The Ballad of Miss Pickle

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
1980.409.1a?c

The Ballad of Miss Pickle

She skipped to the balls
In her crinoline gown,
With verdurous falls
In the drapes of her crown.
She rustled and twirled
As she danced with their gaze,
And pleatings unfurled
In a deep-lustred prase.
     Hers was no ruby or aquamarine –
     The glorious girl in the emerald green.

All season she danced
In her favourite hue –
Her eyes were enhanced,
And her blossoming grew.
Her costume was styled
To flicker the room –
The beaux she beguiled,
Her shamrock in bloom.
     Hers was no palette of altering scene –
     The glorious girl in the emerald green.

The following year
As the bucks met to fool,
They longed she’d appear –
Their taffeta jewel.
But salon and do
Were all lacking her shade –
They felt far too blue
And in want of her jade.
     Hers was no presence, but absentee queen –
     The glorious girl in the emerald green.

Then shocking they heard
Of her sudden demise –
The poison transferred
From the arsenite dyes.
She wilted last winter,
She couldn’t have known
How deadly the tints were
In which she was sewn.
     Hers was no longer, a tragic eighteen –
     The glorious girl in the emerald green.

A young woman dies
In much retching and bile
To set off her eyes
And to brighten her smile.
Her end was a blur
With her lights in distress,
But do not blame her
For the tinge of her dress.
     Hers was no moral to vanity’s preen –
     The glorious girl in the emerald green.

She skips to the balls
In her crinoline gown,
And her glowing enthrals
With a growing renown.
Remember her this way
From bodice to hem –
A verdant display
From a radiant gem.
     A shimmer and sparkle, a ripening sheen –
     The glorious girl in the emerald green.

More commonly referred to as Paris Green, but the rhythm of ’emerald’ suited me better.

Newzak

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
newspapers
Newspapers by Hervé Clairet

Newzak

I think I’ve been lis’ning to far too much news –
For though it is vital we learn of out-there,
It leaves me frustrated, and flustered and grated,
I’m hating, debating, yet never quite sated,
And thoroughly impotent, hopeless to care –
As yet more disasters are grimly amassed,
With each one more urgent and loud than the last –
Till headlining news becomes hutch-lining olds of the past.

I think I’ve been lis’ning to far too much news –
It just isn’t good to be quite so aware.
It leaves me intruded (in which I’ve colluded) –
I’m brooding on feuding, informed yet excluded,
And thoroughly cynical, drunk with despair –
As yet more injustice, or just kiss-and-tells,
All rage between grimmest and tritest of hells –
And worst is the knowledge that this is precisely what sells.

Coming Distractions

~ Toastingfork ~ 2 Comments
dust motes

Coming Distractions

From the edges of your vision to the edges of the room,
From the sweeping of cognition to the sweeping of the broom,
From the buzz of distant chatter to your neighbours through the floor,
To the thousand tiny matters that are breeding by the score –
So many things to notice that were always there to notice,
But were never worth the noticing before.

So ev’ry thought that seeds your day,
And finds such rich and fecund soils,
Will parasite your bark –
And ev’ry thought that runs astray,
And wanders through your mental toils,
Will leave its tiny mark.

From the edges of your reason to the edges of yours scars,
From the sweeping of the season to the sweeping of the stars,
From the altogether trivial that scatters anyhow,
To the random and equivocal that sleet against your brow –
So many things to worry that were always there to worry,
But were never worth the worrying till now.

So ev’ry thought that tries to sway
Is often sly as it embroils
Its subtle, plaful lark.
But ev’ry thought that comes to play
Shall leave behind its share of spoils
In particle and quark.

From the edges of a bare trace to the edges of awake,
From the sweeping of the staircase to the sweeping of your stake,
From the incidental incidents and glorious mundane,
To the vaguest feeling since it went from overcast to rain –
So many things to wonder that were always there to wonder,
But are never worth the wondering again.

For ev’ry thought that seeps your clay
Will ooze its crude and viscous oils
That faintly glow the dark.
And ev’ry thought that blows your way
Will drive your turbines, spin your coils,
And generate your spark.

A Little Lady of Letters

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
Photo by Suzy Hazelwood on Pexels.com

A Little Lady of Letters

Milly Miller’s Mother
Asked her darling daughter dear
Not to speak such sing-song sentences
That echo ev’ry ear.
“With constant core concordance
And repeated repartee,
You really risk resentment,
Missy Miller Mystery.

Please, my pretty precious,
You must vary vocal voice –
Not focusing for phonics
So to chime your chosen choice.
Then lesser-learnèd listeners
Can make-out more you meant –
A little less allit’rative,
My mystic Millicent.”

Swarm Over Hamelin

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
rats
from The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Dominika Lipniewska

Swarm Over Hamelin

Thank you, sir, thank you sir, thank you a thousandfold !
How we were plagued upon, how we were festered !
Rodentine pestilence, vicious and far-too-bold,
Raided, invaded – our stores all sequestered.
For we had already lost every vat we had,
Every scrap we had, every foison.
And we had already tried every cat we had,
Every trap we had, every poison.
Not just the teeth or the claws was our worrying,
Not just the tapeworms or ticks from the ditches –
No, not just the nibbling and soiling and scurrying –
But oh !, it’s the fleas !  It’s the fleas and the itches !
Nobody worked, and nobody traded,
The strongest ones fled, and illness cascaded.
We would have offered you anything, made you the Pope !
Ev’ryone feared at the spectre amongst us,
And ev’ryone feared for the health of the youngsters –
Look to our children – their future became our last hope.

