Saturday, 28 January 2023
A Grim Fairy Tale
When I was a child
my mother told me
that Never Never Land
Is where the lost children go,
those who can’t find their way home.
My mother told me that
they stay children for ever
and can play all day long.
It sounds like a fairy tale
and perhaps
that’s where these children have gone,
stepped into a fairy tale
or perhaps
they’ve been taken into one
by a monster
straight out of Grimm.
And now they wait.
And there’ll be others
waiting.
Waiting,
for someone to find them.
Perhaps they’ll put up a sign
hoping someone will see.
And they’ll sit by the sign
waiting for rescue,
waiting for the fairy tale ending
that can never come.
http://www.newversenews.org/
Friday, 27 January 2023
Button Box
I loved playing with the buttons
in ‘Grandma’ Kirk’s button box.
She wasn’t my real grandma
but mum’s friend
who used to have a Chip Shop nearby.
When she died ‘Auntie’ Stacey,
(who wasn’t my real aunt either),
took the money
that Grandma Kirk had hidden
under the floorboards,
even though it had been left to mum.
She was a bad ‘un,
my mum said.
The £200 that was in the bank
was all that was left.
She showed the bank manager
the hole in the floor.
He looked amazed
my mum said.
He said to leave it with him
and she heard no more.
I inherited the button box.
https://ephemeralelegies.com/2023/01/27/button-box-by-lynn-white/
Ravens Can’t Read
“That’s quite a raven,”
thought Poe
looking
down.
But of course
it needed to be large
to collect
up
all the pages
all the words
he had written.
And then,
what then,
what will happen next
when
all those words
are collected up
and made ready
to be consumed
for Evermore.
Ravens can’t read
after all.
https://www.ekphrastic.net/the-ekphrastic-challenges/stef-rocknak-ekphrastic-writing-responses
Thursday, 26 January 2023
A Familiar Story
It’s a familiar story
well told
and many of us can identify
with some part of him -
Odysseus the escapee,
Odysseus the wanderer,
the adventurer,
the explorer,
the leaver of a past life
and embracer of the new.
We’ve all desired
to sail away
in boats that fly
as quick as thoughts
and at some point, we’ve all
ate the sun god’s cattle
and paid the price.
We’ve all described our relationships
as “complicated,”
or wanted to.
It’s a familiar story
well told.
Each landing was a new challenge
in a newly discovered land
inhabited by Other people,
Other creatures
monstrous beings
to be vanquished by superior swords
or stolen to serve
as housekeepers or herders,
to be made into fish food if they resist.
It’s a familiar story
well told.
Then there’s the women
the temptresses
with their beautiful voices
weaving with shuttles made of gold.
Beautiful voices
but dangerous mouths
enticing us with their cupid lips.
And there’s always others,
the ones who seem all mouth
or have many mouths.
We can quieten them.
We can steal them away to become our maids,
our handmaids
as Atwood might describe them.
It’s a familiar story
well told.
And we’ll load up our ship with lotus fruit,
or lounge about while they do it,
and then we’ll forget the long swords
and how we fed the fish
with the heroes of the Resistance.
We’ll be the heroes when we get home.
It’s a familiar story
well told.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSY7LGCC
Odyssey In The Afternoon
I remember that day of the voyage
from the moment the dawn rose
out of the golden globe
and stretched out
pink fingered roses
into the blue
of the morning,
without knowing
what was to come after,
in the afternoon
when the wind took us
to a strange land.
But I embraced its strangeness
and its indolent contented people
who showed me the lotus
and smiled
as I bit into the delight
of its flowers and fruits,
savoured it’s dreamy sensations
with no need to wonder
what would to come after,
there were only afternoons,
forever afternoons.
But the moment
when I woke,
shook myself awake,
I dragged us all away
out of fear of forgetting,
forgetting where I’d come from,
forgetting where I should go
and before I forgot to leave that place
with it’s soporific days
of perpetual afternoon.
And in the evening
as night fell
to envelop me
stretching out
its grey blanket
and touching me with black,
I wondered
if I would I even remember
sniffing the fragrance
of the flowers
and tasting fruit
alive with the sleepy sensations
of the days of afternoons.
I have already forgotten
to wonder
what came after.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSY7LGCC
Crossing The Line
As the ship drew closer to the line of the equator,
the sea king began to lick his lips in anticipation
of the celebration which would mark the occasion
and of the fat fresh tadpoles which Big O and his
waiters would serve when he returned from the
ceremony.
Of course, tadpoles that could swim in the ocean
were unknown,
but Big O knew that the frogs on board would have
given birth long before the line was crossed.
Tadpoles were the king’s favourite party food and he
had already a collection of shells to serve them in.
He had been training the waiters for some time.
He always did when they heard that a ship was
approaching the line.
His octopuses were in great demand.
With eight arms they were the king’s waiters of choice
and he had more standing by ready to become wine waiters.
They would serve the rum that would be gifted when the
king went on board and roared and waved his sceptre
around a bit and struck the deck with three loud raps to
signal his judgement on which tadpoles should become
food for his homecoming party and which he could call
his sons and trust to raise frogs to supply his future treats.
The octopuses waited, wondering how hard they must work
before the king and his retinue were sated and sleepy from
fat tadpoles and watery rum.
It would all depend on the bargain struck on board,
tadpoles for now or more tadpoles for later,
rum for the king, or more rum for the waiters.
Big O always tried to assess the king’s mood before he made
his judgement.
It would be a clue as to how many shells would be needed
after the ceremony.
Small shells were easy for the waiters to collect, but the large
ones to hide the rum for later were hard work and needed
several arms to fill them and stash them in the sand out of
sight for when the king and his followers slept.
As usual the sleeping king dreamt of octopuses dancing
drunkenly on his table and was that Big O wearing his crown?
He woke, combed the weed from his hair, retrieved his crown
from under the table and pondered.
Did he really see it on the head of Big O in his dream?
Recurring dreams were such a strange thing, he mused.
Then, puzzled, he surveyed the broken shells on the table.
He wondered how they came to be broken.
Had his dream come true?
He straightened his crown and looked for his sceptre to
bang on the ground.
He really must speak with Big O.
Somehow, he thought, a line had been crossed.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSY7LGCC
The Power Of Gods
He would have had an easier journey
if he hadn’t harmed Neptune’s son.
He should have beat a hasty retreat
from the sailor-eating giant
leaving him unharmed by anybody
or nobody.
And Aeolus’s gift of winds to speed them homewards
was not a blessing when Neptune heard about it.
So unsurprising that he magicked the sailors
into letting the winds out of their bag
with a chorus of “all together now”.
What did he expect!
Gods are powerful,
some more than others.
The blinding his son was a fairly big offence in Neptune’s eyes
and having control of the seas is a pretty impressive power.
So, Odysseus paid the price.
And then there was Circe.
Not only the goddess daughter of Titan,
Circe was also a witch,
of course she was,
she was female
so it went with the territory,
but her magic skills
were more renowned than most
and thus more feared by men
and rightly so.
I wonder if he ate pork in his year long stay.
I wonder if he counted the swine restored to sailors
or if he preferred not to know if any were missing.
I like to think he knew she bested him
with her roasted pork and crispy bacon.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSY7LGCC