Saturday, April 23, 2016

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.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Friday, April 22, 2016

859 - Alfalfa


Poet’s United Mid-Week Motif: Organic.


Alfalfa.

It is,
He said,
The most dangerous
Food on the planet;
Caused more deaths
Than any other;
Made countless sick;
Especially the weak
And vulnerable.
It has triggered
Miscarriages.
And yet it hides
Behind
The magic shield
Of organic,
Of green,
Of natural.
And it is.
Quite organic.
Quite natural.
Perhaps
Too natural.
That doesn’t mean
That it is harmless.
Nor that it is malicious.
Just that it is
Treacherous.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

858 - A Seal of (Dis)Approval


Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.
She provides the rhyme word, the rest is up to us.
This week the word is ‘seal’.

Be warned: limericks are meant to be a bit naughty.


A old harlot who used oatmeal 
Said it helped her clients a great deal:
“They enjoy the effects
During vigorous sex
As they get a much better seal”.


A mermaid let out a big squeal
When waking, post party, with a seal.
Said the seal “Never fret,
We just had a light pet—
The real damage was done by the eel.”
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Sunday, April 17, 2016

857 - The Stalker


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: melancholy, opaque and nimble.


The Stalker

[The Boy]
As I embrace my pirate dream
With galleons, swords and lots of gold,
The world is simply what it seems
What I see today, the future holds.

[Chorus]
A trusting lad,
A trusting lad,
He thinks that what he sees today
Is like the sword that’s set in stone
And it always will remain that way,
Always will remain that way.

[Youth]
I know it all and I’m not scared,
I think that I am worldly-wise,
Immortal and so quite prepared,
To dance across Death’s sweeping scythe!

[Chorus]
With nimble feet,
With nimble feet,
He’s hop across the swinging blade,
But should he hap to trip and fall 
He’ll be sliced and diced and then filleted,
Sliced and diced and then filleted.

[Man]
Sure I know that life must end,
But no idea when it will be,
So I just live and so pretend
It will somehow bypass me!

[Chorus]
It’s quite opaque,
It’s quite opaque,
The future is so far from clear;
All that we can know for sure
Is that Death is grinning ear to ear,
Death is grinning ear to ear.

[Old Man]
The melancholy fact has dawned,
The sand is draining through the glass,
That of which I had been warned
Relentlessly now has come to pass.

[Chorus]
Relentlessly,
Relentlessly,
The future is a ball of twine,
Tangled and of unknown length…

[J Cosmo Newbery]
Oh, give me strength and pass the wine!

[Chorus]
Give him strength and pass the wine!

◊◊◊

Alternative ending for Rallentanda

[Old Greek Man]
With a four day stubble that celebrates
A serious session with fine ouzo;
Who gives a damn!  Smash the plates!
When your time is up, then youse go!

[Chorus]
A smashing time!
A smashing time!
Retsina is just recycled pine
Only for the rash or brave…

[JCN]
Um, pinot noir will be just fine!

[Chorus]

Pinot noir will be just fine!
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---



Sunday, April 10, 2016

856 - Bits and pieces


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: knotted, livid and impolite.


It’s called ‘seeing red’:
Livid, a hot haze descends,
Reason is absent.

◊

People do stupid stuff.
If it’s impolite to point
Can I just snigger?

◊

“You should just stay calm”
“Don’t get your knickers knotted”
Neither advice helps.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Thursday, March 24, 2016

855 - The First Law of Gardening


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: brutal, clammy and dense.


First Law of Gardening

A man with remarkable hair,
Ran for president, just for a dare.
While apparently dense,
In the cognitive sense,
His success made liberals despair.

Candidates take a risk when they stand—
No questions, it seems, will be banned:
Could appendages, clammy,
Beneath his pajammy,
Reflect the size of his hands?

While media and pundits all groan,
There’s a truism garden’s have known:
While it seems to be brutal,
The only seeds that will fruit’ll
Be the ones that you’ve previously sown.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

854 - Excuses


Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.
She provides the rhyme word, the rest is up to us.
This week the word is ‘mislaid’.


