697 : A Bridge Too Far.

The Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Built by migrants.

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #157) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

bones, twice, stolen, water, rocking, open, mess,


aches, bridge, sink, sway, limb, sharp.

The text in green is from the 

Australian National Anthem.

A Bridge Too Far

Australians all let us rejoice

For we are young and free

We've golden soil and wealth for toil,

Our home is girt by sea:


Across the waters to our north,

In frail and rocking ships,

Desperate families on open decks

Make slow and risky trips,

Like generations come before them

Fleeing guns and bombs and whips.

Our land abounds in nature's gifts

Of beauty rich and rare,

In history's page let every stage

Advance Australia fair,

But this is no bridge to a better life:

They’re put into a cage.

A sorry mess, remotely placed,

To sink from sight, backstage.

A sharp and sad reminder

Of our leader’s Christian rage.

Beneath our radiant Southern Cross,

We'll toil with hearts and hands,

To make this Commonwealth of ours

Renowned of all the lands,


And there they stay on stolen time,

To ache and sway alone.

Not humans to receive our care,

Just limbs and flesh and bone,

Twice expelled from safe refuge

And nowhere to call home.

For those who've come across the seas

We've boundless plains to share,

With courage let us all combine

To advance Australia fair.


In joyful strains then let us sing,

Advance Australia fair.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

696 : Capricious Love

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were: animate, impassioned and pervert.

Capricious Love

An Animated Affair

Impassioned, the accused asserted

His innocence of the crime:

Of having a lady for sport,

Of having a beastly good time.

For a lark, in a park.

In short, the case he presented

Was – “Can it be perverted

If the goat consented?”

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

695 : The Turning

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #156) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

swear, turns, chant, porcelain, limbo, wrists,

tumble, papers, gaudy, briefly, deeply, moonlit

The Turning.

It turns relentlessly, no purpose is shown,

A revolving collection of all that is known.

But in a small quiet backwater, tucked away

Things tumble, not turn, in strange disarray.

◊

Life’s like a circus on set up on a field

Each tent has sideshows, slightly concealed.

Refined old ladies hold Chihuahua pups,

Sipping Earl Grey from porcelain cups;

Unshaven men who smell of old beer,

Sleep on flat boxes, beneath the old pier;

On the moonlit banks of a river we find

Lovers swapping fluids, of the bodily kind;

While in a police station, beneath a strong light,

A felon swears blue he’s been home all the night.

Fresh-faced youths, stand tall in the choir,

Chanting obedience but harbouring desire. 

There are sweet little children in gaudy pajamas,

Hearing stories of knights, in bright, shiny armours.

Disasters bestow unimaginable sorrow

Which the papers will cover, just briefly, tomorrow

Then sport is returned to fill the front page

And the victims dispatched to a limbo, off-stage.

Some folk feeling so unloved and unmissed

Pop poisons; or jump; or cut open their wrists.

Seniors embrace beneath the warm covers,

Much older now, but still happily lovers.

Guys on soapboxes harangue those who’ve neared

With views deeply held but generally weird.

Each life is different in how it is told,

No-one is certain how theirs will unfold.

◊

While we each are different in how we are wrought,

The product of nature, reworked by our thoughts,

We are but a candle that briefly burns.

Coldly indifferent, the universe turns.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

694 : Wolverine

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were: horrible, moody and listless.

Wolverine.

Listless, edgy, and on the prowl,

Moody in the extreme;

Lunar cycles make her howl

In a way that curdles cream.

She presents as an exhibition

But despite these outer looks

I have a horrible suspicion

She bites the heads off chooks.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

693 : A Bit of a Scrap

Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.

She provides the first line rhyme word,

The rest is up to us.

For no reason in particular,

I kept the first two lines common.

A fellow got into a scrap

When found with a girl in his lap,

His wife wasn’t impressed

That the girl was undressed

And gave the old bastard a slap.

A fellow got into a scrap

When found with a girl in his lap,

His wife hit him again

When he tried to explain

The girl was just having a nap.

A fellow got into a scrap

When found with a girl in his lap,

“She was at a loose end

And she needed a friend

So I am just filling the gap.”

