The SEP

Look!
Can't you see?
We're sitting in the middle of an SEP

We only look like we're breathing
from the outside

In here
the atmosphere's
twenty K's
of
freezing
and group think
has you believing,
hydrogen is water
and air
is simply there

It's a diffusion of responsibility
that cuts at the frozen heart
of a problem
nobody
wanted

A.J.
with thanks to Douglas Adams (An SEP is from Douglas Adam's Life, the Universe and Everything. It's earned a place on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Somebody_else%27s_problem as well as having a wiki page: http://hitchhikers.wikia.com/wiki/Somebody_Else%27s_Problem_field)

This is a fractured piece of something I began a few weeks ago. It began with Count your Spoons, and may or may not finish on a piece called Soloman's Wisdom.

If you're unfamiliar with the terms, Group Think and Diffusion of Responsibility, also have their own Wikipedia pages. (And Frozen Heart is also apparently the name of a song from Frozen, which is probably quite apt, although I'll admit, a complete accident.)

Have a great week, I'm planning to have a bit of down time myself, and check out some great Tuesday Poem blogs, I know there are a few sites I need to catch up on, including Helen Lowe's and Helen McKinlay's, because they are always so inspirational, not to mention fantastically supportive of NZ poetry and fiction :)

A.J. 

Find my stories and support my writing on ko-fi 

And tell me which poems you'd like to see in my upcoming poetry book—2024? https://ko-fi.com/ajponder

  

 

 

Watching the Deadlines Fly By

Peeps might have noticed been having a little trouble with deadlines....the Tuesday one in particular, so I wrote this for you today :)

Watching the Deadlines Fly By

The summer sun was shining 
and hay was being made
the ants were trailing one by one
through the ballustrade

The crickets were all chirping
while I fretted in the shade
and yet I noticed none of this
just deadlines to be made

A multitude of deadlines
from half a hundred things
all tied up with sealing wax
and multi-coloured strings

And now I have those deadlines
as pretty as can be,
it's time to watch them rushing by
like bullets from a train,
so I can hear that wooshing noise
flying past again

A.J. Ponder

In memory of Douglas Adams  "I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

Apologies, Tuesday was greatly missed - unlike this piece of Vogon Poetry

I know it's very nearly almost Friday - but I do want to apologise to all my regular readers for not managing my usual weekly post on Tuesday.  Not even a piece of fluff.

The people who know me will have heard that my son is having a tough time at the moment.  Well, last weekend and through to Tuesday were scary bad.  Fortunately for no apparent reason at all he's been better the last couple of days, but I've got to the point where my brain can't do much more than make it through the day.  So please excuse the "wibble"  and contemplate the vagaries of the universe, but let me assure you - normal service will be resumed as soon as I figure out what normal is....

In the meantime...

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,

Thy micturitions are to me,

As plurdled gabbleblotchits,

On a lurgid bee,

That mordiously hath bitled out,

Its earted jurtles,

Into a rancid festering confectious inner-sphincter. [drowned out by moaning and screaming]

Now the jurpling slayjid agrocrustles,

Are slurping hagrilly up the axlegrurts,

And living glupules frart and slipulate,

Like jowling meated liverslime,

Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turling dromes,

And hooptiously drangle me,

With crinkly bindlewurdles,

Or else I shall rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,

See if I don't.

by a Vogon (Jeltz)
an extract from Douglas Adam's, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

So Don't Panic :) and have a great TGIF and weekend, and hope to catch you all next Tues...

cheers, 

A.J.

A.J. Ponder's books are available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, Paper Plus and good Wellington bookstores.

Authors and Poets

Busy week, there's lots to do in the build up to Christmas - there's the obligatory making of Christmas Cakes and scramble to tidy the house and the garden, not to mention all those social event -  books, writing, books and more books - in my case ;)   

And like most people these days I'm also working - although some of it is fun -  Rona Gallery is putting on "The Santa Trap" (One of Peter Friend's and my School Journal Plays) for Christmas.   Not to mention the Christmas exhibition itself - and all the advertising.... so

So for a change I'm putting up about twenty favourite authors -  and in as few words as possible why they are so fab.  Feel free to contribute, I'm sure I've missed more than a few!

JRR Tolkein 

       for historical fiction that went the extra mythological mile

John Wyndham

        for disconcerting and surprising children     

A A Milne

         a bear however hard he tries grows tubby without exercise, 

         he gets what exercise he can by falling off the ottoman --

         and yet other authors seem to lack a certain good willed knack

         of finding love in little things, in toys and chairs - and crackpot kings.

Frances Hardinger

           the newest inductee.  Not for the prizewinning "Fly by Night,"

           but the bottomless well that is Verdigris Deep

C. J. Cherryh

          Down Below Station -  Enough said

Andre Norton

          The lady of science fiction herself   

Helen Cresswell

           There was winter, and there was birds --

            but I although I read the same words I could never read the same story twice

Roald Dahl

           Danny the Champion of the World, not to mention an abiding love of chocolate.

CS Lewis

          For opening the wardrobe door.

Terry Pratchett

           for raising a smile, and adding footnotes.

E.B White

          Thankyou for Charlotte, and your even more endearing mute swansong.

Diana Wynne Jones

           Ged

Mary Norton

           For making little people big.

Astrid Lindgren

          Two strong arms, plaits and an indomitable personality. 

Ursula K Le Guin

           Ged - and  more recently the little known Lavinia. 

Lewis Carrol

          A glimpse into madness,

Maurice Sendak

            One night Max made mischief - and the rest is history involving a boat and some very cute monsters.

Dr Seuss

           And the song of the swomee-swans rang out in space

Douglas Adams (both really I guess, but this one in particular) 

          Got towel - can travel. Don't panic.     

HG Wells

          For travelling back in time to get there first.

I hope you enjoy these authors as much as I do,
A.J. Ponder

A.J. Ponder's work is available through Rona Gallery, Amazon, and good Wellington bookstores

My very popular, Wizard's Guide to Wellington on my author webiste.