Give me a prompt,
or a subject to write to,
and I’ll write you a poem –
or, at least, I will try to;
I might not succeed
in penning a classic;
but, I’ll give it my best
‘Park & Ride’
to the island Jurassic –
whatever that means.
It was easy for Emperor Caligula to send the young Christians off to the arena to be mauled by lions, tigers, bears, or the like; but, when the herald called out the name of his adopted son, Tiberius Gemellus, Caligula held aloft his hand to stop the young lad being sent into the arena. ‘A mistake, my emperor.’ spake the herald, who was not long for this world, ‘But, just because he is one of your own, why does that make it any less barbaric to send him to a cruel death?’
Caligula motioned to his guards to haul the herald off to the arena, where he followed in the footsteps of Nymphidius Sabinus, one of Caligula’s disputed children.
What? Am I to write today?
Shall it be from a moment in my travels?
Or will it be from a kindly-offered prompt?
Poetry? Dialogue? A Short Story? A N Other?
Will it be funny?
Or shall I eschew the humour?
Who knows?
I await Notification from above, or around.
G:)
I don’t have letters after my name,
nor bailiffs after my goods and chattels;
I am solely to blame
for any skirmishes and battles
that I have entered into
with the dubious intention
of staking my claim
to the wealth of a nation;
and I have ‘never’ liaised with the Devil;
though, to give him his due,
he has ‘never’ ‘ever’ asked me to.
I don’t receive many letters
with my name emblazoned
upon the envelope;
I live in hope,
not literally, but laterally,
and how long is a piece of rope?
What is there left when all soap is gone?
Why do rhetorical questions matter so little to me;
the former? The latter?
the letter of the law is unsure upon this point,
and, so, I anoint myself with the moisture of sweat,
or, better yet,
a lack of physical and mental debt.
We are ‘all’ living in a material world,
and I am a material;
well, maybe knot.
My D.I.G.N.I.T.Y.
becomes less ev’ry day.
PS Good Luck with the above.
I added salt
to the flour,
then all the other ingredients
that were required at that moment;
I mixed them all together
until they vaguely resembled bread-crumbs.
Then I realised
that I had not enough time
to write all
of the rest
of the method
in this rhyme.
I am now sure,
that
I shall have to leave you hungry
for more.
10-minute Exercise #2 – 04/12/2018
“So, if I push one along here that makes five. Then I have to push one of these along here to signify the five that I have, and push these five back here to the beginning.?”
“Yes. That is correct. You now have the basis for a far-reaching knowledge of Mathematics. When you become the 13th Emperor of the Ting Dynasty you shall be able to add to your wisdom and to the happiness of your subjects through being able to add, subtract, divide and multiply numbers.”
“Is this all that I need? A knowledge of numbers?”
“You will also need to know how to treat your subjects. Be a benefactor and not a tyrant – bring prosperity to all and not just some.”
“And these people here who perform the part of a human abacus… are they not worthy too?”
“They are the subjects of our enemies – they have been treated kindly and given jobs. Some are Abacusians like these, others man the human table-football games; and yet others are models for our Terracota army.”
“Have we a need for an army?”
“It is a Terracotta one. It’s hardly going to be much use in a battle.”
“True. So what is the point of it?”
“We do have rather a lot of Terracotta that we didn’t know what to do with.”
“Figures.”
“Indeed. So, let us get back to our sums, Little Master. We move one across here and that makes…?”
I felt a strange attraction pulling me towards the horse – even though I was not a horsey person. I needed to feed a handful of hay to the grey mare. And, there, was some hay just right for purpose.
The horse seemed to appreciate the hay and ate as much as I could offer.
There appeared a saddle, stirrups, a bit, reigns and bridle – in fact, all the things needed to allow one to ride a horse.
I, on the other hand, was now appropriately dressed in a pair of riding boots, jodhpurs, riding hat and jacket – well, bless my soul and calm me The Lone Ranger.
“Away!” I called and off we went.
Past 100-Acre Wood, all along, down along, our along Leigh, past the Old Jockey and Horse public house and off to the moor.
We seemed to Canter, Gallop and trot as if we were one being.
That was when I noticed that we had become a Centaur. All the paraphernalia of horse-riding had gone and there were just the four legs and upper torso of the previous incarnation.
Oops! Did this thing really happen?
I tapped one metal-clad hoof twice for ‘Yes!.
It’s not often that I am lost for words – but, hey!
I cantered on, now searching for a lady Centaur with whom I could share my horsey life.
Positive or negative, there was no way back now – the elemental forces of Nature were set on pulling me forward.
I don’t know what the prompt is for today, so I’m just going to wing it and see how many words I can write in 10 minutes. Hopefully 1 of them will be the prompt word, or my post will have some connection with the prompt – I know, this is quite random; but, I have ever been a random person.
The sea may be a possibility. Did you see that poem there? Where? Right there on the stare – a little poem with words in; well, I declare, going te-dum, dum, dum, te-dum on the stare.
No, not the sea. I did say the Sea-Word yesterday ‘Sea’. -nobody seemed to mind or even thought it a bit contentious on my part.
So, I said it again ‘Sea!’ in an exclamatory way – nada.
So, I stopped saying it and still nobody cared – what an apathetic planet I live upon – do you?
Moving on, the past, present, or future maybe the prompt.
Or a sidewalk in Sinsinatti (which isn’t spelled (or spelt) like that unless it’s the place on Zarquon 5 which is spelled (or spelt) exactly like that.
Fish or Llamas, bears or goats, 10-pound notes, bananas, or fruit in a suit – not bananas in pyjamas, that’s just silly.
Oranges, still fruit, and walnuts, mangoes, pavements, hair, water and coffee, tea, liquids of a sort.
Maybe, a shoe, a shop, or a shoe-shop could be the prompt.
A play on words. Type / tipe / tripe or the like – as if?
Lastly, it may be that I have missed the prompt by a country mile and cows, sheeps and the obligatory stile are not quite right either.
Food of a desert nature (or desserts) wine* or the like.
*10 minutes ended here.
G:)
PS The prompt was ‘ma‘ – did I include it one of my words? I think that ‘Llamas‘ has it!
G
Where is my prompt for today?
The thing that will jump into my path –
It must be on its way.
The anticipation is eagerly anticipated,
the expectation is expected soon;
shall it be brought by the bounteous birds
who sing by the light of the Moon?
Nah! Too late for that, the Dawn Chorus has passed us by.
How about when I’m walking the dogs, I can be found on the lanes;
inspiration can hit me then,
or at least the inkling of an idea,
a morsel, a tidbit, some grains.
Oh, where is my prompt for today?
100 Words (no words starting with N-Z lettersi in the first half, no words beginning with A-M letters in the second half, and no repeated words).
In anticipation, I had already ‘liked’ her music; and, as its lyrical content melted my heart, a heroine became evident.
Always attuned, Emilia Alimone, humming melodically; heartbeat keeping the beat, approached .
“Hello, handsome!” laughingly, lacking mockery.
“Hi!” managed by keeping calm, even allowing for energy levels accelerating above average. Awesome!
“What’s that?” she questioned. “You really shouldn’t whisper.”
“Sorry.” Oops! “Nothing worth repeating.”
“Okay.” Quizzically, then playfully, smiling secretively. “Some words Never see the surface.”
“Old saying?”
“Papa Pierre -Paris’s principal popcorn retailer.” Twinkling overtones reached right through this toughened tank of sobriety.
“Sex?”
Somewhat sillily, someone somewhere replied: “Seriously?”
Graeme Sandford 