Haiku - Attishoo!

Wintry showers fall
I shiver under layers
Of soggy wet wool

**********

Above dear patient bloggie friends, is my tiny stab at Haiku poetry.

It's also my small contribution for the Winter in July challenge that lovely Kat over at aKatscorner is hosting.

She thought it'd be brilliant to post something wintery this Wednesday while the temperature is soaring and searing through for this scorcher of a summer!

Unless you are in Australia or New Zealand of course, where it is currently a snowy winter!

Please do join in if you wish!

Charlie says: I prefer the sun to your ahem.. "poem".

Have a wobbly Wednesday everyone!

Fe-male brain and Ode to the Pet

Apparently my brain is 50% female and 50% male. I guess this means I may not be able to read maps but by jingo, I am more than capable of programming a thingymebob box thing - wot gives me freeview channels.

:-)

Before you all yell, "she's off her head" again, here's the test I did from the BBC website.

It takes about 20 minutes and is in 6 parts (you can always stop and return later). Then it takes another half an hour deciphering what the conclusions mean for you afterwards. And about a minute of headscratching and asking yourself why you did the test in the first place!

Oh and apparently I go for men with masculine faces... hm.

Speaking of brain power... I found this competition. Write a poem about your pet! Win £1000!

But most of all - it's nice to write Odes to the Pet now and again, isn't it?

I wrote this one for The Cat - and here's a pic of her showing her appreciation. It won't win any prizes but I had such fun writing it for her.

Here was last year's winning entry, to get you and your furry companion(s)' creative juices flowing...

Go on you know you want too..

:-)

Donne and dusted

A Sonnet

Oh to be able to rhyme like John Donne
Or to decipher what feet are
When all I want to do is go to a bar
Drink beer and buy quorn chicken in a bun
Iambic pentameters aside
There’s lots of forms, I can’t decide
To rhyme, free form or just find a slide
In a nice park under the sun
Oh to be able to rhyme like John Donne


Another Sonnet

I am banished away from my pc
Cat has taken over my chair
Even if I know it is most unfair
I tiptoe away to watch some tv
I do have a laptop
So old it is crap
A second hand freebie that has given up
But do I complain, do I let her see?
How helpless I am away from my pc?

What the hell are you on about?

I ask aloud then realise that I'm alone and the cat isn't here.

This morning at 8.30 am the cat was taken to the vet's surgeon. Yesterday, she tried to tell me she was about to crash but I went to work instead and had a lovely cappuccino.

The cat is staying overnight in her little cage at the hospital, drip fed and fluid intravenously administered. I may be allowed to visit her later.

I am trying not to despair. I will not cry. She has been here before. She will survive this. I know she will. Death will just have to be a little more patient. The Grim Reaper will meet her soon, I know, but not yet, not yet.

I am going into blogging overdrive.

I am also trying to get on with my poetry course.

And this is where on page 231 of the Big Red Book, I have stalled and exclaimed my exclamatory question.

The culprit is this poem: "Quoof, by Paul Muldoon". I don't think I can reproduce this poem here in case it breaches copyright. I've already put a Terry Pratchet quote in my blog and I am waiting for one of his watchmen to arrest me. Ooo-er.

Apparently Mr Muldoon is using a poetic method called "slant rhyme".

"Slant rhyme is to full rhyme what jazz chords are to standard guitar chords" quoth the Big Red Book.

I like this notion. It sounds utterly mad and free-ing and groovy. And I'd like to think I'm all that. So I would like to try and emulate "Quoof".

If only.

But I will not cry. I will however ask of "Quoof", what the hell are you on about?

William Shakespeare walks into a pub...

... the barman yells, "Oi Shakespeare, you're Bard".

So anyway!

After weeks ploughing through my course book on how to write poetry, here is one of my sadder attempts. I rest my case.

