You're on a roll, Dan.

I'm enjoying all of these poems.

I'm struggling this year where it looks like others have fleshed out some thoughtful verses.

The Santa Ana's zap and weaken my resolve.
Maybe I just need therapy. Ha!
A classic from Not Funny U.

Napo 4 - 2021 - Two 'spears' for Saatchi & Saatchi.

Master 'M', the armourer,
received a rush order.
And, for a hefty fee,
worked his fiery magic overnight.
A craftsman's sleepless frenzy. 

Two Pilums, Roman javelins,
as deadly as the originals.
Wooden butt, soft iron shaft
and a lethal 'diamond' point.
Props for an ad campaign.

No fancy wrapping,
just two luggage labels,
hanging from string
with hand-penned address.

Delivered by a 'four hour' courier,
who found the office still closed,
with no-one to sign,
and only a slim letter flap
in the stylishly crested door.

But like the Roman legions
he had a job to do.

He rammed them through the hole,
felt the resistance but kept pushing.
Slipped the delivery note after them
'Delivered as addressed.'

The secretary, opening the office,
felt the resistance but still got in,
slipping her gym-honed body
and high heels through the gap.

Amongst the morning's mail,
two stark reminders of history..
Points driven deep into her desk,
flexible shafts bent as designed,
butts jammed against the door.

Saachi's phoned in a panic,
"They're broken!"
"Not at all, just bend them straight.
That's what the Romans did."

Gyppo

Quote from: DGSquared on April 04, 2021, 07:51:31 AM
You're on a roll, Dan.

Thanks, Deb.
I made things easy for myself by deciding on a theme (my novel) and a form, the cinquain.
It takes the decision-making bit out of the equation, which I find incredibly helpful.

Here's today's offering



highroad

guileless
hero takes flight
despised child remembers
rebel rises to challenge past
failures

April 4

Bee-loud Glade

W.B. did not need to concern himself
with murder hornets on his idyllic island.
Reading his words now
I am saddened by his innocence.
I wonder if he really did arise and go there:
live alone in the glowing, glimmering
world he envisioned. Was he ever disillusioned?
Union of opposites he said--synthesis.
Innisfree/Byzantium: nature/art.
We have yet to learn the outcome:
either/or is still too much with us.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/murder-hornets-new-nests-washington-canada-scientists/

#4
Affairs

I've gone out with too many to count,
the sharp and sexy,
the athletic type
runners and trainers
of course, my favorites, the endurance hikers.

I've had my share of thick ones,
courted the classy, flashy, wine you and dine you type.
I've had 'em in boots;
dress boots, cowboy boots,
the occasional, tall ankle-breakers,
skimpy sand dwellers.
My newest attraction, the rugged river kayakers.

They hide in my closet and under my bed.
So many affairs with
my sole mates.

~Deb
21/04/04 (SP)

#4B

Beached

I gazed in the face of the moon.
watched the waves dance in the moonlight,
while the moonbeams surfed the shore before the break.
The ocean crashed on the beach as if angry with the goading rocks,
before the sea shunned the sand and absconded back to the churning depths.
The rolling motion of the ocean's tides chanted a lullaby that made me forget I was drowning.


~Deb
21/04/04 (SP)

Revised last L.

Beached

I gazed in the face of the moon.
watched the waves dance in the moonlight,
while the moonbeams surfed the shore before the break.
The ocean crashed on the beach as if angry with the goading rocks
before the sea shunned the sand and absconded back to the churning depths.
Rolling ocean's tides chanted a lullaby that washed over me until I forgot I was drowning.


~Deb

Napo 5 - 2021 - 5 am fidgets.

Some nights I  sleep deep,
but briefly.
Today it was the 5 am fidgets,
wide awake again,
no thoughts of sleeping.
Not the least bit tired.
This isn't insomnia.

The neighbour's homes are dark,
apart from one little window,
the child with a nightlight.
That soft orange glow
gently warding off the darkness.

The sun is still lurking,
below the horizon.

Even the bloody Internet is quiet.
Time for a drink, and a read.
Two pleasures not, mercifully,
ruled by the clock.

Gyppo

Couldn't resist an extra one.

Napo 5a - 2021 - Nanny

'Nanny' was a tough old lady,
forged in the fire of two world wars,
several lesser conflicts,
and a hard peasant lifestyle.

But she wasn't poor,
just wed to habitual thrift.

She answered to two surnames,
one she was born with,
known and revered in local legend,
the other shared with her son
and the man who fathered him.

She hated the courtesy title of Missus,
having shunned ceremony and paperwork.
"But a boy should have his father's name."

Once a week she collected rent,
from several properties she owned.
Bricks and mortar were her security,
and bundled banknotes,
stashed away in secret corner.

On her big black upright bicycle,
wheels fitted with dress-guards,
her crow-black figure
made the rounds.

My uncle, a child with a toy snake,
tied it to the rear fork of her bicycle
whilst she was indoors, collecting.

