words falling, like petals

for d’Verse haibun Monday,  “cherry blossom“:

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. It’s not like I was dangerously ill. I didn’t end up in hospital or on a ventilator or anything like that. I was only really sick for maybe a week, and now this lingering malaise. Like being invisibly weighted about the shoulders and ankles, and drained of energy and enthusiasm for… well, anything.

So I have given myself permission to not try too hard for a while. This is a new thing, and sits uneasily. I tell myself that my mind needs rest just like my body does, and I hope that it’s true. Because I keep expecting to get bored, to feel the urge to do something, to write something. But I don’t. So I’m working shorter hours, no evening walks, no writing. Walks tire me too much, leave me coughing and exhausted. Worse than this, words escape me. Phrases fall apart before they reach the page, scraps of white-noise with no meaning, like cherry blossoms in the wind.

 

my words come apart,

confetti-petals falling

in drifts at my feet

life’s too short for margarine

Life is too short for margarine,
though I’m told it’s shorter with butter,
and I know that I ought to eat more greens,
not things that might make my heart stutter.
And I’ve heard I should feed up my biome
on yogurt and stuff that is leafy,
but I’d rather have choccies in my home,
are my gut-bugs so different to me?
I could read about tracts alimentary,
but I’d rather read tracts that are droll,
so my lifestyle choice is sedentary,
though I’ll take a post-prandial stroll.
Then I’ll lie in the tub with my chocolates,
while my friends huff and puff at the gym.
When we go out for coffee, there’s lots
of full cream in mine, and not skim.
As a woman, I’m afraid, of a certain age,
and a somewhat uncertain shape,
it’s not for me the latest fashion rage,
or bras from which bits might escape.
I don’t spangle or bling or accessorise,
my spectacles aren’t for a “look”
they’re to help my poor aging eyes
so that I can still read a good book.
Now you may disagree with most,
or even, all that I’ve uttered,
but you can’t argue the best thing on toast
is a layer of rich creamy butter.

For D, who has taken to using margarine… poor man. 

first order transition

A mother, a father,
two brothers and a sister –
a game of five –
how to arrange them
to minimise frustration
in this spin glass disarray,
where every second interaction
is a source of dissatisfaction.

There is no good,
but is there good enough,
when metastable
is the best solution on the table?

If I step away,
will I see a solution
to the riddles of these four?
Or have I solved them already
by walking out the door?

 

For the dVerse “Carroll crush saga” prompt – choose three of the Lewis Carroll titles from the list provided, and crush them up into a poem. I chose: “Brother and Sister”, “A Game of Fives” and “Four Riddles”, and threw in some physics. A spin glass is a metastable system because it is impossible to satisfy all interactions between particles simultaneously – there is always frustration in the system as long as it is bound together.     

two eyes quadrilles

I wrote the first of these quadrilles for the Monday dVerse quadrille prompt “eyeing the quadrille” – 44 words exactly and must include the word eye. 

I don’t think I have ever been told
that I have beautiful eyes.
So does that mean my soul
is also not something to prize?
Is it murky grey-green-brown,
of indeterminate hue?
If less like sky than ground,
does that mean it lacks value?

Then after taking the photo above I noticed that the last photo on my phone before this was the freaky tree-eye, which was just too good a picture to not use, so I wrote a second quadrille to go with it:

 

Even the trees are watching,
so be careful what you do,
and be careful what you say
because something’s listening too.
The only place you’ll find
away from all ears and eyes
is deep inside your own mind.
There is nowhere else to hide.

This scary tree eye is how the tree has healed after a branch was pruned off. There are several of them, more or less eye-like, on the trees at the edge of this carpark. 

high fibre snacks

I don’t understand why the humans persist
in constantly putting out more of this –
it’s chewy and dry and awful gritty,
at least add some butter, show some pity.
I’ve now eaten six of the horrible things,
but when I turn my back, one of them brings
another one out and puts it in place.
Honestly, it’s a shocking disgrace,
the things they expect a poor pig to eat.
But I will never admit defeat!
I’ll eat another six and then six more
of these hairy things they put at the door.
I’ve heard that fibre is good for one’s tum,
but I wish they’d consider what it’s like on my bum.

 

I really need to start buying doormats in bulk.