Photo by Merlin Lightpainting on Pexels.com This looks suspiciously like AI, but it might just be excellent lighting…
A Smack of Jellyfishes
Why is it a smack of jellies ? Well, of old it never was – For this is very much a modern coinage, Likely just because. But then, it’s pretty harmless, and it raises giggles, I confess – Though who has ever needed to employ it ? Surfers, I would guess.
But why a smack? Is that a ref’rence To the whip-crack of the sting ? As metaphor, of course, because they’re silent When they’re blistering. Or are they ? Do they bump against the hull When sailing through a crowd ? But even then, I can’t imagine That they’re headbutts are that loud…
But sailing makes me think of fishing boats, And weren’t those called a smack ? And I can see them forming a flotilla, Drifting in a pack – Although, a fishing boat needs miles of room To cast its nets at sea – You only spot them on their own, Except when clustered at the quay.
But wait, I think a smack is Anglo-Saxon For a pep of taste – A silent pop, a gentle jolt, To show this aspic ain’t so chaste. Or are we simply fools to swim in spicy waters, Where they’ve snuck ? I guess we sometimes smack of arrogance, And prove ourselves a schmuck ?
Day 5 – Smack – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
The AI managed to even make it look like it’s been inflated…
Badland Barons
Spaghetti Westerns filmed in Spain – Was that because the cactus got there first ? Invading through the dry terrain, And perfect with some charros interspersed… Alas, the only ones we see Are squat and unromantic prickly pears – Saguaros need a century To even grow those cowboy arms of theirs. Instead, they had to turn to fakes For long-shots standing-in as Arizona – Moving flats between the takes To look more Tucson, look less Barcelona… Were there not native spurges That could act the part as extras on the set ? Although, what now emerges Is a weird, invasive hybrid – better yet !
Day 4 – Cactus – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Model railways run in circles, Through the days of steam, All cobbled-streets and Northern quirk-ful, In a Thirties dream – A spotless, frozen neighbourhood, Bedecked with tiny trees, And terraces of balsa-wood, And cardboard factories. This world had vanished long before These modellers were born, But here, in H-O scale once more, It’s elegantly worn. They never show the modern world, It seems – no urban sprawl. Perhaps they take so long to build, It sets their sights so small…?
Day 3 – Miniature – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
What makes Mona Lisa smile ? Well, some say it’s the genius Of Leonardo’s toils – That undefining dreaminess, That soul bared free, that hallowed style, Not me – No, I say it’s the pigments in his oils That manifests his guile.
And now that she’s been painted, see, She’s micrometre points-of-colour – Sometimes brighter, sometimes duller – Quantified by RGB, And shared by log and file. Leonardo’s canvas is just that, And not some holy relic – Just a poplar panel, nothing more.
What matters is no artefact, And art critics aren’t clerics, And a gallery is not a sacred store, With treasures by the pile. No – it’s the image, not the paint, That we must cherish like a saint, And never leave to perish – But the board is just wooden tile.
And though there’s some may be indignant, We can print with oil and pigment Perfect copies, big and small – Let’s have a thousand-Lisa free-for-all ! I’d say she’s worth the while… Her beauty should be on the move, Beyond the Louvre, to ev’ry wall – So anyone can recreate her smile.
Day 2 – Relic – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Orchards are lower these days, The rootstock is stumpy on which they are grafted – The trunks barely over our shoulders, The branches still reachable, that’s how they’re crafted. Their forests don’t crowd in a maze, But spaced to let sunlight turn crabs into plumpers – And these aren’t some wind-fallen moulders, But lures to tempt deer in, and blackbirds, and scrumpers. So take care when walking these ways – For all that they’re waxen, these fruit can be hairy When boughs can be heavy with boulders, All lurking at head-height, to catch the unwary…
Day 1 – Apple – #inktober #inktoberpoem #inktoberpoetry
Well, there’s no denying that Autumn is with us, so it must be time for the annual month of fertility that is Inktober.
As as in previous years, my lack of drawing talent shall not restrain my fingers from sketching across the keyboard in a series of short and silly vignettes.
Though I do have to say that I have been thoroughly underwhelmed by the choice of words this year, as if all the interesting ones have already been taken. And I made a concerted effort to write them strictly in order, without looking-ahead at later prompts, all the time thinking ‘surely the next word will be something more potent…?’
I must be getting old, But this doesn’t feel so much fun anymore. Lis’ning to a pub band this weekend, And suddenly the music’s not my friend. The racket left me cold – It wasn’t they were bad, as such, for sure… But the PA was too loud – now there’s a phrase That I never thought I’d utter all my days…! They looked so middle-aged, And so much less rock-&-roll as hokey-cokey. So bald and fat and wheezy, just like me, As they played their wall-of-sludge cacophony. For all the singer raged, His voice was lost within the karaoke – I hate to say, but cranked up to eleven, How they felt so out-of-place in rural Devon. It’s me, though, truth be told – My hearing just can’t tease their notes apart. Though what has left me breathless ain’t the loud, But the unrelenting crushing of the crowd. I must be getting old, If I’m waiting for the interval to start… So sad and sobering a Sunday a outing Now…where are all those clouds that need a shouting…?
