Creeping Unconsciousness

[Bench]

Hey Bop, you’ve found some lovely rhymes and great new images, using both well to deliver gentle humour or killer lines, sometimes both…
Muscovy, Muscovy, Muscovy duck/ looks like a swan that’s been hit by a truck; The phone/euphonium play; From microdot to jelly tot/ fish eyes float in thousands; The pigeon still wears/ a look of surprise,/ till the falcon stoops/ and pecks out its eyes

But my favourites are surfing, for the clever way the two very different things are compared and the breaking dam, which is lovely, if sad. Keep it up! Ben

[PClem]

Finally got here and see lovely images, wisdom, sadness and laughs. Laughed at Cat Flappery and Muscovy Duck, am I morbid to say I loved No More Coo? It was really quite well done as well as a very accurate portrayal. Http captures the internet very well.

[Dunc]

bop

A Rejection — You make the boiler's plea so moving that you cast N as a heartless Simon Legree! Great idea, great work.

Land Lost — Cripes! wide-mouthed and shaking indeed. Your last two strophes carry the drama well.

Cat Flappery — Is a great bit of fun, and your wide-ranging plays on 'flap' are dang fine.

A Dam — Is gently unfolded and touching, though I'm not across some of the details.

Thanks

Regards /Dunc

[larryrap]

Hi Bop,

There are interesting currents running through your thread - a feeling of numbness, with hints of impending doom gaining force in the background.
A Dam Starts to Break inches closest to the crises, and the result is strong and moving.
I like Scrabble's small accumulation of uneasy images.
The tadpole poem looks like it could grow into a nice slimy frog - the images are dense and captivating.
Land Lost sustains its violent dreamlike atmosphere with skill.

Enjoyed. Good luck on the final lap.

[bop]

Ben, Laurie, Dunc and Larry, thanks for reading and for the good wishes too.
bop

As Eric Robson says every week on Gardener's Question Time: 'Onwards and Upwards'!

[bop]

We said we'd meet at Parke,
not the car park at Parke,
but the car park by the play park
near the other car park in Bovey Tracey.

They were in the car park near the play park,
We were in the car park at Parke,
nowhere near the play park
or the car park in Bovey Tracey.

We rang and told them:
'We're in the car park at Parke!'.

They were in the car park near the play park.
They disembarked from the play park
car park and waved as they arrived in the car park
at Parke. We all left the car park
for a walk in the park at Parke.

[Emily Bronte]

Hi, bop,

There's lots of lovely stuff here.

I particularly enjoyed Cat Flappery--made me smile with pleasure. Really well executed. A Dam Starts to Break in contrast is genuinely heartbreaking. The Finn in me can't help but love the moomintroll in cloudwatching http:// is enjoyable as an evocation of the internet as a time waster, and Strings Linger and Creeping Unconsciousness function as interesting counterpoints to each other about youth and age--the first has a pleasing melancholy, the second is genuinely chilling on all sorts of levels.

power to your pen too not that you need it!

Cheers,

Mari.

[DiggerTractor]

Hi bop,

I like the quietness of Strings Linger (actually all of it), but I guess I'm saying I like how it came across as quiet and almost a memory.

"A Walk in the Park" is good fun.

[Donner]

Hi, Bop,

I've always liked the way your poems think - conversations between a water heater and its owner, trying to convince a cat to use a cat door (or anything, for that matter), how we get sidetracked when surfing the net for info on poodles when we don't even have one, the play with words (unflappable, park). But underneath the seeming absurdity are keen observations about life. And also the poignancy of it:

My eyes are dry as your ashes, my thoughts scattered
and disturbed, I wish I could but I can’t seem to cry just yet.

Good stuff.

Donner

[bop]

Mari, Digger and Donner,
Thank you for reading my drafty-daft thread. Your comments are kind, helpful and much appreciated.
bop

[bop]

I’m in the queue and I’m next.

Ron keeps busy, tidies up after bingo on Tuesdays,
prides himself on keeping the communal kitchen
pristine and clean. Not a cup, saucer, or teaspoon
out of place. On a Friday he collects the lottery slips,
puts them with the cash in a transparent plastic bag
and takes them to Co-op after 8 when it’s quiet.

It’s never quiet and I’m in the queue, I’m next
with a carton of milk linked on my index finger
and a bottle of wine tucked under my arm.

Ron is disappointed: ‘It’s a fix!’ says Ron:
‘All them tickets and not even a miserly ten quid!’
Colin on the checkout nods, he too is disappointed
but not because there were no winners this week.

Tonight might be different though,
Ron produces a piece of paper with the numbers
superstitiously selected by his friends.
There’s no syndicate: ‘She put paid to that’,
so sixteen bitterly separate tickets are printed,
money is handed over slowly, meticulously,
from a small wad of sealed envelopes.

Ron leans on the counter whistling
as he breathes, painfully
aware that when he’s gone
no-one will keep the kitchen clean.

I sigh. I’m in the queue and I’m next.

The milk is starting to chill my fingers,
so I change hands, deftly move the wine
underneath my other arm.

Ron feels lucky, stashes the Lotto tickets
and looks longingly at the scratch cards.
He ponders, picks a Rainbow and a 777
and fishes in his pockets for cash.

My finger looped in the milk carton is aching,
the wine is getting warm, but I'm in the queue.

Ron points at the bland shutter of the cigarette store.
As it’s rolled up in shame, he asks for twenty Mayfair Blue.
Surely, the trading is complete?

I sigh. I’m in the queue and I’m next.

Ron has a sore throat:
‘Do you have Buttercup Mentholyptus?’
he’d not seen them on the shelf
and doesn’t like the plain lozenges.
‘I’ll check’: says Colin and calls for assistance.

I sigh. I’m in the queue and I’m next.

Colin smiles at the queue in a watery way
then looks down. Ron leans on the counter
as if he owns the place. The tannoy trills
to the assembled that Buttercup lozenges
are no longer available. Ron is invited to complete
a customer feedback form.

We all wait in the queue and I’m next.

The milk is getting warm, the idea behind the bottle of wine
irrelevant now. All I want to do is leave the shop,
but I’m in the queue and so I stay.

We wait patiently or impatiently -
we queue - it’s what we do and I’ll be next.

[bop]

The end of words missed in common parlance
annoys me intensely: app without ‘lication’;
non-bio is illogical without logical;
Brexit rather than British exit is a stupid idea anyway.
I thought my irritation was well-founded and proper,
until I found my ... specs ... and realised
what a pedantic spectacle I was making of myself.

[bop]

Not for lack of ink
does this page fall away
to white space.

Not for lack of effort
do these words trickle
out then dry.

Not for lack of time
do these lines fail to follow
one another fluidly.

Not for lack of thought
does this poem peter out
without meaning.

[bop]

I never thought that losing your grip
was meant in anything but a mind
slowing sense of letting go. I’m not ready
for strength to leave my fingers, fumbling
to open bottles and jars. I’m on my knees
wiping up spilt juice in the kitchen,
the carton still weeping on the floor.


*This is a revision of something I wrote last year.

[Bench]

Anything but losing your grip. Queue is true for any Englishman, Park is so good I read it out to those who might care, and I love the pedantry of Abbrev. You're breezing it.