Crowded ride on the early bus
Fractured visons of city and sea
Seeking clarity in the morning light
=====================
Nostalgia whispering from the shadows
Gently tugging at my sleeve
To awaken distant memories
Of old hopes and wilted dreams
Drifting by but can’t be seized
Grief and joy spliced and knotted
Content now with might have beens
====================
Cats in the Garden
Roses are a lovely plant,
A long-time favourite of my aunt
They flower for her every day
More since uncle passed away
He’s buried in the flowerbed
Since aunt whacked him in the head
It wasn’t just a simple spat
She loved her roses; he loved his cat
Each day aunt would prune and hoe
Each night that cat would boldly go
Tension daily grew and grew
Until one day aunt’s temper blew
With bulging eyes and face all red
She grabbed a shovel from the shed
And swung it like a baseball bat
First at uncle, then the cat
She tenderly laid them to rest
Poor uncle and the furry pest
She buried them real close to home
Against the fence in sandy loam.
Where aunt sometimes now plucks a bloom
And ponders on the victim’s doom
She oft regrets that it were so,
But oh, those roses, how they grow
Yet sadly Aunt had been misled
The hated cat still was not dead
Nine lives it had to haunt her still
No more the roses would they thrill
They grew so well you understand
Fragrant yes, but not so grand
Wafting on the evening air
Stench only of the rotting pair
No more the favourite of my aunt
No rosewater to decant
Just haunting eyes o’er her bed
From a disembodied head
A ghoulish purring in the night
Now wakens aunt in awful fright
Her nightmare roses ooh ooh ow
Are thorn-like claws meow meow
===================
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest entries.
1. Prince Eric fearlessly stood his
ground as the snorting dragon let loose a flaming blast, a blast that should
have incinerated Eric, yet he remained unharmed as little puffs of steam arose
from the post warranty perforations in his armour, perforations that had turned
out to be essential for one known as the incontinent prince.
2. As the treasure laden pirate ship lurched around Cape Horn, a force ten gale
tearing at its shredded sails, rotten hull creaking in protest, the scurvy crew
swarmed the rigging in response to the drunken captain, who, at the end of a
line half a league astern, perched on a fine pair of water skis hurriedly
carved from barrel staves by the ship's carpenter, bellowed, in his jocular,
though assertive manner, "Hoist the mainsail, me hearties."
3. On reading the rejection slip, George crumpled as his critically wounded
lawn chair had, a lawn chair hurriedly purchased on special for $4.99 at the
local hardware store to provide comfort to the guest of honour at a reading of
George’s manuscript, a lawn chair which now lay crushed flat as though by a
rampaging elephant but actually by the similarly endowed rear end of an
overfed, capricious editor accustomed to slumping heavily into a sturdy, brass
studded, leather wingback, the kind of wingback that was also on special, and
upon which George had, in fact, placed a non-refundable deposit based on the
advance that he’d hoped to receive for his first novel.
© David M. Hobson
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