Author: Toastingfork

Not afraid to rhyme.

Rhinos In Name Only

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Rhino in the Mud by Jono Dry

Rhinos In Name Only

Somewhere, in a parallel taiga,
There they are – they never died.
The woolly rhinos guard the Eiger,
Symbols of the Russian pride.
Standing ground against the polar bear,
And hauling Santa’s sleigh,
And touring with the country fair –
In brown and never grey –

But not this Earth, and not this tundra –
So it goes, and so they went –
The climate changed and they went under,
Leaving bones from Greece to Kent.
Their naked cousins still exist, I guess,
Though less divine –
We won’t find them near Inverness
Or swimming in the Rhine.

Orcish Woolly Rhino Riders by Alpine Creations

Uncharted

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Detail from Islandia by Abrahim Ortelius

Uncharted

The maps of old were full of monsters –
Terra incognita !
Back when the darkest continents
Were mysteries of consequence.
Wherever our landlocked pencil wanders
Faster than a cheetah,
Then here be dragons, rest assured,
And natives with the heads of birds.

The maps of old were full of empty,
Till we filled them in.
We went and saw, and came back sad,
That there were no beasts to be had.
We’d spare imagination plenty,
But behemoths were thin –
We’d no leviathans to spare,
Just boring humans, ev’rywhere…

Fill Me

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Books & Butterflies by Steven Levin

Fill Me

They bought me a beautiful, vellum-weight notebook,
For writing my poems, they said –
I guess they were picturing pages of captures
As soon as they popped-in my head,
With my trusty Mont Blanc that’s uncapped at the ready
To lay down a copperplate hand,
With barely a cross-out or spelling mistake,
Just as though my impromptues were planned.

Alas, I am a spidery poet
With so many stabs at a line,
And a cack-handed script from a leaky old biro,
That smudges and tatters the spine.
I write all my poems upon the computer,
That freely forgives me my sprawl –
It isn’t the least bit romantic, I’ll grant,
But it’s that or no verses at all.

I am in awe of those Victorian authors who could write a three-volume novel entirely in longhand, without constant insertions, deletions, and revisions.  Did they infact need to write-out the entire book again as a fair copy ?  But my greatest admiration must go to the Victorian editors who could manage to read all of that handwriting for a thousand-plus pages…

Eternal Journal

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Smile Lines by Baileyarthead

Eternal Journal

Ev’ryone lies to their diary,
We write it with one eye on who will consume it –
Intruders, historians, even our future selves –
Taking the time to polish and to groom it.
We wish it be penned by the person we wish to be,
Entries intended to shine and outlive us –
For who can admit to their ev’ry dark thought ?,
So instead make it safe for our kids to forgive us.

Ev’ryone lies to their diary,
Pretending there’s nothing made-up or excluded –
And maybe we don’t see the spin that we’re adding,
Or the innermost thoughts that have somehow intruded.
For we are the hero of internal monologue,
Archived today as the first-draft of memories –
Write down the best bits, erase all the errors –
We’re rationed for pages, so we only cherish these.

Lonely Gamut

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Girl Reading The Post by Norman Rockwell

Lonely Gamut

What do the guidebooks think of me ?
I wonder how much I impress ?
Do Baedeker and Pevsner both agree
To must-see my address ?
I guess my suburb may be boring
As my background as my job –
But like to hope I’m worth exploring,
As a breather from the mob.
Of course, I think I have a little charm
For those who come to look –
So take a detour – where’s the harm ?
Must ev’rything be by-the-book ?
But maybe I’m an av’rage gaff,
And not a place you’ll reminisce –
At a solid two-stars-and-a-half,
But something safe to miss.

Photo by Athena Sandrini on Pexels.com

All Roads Lead To Roam

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Skywards Bound by Kathrin Longhurst

All Roads Lead To Roam

Where are you roving, our Romany Rhona ?
I’m running to Rome to pursue my persona.
I have to keep going as long as I can,
Or the Pope, when I get there, will be an old man.

Where are you heading, our Harefooted Heather ?
I’m striding to Stockholm to welcome the weather.
I can’t hang around, I’ve a long way to walk through,
Or Odin has no-one but ravens to talk to.