******************************************************************


The Hot water bottle

You keep me warm, cosy, comforted
You are covered in soft red fleece – fluffy like a spoilt kitten’s.
I hug you in fear of the cold
You never burn me
Sometimes I wonder if you will explode
Do I hug you too tightly? In my sleep do I roll over you and forget you are there? But you never do.
You never leak. You keep a circumference hot around the cold cotton sheets where I huddle foetal like
You keep the chill from chilling me

You are pliable, soft, and malleable like a baby with fur
Though you smell of singed rubber .
Water gurgles inside you
Water sloshes inside you

I can move you around my body for extra heat.
My feet are coldest and you rest there, heavy but not oppressive
My toes wiggle under the warmth
You do not move away
You do not turn over

You stay with me throughout the night when the temperature is beyond zero.
You chase the icicles away


In the morning you are still there
A little used, a little frazzled.
You stay with me as I drool and snore and snort
You always start heat-hot and grow lukewarm
But you never ever blow cold.

*******************************************************

The perfect cup of (costa) coffee = £2.55 (inc. VAT)

I love cappuccinos. I love a good cup of cappuccino. I love a good big cup of cappuccino made by someone else I pay.

I don't ask much of this world. I don't. I want the cat to live forever. I want to be able to compose this poetry for my homework = all 40 lines of it. I want to win at least one small competition for any of my short stories. I did win £50 once for a "flash" story piece - but the website where the competition was hosted has since disappeared...! I want my train service line to not shut down for eight weekends this month and the next, forcing me to take their special laid on buses to and from work adding an extra 4 hours total of journey time.

What makes a good cappuccino? Shots of strong just grounded good quality coffee and a further shot of milk so frothy and so light a hippo would float on it.

I know, I ought to just make my own. I know. But I don't have a cappuccino maker. We did have a really cheap one at work but I could never get the froth right. Or the coffee beans ground just so. That broke down soon after anyway.

I want a little treat. I want to be pampered a little. I work a full time job and have another part time one at the weekends. I'm living with a cat I saw born 17 years ago and who continues to cling with determined paws to her tenth life. I have fat calves. Shop people ask me for my ID when I buy alcohol.

I've tried Starbucks, Cafe Nero, the other one I can't remember and Costa. For a few weeks, there was this wonderful no-nonsense barista from this one Costa place I discovered who made cappuccino for the gods and goddesses. I would have gladly fought monsters and tamed dragons so she could be left in peace to take her time making my perfect cappuccino. Which she did every single time. Queues what queues?Then she disappeared. And so endeth my love affair.

Of course I stumble on really good cappuccino making baristas from Costa every so often. But stumbling upon these rarities are a lottery. Like the cat's progress, there are good days and bad days and terrible days. At least, I know I am not wasting my hard earned dosh on her.

Oh Costa, costa, costa: get thee behind me Costa!

p.s. just spoken to the vets. The cat's blood test results are better than expected - so onwards with the chemo sessions! Starting next Monday...! Hooray! Cat 1, Costa 0.

The art of being chilled - YouTube rants

As part of my Open University creative writing course, I need to produce something that sembles a poem by February. One of the many exercise the course book recommends is to listen to a musical composition lasting 10 minutes and then to write a reflective piece on what emotions this music conjures up.

Simple, I say.

YouTube! Because the only piece of music I can think of lasting 10 minutes would be something classical and I ain't got many of those.

I find Jacqueline Du Pre's version of Bach's Cello Suite no. 1. This should last around 8 minutes. That would do, I say.

So I listen. Ah, peace, music, classical, art, the sound of a cello wailing away all sad and lonely. I'm in the zone. I'm feeling all sorts of passionate emotions listening to this. I conjure up images of the sea, of blue skies, of a rich field brimming with wild flowers, of isolation, of hope, of love - I'm really liking this!

Then it finishes and I think, oh, how nice - how refreshing!

But this is YouTube and this is the age of virtual communities, communication, connections and conviviality across the ether, across the globe.

The net has released us from our shackles and we are able to voice our opinions freely, without shame!!!

What do I read under this most beautiful piece of music? Lots of effing and blinding as to whether Ms Du Pre's version is not as good as Rastropovich or that this cellist is better than that etc, etc, etc. I am back in the playground minus the musicians.

A few months ago I watched a clip of Rihanna's interview where she speaks about her experience of physical abuse from her ex. I cannot even begin to understand those who left verbal abuse directed at her as "comments".

There is a famous clip of a baby panda sneezing. The comments descend into racial mud-slinging. ??!!??!! It's a panda sneezing, people!

Chill!

She says, ranting.