Excuses

A user of the red-lighted trade
Was asked why he’d been so delayed.
Not wishing to admit
That he’s slipped in for a bit,
Replied, obliquely, “Not lost, only mislaid”.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Thursday, March 17, 2016

853 - St Patrick's Day 2016


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: uncovered, abrupt, vacant.


St Patrick’s Day 2016 

A green grass carpet
Blankets Ireland, coast to coast—
No part uncovered.

A brief hissy fit—
Snakes abruptly departed
Feeling unwanted.

Was Ireland vacant?
Snakes gone.  Potato famine.
Early refugees.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Sunday, February 28, 2016

852 - Triptych


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: hateful, limp and marvel.


Triptych

A sad, timid soul
Imagines Captain Marvel
While tucked into bed

◊

Shun hateful people.
They suck the joy from your life
And give you nothing.

◊

The call of the wild—
A sweaty genital sneeze;
Limp but satisfied.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Sunday, February 21, 2016

851 - Well, flock me!


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: fearful, grimace and engulf.

Tried to make a light limerick from the words - couldn't.


Well, flock me!

When fears engulf us
We huddle together—a flock.
The wolves then herd us.

Political games!
Every right to be fearful—
We are being used.

We grimace, amazed—
Surely this is not happening?
But, transfixed, follow.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Friday, February 12, 2016

850 - Empty Promises


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: backbone, cheapen and dangle.


Empty Promises

A backbone 
Is scarce 
Around here;
Stances 
Are not taken.
Re-election 
Is the sole aim.
Morals gone, 
Forsaken.
Votes!  
Votes!
Dangled banknotes!
A con game
Buy the lies, 
Don’t discuss
The promises 
Just disappear
It cheapens 
All of us.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Sunday, February 07, 2016

849 - Potus, the Hamster.


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: tearful, unsteady and abrasive.

Abrasive and loud,
Yet it seems to work for him.
What is he thinking?

A giant ego
With an unsteady mind and hand—
Could push the button!

A power junkie—
This could be the tearful end
To a beautiful world.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Sunday, January 31, 2016

848 - The left.


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: pathetic, radical and seamless


The left.

Once on middle ground
But the centre has shifted—
Nouveau radical.

Seamless transition
To a bleeding heart leftie
But I haven’t moved.

◊

Fair weather friendships
Just one storm and they are gone.
Pathetic really.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

847 - Quite Frank


Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.
She provides the rhyme word, the rest is up to us.
This week the word is ‘frank’.


Quite Frank

There was a young fellow named Frank
Whose hair was both matted and lank.
Those who ventured too near him 
Were driven to shear him,
As, to put it politely, it stank.

◊

A woman who liked a good spank
Was ugly, to be brutally frank,
But the curve of her bum
Was appealing to some
And she improved, the more that they drank.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Poetry in glass.


If you feel I haven't been writing much...
...I've been doing other things.
.
--o--

Sunday, January 24, 2016

846 - We're just wild about Hairy.


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: madly, nocturnal, and omen.

It started out as a single limerick and sort of morphed.


We’re just wild about Hairy…

A transformation both weird and nocturnal,
Afflicted a retired army colonel.
An omen to this change,
From normal to strange,
Was an increase in his hairy external.

A transformation both weird and nocturnal,
Afflicted a retired army colonel.
When the moon was the best
He madly undressed
And changed into a creature infernal.

A transformation both weird and nocturnal,
Afflicted a retired army colonel.
In the middle of the night
He slipped out for a bite,
His intentions were far from fraternal.

A transformation both weird and nocturnal,
Afflicted a retired army colonel.
He had no need for sleep
And would simply count sheep
As meals, which he wrote in a journal.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Sunday, January 10, 2016

845 - The Sales


Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.
She provides the rhyme word, the rest is up to us.
This week the word is ‘pale’.


Sale Time

The response of the typical male
Is to turn the palest of pale,
When informed by his wife,
The love of his life,
How much she has saved at the sale.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

844 - The Creche


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: eager, frenzy, and guzzle.


The Creche

Women enjoy the frenzy
Of bargain hunting in the mall;
Men as a rule are less impressed,
If they come along at all.
They’d prefer to sit and guzzle beer
And talk of any sport with a ball.

