Good Advice

Dance a fandango
a can-can or a tango
and let you cares go!

Ole!



Thanks to Tess and Henri Toulouse-Lautrec at Mag 181 for this idea! :)

Blank Page

The paper stares upwards, its pregnant, featureless face begging the artist to capture some character as yet unknown. It yearns for the imprint of pen or pencil, for bold lines to form images on its surface, or for words which will speak stories for posterity to enjoy... 

Only then will the blank page find fulfillment.

Thanks to Tess and M C Escher at Mag 180 for this week's prompt, which, to my amazement, has turned out to contain 55 words. So come Friday, it will be added to G-man's list, as well - make the most from the least, that's my motto...

Is This A Bubble Car?

Dream pictures flicker
across the screens of darkness
while night suggests sleep.


Tess has offered another mind bending picture to get our engines revving for this week's Mag. I have, of course, changed gear, in order to head for the realms of fantasy!

Ghost Rider

Clothes have become an encumbrance, for suddenly Summer's arrived.
This chap, here, has taken a bold stance and a way to cool off he's contrived.

He's waited for moonlight to clothe him in naught but its silvery light,
now he'll hop on his trusty old Harley and disappear into the night.

His skin will appear luminescent, so if people see him flashing by,
they'll suppose he's ghost or a ghoulie, not a streaker who's still a bit shy!

Written for Tess and Andrew Wyeth at The Mag 178

Greedy!

An egg-bound goose had found relief,
but her clutch was stolen by a thief
who saw the eggs were really gold,
and grabbed as many as he could hold.
The laying process had been tough,
but golden nuggets were not enough -
the young lad wanted ingots, see...
How easy for stacking they would be!
He planned to smelt down all the eggs,
and dreamt of this when he went to bed.
But come the morning, when he looked,
he found it was his goose he'd cooked!

A flight of fancy written for Tess and Agustin Berrocal at The Mag 177

Pictures Not Words

No words have come to me yet for Mag 175, where Tess posted an image by Musin Yohan.
Something may occur to me later in the week, in which case I shall add it here. ** (see below!)
In the meantime, I give you the progression of thought pictures which lead to the totally abstract, final offering, where everything has turned upside down, as that way, the colours suggested to me a lightening of the spirit as an escape from the menial tasks of working in the fields.

** I'd hardly clicked on the 'publish' button, when my mind took over from my fingers, and there was this shadorma, waiting to appear. Possibly the act of  not thinking, allowed the new thoughts in!

Spirits lift

towards the heavens
and burdens
grow lighter
as the mind refocuses
in meditation.

Burning Desire

If a chap says "Will you light my fire?"
I'd hope that his thoughts would range higher
than a flame for a fag -
I don't like to nag,
but effects from such smoke can be dire!

Written for Tess and her Mag 174 with apologies to Stanley Kubrick.

A Load of Moonshine

Is what lights this dreamscape scenario! It originated from a colourful painting by Marc Chagall, which Tess chose for her Mag 173 this week.

It put me in mind of something which has been in the news recently and,  putting all the facts together,  prompted me to write the following ditty...

I've been on that space station too long;
though I'm back on Earth, something's wrong,
because now I have found
that my feet leave the ground
each time that I burst into song.

55 Words for Friday

And G-Man




Today the wind has been blustering,
mustering its strength to  huff and puff
our hairdos into new styles never before seen
by man nor beast, each a joke  against nature,
whose tendency would be to let tresses fall
in soft, straight locks, sleek and tidy -
not frizz fuelled spikes which fill us with horror.

Pill Popping?

Reminders

Like little press studs,
each line of bubble-pack pills
has been popped open;
They marked the days of the week,
no need for a calendar.

Conundrum

Question;
does a lock keep
you in, or others out?
Perhaps the answer lies within
the key.
Power
of posession
belongs to he or she
who has sole rights of ownership...
Unless,
of course,
the locksmith made
his choice by providing
more than one of these magic tools.
Stalemate!

Three cinquains locked together for Tess and her Mag 172

Wake Up Call

Liquid notes
fly up to heaven
and the wings
of song lift
the spirits of all who hear
this day's dawn chorus.



Thanks to Tess at The Mag for giving us a picture by Morris Graves , from which I took this section to use as inspiration.

Songbirds

Nightingales
illuminate night
with their song
while moths dance,
enchanted by star-bright notes
which fill the darkness.


