All Seeing, I

A camera tells
much about people who fall
under the gaze of its eye,
but he who clicks the shutter
offers his dreams to the world.

Written for The Mag, where Tess gave us a self portrait of Francis Bacon to play with. I chose to zoom in for this close up...

TongueTied

Words in a tangle

dangle ideas before me.

See them dance?

Askance, I follow their lead,

need to catch them,

stem the flow -

Woah!

Go slow!

Show  me a kaleidoscope

hope of understanding

landing on new ground…

Sounds of words spill

till my ears’

fears of them being mocked

shocks me again into silence…

This has been waiting around for an ending some time  - I think the latest edit works. What do you think? I'll link to IGWRT's for an answer or two! LOL. And by a mere fluke, it has 55 words, which will come in handy for G-Man on Friday...

Fast Food?

When Alfred Hitchcock filmed 'The Birds'
he never guessed just how absurd
this flock of hungry gulls would be;
they left the fishes in the sea
and smacked their noisy, beaky lips
as fingers offered chip-shop chips!



Thanks to Tess and The Guardian for today's Mag.

Should've Gone To Specsavers?

Is it the glare from the water,
or is it the print's far too small?
I cannot make out what the last line says -
I can hardly see it at all!

I probably need to wear glasses,
but you all know what they say about that*-
and I'd hate to miss out on those passes,
should I find me an elegant chap!



*Men don't make passes
at girls who wear glasses.

Thanks to Tess for choosing this painting by John Singer Sargent for her Mag this week.

Love In Print

The camera clicks,
and a memory is caught,
encapsulated
for ever in a moment
of time that's already passed.

And this photo thrives -
until sunlight fades the print,
turns the edges brown
as a dying rose petal
whose life force has been sucked dry.

But inside our minds,
images remain alive,
secure, unchanging,
and ready to sustain us
when love's hunger overwhelms.

From an original negative by Degas, as chosen by Tess for her Mag 193.

Millinery Madness

'If you want to get ahead, get a hat.'
As a sales pitch, I must agree with that,
but this hat looked rather silly
and quite gave me the willies
till spooky wavy lines had graced this face.
Now weirdo hat is not so out of place!

I give you a snippet from the Mag picture which Tess found this week, and which I had fun 'embroidering' a little, in keeping with the macabre subject :-)

Gardening?

The Seed

Upwards,
ever upwards
I climb towards the light
while my roots delve into the earth.
I seek nourishment to sustain my blooms
which must encounter sun's blessing
to complete the circle
of my journey
upwards.


Here I've used the Rictameter, nine line syllabic form (2/4/6/8/10/8/6/4/2), where each line increases by two syllables, and the first and last lines are the same. For the Mag 191, Tess chose a painting entitled 'Le Jardin' by Max Ernst.

Have a ball, folks!

Mention a ball and my feet will start tapping
as long as there's music - or perhaps some rapping

of words that will set the mind dancing instead -
as long as the language isn't over my head
with modern expressions that don't mean a thing -
and we can carouse till the fat lady sings
an opera aria which will delight
any opera buffs who are with us tonight...

In one corner a Scots man will pipe us a jig,
in another a sailor in full naval rig
will dance us a hornpipe and shiver me timbers
as I ogle his muscles, all salt-flecked and limber
from climbing the ropes of his ship in full sail
as he weathers the storm  in the face of a gale...

Perhaps we'll hear drumming in good Irish style
as we sip on a Guinness and pause for a while
to study the dancers, at this Willow Ball,
whom Tess has cajoled with her ' Come, one and all!'

I've no time for pictures or musical clips
for writing this ditty was enough for my wits
to contend with, this rather grey day in October.
At this part of the evening I'm still fully sober,
but once the old moon stamps its smile on the sky
I'm sure the festivities will make me high!
So raise up your glasses, and let's have a toast -
" To Tess, and her Manor that spreads coat to coast!"

Thanks for the invite, Tess!

Haunting

Menace
personified,
waiting just out of reach
for the time when the barrier
will fall...

In life
our worst mistakes
pile up in serried ranks,
sit behind another fence,
waiting.

They haunt
waking hours
with retrospective shame
until repentant senses crave
pardon.

