# 9

Thanks to Tess  and Degas at Mag 163 
also for NaPoRiMo

Jinks Thinks

Once I had a washroom
with enamel bath, so small,
that to fit the feet in
was difficult, for tall
or long legged people...

Now, I've a shower stall,
a cabinet of glass and chrome
with inbuilt waterfall
to beautify my stately home.
It suits folk large or small.

So these days I don't notice
there is no bath at all
in the room I call a bathroom -
isn't that silly?

# 8

End Versus Beginning

When day
has gone to rest
my thinking's not its best,
as twilight falls, because, you see,
bed calls!

I wrote
these words last night -
not by this morning's light,
but please forgive me. They are for
day eight!

Of April, and NaPoRiMo, naturally. :)

# 7

Wrong Ticket?

I missed the boat.
The plethora of words I wrote
as I travelled life,
caused me no strife.
My early written thoughts
were not fraught 
with blood money of angst and history.
Those remained a mystery.

My days
went by in quiet ways
of family repeats -  Mum, Dad and Kids.
This usual recipe kept the lid
on any ambition to write full time.
Their well being drew the line
for me to toe.

And so -

and so; there you go.

Now, here I am. Me. Older,
at last, and bolder,
letting words rule the roost
to give retirement's boat a boost
of self esteem, perhaps,
before I lapse
into senility,
or before increasing fragility
forces me to drop the pen,
to stop surfing the keyboard, and then -

and then...

and then...

Who knows? The voyage continues...

# 6

And a re-work of yesterday's sonnet...but in 55 words, including title, just for G-Man.

In The Stillness

Only cloud reflections ripple to the music of the water -

until...

a sudden starling flock 

erupts

to mimic their movements -

flickering

shifting

splitting

covering the twilight canopy in monochrome lace...

short, lissome lines of birds

swirling

twisting

curling

then billowing into shapes like balloons inflating;

they fill our bemused vision.

N.B. The poetry groups I joined have been making me think about the placing of words on the page. Hoping to make it easier for any readers, when speaking the lines aloud, to  say the words as intended, I've played around with spacings, etc, but kept to my original idea of yesterday, but sadly, Blogger has its own idea of where some lines will be placed, and veto'd my spacings- but I'm trying again to insert them...

#5

To see what this is all about, watch this video first

Murmuration

The twilight clouds reflect on rippled water
‘til, speckle-flecked across the sky’s pale dome,
birds’ ink spot bodies form a flowing river
of dense-packed, flickering shapes in monochrome.

Amoebic like they split and shift formation,
dancing to instinctive music scores
in lissome, ribbon lines of short duration,
each line more graceful than the one before…

The darkness of their fluid movement fades
in swirling skeins and nets of twisting forms;
with every limpid shape their skill’s displayed
in aerial ballets, sprightly performed.

And so this miracle of night's wild scheme
will live - a half-light's shadow of a waking dream.

And I've linked this to Poets United

A Poem A Day?

Maybe, maybe not...but here's one for now, anyway...
P.S.   And as it turned out, I have been doing at least'one a day' ever since! :) Only three days to left!   27/4/2013.  J.
 

by Jinksy

Think Positive

Above my head are tear-wrapped clouds of grey;
the sky is dull, and stops the sun from beaming.  
It's threatening to wash my house today...

Soon the window panes will all be streaming
with runnels of the saddest, watery hue,
while through the treetops winds will go a-keening...

With playful weather gods, what can one do?
We're grateful for them watering our flowers -
but they drench us humans at the same time, too...

with a cloudburst, not a gentle shower,
until we wish they’d leave with no delay
if rain’s been falling hour after hour…

At least we don't dissolve and wash away
down drains and gutters, on a rainy day!

What's It All About?

In IGWRT's challenge today, Kerry says " Pretty much anything goes, so long as you get us thinking about what it all means." So here are my somewhat doleful ponderings!

