So I Tried Something New

Nothing would come.

Constipation of the mind.

So what do you take?

Something new. A photo. Chosen at random.

What to call it?

The Light at the End of the Tunnel.

That’s what it’s like now.

Masks come off just before Easter.

The QR codes are gone except for medical facilities.

It has been a dark and claustrophobic journey

especially for those in isolation.

There;s the Ukraine War.

We are still in the tunnel with that one.

But it looks as if the tide is turning.

Those rigid tracks

but the train of progress has to travel

along something.

O glorious light.

See, you can get something from nothing.

Two Moons

.

Look, she says. There are two moons tonight. Do you think that means anything?

Like end times, you mean?

I don’t know, she says. It can’t be good.

We move closer. There they are above the rooftops, one higher and to the right of the other.

Someone in the ranch-style house across the road switches the porch light on and joins us.

My ex phoned, he says. She saw it too. She’s bit of a sky watcher.

So we stand there out the front as one disc, then the other veer off in a north-easterly direction, silent as full moons.

That Little Imp

When my writing ‘seizes up’ like my laptop

when it gets too stiff, formal, clunky

I call in my little imp

that firecracker of mischief

to get in amongst the words

like a dog

amongst the sheep

to shake them out of their torpor,

their locked in state,

nip a few ankles if necessary

give them the run-around

so everything’s loosened, wide awake,

shifted,

moving again

then ,

I can call him off

& when the dust settles the poem settles too

into something like

normalcy

relaxed, loose, easy.

Seized

You went after that photo like it was prey, she said. You were a fox, a panther, ferocious, determined.

You make it sound heroic.

It was also stupid, she snapped. There was no place to stop. You could have been hit by a car, that blue sedan in the photo, for instance, that beeped you to get off the road,

There was no other way, I said.

You could have let it go.

Never, When you are seized, you have no choice. You go after it like Amy Winehouse goes after the chorus of ‘Valerie’ or Eric Clapton the elation chords of ‘Layla’. There is total surrender to the feeling.The pursuit is everything.

The photo isn’t even that good, she said.

I got what I wanted. The sign. I would have climbed a precipice to get it

Sometimes I don’t understand you, she said.

Come on, I said, grabbing her hand, as we hopped back in the car and continued our journey, that sign disappearing in the rear-view

Devil of a Prompt

This little red demon is driving me mad. Why? Because I can’t come up with a poem or flash fiction piece or even a caption to go with it.  Can you? Would love to hear what you come up with. Please post your contribution in the comment column. It will be great to see the results. The little red demon will be pleased too

Ghost Galahs

I want to photograph the galahs

clowning on the bare limbs

of the Norfolk pines

but the buggers won’t keep still

 

racing around like particles

inside a Hadron Collider.

Just as you line up a couple

They’d be elsewhere.

 

All I needed was a panoramic shot

But then they’d be off

Across the river, raucous as a footy crowd..

Better off snapping flowers,

blossoms.

Can Someone Feel like a Car?

Can someone feel like a car?

A burnt out car?

That’s how he feels at the moment.

Run down. Abandoned. Torched.

Oh, he’s bit of a drama queen, he knows

But it helps if you’re a poet.

Conveyancers, Real Estate Agents, Bank Managers

& the endless decluttering.

He always wanted to be a minimalist

So now he is.

And that countdown. Prisoners on Death Row

Must feel it.

The drama queen again.

Less than three weeks now.

He better get on with it and stop blogging!

 

Shut

Perhaps I’m missing out, I thought, but the more he banged on about his lathes, routers and table saws, whipping out his mobile snaps of bench tops, bread boards, dodgy cricket bats and the blocky blokes around him in the Men’s Shed, I thought not and when he finally asked me what I did and I said chirpily, I write poetry, conversation shut down like a roller door.

Two Moons

.Look, she says. Look. There are two moons tonight. Do you think that means anything?

Like end times, you mean?

I don’t know, she says. It can’t be good.

We move closer. There they are above the rooftops, one higher and to the right of the other.

Someone in the ranch-style house switches the porch light on and joins us.

My ex-wife phoned, he says. She saw it too. She’s bit of a sky watcher.

So we stand there out the front as one then the other veer off in a north-easterly direction, silent and glowing as moons.

You Shouldn’t have Written That

You shouldn’t have written that poem, he said.

What poem?

That short one about brain tumors.

But I wrote it before her daughter …. I protested.

Doesn’t matter. She needn’t be reminded of it.

I can’t take it back. It’s out there now.

You didn’t have to give her the book the poem was in. Each time she reads it she’ll be reminded.

But …

You could have pulled it, he said. It didn’t have to be there.

He was right. It didn’t. But it was a good poem.  My editor said it had to go in. Anyway it wasn’t about Jess. It was written about a tumor I had seen in Scientific American, how beautiful it was, how like the wings of a butterfly unfurling into the hemispheres of the brain.

 

Are there subjects we should not write about?