For the original picture and more poems, go and visit Tess and her Mag 190.

A Taunting Tanka

"Tick tock" the clock mocks,
"another day you've wasted!
Face my displeasure."
And it whirls its hands faster.
"I will show you who's master!"


Tess and her Mag 189 called forth this flight of fancy, with an image by crilleb50 which I adapted to suit a nightmare scenario. :)

The Artist

This night,
the land is bathed
with scent of coming rain,
storm-chased by wild clouds above
the path.

In awe,
the artist stands
transfixed by the beauty
as he wends his way uphill
to home,

his house
a solid shape
beneath the silhouette
of branches dancing in wind's
embrace.

One day,
paint on canvas
will imortalise it,
this fleeting moment in time,
this gift

which he
stores in his mind,
ready to begin work
as soon as daylight calls
"Morning!"

This week, I've used a detail (colour enhanced) from the Mark Haley image which Tess gave us for The Mag prompt today. It reminds me of a Constable painting...

Afterglow

She embraced love's warmth
and bathed in the afterglow
of its radiance.


If you'd like to see the whole picture by Cesar Santos, visit The Mag, and see who else was inspired by this week's prompt from Tess.

Treasure Map?

From the Mag 185

Shall we toe the line?
These, on paper, make a map
with grids overlaid...

whilst others etched in the past

link those far times with today.

Wikimedia Commons

Thanks to Tess,  this week I read some Wiki background on the magical name 'St Ninian's Isle' and discovered photos of hidden, silver treasures that were unearthed in our lifetime. The one I've posted here had such a plethora of curved and straight lines, that I couldn't help but link it to those on the map, so you could see the connection, too. Enjoy!
Please click on the photo to see the true beauty of the silver work. :)

Purple Thoughts On A Sunday Afternoon

Youth versus age;
weigh them in the scales.

Where lies the point of balance
till the one tips towards the other?

Only watch and wait;
for the scales may yet tip again
and the adult become child
before life reaches its end
and another circle is complete.

I never know what will surface when a  Mag pictures sets me off. Tess gave us one by Norman Rockwell today...

Toad In A Hole?

The IGWRT Toad challenge today has got me hopping to it rather late, but I couldn't resist a bit of playful nonsense to round off the week. Sorry, Fireblossom, but thanks a bunch for the spark which called it into being! LOL

The Inebriated Sherpa
forged his way ahead-
but those who followed after him,
ended up as dead!

Drink and climbing do not mix -
no wonder he got in a fix
when he lead his party up the mountain -
he should have sipped from a soda fountain!

What Our Words Carry

On a good day...

Love flows through the words like a shallow stream through a green meadow; almost invisible, still this stream sings, while its earth-bed of every day is a natural camouflage. Ears play tricks in the dappled sunlight of the thoughts dancing over its surface, and marvel at its unwritten music, its secret beauty.

On a bad day...

Drought sucks life giving moisture from every phrase, and a hard-baked crust cracks and shatters dreams into dust. A desert of loneliness stretches throughout a barren landscape where a mirage tricks the memory into belief of an oasis of affection. Wind flings the whirling sands into the mind's eye which cries for that which might have been.



In the Imaginary Garden for Real Toads today, Peggy asks us to turn our attention to 'Things Carried'. This set me thinking, and I homed in on the invisible things carried by words...

Old Saying, New Take

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush,
or so the old saying goes,
but why in this picture the bird's on a shelf
while the young lady sits in a tree by herself -
well - I reckon that nobody knows!

Words and picture inspired by Tess and Janie Tomanek at The Mag.

Macabre!

Some children Pass the Parcel
and some Pass their exams,
but ones who've used this 'Passing Place'
belonged to Mums with prams!

Another off-beat Mag from Tess and Steven Kelly called forth this oddity!

Adrift In Dreams

In the moment sleep envelops bodies,
causing them to plummet into night,
floating shapes of random jigsaw pictures
begin to infiltrate the inner sight.
Like boats adrift in dreams sans map or compass,
the journey's never under our control,
for darkness leads all where it will till morning
when daylight lays its claim upon the soul.

Thanks for the inspiration go to Tess and Elena Kalis at The Mag 182.

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! :)