Telephonic Tall Tales?

And all at the tail end of this week, after belatedly seeing the Magpie prompt picture which made me hunt out and edit, yet again, a poem which started life many years ago.
It's had several incarnations, but seems to get reborn in a slightly different guise each time, but at appropriate moments, of which I feel this is one...The Wimbledon season is fast approaching...

Love Match?

We serve and volley our thoughts
like the tennis players at Wimbledon,
bouncing them from mind to mind
across the net of distance
stretched taught between us.

I sometimes feel you are waiting
to demolish me with an ace to end all aces...

And the score board will declare
"Game set and match to the telephone."

The Cavern Of My Thoughts

That was the title of IGWRT's post on Wednesday, which showed a black and white image taken from another site, which you can visit HERE.  As I always think in colour, I hope nobody will object to my having a little play with the image, to produce the following:-

Mind Cavern

Memory is a world inside my head.
Bypassing time, it weaves new connections
to link places, people, emotions,
with sights, sounds and aromas,
until a sensory bouquet is created
in the way florists gather blooms into posies.

Colours and textures meld in each arrangement
and I save thought-snapshots of them in an album
through which I may wander at will.
Any time I choose, its images,
replaying on the Big Screen of my mind,
are only an eyelid's blink away...

Left Leg, Matterhorn Pose

Some streets sport water features
and some continue bare,
except for straggly grass, or weeds
that flourish unaware.
But here a paradox we see
for what looks like a fountain
is nothing but a metal plinth
for an Old Man of The Mountain
sporting naked chest and cap!
I dare you, gentlefolks, top that!

A bit of nonsense for Tess at The Mag,who provided us with the illustration today, and for which I've written a ditty as a late offering for IGWRT's Flash 55, as well.

Two for the price of one has to be good?

Grasping at Shadows?

Late yesterday I noticed last Sunday's challenge on IGWRT's , and this afternoon was tempted to let my imagination play along. What came from my finger-tapping was as much a surprise to my keyboard, no doubt, as it may be to any readers who happen by. Hahaha!


Aurora grasps at shadows. One gets caught
inside her net of mind. She studies him.
"My!  What arresting features this one's got.
See them slide from scintillating to dim
while his face flickers as if in the shade
of sorrow." Suddenly, his spectre goes
sprawling, falling down into a wood-glade
in which a curling stream of water flows,
snaking-fast. Heavily he lands, and lies
unmoving on a boulder-bed of stone.
She can but watch him. Painfully, he dies.
The water's song achieves a diff’rent tone,
as sympathetic notes console The Dawn.
Without this Shadow Lord she'll live alone…

Whatever the Weather

Today had me tapping away at the keys, after listening to IGWRT's recording of  Mr Cumberbatch reading 'Ode to a Nightingale', by Keats.  I can't compete, of course, but did feel intrigued enough to attempt to follow the rhyme scheme. We've had plenty of the 'sun versus rain' weather over the past few weeks, hence my choice of subject. 

When I have a few hours to spare, I may attempt to write more stanzas!

Capricious forces conjure sun and rain
into eternal conflict. Dark lords and bright
wage their wars as moon-tides wax and wane
throughout the universe's star drenched night,
until, by morning, rotund Earth's revolved
in deference to laws decreed long since.
Then sun-flame beams put shadow-clouds to flight,
their unshed tears like morning mists dissolved
as Helios, our hero, on his plinth
stands proud, the great defender of the light.