Ibises

Phillip Hodgins wrote one.

A great one about ibises.

They were a less scraggly, dissolute lot

than mine. Less louche.

I like the way he described them:

‘They had bodies the shape of caraway seeds,

and long black bills that curved like scythes’.

There is awe in his writing, respect.

He speaks of them flying in great flocks

casting deep shadows over the land

before descending like gods

beneficent as rain

aerating the soil, grubbing for bugs..

The farmer’s friend.

The Sacred Ibis of ancient Egypt.

I think I sold the ibises short.

• pic courtesy of Wiki Commons

Everything Small and Modest

Everything Small and Modest

Robert looks happy here.

Eyes lit up like lamps

full of wonder..

He is on one of his long walks

from the asylum,

He has spotted something.

Perhaps it is a wood pigeon

clearing its throat.

Or a song thrush balancing on a twig,

beak open ready to burst into song.

Everything small and modest

is pleasant and beautiful. Robert declared.

He looks dapper here, and in good  health

certainly better that he did when he was found

dead in the snow that Xmas day in’ 56,

the photograph that ghouls pore over.

He didn’t write much in those last years

at the asylum , letting himself off the hook,

declaring, I am here to be mad, not to write.

• pic courtesy of pinterest

The One No One Wanted

The One No One Wanted.

It was the one no one wanted

The last one on the shelf

The one no one wanted, I didn’t

Much want it myself.

But there were no others

So I had little choice

The one that all had shunned

I purchased myself.

And Oh it fitted the bill

To the nth degree

So the one no one wanted

Was the right one for me.

*pic pinterest

Breviary

K’s fond of haiku,

Michael senryu, its jokey cousin;

Mia, ‘a struggling author’ writes tiny tales,

Richard American sentences,

put them together,

and what have you got?

a slim, selection

of shorts,

a breviary of brevities

a pocket book of poems

for the wee small hours

Axe Throwing

Axe Throwing

My daughter has been Axe Throwing with some friends from work.

Apparently it is the new thing.

It’s a bit like darts only more dangerous,

I’ve been hit with a dart in the hand,

Being hit with a hatchet would be a totally different thing.

People are encouraged to bury the hatchet in the target not in each other.

This is not ‘Vikings’.

It looks like fun. I’m thinking of going along.

But I keep thinking of real heads I’d like to bury the hatchet into.

‘Ditherers’

 ‘Ditherers’ 

There’s a place at the slow end of town

where the fussy and fastidious

can’t-make-up-their- minds go.

It’s called ‘Ditherers’, a little hither

of Yon.

It’s where you mull over the menu

menacingly slow.

And dishes are consumed at a pace

only snails know.

Where anecdotes meander for miles

while the night nods off

and the moon hangs low,

There’s a diner called ‘Ditherers’

where minds to and fro.

Maybe: An Enigma

Maybe: An Enigma.

Maybe if I had played my cards

a little closer to my chest,

you wouldn’t then have known

that I had played my best;

now I have to wait

for your tom foolery

to decide what to do

with the rest of me

*pic courtesy of wikipedia

Roughage

Roughage.

Like Tom Waits’ voice.

The grit and gristle of life.

The rumble tumble.

The rush and the roar.

Like Xmas. New year.

The whirligig and whoopsie cushion.

You’re on it, babe.

There’s no getting off,

You wouldn’t want to.

It’s the roughage that stirs things up.

That lets you know you’re alive.

Like them Brooklyn Girls on the downtown train

and you’re shining like a new dime.

*pic courtesy of pinterest

*lyrics tom waits

Bono in the Car

Can’t keep Bono in the car for too much longer.

It’s a warm day, getting warmer.

I can’t let Bono get overheated, not on my watch.

He was good enough to come with me,

make himself available.

It’s my fault.

I should have gone to the library AFTER

I had done my grocery shopping

but I was excited. The book had just come in.

What if someone nicked it?

After all, the book is in high demand.

53 requests for it when I put my name down

and only 5 copies.

Bono would have been proud.

And I want to get home quickly and start getting into it,

before the heat starts curling the pages,

and Bono starts sweating.

I’ve seen him live, the sweat oozing out of him.

It’s a bloat of a book at 563 pages.

I hope he’s good at prose writing as he is

in writing songs.

But first there’s these veggies to get.

Hang on, Bono. Won’t keep you waiting long

*pic courtesy of pinterest

A Short Venomous Tale

A Short Venomous Tale

It is the venomous time of evening.

Sun setting. Close and muggy.

Her eyes dart around like mosquitos.

zeroing in on the small group at the edge of the pool

sipping G & T’s.

She settles on her prey, the malicious Minerva.

Punctures her composure, draws blood.

She will not be swatted.

She is feeling positively encephalitic.

*pic courtesy of pinterest