A fellow got into a scrap

When found with a girl in his lap,

His wife shot him quite dead

With a round to the head,

Saying “Nah, your story’s just crap!”

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

692 : All right, good night.

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #155) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

barrier, detail, diamond, pleat, power, strap,

swing, suspend, tough, unit, waterfall, zip

All right, good night.

We don’t know

We will probably

Never know.

But we can imagine the details.

First Class, all diamonds, 

Pinstripes, pleats and fur.

They get the metal cutlery

And fine tablecloths.

Their pearls swing as they walk.

Then there is business class,

The people with real power,

Good cutlery too.

But a leaning to the practical

Frugal with their money

But not wanting to tough it out

In the economy class battlers

Back behind the curtain barriers.

And there, in economy,

People sit, packed in,

Elbows pulled to their sides,

Knees against the seat in front,

Tables down, with a tray of 

Soft inoffensive pap,

Befitting a plastic fork,

Watching equally soft,

Inoffensive pap,

On the video unit

In the seat in front.

Common to all of these

Diverse peoples

Is a shared destiny.

They waited together,

Albeit in different lounges,

The boarded together,

Albeit by different doors,

And now, strapped into seats

In a large metal box

Suspended in the sky,

They travel together.

After a fashion.

In a control tower

A message is received

Acknowledged and then

The channel goes dead.

Just a loud angry hiss

Like a waterfall

In a jungle,

A rushing sound,

Going nowhere.

Then nothing.

Zip.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

691 : The Food Pyramid

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were: gaunt, vile and decompose.

The Food Pyramid.

Overweight 

And far from gaunt 

Consumers to the core;

We publicly 

Label things as vile

While privately 

Seeking more.

At some cost.

Proportion 

Has been lost.

Fertile,

Whole food 

Will decompose.

While the junk,

The advertisers flaunt,

Will outlast 

The Pharoahs.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

690 : Born to Rule

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were: cunning, degenerate and emaciated.

Born to Rule

There’s a kind of 

smugness there;

A cunning smirk 

or two.

A high sense 

of entitlement,

With ribbons, 

regal blue.

Not coy,

They ignore 

the hoipolloi,

Intent

To rule 

by selling fears

Backed by 

degenerate affairs

And emaciated ideas.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

689 : A Blunt Quartet

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #153) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

sting, grind, natural, addition, plenty, warning,

rival, course, quartet, broken, response, blunt

A Blunt Quartet

To change is a natural desire,

To leave the daily grind;

We gladly jump from pan to fire,

To see what we will find.

All warnings are ignored, of course,

The rival camp seems warmer;

Not a response to a better force,

Just weary with the former.

The morning after is a sobering place,

Of crudely broken dreams.

With plenty of regrets we have to face

As we realise what it means.

There’s additional pain, both sharp and cruel,

Of this brave new spring—

As a nation we voted for these fools,

And therein lies the sting.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

688 : Did the earth move for you too, dear?

There have been earthquakes in Los Angeles recently.
It set me thinking...

The couple were intimately locked

When the building was seismically rocked.

The man was seen to withdraw 

And run out the door,

Leaving the poor woman, half-cocked.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

687 : Doing the Rounds

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #150) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

cage, fuel, assault, six, where, type

trigger, double, mercy, guess, easy, list

-- THIS IS FICTIONAL --

Doing the Rounds

[A clatter of chains, door creaks open]

Medic: How are we today Mr Newbery?

An old poet who was kept in a cage

To write his views of the age

Where all the insanity 

Of herds of humanity

Only went to fuel his rage.

Medic: I see.  Dark side unchanged.  Any improvement on the lighter side of the list?

My limericks are the purest of tripe

And usually the naughtiest type.

Where I quietly ponder

The double entendre

Of peaches—firm, round and ripe.

Medic: I’ll take that as a no.  Any other examples?

A guy claimed that he was possessed

When he fondled a young lady’s breast.

But her boyfriend spied him,

Bound him and tied him,

And then gave him six of the best.

Medic: I think you are getting worse.  What do you feel is the trigger for all of this?

I see myself a release

In those moments of strife—

A light relief 

In those moments of grief,

A chocolate profiterole 

On the tea-trolley of life.