If you take a man out shopping
They make a grumpy noise.
This brings us to a most clever
Of all the marketing ploys:
A crèche designed to entertain
These sooky, sooky boys.

The barmaids are all topless,
The beer is cold and fresh
The patrons say that they are thirsty
But clearly enjoy the flesh.
The wives can all go shopping
And put the husbands in this crèche.

It serves a useful purpose,
And keeps husbands in one place;
Not only are the women able
To wander at their pace
The men were eager to come along,
Which is rarely commonplace.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---









843 - The Machine


Sunday Whirl (Wordle #233) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:

mouth, spill, possible, keep, change, head
skeletons, step, wire, gift, moon, present


The Machine

[Narrator]
In the regular cycles of his life,
Punctuated by the moon and sun,
Man persists through joy and strife
As previous generations all have done.

[Man]
It seems to me that joys are rare,
While strife is in excess!

[Narrator]
But man has few excuses there,
A victim of his own success.

[Businessmen]
We must make profits while we can
And each year must increase as well.

[Priests]
We offer heavenly rewards to the exhausted man
You keep him calm not rebel!

[Narrator]
Man’s afraid to step out of line,
He walks a high wire act.
He needs to work and can’t resign—

[Man]
It’s a most distressing fact.

[Narrator]
Pulpits and print houses spread the lie
That no possible change can begin,
They want that man will work and die—

[Politicians]
We legislate to lock him in!
We love to mouth warm platitudes
That feel they may be true.

[Priests]
We love to recite beatitudes
To help avoid a coup.

[Man]
And all the while we are made to run
On the treadmill of desire,
Told that we are having fun
If we are constantly a buyer.

[Narrator]
So man toils thoughout his time
And ends, as skeletons beneath the earth.

[Businessmen]
While we have nice homes beyond the grime
Where accountants check our worth.

[Narrator]
Should the notion enter man’s head
To change his present fate,
Blood would be spilt, with many dead,
As the military obeys the state.

[Priests]
So we sell the lie of God’s sweet gift
To stop the crowds rebelling

[The Media]
We peddle fear to induce a rift

[Politicians]
That makes our lies compelling.

[Narrator]
So there, dear reader, is man’s sorry lot
Living another’s base agenda.

[Man]
I’m never happy with what I’ve got!

[Businessmen]
We can recommend a good lender!
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Friday, January 08, 2016

842 - Set Adrift


Carpe Diem Haiku Kai has the prompt ‘dawn’.
I took the less obvious meaning.

Set Adrift

You think you have left
But you have been set adrift.
Reality dawns.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Sunday, January 03, 2016

841 - Kicking an Own Goal


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: fresh, new, and resolute.


Kicking an own goal

Fresh has its value
But not for resolutions;
Fresh is for raw meat.

Improve on the old,
You already have a start;
The new is harder.

Negative goals fail,
Be resolute if you must
But be positive.

Flexibility
Offers more choices to use,
More paths to follow.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2016
---

Wednesday, December 30, 2015

840 - Odd Loose Ends


Odd Loose Ends
(Tune : Auld Lang Syne)

The year is coming to a close,
It’s time to make amends;
Time to bring some order to
The odd loose ends.

Chorus:
The odd loose ends must go, I fear,
The odd loose ends;
We’ll take the trimming shears
To odd loose ends.

Life is better when it’s neat,
Trimmed of what offends,
The first things you must offload are
The odd loose ends.

Chorus.

The camel knew than the single straw
Gives a back that bends,
They build up upon each other,
The odd loose ends.

Chorus.

Acquaintances are both well and fine 
But nothing beats good friends,
Make more room by discarding
The odd loose ends.

Chorus.

New projects will bring you joy,
With happy dividends,
Close the book on lost causes
And odd loose ends.

Chorus.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

Sunday, December 27, 2015

839 - Operation Manual


Mad Kane has a weekly limerick challenge.
She provides the rhyme word, the rest is up to us.
This week the word is ‘lewd’, bless her.


