Thumbprint (in nonsense you find the occasional truth)

“Being overly selective
can make doors
appear much smaller”
said the rabbit to Alice.

And the world is placed
under a microscope at times
too much too often,
thought Alice abstractedly.

“You slide what remains
beneath the looking glass,
and strive for focus trying
to make some sense
out of just how jabberwocky
certain things can be,
like a tip of a thumb
who forgets it possesses fingers.”

“Discoveries always
come with odd contents
of unique appetites,
they are the opposite
to eat-all-you-can buffets.”
continued the rabbit.

Alice frowned,
she wasn’t at all sure
quite what that meant,
but thought the rabbit might
have ingested something
out of the ordinary.

He went on,
“They can often make
my hands fingerless.
My thumb, hungry
to pull out the new drawer.”

“But you never had
any fingers to begin with,
and least of all, a thumb”
considered Alice.

The White Rabbit thought
this very true, yet frankly saw
no reason why it should
stop him from doing anything
any differently in the least.

Hedwig

Into the castle grounds
comes the courier
and the Dark Lord himself
tonight prevails, prevents
all messages from entering,
adding danger upon danger
and terror to the skies!

Onwards the white owl flies,
from rampart to icy rampart,
into the conjured snow,
against irresistible
back-turning malevolent winds,
how they measure
the determined beats
of his loyal, weathered,
pale outstretched wings.

These protected castle walls,
with broken ledges unlandable
and windows as slippery
as Slytherins turned red-faced
from rained counter charms;
so tossed once more to the
rump of the tower grounds.

Yet, some things do swerve
past the evil minded defenses
time after time again to be
repeated in cheered sentences,
qualities of hope, friendship,
fine feathers and

“You do exaggerate, Hedwig,
This is the Dursley’s!”

coughed Harry shutting out the hail,
three groupie sparrows,
a robin interpreting every word,
two tawny teenage owls,
and a puffed-up boasting bird.

And to continue with this tale
of what safely did land
(I’m sure you understand)
a wet, Gryphindor owl,
and a soaked note from Ron,
carefully flattened to dry out entire
by an electric muggle fire.

I hate faeries

Woodland, hedgerow,
or pearly seaside shell,
park bench variety
or grassy bluebell dell,
no matter, I hate faeries.

Their skimpy songs
repetitive and wrong,
pitched too high and grating,
fed up to here of hearing
of gorgeous, pin-up
beautiful Tom Thumb,
“Tom Tom tidderly Tometty Tom”
performed impromptu inside
my best, my only
copper watering can.

Turn, twist twist the tap full on,
to hear them gurgle gargle
and yet still they squeal
with sparkles of wet delight
Tom this – Tom that,
it repeats on and on.

“Tom Tom tidderly
Tometty Tom
a bum like a plumb,
I’d give him one!”

Oh, shut the faerie fuck up!

I hate faeries.

Can’t I garden in peace!

On grandpa’s boney knees

The skeleton trees of winter,
send bones to you, gramps, another year older,
but do the chills really seem that big
when your old legs look like kindling twigs?
They make my bum go quite lopsized,
truly, your knackered knees are like knives.

You boy, are a darn pest, and a bother!
Questions, questions all day long,
if it’s not one thing, it’s the puzzling other,
and three hours left until you’re collected by mother,
go get that wood and then I’ll answer.

It’s over there, behind that heavy door,
ay, what’s that you say? Yes, yes I’m very sure.

Boney knees indeed! Yes, the log’s outside,
under the snow, with the coals there to find,
lift up the damp wood, look under, look behind,
go on go, Harry, don’t be slow, don’t tarry,
and get a few more if you can carry.
Three? Aye, that’s right, if you would, please,

I didn’t even want the kid on my knees!

Ophelia

One of my paintings. The forest is Cannock Chase, Ophelia is bottom left (just about
visible in the photo as a blob)

It made sense at the time

~

“Climb every mountain,
ford every stream.
Follow every rainbow,
till you find your dream.”

I didn’t find my dream there,
or the one where
Julie Andrews fought
Lemmy from Motorhead,
beat him off with
an upturned umbrella,
then snapped his bass over
her curtained thighs,
saying, “This Warty, is my hill!
Eat Poppin’s brolly!”
and he did too, before jumping.

What an ace of leaps that was.

Sadly, the one I did find,
wasn’t a lemming of current affairs,
but a sultan of sultanas
backdated according to Julie,
from “A few nights ago.”

How did the old prune know?

In that cake recipe,
or was it a dream sponge, I forget,
the king of the grapefruits
set up a live cable broadcast link
while I had to limbo under
a bar of chatty, rotating badgers
(talking forest shit as per usual)
who were part custard part
well, badger oddly enough.

I never questioned the repeats
or the custard element,
well you don’t do you.

~

NB – About the weird connections in dreams
and how it all seems perfectly logical at the time.

Bored? Got 20 minutes?

~ Then watch this brilliant talk on children and creativity.

This is a really interesting talk by Ken Robinson,
thought provoking and funny too.

If you have the time, check it out, you’ll be glad you did.

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html

Summer moon connection

(a little prose tale)

“It’s no use, I’m finished,
my muse has burnt out, gone,
there will be no more words.
I am alas, bereft in a void
of brevity.”,
said the moth to the butterfly.

“Oh, so you’re not coming out
tonight then?”

The butterfly looked at the moth
intently, then upwards.

“No, and don’t try to cheer me
with lunar night magic
or tell me that there’s always time
tomorrow.”, continued the moth.

“Mothy, you big fool!”,

said the fiery, orange butterfly,
she had a surprisingly deep voice
for one of her fragile kind,
and it shook Mothy
like tales of the summer moon.

“You always get melancholy
remembering your Cocoon-day,
man, you have at least

ten days

to live. C’mon, give it a break,
that is as we both know
a veritable lifetime.”

With that the butterfly
flew off, a smile looking back,
with wings, vivid as a lake sunrise
and the moth imagined a poem
about a butterfly
as bright, as cool
as an energy saving light bulb
(if that were possible)

Upon a favoured rhubarb leaf
some three days later,
he carefully wrote it down
intending to show her,
but by then it was too late,
as the butterfly had passed away
that very summer morning.

Even the moon was obscured
that uneasy night, missing
part of its symmetrical shape,
one other crescent half,
then two winged clouds parted
and it unveiled to what he thought
was never seen, not possible,
an orb so fine, so orange,
it might have been electric.

Oh Butterfly, he thought,
you did see my poem.

A little rye

Geologists reputably
discussed each genetic grain
to see the origins of evolution,
the traits of mankind.

How a speck spiralled
through their educated,
discerning hands,
and bonded like a helix
set in individual,
yet collective DNA planet glue.

(Fascinating magazine article)

Me, I examined the grains
in an old oat cracker, eager
for a similar discovery as I
buttered it up.

Then, briefly sidetracked,
unintentionally ate it,
somehow.

Sometime later, I woke up
after a nap in crumbs of doubt,
from a whole packet series
of carefully timed, controlled,
Nobel award-winning experiments.

My scientific finding: crackers
only wheaten the mind.

Oh, the sacrifices I make.