Poetry Bus, November 1st.

Go here to see the multiplicity of prompts offered by Liz  this week, all connected to Halloween.


Grow It With Music

In our back yard there stands a garden shed,

and from the shed, nerve-shredding wails and moans

leak through my kitchen window. Tears I shed -

of laughter! Caddoc’s playing saxophone!

He thinks it helps his baby pumpkins grow

plump for All Hallows’ Eve. “For don’t you see,”

he says, “that serenading sweet and low

inflates my pumpkins?” One of many bees

in Caddoc’s gardening bonnet, I suppose.

In Spring I’ve heard him serenading trees.

Bet they’d like to uproot themselves and run –

as I would.  Caddoc’s sax is not much fun.

The Poetry Bus Challenge, 25th. October

Argent's interesting prompt sought poems about "Meetings"


Name Dropping


Biggles I met at the Llandudno fete
in '64. He took me on a flight of fancy.
Man, oh MAN, I fancied him, his leather
airman's helmet gracing his airman's head.
But I digress. Dick Barton, Sherlock Holmes,
some footballer whose name I now forget,
all these from time to time became my friends,
Ill Met by Moonlight or at day's High Noon.
Jimmy Stewart, Marilyn, two comics
who wore bowler hats - Quarrell? And Hardly?

I can't escape them even in my dreams.
General de Gaulle (what a monstrous ego),
explained he won the war all by himself,
a feat he claimed was worth a Croix de Guerre
or two. We were dream lovers. Didn't last -
I swapped him for the Ghost of Christmas Past!

Not too many people know that Linbergh
landed first near Abergele. He stopped
by to say "Hello", or was it "Hiya,
Ada!" (being a Yank, you see). There is
no end to famous well-knowns I have met,
even The Man Who Never Was. A pet
he was, or was it never was?  I bet
I've known a lot more famous names than you -
But youth and youthful popularity
were thrown away on Caddoc!  Pity me . . .

Another Trip on the Poetry Bus

For this week's prompt, NanU asks poets to abandon their usual writing den for pastures new, so to speak, and there - produce their poem - which I do now, with apologies to Mr. Percy Bysshe Shelley,(*) whose original you can find HERE.

Wishful Thinking

I met a poet from nearby Colwyn Bay

Who said: A small, dilapidated Shed

Stands in Abergele. There, amongst clay

pots, his visage battered, pocked, half dead
with wrinkled skin and look of worn dismay
sulks Caddoc banished from the nuptial bed
and mocked in Blogland by a Demon Wife.
"Full forty b***dy years of married strife"
he sighs.
                Beyond his rhubarb bed, berries
of deadly nightshade grow, deep purply red.
She culls - but only when the Moon is up
so no one sees the Demon at her toil
with mortar, pestle. Soon the ooze of oil
drips into Caddoc's bedtime Horlicks cup . . .

(*) I thought Bysshe was a real dumb name till I learned
that some recently dead pop-singer called one of his children "Blanket"

The Poetry Bus, October 4th

The prompt, this week from NanU was:-

Happiness

Yes, I remember Happiness -

the word, because one afternoon

when I was seventeen, my Mam said

“A girl can’t leave her Mam too soon.”

Not “said”, “hissed.” Ada jumped for joy

and ran to pack her little case,

met her beau from the motor trade.

He lived in Rhyl, a smashin’ place.

A week, a month, two months went by

I learned to cook and wash and dry

the dishes while he sold old cars

to any punter who passed by.

And for those months my young heart sang

till came the day he said in jest . .

“Why not go dancing on your own . .  “

Caddoc was there. You know the rest.

DJINN AND DISAPPOINTMENT

Bought

myself

a lamp, and

Alladin-like,

rubbed its dull bits bright.

Blue smoke! A djinn writhed out!

He bowed, spoke . . . "What's Madam's wish?"

Fast thinker, me! I said "Banish

Dreaded Caddoc to Llandudno, please"

Whoosh! Shed and husband vanished . . . then I woke.

(Followers and commenters can see husband Caddoc down in the right side-bar)