Operation Manual

The Karma Sutra is frequently viewed
As wicked, licentious and lewd.
But it’s simply recounting
How a consensual mounting,
Should start, progress and conclude.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

Sunday, December 20, 2015

838 - Stony Indifference


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: savage, vengeful and tense


Stony Indifference

The planet is most bountiful
And so sustains its riders.
As it has done, age to age,
A generous provider.

Diverse, its passengers
Pillage their most generous host;
Destroying what is beautiful
In a race to own the most.

And what will they have got?
Carnage, in the most tragic sense
If we do not act respectful,
The future is past tense.

And yet we must not forget,
Savage, though scrupulously fair,
A planet cannot be vengeful,
It doesn’t even care.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---


Sunday, December 06, 2015

837 Lackadaisical Sunday


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: lackadaisical, makeshift, and nude.
Plus a bonus extra.

Apologies, by the way.
Haven't written much lately.
Been doing stained glass work.


Lackadaisical Sunday

Lackadaisical
There is nothing wrong with that:
It’s time to think.

◊

A woman who hated folk nude
Found the modern-day fashions too crude
But beneath all her clothes
Where no-one else goes,
She was as naked as those she eschewed.

◊

We plan our future.
The future has other plans.
They can overlap.

It’s a makeshift life.
All the plans of yesterday
Are just a guideline.

◊

There once was a fellow called Dave,
Who lathered his balls for a shave.
But an unsteady hand
Had an result, unplanned—
No children to mourn at his grave.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

Thursday, November 26, 2015

836 - Life is Chaos


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: habitual, illustrious, and jumbled.


Life is Chaos

Life is chaotic—
Jumbled by outer forces
Beyond our control.

Habitual traits—
Our own dumb contribution
To the current mess.

Leaders disappoint—
Creatures of straw and tin.
Illustrious?  No.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

Sunday, November 22, 2015

835 - Sun-Stroke


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week are: enigmatic, grovel, and faulty.


Sun-Stroke

So enigmatic—
Serene, remote and aloof.
Is anybody home?

But they follow them:
A case of misplaced desire 
And faulty thinking.

They grovel, prostrate
Before their golden icons.
Such misguided souls.

But is there a soul
That can then be misguided?
We will never know.

They seek more recruits—
There is comfort in numbers.
A pyramid scheme.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

834 - Perceptions



Perceptions

He was old.  
Weathered.
With grey, curly hair.
And white stubble
That contrasted sharply
With his dark skin.
Sporting a blue polo shirt,
Shorts and sandals,
He was crossing the plaza.
Hard to guess his age,
It often is,
But he looked fit and healthy.
Our paths were about to cross:
“Good morning” I offered.
“Gidday, old fella!” he responded.

Oh.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

Sunday, November 08, 2015

833 - Playing with Fire


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words a few weeks ago were: greasy, hellish, and ignite.


Playing with Fire.

He walked down Satan’s greasy path,
Doing mischievous things for a laugh.
Such as his hellish delight
In trying to ignite
Farts, while having a bath.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

832 - Ku De Ta

Ku De Ta, as it was but now isn't.


Ku De Ta

There are security guards, front and back.
There are barriers from the beach,
“Enter through the lobby, please.”
Bag searches are mandatory.
We sit, elevated; remote to the beach,
There but not there.

The menu is a gardener’s delight:
Phytochemicals in abundance:
Tastes like uncooked vegetable soup
Sold as rejuvenating juice.  
With kale, of course.
Chia seeds and goji berries extra.
The whole raw slurry
Has more antioxidants than you can poke
An extra wide slurpy straw at.
Glasses of grey-ish, orange-ish, pureed gloop.
More medicinal than refreshing.

There is a pool going in 
Where there were once red umbrellas.
Coup d'état.
Not only the head has been removed,
The heart has too.
But the liver! 
Oh, the liver is remarkably frisky.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

Tuesday, October 13, 2015

831 - Of Cakes and Candles


Of Cakes and Candles.

You deserve a cake.
Make two and give one away.
A sweet thing to do.

Eskimos rebel.
From the President’s igloo:
“Let them row kayaks.”

When the cake is lit:
Close your eyes and keep blowing.
Make a nice a wish.