Medic: Right.  Nurse, he's taken a turn for the verse.  Tighten the straps and double the medication.  

Mercy!

Medic:  He must be French.  He thanked me.  Come nurse, next patient…

[sounds of door shutting and bolting…]

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

686 : The Silver Trough.

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were: aspire, beast and slurp.

The Silver Trough.

When they first aspire to govern,

Bright-eyed and oh-so keen,

I believe they feel a calling,

‘Til they meet the party machine.

It kills

Any urge to cure our ills

It’s appalling—

The faithful, I know, will scoff, 

But the beasts patrol the coven

And slurp from the silver trough.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

685 : A Paste Limerick, or two.

Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.

She provides the first line rhyme word,

The rest is up to us:

A wallpapering woman spilled paste

That trickled down south of her waist.

She explained to the guys

That while sex was unwise

She was stuck up rather than chaste.

◊◊◊

The tassels were held on with paste

So her nipples were nicely encased.

But the erotic effect

Had a practical defect

As her breasts drooped down to her waist.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

684 : The Life Saver

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #149) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

eggs, trust, test, not, high, course, peep,

mug, trial, form, bring, blown, stick

The Life Saver

I

Popular wisdom says that you shouldn’t

Put all your eggs in one basket.

But what if you only have one basket?

II

It is an act of blind trust

To board an old fishing boat

And set course for a foreign land.

But the decision is not hard

When the horror being left behind

Is greater than the unknown

That lies ahead.

Do you stick it out?

Watch your life and loved ones

Be blown apart?

It is really a case of all or nothing.

Save what eggs you can.

III.

As we sit in our 

Comfortable homes

With our mugs of organic tea

Watching the TV shows that let us 

Peep into the fake lives

And contrived high drama

Of fictional people

It is worth remembering 

The real trials of real people

The horrible form these trials take

And the desperation


That has driven them

To leave the land of their fathers

In search of safety.

IV

It is a test of our humanity

That we are willing to provide

That safety.

 .

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

683 : Stacked Against Us

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were: feral, insatiable and shred.

Stacked Against Us

We, as a species,

Are faced 

With a problem—

With an insatiable appetite

For resources,

For energy,

For growth.

We must deal with

An economy

Gone feral,

Driven by the need,

For growth,

Blind,
Relentless,
Growth.

But we live 

In a  bottle garden

Where unlimited growth 

Is unsustainable,

Where there is not 

A shred of evidence

That we can continue

In our headlong

Push for growth—

Growth of population.

Growth of consumption.

Growth of pollution.

The bottle is only so big

The odds are stacked against us.

The logic is stacked against us.

But, blinkered and fearful,

We rush ahead.

Hopefully.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

682 : The Apartment

Image: Universal Studios Lot, Instagram by sessepien  (Modified)

Imaginary Garden with Real Toads invites us to write a quatern.

The Mag provided the image prompt.

The Apartment

They’re side-by-side but still apart,

The product of a building art

That gives a person somewhere to stay

But, in effect, locks them away.

Forming a body, but lacking a heart,

They’re side-by-side but still apart.

You can lie in bed through the night

And listen to some strangers fight.

The occupiers will seldom meet

As they scurry to and from the street

They’re side-by-side but still apart,

And interactions are à la Carte.

They’re called ‘apartments’ with good cause,

Boxes huddled on successive floors,

An architectural mockery of Descartes,

They’re side-by-side but still apart.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

681 : The Ideologue

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were cruel, ghastly and unkempt.

The Ideologue.

He’s more callous 

Than cruel—

Ideological.

How much harm 

Can he really do

In just a 

Three year spell?

We’ll see

Just how dry 

Our life can be.

But who

Wants 

Such a ghastly nation?

Where, 

Unkempt and unemployed, 

You’ll subsidise 

The corporation.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

680 : The Stream

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #147) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

gather, grasp, gutsy, routine, stream, body,

flow, invisible, pluck, list, ring, type

The Stream

[Narrator]

In the sprawling mess that is a city,

People gather like fish in schools

While we with an odd type of curiosity

And, invisible, peer into their limpid pools.

