Author: Toastingfork

Not afraid to rhyme.

Sunk

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Geist by Edward Dillon

Sunk

It’s the silence that hurts the most –
When our efforts are all ignored.
We’re never told what we’re doing wrong,
When our souls are mutely scored.
Did I offend you ?  Or bore you rigid ?
Is my writing just too bleak ?
So why can I not find people like me ?
Am I really so unique ?
I send my children into the void
To no reaction at all,
Even a groan at least shows you looked –
But I just bounce off your wall.
And yet, I know that I ignored others
When their work neither sang nor stung –
I’m just as guilty, crushing their dreams
By politely holding my tongue.

Sting

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Four of Diamonds by Tony Meeuwissen

Sting

The hornet laid her sting in my leg,
Injected her toxic egg –
Her ovipositor dripping with yolk,
As if to joke how childbirth hurts.
The pain began in rapid pangs and spurts,
But at least, I said in spite,
At least it’s just a sting, this thing,
And not a hatching parasite…

Sweep

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Chimney Swift by Thomas Gentry

Sweep

A bird fell down the flue last month,
And panicked round the sitting room –
Raising a squawk and spraying the soot,
Till shooed-away with a gentle broom.
Why did we have a chimney, anyway ?
We never light it !  A useless shaft !
Indeed, where was the bundle of rags
We’d stuffed-up the hole to stop the draught ?
Time to give it a final sweep,
And check it for cracks, and bring in a brickie.
An open fire may be romantic,
But getting the logs is increasingly tricky.
And let’s get a platform placed in the pot, up top,
To hold their twigs,
And let their charcoal wings replace the smoke
Of their rooftop digs.

Heavy

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Zorro by Mike Mayhew

Heavy

As Atlas said to Sisyphus,
To lift the latter’s frown:
“We bear a heavy burden,
But don’t let it drag you down.”
As Sisyphus replied to Atlas,
In a weary wheeze –
“Huh.  Yours is on your shoulders,
But mine is on my knees.”
So Atlas said to Sisyphus
“Don’t be a deadweight, dude.
You’re so intense and full-of-lead,
And warp space with your mood.”
But Sisyphus replied “Just stop !,
You’re weighing on my soul.
But I wouldn’t stand down there, mate –
This rock’s about to roll.”

Reckless

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Maia by Todd Lockwood

Reckless

Brace yourself, cos here comes life,
Ignoring health and safety –
Where bending rules and brains is rife,
And favouring the hasty.
Sometimes, being stupid pays,
And consequences turn out flat –
If not tomorrow, then today,
And here today is where it’s at.
It isn’t good advice, of course,
To hope for freak results,
But ignorance can be a force,
When logic somersaults.
For sometimes chaos lurks beneath,
Ignoring all our careful sums –
So grit your loins and gird your teeth,
And take life as it comes.

Asterichthys

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detail from Asteridea by Ernst Haeckel

Asterichthys

A sunfish may look like a sun,
And a starfish like a star –
But both are fake, for the only one that’s real –
The starriest fish by far –
Is not some Milky Way-long eel,
But Cetus – the stellar monster gar –
He’s bigger than Cancer, older than Pisces,
Swimming the span of the sky high seas.

Hoops & Smits

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Emblem of Power by Victoria Shul

Hoops & Smits

We’ve ringed the noses of our bulls
Since the days of ancient Sumer,
And blinged their ears with tagging tools
Since the reign of George the Third.
And sheep we’ve daubed with bright and dark
Since Beau Peep was in bloomers,
And likewise branding’s left its mark
Since pharaohs watched the herd.

And long before the Roman Legion,
Pigeons wore a metal tumour
Round their ankles, through the season,
As they carried vital word.
And falcons showed their noble’s farms –
And scientists confirmed the rumour
Of migration, through the charms
They fitted to each bird.

Deers

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The Monarch of the Glen by Edwin Landseer

Deers

One deer, two deers,
That’s how or should be –
Mixing with the fishes and the sheeps.
Red deers, roe deers,
Two-by-two, or sometimes three,
If fallows really are at home for keeps.
Muntjacs and sikas,
Followed fallows over here,
And water deers are plurals now, it’s true.
For us native speakers,
We won’t raise a pedant’s tear
If all of them get ess – and mooses too !

Hazy Words

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Astronomer by Gerrit Dou

Hazy Words

Whatever happened to ‘gloaming’ ?
Do they still say that, North of the border?
Or has it been lost in the creeping gloom
Of a Sassenach fog or a shadowy order ?
When the mist comes roaming,
We may lose sight, discard a husk,
As the twilight stretches ’cross the room,
And the gloam sinks in the dusk.

The Hollow Crown

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detail from The Holy Family with St Catherine of Alexandria by Bartolomeo Cavarozzic

The Hollow Crown

A crown does not look fun to wear,
A deadweight furrowing the brow,
And getting in the hair.
But it I guess it has that wow !
With gold and gems to dazzle us
In equal awe and dread,
And making such a fuss –
It’s such a big hat for a big head.
But is it iron-cold in icy halls,
By any chance ?
And at your fancy balls,
Does it wobble when you dance ?
I’ve always thought tiaras look
Like all the bling without the sweat –
But those, I guess, can be mistook
For a mere coronet…