Saturday, April 26, 2014

698 : A Drop in Time

Three Word Wednesday requires participants
to use the three words of the week in a composition.
The words this week were: Adept, Edible and Viscous.

The poem is based on one of the longest running scientific experiments.
You can read about it and see a 17sec clip of it dripping here.


A Drop in Time

A scientist took great delight
While, watching with his peers,
A coal-black glacial movement which
Dripped every thirteen years.

The pitch was in a funnel,
A thick and viscous goo,
It looked a bit like Vegemite
And was just as edible too.

The curator was a thorough man,
Adept and quite persistent,
But on his watch it dripped three times
And every time he missed it.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
---

Monday, April 21, 2014

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
---

Saturday, April 19, 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
---

Sunday, April 13, 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
---

Thursday, April 10, 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
---

Sunday, April 06, 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
---

Friday, April 04, 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
---

Thursday, March 27, 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
---

Sunday, March 23, 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
---

Friday, March 21, 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
---

Sunday, March 02, 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
---

Friday, February 28, 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
---

Tuesday, February 25, 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
---

Sunday, February 23, 2014

684 : The Life Saver

Munus Island #lightthedark
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
---

Friday, February 21, 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
---


Wednesday, February 19, 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
---




Thursday, February 13, 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
---

Sunday, February 09, 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
---

Friday, February 07, 2014

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
---

Wednesday, February 05, 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
---
.

Sunday, February 02, 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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Monday, January 27, 2014

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
---


Sunday, January 26, 2014

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
---

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.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
---

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.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
---

Tuesday, January 21, 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
---

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
---

670 : Dying Dangerously

Haiku Heights has the prompt 'Sharp'.

It’s not just garfish
That can end up filleted
By a good sharp knife.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
---

669 : Sharp

Haiku Heights has the prompt 'Sharp'.

Putting it bluntly,
Some things in life should be sharp;
Cheddar cheese is one.
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
---

Sunday, January 19, 2014

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?
.
---
© J Cosmo Newbery 2014
---