For The Weekend

WORDLE # 154    MLMM

trash talk, tough, ugly, opinion, galvanize,outre,leer,staunch,grid,murky, repair, fist bump

lovely party
lovely people
refugees
young and old across the grid
galvanized to repair to tolerate
and accept cultural differences
all staunch  decent folk
in need of a fresh start
a new home
no tough ugly trash talk
no outre opinions voiced
no murky creepy  leering
just everyone having a good time
cool
they deserve a chance





sadly
despite  the fist bumping
and the banners
the truth is:




the lip servers
the  many
opposed to this concept in theory
in reality
have practised it
since time immemorial

blame the fall
blame the popular prejudices of the day
blame whatever

tis unlikely to change anytime soon
on the farm
in the jungle
anywhere

and so it goes
and so it goes



Midweek Motif- Poets United

Happiness

Poets United is losing
our tour de force of happiness

she inherited that contagious cackle
from her grandma

shines generosity joy and hope
on all who encounter her

roams the wilderness with wolves
cultivates little pot plants on her balcony

shares beautiful poems with us
written in her office - a big purple bed

hoping that one day management
will send a window cleaning team around
preferably the one with the brazilians

keeps her dancing shoes under the pillows
just in case:)

will miss you




happiness is spontaneous
an office dance party
courtesy of a brazilian window cleaner

Love

love is
having a cuppa together
sharing everything
two take on the world

A Bee

a bee
staggers out
of the peony

Matsuo Basho







lands on a drink
striped sozzled and buzzing 
too woozy to attack

Midweek Motif Poets United

SKY PASSAGE - Paam9

Aqua blue , rolling foam froth white, summer sunset pink with hint of lime

An American Sentence

 .
Synesthesia....Imaginary garden with real toads.

Wordle # 151 - Mind Love Misery Menagerie

  Broken Glass, Ash, Glimmer , Swell  , Sleeve , Sanctuary
  Bark, Giggle, Skin,  Cumulus Clouds, Harmony , Sweep


Titian

did a lot of wandering about
head in cumulus  clouds
during the lonely time
in that city

the national art gallery became a sanctuary
my swell of hope
the glimmer of your skin and harmony
in the blue quilted sleeve painting
swept all the ash and broken glass from my life

must have been barking mad
to fall in love with a canvas
was always looking for someone
who looked like you
gives me a giggle to remember it now
still have a print

Berceuse de Jocelyn

Nana's Kitchen

i never wear an apron
like you did
don't shell peas
don't grind coffee beans by hand
or make fresh mayonnaise 
anymore


i still marinate my own olives
remove all the stalk from the parsley
flatten the garlic with my hands
make all your recipes
and remember how to test a mango for sweetness

still use your battered little red saucepan
and i always have a cactus on the kitchen window sill
just like yours to remind myself of what it is like to have known
a truly generous selfless and loving human being
miss you darling


Sherry's mid- weekend   challenge...Imaginary Gardens with Real Toads



'

Big Art By Night

dwarfed
by beauty

feast
for the eyes

food
for the soul

Sunday Muse # 73

how many times
has she been told
not to dress up
in grandma's clothes
particularly her corsets
somehow
they look different on granny

Wordle # 150 - MLMM

rule, slubber , slip, find out, brag, saturday
rarefied, shoes, north , buy, 100 yards, kill

find out the rules
before bragging to everyone
that you are going to win the race
on saturday

those old shoes
will kill your feet
you wont make 100 yards
mr slubber dub doo

buy some new ones
from that rarefied  shop
on the north shore
and dont forget to slip  diana
those golden apples

G.A. Brescianello (1690-1758) Concerti Sinfonie Overture

it's spring
its the weekend
time for a spring clean

Sunday's Whirligig

until apartment stairs flank flamingo kitchen 

basil garden maps sorrows burn cruise

THIS WEEK'S WORDS come from "Magellan Street, 1974" by Maxine Kumin:

 

the flamingos

on the letter box have faded and are no longer  pink 

your lovely old house has now been divided into apartments

the kitchen garden  with its mint and basil has gone

 

the memory of you

is burned into the map

of most of my life

 

we went to the same school

naughty girls always getting detention

for sliding down the stair banister 

we were tweedle dee and tweedle dum

your dad called us the giggling gerties

we were inseparable best friends

 

we shared sleepovers holidays

took our first boat cruise together 

after high school

had a lot of fun

dancing all night until sun up

 

i introduced you to your husband

we both married in the same year

our children played together

then you moved away

we lost touch

 

 tired of the one way trip

i stopped initiating contact

decided to wait for you to call instead

you never did

 

 Surprise !

you contacted me

the stranger you forgot long ago

out of the blue last week

it has been more than twenty years 

best you should know...