Mirage
Humanity - defenceless, weak and small -
each solitary being comes, at birth,
into a hostile world where nothing's certain...
And are we born the slaves of random choice,
each yay or nay a footstep on a path
devoid of signposts? Do our infant minds
stagger through blind alleys without help
or guidance from another's hand? To learn
from each experience is slow,
like gleaning grains of wheat from fields of chaff,
and many times such lessons are not learned;
again, and yet again we falter. What purpose
underlies our struggles? Is satisfaction
ever to elude our grasp, a mirage
shimmering upon a far horizon -
the one true destination only death?

P.S.  And in retrospect, they count as Day# 3 of NaPoRiMo - which I only started numbering on day # 5, even though I had been doing virtually one a day, anyway...

One Tail, Not Nine...

Detail from a painting by Jacek Yerka

Cat-a-stroph-e?

A cat in the kitchen? Oh!
No!
You see,
to me
that spells germs.
I squirm
at the thought of its feet
meet-
ing
things
on my work top.
Stop -
go no further cat!
Back to the mat
for you.
Shoo!

Written for Tess at The Mag, with thanks. :)

Necessity- Mother of Invention!

Today I made a daffodil
with crochet hook and wool ;
real ones never grew this year,
for winter days were full
of snowy cold and raincloud skies –
while weather played the fool.

Nature's tempting failed; in vain
she pleaded “ Spring, please come!”

(She’s hiding in some distant land
and reining in the Sun!)


55 words for MrKnowitall written last evening in expectation of Friday!

Green Nightmare

The Green is creeping closer to my door.
Overnight,  the tendrils have lengthened
and their leaf tips grasp and wind tighter
round my dwelling. Escape is now impossible.
Even if I could break outside,
the blades of spear tipped grasses
would cut my feet to shreds at the first step…


50 words written for IGWRT's challenge today

Behind The Headlines

Within us all lie shadow beings, waiting
to make their presence felt; to bend the truth
until our conscious mind is set in turmoil
by unaccustomed promptings of temptation.
We feel the warmth of all their whispered goads
which hold us, teetering on the brink of wisdom,
and ready to misread a situation;
to falter in our stride and lose the way...

It's then we have to choose to take control,
to push our finer instincts to the fore
by ignoring what might be the easy option,
and strive, however hard, to do what's right,
with no regret, no thought of recompense
except a well earned sense of justice done.

Thanks to Tess and a surreal picture by René Magritte, this is my adapted offering for The Mag 161 and linked to Toads Open Link Monday, on Tuesday! LOL

Tantivy!

Faun, Horse and Bird 1936 by Picasso

A faun with horns went out one day
a-riding on his horse...
a huntin' shootin' fishin' faun
he looked to be... Of course,
we cannot tell what made that horse
to trample on a bird-
but thanks to P. Picasso
we can see what next occurred...
The faun leapt off, the horse said 'Neigh'
and bird wished he could fly away!

 Having given the good Doctor FTSE a preview email of this ditty, back came his speedy reply, which I am adding here for your delight. He said:-

Amazing what  a Pen can do
with P.Picasso's tripart zoo.

I guess the disconcerted horse
was filled at once with real remorse
for trampling on the feathered fowl
which straight away let out a howl
and cried to the dismounting faun.
"I wish I never had been hatched."

Hatched?  Hatched?  Oh well . .

Thanks a bundle, Doc! Hehehe!

Thanks to Tess at The Mag for her Picasso prompt!

Waterworld

Ocean stares unblinking from beneath green eyelids, watching, watching... standing guard above Neptune’s Kingdom, where mermen and mermaids live in their bubble-filled, coral palaces among sea groves of waving kelp fronds.

Is he searching for a Mortal who would be able to dry his unshed tears, those he may one day cry for all humanity?


Tess gave us a fascinating picture by Robin Gosnall for this week's Mag, and I couldn't resist playing! And as luck would have it, there are 55 words for G-man, come Friday!

Heatwave

For today's Mag, Tess has given us a photo by TheFoxAndTheRaven, which I have interpreted in my own way, with thanks to the original artists.