn’t die by lead,

Died internally, in their head;

Hearing the vicious inner command

To relive the torment of the damned

Until they withered on their bed—

Lest we forget.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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656 : New Year, Same Year

As things seem to be a bit cyclic,

A rondeau to kick off 2014.

New Year, Same Year

To start the year, fond hopes are nursed

Our dreams are once again rehearsed

For love and life and new careers

For happiness and for fewer fears

For peoples, far and wide dispersed

But inwardly suspect the worst—

Politicians, who have been pursed,

Dispense fireworks and festive cheers

To start the year.

Resolutions come and quickly burst,

Hopes are dashed and waistlines cursed;

From what we’ve seen in other years

We wouldn’t have as many tears

If we were to use April 1st

To start the year.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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646 : The Knight Errant

Prompted by recent events,

But really just a fictional doodle.

The Knight Errant.

Wherever do you keep your horse?

And who scoops up the crap it leaves behind?” 

― Myra McEntire.

Waving the flag for a lady,

And fighting whom she decrees,

He’s a member of a tiny band

Who few can really understand

And, acting rather mercenary,

Doing what is necessary

To be the perfect emissary,

Valiant knight from another land,

Waving the flag.

The lady, of course, can clearly see

The perfect opportunity

To remove the knights she cannot stand.

And if they think they’ll win her hand,

The chivalrous will always be

Waving the flag.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2013

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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.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2013

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550 : Step Back.

Step Back 

Take a step back now faults are seen

On what had seemed so white and clean,

Had seemed to be the nicest kind

Of its type that you could find.

Alas, a mirage lies past the screen,

The grass beyond is a faded green.

The world becomes much less serene

As troubling doubts creep into your mind—

Take a step back.

Reality is cruel and mean,

It makes you see what was unseen,

To see a world that's misaligned,

And realize that you have been blind.

As you teeter on the ravine,

Take a step back.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2013

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545 : The Crystal Ship

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads asks us 

to incorporate a Jim Morrison song title into a writing.

The Crystal Ship

The crystal ship that we live on,

That carries us from when were born,

Is a tough but brittle sloop

That seldom tells us what to do,

Or the course to set our bearings to,

Or what currents we can count on

And leaves us there to dwell upon

The nagging demons who also crew

The crystal ship.

The winds we catch are not foregone,

We have little choice but sailing on,

Some days the skies are clear and blue,

Others, storms we must pass through,

As each one of us travels upon

The crystal ship.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2013

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CDXCVI - I am Sorry

Sunday Scribblings had the prompt 'Apology'.

This made me think of the phrase "I am sorry".

Four syllables, mmm, maybe a rondeau?

It carries on a theme from my previous poem.

I Am Sorry

I am sorry that you feel that way

But it is your choice if you stay

Locked in a world of sullen blue;

Where imagined slights just accrue

Until they block the sun’s warm rays

And you then drown in your dismay.

There is nothing more that I can say

And nothing else that I can do.

I am sorry.

But not for my part in your ballet,

Though what that is you will not say.

Nor for however this thing grew.

It is because, as if on cue,

You chose to put on this display,

I am sorry.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2013

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CDXL - High Tea for a Tortured Soul

Sunday Scribblings had the prompt 'Paradise'.

High Tea for a Tortured Soul

In paradise we’re told we’ll see

A pure, bright world, in symmetry;

Ruled by God and heavenly choir

With haloes, harps and white attire.

How bloody awful would that be?

Like some wretched afternoon tea

Endured for an eternity:

Existence would be dull and dire,

In paradise.

Where is the grass and shady tree?

Or the glass of chilled Chablis?

Or discussions held ‘round a fire?

Or the joys of carnal desire?

Seems there’s nothing to attract me

In paradise.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2013

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CDXIII - Missing You

dVerse has the prompt ‘Missing You’.

Missing You

I’m missing you.

Your loving eyes

Your hair, 

Your smell. 

My pleasure lies

In that you are not far away

And, in your absence, 

Will loyally stay,

Biding my time 

And improvise.

To follow you 

Would be unwise,

Your return 

Will be my sole reprise

All that goes to explain 

The way I’m missing you.

In your absence 

A small part dies 

And black clouds 

Cover up the skies

The world becomes 

A sodden grey

Which only adds to my dismay

That false bravado can’t disguise

I'm missing you.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2012

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CCCXCVII - The Birthing Day

We all celebrate our birthdays.

But do we celebrate the women who were there too?

The Birthing Day

Mothers recall it very well

The pain, the joy, the feel, the smell

Of all the times when they gave birth

And received a child (and lost their girth).

So much joy from a day of hell:

The need to push.  Or not.  Or yell.

Rewarded more than they can tell.

When nightfall drapes across the earth,

Mothers recall.

On the date that this blessing fell

Drinks and cakes weave a sticky spell.

The child delights in all the mirth

And milks the day for all its worth.

Watching with a pride that none can quell,

Mothers recall.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2012

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