A Tale of Folderol and Bric-a-brac

At 'imaginary garden with real toads' just now, Fireblossom would have us Get Listed. She asked us to use three or more words from her list, and hopefully include one in the title. But they were such good words, I went overboard, used the lot, put two in the title, and added a few more good ones of my own. It was fun!


A Tale of Folderol and Bric-a-brac

It was an instantaneous episode of derring-do, 

momentary, but lucid – no need for you

to pontificate, all smug, as if I were a green,

wet-behind-the ears novice, or a slipshod

unvisionary, striving-in-vain Ms Plod.

Just because I yelled and did that fist-pump, 

and followed it with a twirl and a hip bump 

(over-enthusiastic by only the merest smidgen)

or was less than demure brandishing my lollipop –

how was I to know some idiot’d seize a photo-op?

And now you’re carrying on, waxing operatic!

I think your turn of phrase is unduly dramatic,

making a bit of harmless fun sound obscene.

So my bum wobbled like blancmange? So the snooker

table stopped play and they eyed me like a hooker?

So what if all the ornaments fell off the shelf?

I didn’t do it on purpose, much less by myself.

It was only the hokey-pokey when all’s said and done.

You’re rendering it a major catastrophe.

I say, better be a bit of clown than to atrophy!

Here is the list:

folderol, bric-a-brac, instantaneous, momentary, lucid, derring-do, pontificate, green, smug, photo-op, slipshod, hokey pokey, fist pump, demure, lollipop, snooker, rendering, blancmange, smidgen, operatic

Ageing: a Dialogue

Ageing: a Dialogue

The walk to the gate became harder.
If I eat this carrot, will it make me see you better?

The lake was flat and glassy, and full of cloud.
Autumn is so changeable, she said.

I wanted to go slowly but you turned it into a race.
The wind surrounds me in a startling embrace.

After the song was sung, and the music tidied away …
The ego is a fragile thing, they say.

Going on from there – oh, if only.
Star-crossed reflections, you and I.



This was arrived at by using my left-over lines and titles from the Poetic Bloomings Exercise in Poetic Thought. I noticed they could be arranged in rhyming (or half-rhyming) couplets, the ones still left over could be used as a title, and the whole thing almost makes sense. I think I could get away with calling it a contemporary ghazal!

Sharing at Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ Walk,/span>

Appearances

At 'imaginary garden with real toads', Magaly asks us to play with randomised word lists in the Exquisite Corpse Solitaire mini challenge, which gave me –

Appearances

Chubby night wills the unsightly year

into a dazzling group, vexing skinny people

with chubby coffee cast short of a place.

A flabby hand casts the unsightly state – as a 

glamorous book lives quaintly in the world,

or as an attractive book looks in an unkempt state.

And a bald eye will scruffy the word

‘beautiful’ as fact, feeling it a muscular problem –

as a fancy fact feels in an unkempt year.

Wild Weather

Wild Weather

It’s wild as in mad –

not bitter and blustery,

not perilous, not extreme;

just wrong for this time of year, 

this particular season.

It’s a warm winter,

bright sun high 

in rich blue sky: the soul

feels like soaring.
Yet you are going away.

I want rain, I want storms.

The time and the event

both demand protest,

both should engender a chill.

Instead that sun is inanely smiling.

Nevertheless, I am tossed

as if in a brittle wind

and water blinds my eyes.

Oh, throw your arms around me again!

(As if you would keep me from the cold.)

Written for Poetic Bloomings as the result of a three-part Exercise in Poetic Thought (which has helped me break a recent writer's block).

Also sharing with Poets United's Poetry Pantry #483

The Watcher [Prose]

A new tiny little story of 313 words for From the Point of View of Trees (Telling Tales with Magaly Guerrero: a Pantry of Prose, #4, at Poets United).

The Watcher

We who stay where we grow are aware of more than you imagine, you who move around. Our roots and branches connect us far through earth and sky. We gather information. We receive messages. We bear witness. 

She in this house is responsible for me. She failed to pull out one tiny weed. When she realised I was becoming a tree, she turned a blind eye. I grew fast and tall. She loves me, and lets me stay. I watch the looks she gives me, of pleasure and pride. 

I watch her brother too, in a far city. He used to visit her here. Knowing his energy signature, I could track it back to his home. Now he is sick and doesn't go out. I observe him by joining the consciousness of the blue gum outside his window. I also observe her, here, and see that she grieves and fears. 

One day a small dog arrives – young and bouncy, and very pleased to be here. I recognise him; he's been here before. It's her brother's dog, Pepito, nicknamed Peppy. This dog regards the whole world as delightful, and everyone as a friend. But she cries as she cuddles him. Peppy is here because her brother can't look after him any more. 

We like being alive, we trees. We don't know what lies beyond, any more than you do. But we sense the in-between, where many kinds of spirits hover, including those who have recently died. So when her brother arrives to look at her and his dog, I perceive that he is no longer alive bodily. I can also tell that looking at them makes his spirit happy – even though she is crying. 

He squeezes her shoulder. She doesn't appear to see him, but she must feel something. She calms. The little dog wags his tail. 

The man vanishes.

I stand guard.