Watch the ebb and flow of daily bliss

See the humdrum routines and their ilk,

See her give the perfunctory kiss:

[Fish]

“And don’t forget to bring home some milk”.

[Narrator] 

But before he’s even left the street

She’s on her phone to ring a friend,

Though it’s really more of a passive bleat:

[Fish]

“Do you think this week will ever end?”

[Narrator]

In front of the mirror, a teenage girl:

[Fish]

“My body’s awful, gross and fat!”

I’m the most ugly creature in the world,

The magazines have told me that”.

[Narrator]

When dissatisfaction is on the run,

Parents are just like their teens.

[Fish]

“I think I’ll have a boob job done”

[Narrator]

Then just sit around their TV screens

Illuminated with a ghostly glow

They grasp the issue and freely scoff:

[Fish]

“I cannot stand the trash they show!”

[Narrator]

But don’t pluck up the will to turn it off.

[Fish]

“Next year’ll be different, just you wait!”

The opportunity will not be missed!”

[Narrator]

But when they’re pushed to the starters gate

They quickly abandon the resolutions list

In the dull comfort of daily routine

Few will fight to reach a dream.

There are no gutsy salmon to be seen;

The fish are all swimming down the stream.

 .

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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679 : The Brick

Three Word Wednesday requires participants

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

The words this week were accelerate, rogue, and passive.

The Brick

Consider, if you will, the brick;

A passive sort of block.

An over-baked lump of clay,

A better class of rock.

No rogues are found in Brickland,

They’re conforming little swines.

They join the right wing parties

And vote on party lines.

They stay exactly where you put them,

Slothful, cold and stiff;

They only ever accelerate

If you push them off a cliff.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

678 : Nouvelle Cuisine

Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.

She provides the first line rhyme word,

The rest is up to us:

A fellow was making a scene,

When partaking of nouvelle cuisine.

“The portions are so small 

They’re not there at all,

You can’t even see where they’ve been.”
---
A bit of a flurry of limericks in the comments section too.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

.

677 : Noah's Emissaries

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #146) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

balance, edge, alternate, former, open, others,

sense, potential, tiptoed, synergy, bucolic, miss

Noah’s Emissaries

Shipped out into the world

Two by two,

House by house,

Neat and clean, 

A little too much so, if truth be known.

Where others have hidden 

Behind curtains,

Would have tiptoed away,

I would have opened my door 

And shown them in,

We had a synergy, we did:

Game on.

Tell me, I used to ask them,

Do you believe in Zeus?

Or Ra?  Or Shiva?  Or Mother Goose?

Is golf played in heaven?

And what of fairies, elves and trolls??

And what do the placid lions eat?

And is the bread flat or leaven?

Are there raging thunderstorms

And hot and stormy summer nights?

Can I still roast my meat

Or is lunch forever salad rolls?

Do pretty flowers ever die?

Can my Granny see me have a shower?

Are Brussels Sprouts there, as well?

Or are they the exclusive food of Hell?

And do those folk with Alzheimer’s disease

Spend eternity looking for their keys?

I often sensed they were a bit on edge

And tried to hedge their answers too

But these are the questions,

That, on balance, 

I needed them to give me answers to.

Those door to door 

Purveyors of an alternate religion,

With their bucolic visions

Of a sunny and grassy heaven,

With lions beside the lambs,

All sunshine and light,


And young children

Gambolling through 

Fields of flowers—

They don’t visit me any more.

They are former visitors now,

I think my gatepost bears a mark

“Demons live inside this park”

So they don’t visit as before,

Two by two, at my door,

They had such potential

To explore the things 

So distant from

The daily list of 

Hum-drum chores.

I miss them 

Now that they have gone.

 .

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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676 : The Challenge

Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.

She provides the first line rhyme word,

The rest is up to us:

A fellow who claimed to have read

“Ulysses”, while lying in bed,

Admitted, when pressed,

He was there for the rest,

As the challenge had done in his head. 

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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675 : Concentrating the Mind

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #145) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

country, (facilitate), aspect, sent, strands, state,

sustain, write, time, plans, embrace, juggling

In my previous post I dealt with the word ‘facilitate’, 

So it is excluded from this post.