Thank you, sir, thank you sir, you have deliverèd !
Thank you for ridding our cellars of nestings !
Leading your river of rats to the riverbed,
Besting the beasties of pantry molestings.
Now is our artisans’ industry recommensed,
Thanks to the man in the bright-coloured suiting.
Talent like you displayed must be well-recompensed,
Must be rewarded to honour your fluting.
How much I wish we could honour our promises,
Honour the price we agreed in our anguish –
But all of our shelves are so empty and ominous,
All of our prospects still fester and languish.
Nobody’s rich, and ev’ryone’s starving –
So let us rebuild, before you come carving
Your portions of nothing to meet your retainer agreed.
Give us some time, for trade to be mettled –
Pray, give us some time, and all will be settled.
Look to our children, and teach them to follow your lead.

The Woo, it Burns !

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
pexels-photo-220957.jpeg
Photo by Nicole Rathmayr on Pexels.com

The Woo, it Burns !

Fortunes held within our palm,
Expensive herbs in ev’ry balm –
They rarely cure, but rarely harm:
The path to homeo.

Crystals glow by candle-light,
As chanting stems the parasite,
And leeches cure our ev’ry blight:
The path to homeo.

Demons cast from fevered minds,
With toxins flushed through our behinds,
And massage even cures the blind:
The path to homeo.

Hands are laid on cank’rous moles
And prayer is used for birth controls
As tiny needles prick our soles:
The path to homeo.

Bright Satanic Mills

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
chariot

Bright Satanic Mills

My bow is of dull brown wood,
For gold does not spring –
My arrows have less divine good,
And more barbs to sting –
My spear is aimed not at cloud,
But targets more solid –
My chariot’s unburned and proud,
Efficient, if stolid.
Examined, explained, demystified,
There’s no room left for your god of Zion.
With science and reason, his will is defied –
For mine is a chariot of iron.

Felis schroedingi

~ Toastingfork ~ 1 Comment
cat in box

Felis schroedingi

        1.
I burrow through the wicker bin
Beside your desk, a-froth therein
With pencil shavings, strüdel crumbs,
And paper balls of failed sums.
I’m rubbing up against your socks,
Or sharp’ning claws against your box,
Or lis’ning to your strange device
That clicks and squeaks like frightened mice.

But I don’t like the vial with the strong, sharp smell
And why have you a hammer, and a pivot-rig as well ?
You’re planning for some trial – uncertain times ahead –
Wearing is this clamour, and I’m feeling quite half-dead.

        2.
I mean, just what is life , anyway ?
I mean, crystals grow and all, don’t they ?
And viruses, they can even multiply,
And sperm can even swim, and twisters fly
And thinking machines – how do they fit in ?
And when does life end, and when does it begin ?

But you ain’t thinking ’bout any of this, are you ?
You’re thinking I have it and lost it, and both are still true
Not in any biological sense,
But only in a philosophic pretence.
Well, get over yourselves, it’s all down to chance:
My existence does not revolve around your ignorance.

        3.
I am not quantum.
There are not two of me.
I have not become
An equation or postulation or theory,
Some waveform waiting to collapse,
A merely-possible-perhaps,
Or psi-functional mixture of states
In decoherence to my many-worlds’ fates.

You think you must see me to know me ?
And they say cats are solipsists !
And yet you claim I’m floating free,
Where yes and no both co-exist.
Don’t flatter yourself – I notice too,
But I guess I just don’t matter –
You’ve got some nerve !
For only your magical-looking will do !
But remember, I too observe – and I’m watching you.

        4.
I’m one thing or the other,
I’m all this thing or that,
And whichever you discover,
Is right at where I’m at.
Because, whatever else I was,
Whatever else I am,
God damn !  Without caveat
I’m unbreakably all cat !

The Benthonaut

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
octopus
Octopus by Nat Raum

The Benthonaut

Three-hearted, blue-blooded, copper in your veins,
Spending all your days just lounging on the reef,
Merging with the furniture, watching for the gains:
You pouncing, morphing, jetting, dancing, slinking, oozing thief,
You hunger-striking annual, blooming all too brief.
Bursting into action, but your stamina devoid,
You tremor-detecting, ink-ejecting, R-selecting chromataphoid.

With arms you cannot quite control in each particular,
Foraging and tasting with an independent mind.
Spirit-level eyes that will maintain their perpendicular,
With optic nerves all plugged-in from behind.
All of this intelligence, all of this complexity,
All this curiosity, all this raw dexterity;
And yet no society – such a lonely vexity you are –
And living far too short for such an eight-pointed superstar.

Sorry, Elizabeth

~ Toastingfork ~ Leave a comment
big ben tower london
Photo by bruce mars on Pexels.com

Sorry, Elizabeth

“Big Ben is only the bell,”
You smugly tell,
But actu’lly, we already know.
Except you’re wrong:
It’s the bit that goes bong,
And ev’rything else, above and below.
Big Ben is the bell,
And the clock as well,
And even the whole bloody tower !
Ask any you meet
On Parli’ment Street
Whenever he’s chiming the hour.