Wishes don’t come true.
Well, not this sort of sugary wish,
Unless for more cake.

And what type of cake?
Most women want chocolate,
Men are fine with cheese.

Candles reflect life:
Bright but ever so fragile.
Life, like candles, ends.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

Friday, October 02, 2015

830 - Three Limericks


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were: thoughtless, uptight, and woozy.

In Australia, Burger King is known as Hungry Jacks.


A playboy, from the very best stock,
Partied, paying no heed of the clock.
He awoke feeling woozy,
His headache was a doozy,
And the two sheep in his bed, a big shock.

◊

A fellow who enjoyed a free lifestyle,
Was entrance by a girl with a sweet wife smile.
And a thoughtless oversight
Of a condom that night,
Lead to a trip down the church aisle.

◊

A spinster, upright and most proper,
Was adamant no man would a’top her
But when she met Hungry Jack,
She leapt in the sack:
“I was entranced by the size of his Whopper.”
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

Sunday, September 27, 2015

829 - It's a mess.


Sunday Whirl (Wordle #218) presents a list of words
that we must incorporate in a writing piece.  

The words this week are:
trump, bust, level, kick, dressed, mess,
exists, music, spin, visit, system, sighs


It’s a mess.

Whichever way you look at it, we’re a mess,
Our planet’s showing signs of high distress,
It can hardly be surprising 
That the ocean level’s rising
When we say that more pollution is progress.

[aside] Science exists, whether you deny it or not.

Whichever way you look at it, we’re a mess,
Be it Christian, Muslim, Baptist or the rest:
Fundamentalists are prevailing
And our education failing
As the hateful lies they spin are not addressed.

[aside] To say nothing, is tacit approval.

Whichever way you look at it, we’re a mess,
Freedom levels daily get repressed,
The paranoia’s chronic
And surveillance electronic
And every move we make will be assessed.

[aside] Hello ASIO!

Whichever way you look at it, we’re a mess,
We’ve busted all the wonders we possess.
Should our society mammalian

Have a visit from an alien
They would be sad and leave depressed.

[aside] And not green with envy.

Whichever way you look at it, we’re a mess,
Wars are dressed as reasons to express
Concerns for others rights
But these mercenary fights
Are ruses to subdue and then oppress.

[aside]  But wars have all the good music!

Whichever way you look at it, we’re a mess,
Our politicians seek the corporate largesse,
While donations buy them all
And the big ones trump the small,
The big ones via Switzerland are the best.

[aside] We have the best politicians money can buy.

Whichever way you look at it, we’re a mess,
We’re taught the poor are bludgers, at the best,
We should kick them while they’re down
And then run them out of town,
While enjoying tax cuts given to the rest.

[aside] Taxes are the price you pay for a good society.  

Whichever way you look at it, we’re a mess,
It’s like a really nasty game of chess,
Where power comes with the rank,
The rules are rather blank 
And the pawns are sacrificed first or just oppressed.

[aside] Gone are the days the leader lead their army into battle.

Whichever way you look at it, we’re a mess,
There’s no chance to slow or convalesce,
Every year we must do more 
As growth is the assumed law
And consumption is required, and in excess.

[aside] Am I the only one who sees that growth cannot be endless?

Whichever way you look at it, we’re a mess,
The thoughtful watch the leaders all transgress,
They sigh and shake their head,
And inwardly they dread
The day when they must cease to acquiesce.

[aside] Come the revolution…
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

Thursday, September 24, 2015

828 - Where roses are grown.


Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were: sedate, righteous, and pathetic.


Where roses are grown.

We sit where the roses are grown,
Sipping our herbal teas,
And from these sedate, safe places
Construct our enemies.

“Don’t fuss.”
“Not one of us.”
“Faceless.”

A pathetic excuse
To righteously bomb those who own
The things we want to use.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---

Monday, September 21, 2015

827 - After


Haiku Horizons has the prompt “After”.


We race on blindly,
Never stopping to wonder—
What are we after?

◊

The harsh aftermath
Of quick and rash decisions—
The pits of regret.

◊

After all has been said
And all that can be, has been done,
More is said than done.
 .
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2015
---