This Way to Grandma's

You think you are

standing on the path

just talking

but your words give you away

they sell your loved ones,

and murder your future.

If I was not a wolf

your inevitable betrayal would make me cry

but I am what I am

so I lick my lips

and lean in

with  an affectation of slothfulness

swaggering in my certainty

that while you  see me

you cannot see through

to the wolf inside

How could you?

So be a lamb

And talk your way to the table.

A..J. Ponder - Amazon author page


Some poems can be moments of inspiration and some can take a little more -- encouragement.  This is one of those poems.  But while it hasn't been particularly obliging in itself, it has spawned at least two other poems so far, including: "fairy tale conventions."

To read the featured poem on the Tuesday Poem Blog—and link to other Tuesday Poets posting around NZ and the world—either click here or on the Quill icon in the sidebar.
(Also for anyone who likes a slightly twisted Little Red Riding Hood - Roald Dahl's version is here , I rediscovered it after I posted this.) or for more fairytale poetry click here to my Fairytale Poetry Hub

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

 

Eulogy to battles lost

As requested this is a little homage to Firefly / Serenity (written 23rd November 2010).  Although if you don't like such things, I still believe the last verse to be worth reading. And yes there is deliberately no full stop at the end, for hope should never end with such finality. 

Take my love

You cannot miss

Slipping into space

On rickety engines

Tied together with

Chewing gum

Take my land

There's power in the verse

Even as heroes

Fall to wayside robbery

To survive, to get even,

To hide the truth of

A world

A universe

Bought and sold

Take me where I cannot stand

Malcontents

Hanging on a thread

Doctors, preachers, thieves

Breaking bread

Hiding chocolate

Toting guns

Retorting hot as fire

And cold as reckoning

Fools staking out a claim

to what they cannot hold

I don't care

So long as I'm flying

The inevitable betrayal

Should not hurt

So very much

Mere boulders knocked downstream.

River

Waterfall quick

Tumbles into madness

And away

 

I'm still free

A pretence as deep and wide

As the sky itself

Bound with

foolish reason

Cut through with civility

You can't take the sky from me

Bereft, 

the rooms

entwined with flowers

lie empty

a memorial to

those who died

A testament to hope

A..J. Ponder - Amazon author page  (of course the highlighted lines are from Joss Whedon - I hope he can forgive me, given this is a homage to his show)

 

Sex Sells

Sex sells

Lolling curvaceously over

The unnecessary

I want it

Primitive response

Higher order thinking subsumed in

How do I get it?

This thing

This curvaceous

Beauteous organ of desire

So even the smartest among us

Pull the wool out of their eyes,

Knit it into elaborate blindfolds

Embroider them in red
And smile at their cleverness

Donning the objectified

Wrapper
and

Wondering
How the world

Became so dark

A..J. Ponder - Amazon author page

We consume more than just things.  Ideas and morality (I'm not so much thinking Victorian morality as the whole blurry and not so blurry good/evil thing), politics, these are part of the constructs we create, fed, as it were, by outside influences.  Those influences are increasingly stereotyped and marketed with all the passion money can buy.

Anyway, that's enough of that.  I think I'll leave my protesting to the poetry.  Much better that way.

& for those who are interested,
John Horrocks',  "Something in the Waters"

is being launched at Rona Gallery Sunday, December 12 at 3:30pm.  I'll definitely try to make it.  Should be fun.


A..J. Ponder - Amazon author page

Murdering Poetry

I would kill

for a voice that could read poetry

as finely honed as a boning knife

Plunged into the heart.

Incisive as fangs

sliced across arteries

spilling blood in fountains

onto the slavering faces

of howling wolves

 

My cheerful brogue slipping

into dark nightmares

and flourishing

as a bone deep canker

eating you away

from the inside

and slipping

the noose

tight 
around your neck

until the air

kicking under your heels 
is still.

See, the powdered words

no longer dry upon the page
arise

a poisoned ink

that flows

within your veins

and through your soul

until your heart

no longer pains

and your death is wholly 
entertain'd.

A..J. Ponder - 

It always amazes me just where and how inspiration strikes.  This poem has been brewing dormant for the best part of a year but it wasn't until Harvey commented on Rudyard Kipling that it hurried out faster than a smuggler with the redcoats after him. 

Click here for more poetry, back at the Tuesday Poem hub: http://tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com/

Rudyard Kipling " A Smuggler's Song"

If you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet,
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!
Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don't you shout to come and look, nor use 'em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again - and they'll be gone next day !
If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm - don't you ask no more !
If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you " pretty maid," and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been !
Knocks and footsteps round the house - whistles after dark -
You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by !
'If You do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,
You'll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood -
A present from the Gentlemen, along 'o being good !
Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by ! 

This is such a lovely sweet poem with amazing rhyme and rhythmn, but it's the sinister edge and atmosphere that make it great!

P.S. "Touchdown!" is now out.  School Journal Part 2 No4 2010  "Scene: A spaceship is landing on an alien planet... "

A..J. Ponder 

Fairy Tale Conventions

We are the child

Stepping out into a world of danger

We are the guardians of the child

Watching the path

And although the answer is no

It's always, 'no'-

The child goes -

We go

All the way to the end

Because

When the road is bleak

And full of wolves

Someone must hold our hands

A..J. Ponder 

In the world of Fairy tales danger lurks around every corner, which of course only makes the journey more more irresistible.  This poem is for every child with whom I have walked that path into brilliant darkness.

For more fairytale poetry click here to my Fairytale Poetry Hub

 

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

A Sonnet to the Muse

Shall I compare thee, or shall I just write

Oh my demon, summer died as you drove

A plague of words

As black and dark as night

Through my heart and through my head.  Words you wove -

Yes you did - with a tongue so slick and sweet

My world held neither shadows nor delight

Nought but bloody threads

Spilling your own neat

Hell upon darkened pages of my life

But my torment is not your tapestry of text

Nor ink-smudged tears dried long upon my face

Tis but the fear that

You will set me free -

So let dead summers sink without a trace

Let words plague every corner, every part

My demon stitch the small world of my heart.



Much as I adore simplicity, there is no way I could compete with Helen's poem, Truths, so I thought why not go to the other extreme!  Everyone should have a go at writing a sonnet, with the reversal et al. at some stage of their life. One could say this sonnet is a little more textured than a traditional sonnet, but only a little, and it was great fun to write. 

A..J. Ponder 

Also, if you love sonnets and want to read some more "This Year of Fire"  and "Running Away with a Christmas Sonnet" are fun, and if you want to learn how to write a sonnet The The Poetically Incorrect English Sonnet is there to help (watch out for the bad language though!