A glance through thickened glass reveals Queer creatures drifting sadly by. Up and down they trail in shoals, As if they're here but don't know why. Ray, my flatmate, thinks they're lost - It seems they crawled from sea to sand - Underwater life they loved but Maybe not so good on land?
images: Dissolve and Flickr
source: aquarium from https://randomwordgenerator.com
Word Generator: Your word today is glue. Me: Urgh, sticky! WG: You don't have to interpret it literally, you know ... Me: Hunh? WG: Could be, say, the glue that holds a top band together. Me: You mean a contract? WG: Philistine! No, I mean the musical telepathy that distinguishes great bands from merely good ones! Me: Oh yeah, I know, that's when the band actually start looking around to see if there's a fifth member playing with them! WG: Not if they're a trio ... Me: Hey, I do the funny stuff! WG: Well, get on with it then!
going solo – fed the ego
lit the halo – lost the mojo
up & down – career a yoyo
ever after – just a sideshow
Whenever my random word generator site presents me with a five-letter word – where each letter has to start a line in an acrostic poem, though goodness knows why! – I’m often in two minds.
Serious Me wants to write about something significant; Silly Me wants to write a limerick.
This time, for the sake of some peace and quiet, they can both have their way …
There once was a green world where youth
Respected their elders for truth.
It shriveled and died
Because old misers lied –
Ecocide is a crime with no sleuth.
Couldn’t resist a quick New Year peek at https://randomwordgenerator.com and as always felt duty bound to go with the featured word, which was limited. Ho hum …
Liberty seems boundless now as I begin my song.
It’s only an illusion, though, and doesn’t last for long.
Manacles of rhyme and rhythm cramp my real voice.
I struggle to break free but really haven’t any choice.
This poem has me in its grip – these words, they are not mine.
Escape, I cry, but creep and crawl towards the end of line …
Delighted to find myself free from dumpty-dums and jingling couplets!
image: Britannica
hoping to bridge the yawning
abyss between yourself and other
people with a mere
platitude is rather like daydreaming
you inhabit a heaven on earth
nothing you say can bring a moment’s
escape from
whatever may unfold
yet knowing you wish me nothing but good fortune could
ease for a little while this burden of being
alone in an uncertain world and might even
remind me that all of us face the future together
image: frenchcrazy.com
When my Word Generator app threw up likely, the idea of ‘fact vs opinion’ came to mind. We are entitled to our own opinions, I’ve heard it said, but we are not entitled to our own facts. Hmm. Fact … or opinion?
Let’s not panic nor get manic
If those boffins show we’re doomed.
Keep your cool while some paid fool
Explains how global warming zoomed.
Let’s pretend we’re experts, too!
You go first. What say you?
images: Gigall & IPCC
There’s an interesting report in yesterday’s Guardian Review of a new book about word games and literary puzzles which certain authors have used to generate writing. Here’s a link to it – The Penguin Book of Oulipo – and reading this review was food for thought because of my curious preoccupation with ‘found’ words, those that appear whenever I click on https://randomwordgenerator.com
I never let a word go by without trying to use it. Of course the results can be patchy – some words trigger more ideas than others – but I always resist the temptation to skip through for ‘better’ words. Language is a currency which can, all too easily, become devalued.
It’s also a democracy – so here are three recent acrostic poems which I haven’t the heart to turn away from the door. Clerk, Twitch, True. Each little effusion is a poor thing but mine own …
crack open any word like an ancient egg and recover long lost meanings killed by thoughtless custom
triumph was finally within reach as I presented His Majesty with my pièce de résistance - the delicious dish that would introduce my hitherto criminally-ignored culinary genius to le beau monde after way too many years in potwashing obscurity - chacun à son goût, I chortled, just before the sudden bite of a horsefly made me dump my steaming-hot chef-d'oeuvre into the Royal Lap!
tell me what you really think unless you feel empowered by drink