It was a proper wooden snake,
realistically painted.
Many irregular flexible segments,
making it wriggle convincingly
when pulled on a string.

Clambering onto her bike
she saw it lying alongside,
and panicked.
Probably the only thing she feared,
or at least admitted to.

She raced through village streets
howling like a demented witch,
ragged clothes flapping.
Whenever she looked down
the snake effortlessly kept pace.

She flung her bike aside,
screaming for her son
as she ran indoors.
"Kill it!  Kill it!"

Minutes later he came back in,
wriggling it by the tail,
laughing with his whole body,
as only a country boy can laugh.

"I don't want to see it!
It chased me from the last cottage!"

Later he took it back to my uncle,
who retouched the paintwork,
scuffed and chipped
in the headlong flight
over gravel and grit.

And a local legend was born.

Gyppo

Day 5

secrets

thief yields
mighty dragon
limp knight shields lame warlord
combat master travels the world
beyond

April 5

Veils of the Mourning

The Bereaved can't grieve in private.
Televised, they blow their noses,
wipe their eyes with twisted wads
of tissues.

An elder presses head
to laptop trying to stop the images;
reliving the reality he could not stop.

Stop you're killing him--

(shouts in a young girl's cellphone).
A voice-over the infinite rehashing:

we watch and watch the videos
hoping this time it will turn out different.

Some savior please step forth,
roll the body over, administer
the breath of life, please god, help him--

A crowd bears witness but none, perhaps,
knows the import of this moment
that will play and replay until
it becomes the myth for this time:

all that has been said, familiar,
the same ending, over and over.

Father forgive them?

George Floyd, executed on the street,
calling for his mother. When the rock
is rolled away what revelation?

Wow! Awesomeness galore from every one of my peers here. I am honored to share pages with you.


#5

Misgivings

Groundless suspicions are
like the pitiless snow,
cold and unyielding.
The frequency and the
spectrum of your accusations
mess with my head
like abstract algebra.

Set me free to fly
as a mountain bluebird on the wing.
Don't treat me like
a geisha run amok.
I surrender to the universe
and beg to let me be seen
as I really am, wholesome and true.


~Deb

21/04/05

Day 6

obsessed

killer
prowls in darkness
dragon humbles giant
exile and tribe of lords unite
for life

Napo 6 - 2021 - A Summoning?"

2 am, alone in the forge,
communing with history,
meeting another impossible deadline.
Usually self-inflicted. 
'Moving metal' with a hammer,
and Vulcan's fiery breath.
Forging a sword.

A battered tape machine playing.
Hendrix bouncing off the walls,
Voodoo Child,
absorbed into the darkness
of surrounding fields.

'M' The Armourer,
in his element.
Ragged working clothes,
roughly sewn from blankets,
old curtains and suchlike.
Heavy stuff which catches sparks,
without bursting into flame.

Plus his filthy medieval hat,
the long-tailed blood-red 'liripipe',
growing shorter each year,
nibbled by flame and machinery.
Often used like an oven glove.

A knock on the smoke-smeared glass
a glimpse of black and red beyond.
He thinks it's me, 
having a restless night,
and opens the door.

A stranger stood there,
a curious time-warp figure,
a classic 60s Hippy,
thirty years adrift.

"I was hitching on the bypass, Man.
No traffic but I heard your sounds,
just had to check them out."

'M' pushed the kettle onto the forge.
"I can offer you tea,
if you'll make one for me.
I'm busy though."

The Hippy obliged, but looked puzzled,
bewildered by the archaic tools,
mesmerised by the glowing hearth
and the medieval ambience.
Totally failed to understand why.
"Who wants to play at war?"

They talked for an hour,
a rambling dialogue on music,
festivals, and dead guitar heroes.
Interspersed with noisy hammering
and the hiss of quenching metal. 

'M' gave him a sandwich,
then the Hippy cocked his head,
listening to the world outside..
"Sounds like the traffic's picking up,
 time to wag my thumb again, Man."

As the day dawned so did the thought...
Was his laid-back visitor real?
Or the ghost of a long dead hitcher,
summoned by the voice of Hendrix?

Gyppo

If you don't know the Hendrix tune, here's a link.  Imagine the opening chords echoing out into the otherwise night-quiet countryside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZBlqcbpmxY

April 6

Bigamist

He's been gone much longer than usual this time,
we have no idea where until this envelope arrives
postmarked from Florida
inside, a single photo, 3x5, there they are.

She's in a green dress, probably taffeta,
wearing a goofy net headpiece
that flairs out in every direction, looking all lovesick.

He's leaning over her grinning right into the camera.
They're cutting a wedding cake with
a little bride and groom on top.

Mom says its not legal, puts the photo
in the shoebox inside her closet
and we all stop waiting for him to come home.

Wow.

Just a note to let you all know I'm reading these and enjoying them.