 

Poetic Gem - " Majellan St 1974 "

This is the year you fall in
love with the Bengali poet,
and the Armenian bakery stays open
Saturday nights until eleven
across the street from your sunny
apartment with steep fo'c'sle stairs
up to an attic bedroom.
Three-decker tenement flank you.
Cyclone fences enclose
flamingos on diaper-size lawns.

This is the year, in a kitchen
you brighten with pots of basil
and untidy mint, I see how
your life will open, will burst from
the maze in its walled-in garden
and streak towards the horizon.
Your pastel maps lie open
on the counter as we stand here
not quite up to exchanging
our lists of sorrows, our day books,
our night thoughts, and burn the first batch
of chocolate walnut cookies.

Of course you move on,
my circumnavigator.
Tonight as I cruise past your corner,
a light goes on in the window.
Two shapes sit at the table.


Maxine Kumin, from Nurture Poems (Penguin Books).

Starry Starry Night

going to bed
with vincent on a
starry starry night




regardless of weather
every night is a starry night
at this kid's place




bed time always an adventure
looking up at the planets and stars
dreams of being an astronaut





twinkle twinkle little star
no one will ever see
your diamond in the sky




supernova?
a conjunction of venus and jupiter?
a comet ?
or maybe just
the christmas star

Midweek Motif - Poets United

Helen Harmonica And The Poetic Exiles

Guest Listed ! with Helen Dehner 
Imaginary Garden with Real Toads

nicely risque with an overlay of virtue
a sort of  up market debra harry
with an audacious sense of humour
helen is about to launch herself
as a rising pop star


helen harmonica and the poetic exiles
will be the next sensation
shame there will be little time
for her  poetic contributions 
her absence has been missed
these are the sacrifices one must make
as an avant- garde artiste in demand
with fans clamouring for more appearances 

it is a consensus of opinion
that her success will be impressive
also there is  an assumption
that her down to earth personality
and good common sense
will be the bedrock of  her newly acquired fame
we know she will never become enmeshed
in the toxic trauma of super stardom

GO HELEN


Absence
Assumption
Audacious
Avant-garde
Bedrock
Clamor
Consensus
Enmeshed
Exile
Risqué
Sacrifice
Shame
Toxic
Trauma
Virtue

Wordle # 149 MLMM in An Imaginary Garden With Real Toads

Wordle 149
spoil sweet overtones rough unflinching
elide banalize back green motionless prey


there's always a spoiler
masquerading as a sweet thing
a rough alley cat amongst the pigeons
a motionless tiger
ready to pounce on its prey
green with envy
back biting bitching banal
unflinching in spite
desperate for attention and sympathy
overtones of  the persecuted
and she probably looks just like this




Seamstress... Cat Shappach

best decision to elide and to  delete

Springtime For Hitler The Producers

FOR THE WEEKEND




it is also
a multiple of pinpricks
that eventually deflates
the overblown balloon
the fragile ego of the oppressor

Sundays Whirligig # 230

she listened to the river

flowing calmly 

by her bedroom window

dreaming of his arms around her

 

 

the reality was

he was spoken for

 

she had been burned before

hanging on to empty promises

wanting to believe  the weaving

of false hope

 

the whole thing was destructive

the break had to be final 

 

bed river room burned listened weaving 

empty dreaming final calm spoke arms

THIS WEEK'S WORDS come from "The Loft" by Richard Jones:

Thinking Outside The Box

unorthodox method
discouraging cheating
in literacy exams
down mexico way




 https://www.thesun.co.uk › news › teacher-forces-students-box-cheating-exam

Mid Week Motif - Poets United

50 years ago
a young schoolgirl
waited at a bus stop

an old man came along
sat down next to her
asked if she could read his letter

she began to read it for him
she remembers it was a personal letter
her bus arrived

she apologised
did not want to but got on the bus
being late for school was a serious offence
in those days

she looked at him as the bus moved off
she still remembers his upset face
she remembers the terrible rush of guilt
she still feels terribly sad
about leaving that old man with his letter unread
to this day

needless to say she
she has been on the literacy 'for all' band wagon
banging the tambourines
ever since

Joyeux Anniversaire Memere

beautiful spring weather
you would have been 107 today
your bracelet never leaves my wrist
always in my thoughts
happy birthday darling

Wordle #148 - MindLoveMisery Menagerie

omphaloskepsis mold cushion bittersweet sister trend

paper airplanes hug disdain freeze eat lead






omphaloskepsis
embroidered across a now mouldy cushion
in bold colours
bittersweet memories

his trendy sister gave it to me as a birthday present
light years ago
he was a strange esoteric creature
loved eating blinis with caviar
strumming his lute and singing elizabethan folk songs
under the fig tree in the garden



it went down like a lead balloon with most girls
considered pretentious and  evoked disdain

i still have
the  paper airplanes
covered in hugs kisses and messages
scribbled in ancient greek
he put in my deep freeze
to surprise me

i liked him

For The Weekend

first day of spring
survived yet another winter
happy fathers day
to all the dads