Where are you wending, our Wanderlust Wanda ?
I’m aiming for Athens to pep-up my ponder.
I must chase the rainbow, before it has cleared,
Or else Zeus will have reason to grow a long beard.

Where are you trekking, our Tramp-Treaded Trista ?
I’m casting to Cairo, to visit my vista.
I need to be off, so I’ve no time to chat,
Or else Ra will sink lower and red-faced and fat.

Ultima Thule

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Detail from the Carta Marina by Olaus Magnus

Ultima Thule

Pytheas claimed to have gone to the North
In ninety-six seventy-six HE.
As far as Thule, beyond the Forth –
But where ?  Nobody can agree.
So the name was later applied to places –
Shetland, Norway, Iceland, and on.
Forever drifting North as the traces
Of habitation were stumbled upon.
The word was attached to Eskimos,
As called by those who did the naming –
And a rare-earth element, which shows
The allure it held in its framing.
Finally, in the hundred-and-twentieth century,
A trading post re-used the term
In Upper Greenland, the latest entry
To plant the Grecian germ.
An airbase later sprang up to claim it –
And at last, Thule was a definite place –
It had finally chosen to cash-in its fame
And end its meandering chase.
Until…the Air Force decided to change her,
To strip out the exonym, rebrand the node.
So Thule is free again, ever the stranger,
To wander the North and with no fixed abode.

Thule is usually pronounced as Thool-uh (or perhaps I should say Þool-uh). However, I have seen Tool-ee used, even by myself.

As for the dating, I’m using the far-more logical HE Calendar because I’ve got no time for counting backwards.

Urban Pilgrims

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Amber Prison by Donato Giancola

Urban Pilgrims

“Nobody owns a pet in Istanbul, they just befriend the neighbourhood strays.”

– The Local Planet Guide

The dogs are stays and tramps and ferals,
Picking scraps, surviving perils,
Living in gaps on tufts of ground –
Though the locals seem to like them hanging round.

But who knows what diseases lurk,
And how much needed council work
To catch and spay and then release ?
Is that why vagrant number still increase ?

They may look cute in tourist spots,
But less so in the poorer lots –
Traffic-tangling, always breeding –
Some look starved, but overall succeeding.

We wonder where the pups are hidden,
As they lounge around, unbidden.
Have they fleas ?  We’d best not breach –
So stroking-wise, they’re just out of our reach.

And now official policy
Has moved to stop them roaming free,
To round them up and put them down
To kick the mange and rabies out of town.

But then there are the feral cats
About the mosques and laundromats –
They’re just as cute and just as cherished,
But they’re far less likely to be perished.

They too are mating uncontrolled,
But always act as good as gold
Just lazing round the grand bazaars,
Despite their secret ticks and worms and scars.

Helios

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Kepler 16-b by Joby Harris

Helios

The Sun is a restless god,
Driving his chariot ever on.
The dawn won’t last for long,
Before it’s gone, to welcome the morning
Where the queen of night once trod.
Before we know, it’s midday,
And his heat is full upon us –
Then into his afternoon we rush,
And all too soon, the growing dusk,
As once again he slips away.

A 19th century shell cameo brooch, as sold by Roseberys

Passport

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Ceres by Liz de la Torre

Passport

The whole world is spherical – I know, because I trekked it –
Always passing clockwise,
Passing to the left.
Onto America, vast and eclectic –
Just roaming, you guys,
Always heading West.
Showing my specifics at ev’ry border-post,
Always passing clockwise,
As tradition goes.
Across the Pacific, port-side to island-coast
From volcanic highs,
To sweet laguna lows.
Onto Malaysia, striding like a dandy,
Always passing clockwise,
Half the way around.
Upon mainland Asia, I passed Mr Brandy,
Racing for his prize,
While always Eastward-bound.
But West for I once more, and headlong through the horse-steppe,
Always passing clockwise,
Most polite and deft.
Home through the back door, from my mammoth schlep,
For etiquette, it lies
In moving to the left.

Thanks AI, you didn’t do too bad this time…