Category: Poetry

Full Attention

inspired by Fandango’s One Word Challenge (FOWC) of 18 April 2021, focus.

A gymnast of Russian extraction,
Got a job as a high-wire attraction,
But an airplane distracted,
The gymnast impacted,
And he spent the next six months in traction.

Gifted

inspired by Fandango’s One Word Challenge (FOWC) of 17 April 2021, capitulate.

Six-year-old daughter progressing at rate,
So I taught her some chess, to abate,
As I thought with a smile,
“This might take her a while”,
She looked up at me, uttered “Check Mate”

Even If

for the Weekly Prompts Weekend Challenge of 17 April 2021, outdoor seat.

I’m really sorry. Did I say something? I really don’t know what I did.

One day, it was sunny, we seemed to be fine. The next, you taped me up. You are distant. You stopped visiting me. What did I do?

I heard that you have a virus spreading among you. But did you really think I would help to spread it? Did you really have to fear me?

Even if you, infected, came and sat with me…

Even if you spread your virus onto me…

And that, when you left, even if somebody else had come to sit with me…

And even if they picked this virus up from me…

And even if, they then put it into their mouths…

And even if this all happened, before your virus had whithered and decayed…

And even then, did you think I had stopped loving you?

My featured image is a park bench, in London, in April 2020. There are lots of areas where we can say “we have learned more as the pandemic has gone on” but I’m afraid this was not one of them. Transmissibility was known, even before this time, and the probability of transmission via park benches was already known to be infinitely small.

I knew all that from information gleaned in the public domain, even at that time. Even a year ago. I knew that the odds were impossibly remote. There is no reason why other people could not know this, too. And yet ignorant local councils attempted to stop people using park benches.

Unappreciated

inspired by Fandango’s One Word Challenge (FOWC) of 16 April 2021, lips.

There was once a young waiter called Ned,
In his garden, he needed new shed,
But he counted his tips.
Gave a smack of his lips.
Have to wait until next month instead.

Wicked Way

inspired by Fandango’s One Word Challenge (FOWC) of 15 April 2021, flagrant.

He met pretty young girl, since divorce,
When she asked, “Do you love?”. no remorse.
In a flagrant untruth,
To this starry-eyed youth,
Simply uttered, “Why, yes dear, of course”

For the record, my advice = get out asap! It’s a trap! I have known men like this!