Thanks go to Tess for a black and white image on the Mag,  entitled Ponytail, by Last Extra, in which I endeavoured to instill a little colour, if not music, for this simple shadorma - an unrhymed verse form of 3/5/3/3/7/5 syllables.

But then I looked again at the original photo
and decided to have another go at a smoke related offering, even though I have never had a cigarette in all my life, I can see it as a metaphor for love that's gone up in smoke!
But I did need to look at it the other way up...

Smokescreen

A fag end of a day;
black thoughts curl away
and leave charred
remains. It's hard
when love goes wrong
and its song
drifts
in wisps
of smoke which leave
eyes stinging. We've
come to a point where it
makes sense to quit...
but they don't make patches
which match
love's affliction;
a different addiction.

Dandelions

Life force
from gold petals
spawns fairy-clock seeds
in clusters, waiting for a waft
of wind.

Perhaps
some flower whorls
are harvested instead
by a maker of wine-heady
liquid...

Its taste
will please the tongue,
but maybe not the head.
If taken to excess, beware
it's strength!

Cinquains to tell it like it is for Tess at the Mag 169, where she featured Lighthouse Dandelions by Jamie Wyeth from which I took this snippet for inspiration.

Sci Fi

Fantasy
from another world;
distant sun.

The photo by Togan Gokbakar which Tess chose for her Mag 168 sent me off on an artistic trip! LOL. Thanks, Tess!

Violets

Kim, with Real Toad's mini Sunday prompt shot me back to my earliest days, and thanks to an eBay photo, I've even been able to show you the kind of thing that caught my attention, in my Aunty's bedroom way back when...

A flower decked flask prompted me
to ask " Auntie Glad, what's in there?"
and she placed it in my hands, saying
 " Pull out the stopper, and see.
But take care!" 

Around it, bands of green and brown
topped painted flowers and leaves,
and I opened it and breathed in the scent
of Devon Violets for the first time.
I wished it had been mine!  But from that day,
the perfume and colour found its way into my soul.

Unfinished

Voyage of Discovery

Bare bones lightning sketch,
tree branch arms;
face in focus.

Sky eats hair,
devours softer beauty,
leaves stark silhouette unsexed.

Result?

Uncomfortable wake of abandonment
follows artist on imagination's ocean
as her ship sails.

When I saw this Mary Cassatt's painting which Tess chose for her Mag 167 I was  overwhelmed by a sense of 'something not quite real' - possibly created in part by the title.  If it had been called 'Le Spectre de la Rose' after the ballet by that name, it would have caused me no problem. But 'Young Woman Picking The Fruit Of Knowledge'? That disturbed me. Hence my strange, not-quite-real-non-poem, poem for today.

 

A Fond Farewell

"Goodbye" to April - soon "Hello" to May!
We've come to the end of a poem a day -
that NaPo - type madness which kept us at work
with imperative dictates we didn't dare shirk.

Some followed prompts found in Blogland at large;
some allowed random ideas to take charge.
But whatever the source, the outcome was plain,
a poem's a poem, some kind of word game.

A writer will play it with ardour and zest
till he finds that one word which surely is best
to convey his intention, pass on his thoughts
to the reader whose kind approbation is sought.

Though that's not the whole reason we pick up a pen,
or dash to a keyboard to pound it again;
when our inspiration comes from the muse
who prods us to action, we've no time to lose.

We have to obey such a summons, 'tis true -
what else could a dyed-in-the-wool poet do?

# 29

Before The Future

Poets were called to arms;
NaPoRiMo beckoned them on April Fool's Day.
Tomorrow pens will run dry.

An exceedingly apt prompt over on Haiku Heights was too good to pass by this morning! We've nearly made it, folks!

# 28

Kerry of Real Toad's fame, set us searching for our favourite quote from Harper Lee's wonderful book "To Kill a Mockingbird." For added inspiration, she include a still from the film, and how could I resist an excuse to look at Atticus Finch again? :) This was my choice:-

 “People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.”

The day is dull and overcast;

rainclouds fight the sun.
But I look and see a rainbow -
aren't I the lucky one?

The traffic thunders on the road -
but is that all I hear?
No! Close by a blackbird trills
its song that I hold dear.

It's all about perception;
this point of view we choose,
and if we seek the positive,
what do we have to lose?

Why, just the stress and anguish
that pessimism brings
to you, or me - or even
to 'cabbages and kings!'

With thanks also to the Walrus and the Carpenter, to whom Lewis Carroll gave a wonderful perception all their own. :)

And NaPoRiMo has definitely got me going, for there's a second write for today here!