Concentrating the Mind

Writing on a Wrong - Australia Day 2014

Before we start I would like to pay homage 

to the traditional owners of the land:

Pseudocheirus peregrinus.  

Thank you.

This country has,

Over time,

Embraced visitors

From everywhere.

Granted, it has not always been smooth

Some jostling,

Some juggling,

But each arrival

Has added new strands

To the tapestry that is us today.

We are a symphony,

Not a solo.

So how do we explain

The nastiness,

The callousness,

Of our elected government?

The state has become 

The champion 

Of fear, of hatred, 

Of cynical disregard

Of pain and suffering.

Desperate people

Are sent away,

Forced away,

Locked away

Rot away,

Mentally decay,

Everyday.

When the public accept 

This behavior,

They sustain it,

Normalise it.

But if this aspect 

Of government behavior,

Cruelty and disdain,

Becomes normal,

What other plans do they have?

What incremental steps,

Will we see next?

Are you safe?

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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674 : Facilitate

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #145) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

country, facilitate, aspect, sent, strands, state,

sustain, write, time, plans, embrace, juggling

Facilitate

fa-cili-tate – a transitive verb, 

A verb that needs an object,

An awful word,

It gives the impression

Of stern officers of the state

Sent in with allotted time,

With clipboards and plans,

With small neat writing

On gridded paper.

Dot points

Capture all the strands,

All the aspects

Of a meeting of bodies

But not of minds,

A meeting that embodies

But doesn’t build,

That’s held

But is not upheld,

That devours the spirit

Not sustains it.

A facilitated meeting:

The arid country

Of juggled agendas

And compromised outcomes

That encompasses everything

And embraces nothing.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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673 : Waiting for a Gift

Sunday Scribblings 2 has the prompt: "Waiting for a gift".

Mmmm…(thinks)…five syllables.  A haiku?

Waiting for a gift—

The curse of entitlement.

Surprises are best.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

---

672 : Cheeky

Continuing the 'sharp' haiku theme:

Sometimes things turn sour

And life gives a sharp rebuke—

Turn the other cheek.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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671 : The Caledonian Diet

Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.

She provides the first line rhyme word,

The rest is up to us:

A Scotsman liked his food fried,

(Even better with batter outside).

I imagine it risky

To deep fry malt whiskey

But I have do doubt that he tried.

.

---

© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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670 : Dying Dangerously

Haiku Heights has the prompt 'Sharp'.

It’s not just garfish

That can end up filleted

By a good sharp knife.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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669 : Sharp

Haiku Heights has the prompt 'Sharp'.

Putting it bluntly,

Some things in life should be sharp;

Cheddar cheese is one.

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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668 : Trinkets for Muddled Minds

Sunday Whirl (Wordle #144) presents a list of words

that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

twine, conjure, nest, carry, spirits, bend,

through, curl, trinkets, neglect, cap, back, sigh

Trinkets for Muddled Minds

Greek Chorus,

To be murmured off-side:

Oui, Ja, Yes, No,

Nothing but 

a shyster’s show.

Here.  Listen.

Conjuring up the dead

With strings and mirrors 

To distract, or so it’s said,

Is the way to open purses.

Twine is string, right?

Can I use twine?  Does it matter?

And, what say, the back of a tin lid?

Not a mirror but it could be worse.

Would that be just as mystic as…

What? Smoke and mirrors?  Curses!

But the lid’s fine, right?

Just need and upturned cup.

Oh, glass, cup, what’s the diff?

Please don’t sigh and curl your lip,

And don’t roll back your eyes, either,

If you help me through here, 

There’s money to be made

From people who will pay their shilling

Money for jam, 

From people who believe


The spirits are there and very willing.

Just need to flesh it out a little bit

And neglect the logic quite a bit

And bend the truth somewhat too,

OK, a lot, but you get the idea.

Should work, they’ve come this far,

Cap in hand, wanting success,

So our chances are increased,

Should be able to carry it off,

With their help, the simple dears,

Life is good, knock on wood,

When the sheep are wanting to be fleeced,

N’est pas? Understood?

.

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© J Cosmo Newbery 2014

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