Equi Feri

 

We came out of the sun like flares

burning out our own memory,

landing like witless baby birds

and handed a brick in the heart before we even knew.

There is the sun, our personal searchlight

calling us not to sell ourselves for nothing. 

We played in traffic, drunk as monkeys,

carrying our Queen Boudica dolls for luck, dodging disaster.

Forever sneaks up, whistling our favorite song,

together with a creepy-crawly to keep us honest.

We have tried to express all of this, bright horses nickering

in the Earthbound Barn but meant for the roses, headlong, guided by the stars.

___________

for Word Garden Word List--Klara and the Sun 

Music: Junior Brown Surf Medley

Word Garden Word List--Klara and the Sun

 

Hello my little automatons, and welcome to this week's Word List!  I've recently finished reading a marvelous novel by Kazuo Ishiguro entitled Klara and the Sun. It's set slightly in the future and is told from the perspective of Klara, an AF, or "artificial friend." She starts out on display in a store but is then purchased and set to her job of watching over and helping an ill girl. 

Klara may be a robot, but she's a very observant one, and--dare I say--she possesses considerable soul; more than many of the humans around her. As things unfold, Klara finds herself on a desperate mission to save Josie, her young charge. I adored this book and recommend it highly.

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others, and then recharge. This prompt remains active until next Sunday when a new one goes up. 

And now, your List:

asleep

barn

birds

boxes

companion

creep

doll

forever

imagine

leaked

memory

oblong

plan

pretend

smile

special

sun

traffic

trolley

window

I Confabulations 5:13-27

 My heart remembers, dear friends, the glad evening

when the davenport did receive my person even as a

mother cradles her firstborn. O happy hour! O time of bliss!

As I watched astonished, I was provided with a magical light

Which emanated--as if from the mansions of Heaven!--

as a glowing loveliness from a device with which I was blessed.

O wide screen! O splendor of high definition! My heart

remembers these wonders and even now, gladness fills me,

Despite the trials which befell me in the fullness of time.

I was given to behold wonders, and amazing scenes,

called "a game show" by the sages whose words were

handed down to me. My heart remembers all these things!

Lifting the golden cheesy triangle of glorious pizza to my lips,

my heart soared as I gave myself unto such debauchery

as cannot be imagined! The devil mozzarella! The imp pep-

peroni! My heart remembers, and quakes with shame!

Hear me, lest wickedness overtake you! Partaketh not of

spicy foods in the hours after the sun's arc has been completed!

My desires ruined me! My merriment furthered my misery!

My heart remembers my unwise and froward acts. O torment!

My heart remembers how I was robbed of any rest, my belly

filled with a burning fire, until I cried out, "Can there be no mercy?

Is there no Pepto in all this miserable and curs-ed land?"

The hours passed as slowly as wisdom to the mind of a fool!

Heed me well, my friends. In sooth, I made my prison with

mine own willfullness! My heart remembers the pleasures,

 the new wine (okay, Coca-Cola), and the mad revelry which 

laid me low, but my stomach remembers sevenfold!  O ruin!

__________

for What's Going On? What the heart Remembers

Music:  Rubber Chicken My Heart Will Go On

Don't Clown on the Waitress

 

Don't clown on the waitress, fool.

She writes in hieroglyphs on a pad made of stardust.

One click of her pen can make you shudder and drool

sucking like a baby on a bread crust.

She takes breakfast orders; the cook creates worlds.

Order an egg and it evolves right on your plate.

Don't clown on the waitress; she's a woman not a girl--

in your orbit, never still, never simple, never late.

Don't pick at the sugar packets or leave your napkin in a wad.

You're going to have to finesse it--no menu, no calorie chart.

Museums will bid on your bacon, at auctions with a nod--

Don't clown on her, just appreciate that you cannot hurry art!

______________

for Word Garden Word List--The Rosie Project. 

Word Garden Word List--The Rosie Project

 

Hello, my Sunday savants, it's time once again for a new Word List! This time our source is Graeme Simsion's delightful 2013 novel, The Rosie Project. Yes, as is often the case, I am late to the party; in fact, the Rosie franchise has spawned several sequels since this original. In fact, I would likely never have picked this book to read at all if not for that personable Canadian booktuber booksaresick, who recommended it. (He also recommended--and I read--John Green's Looking For Alaska, another one I would likely never have read, and would have been better off for it, except for knowing that I won't be reading any further John Green novels, their popularity be damned.) But, back to The Rosie Project. 

Graeme Simsion

It's a rom-com of a different color, featuring a hidebound genetics professor who doesn't realize that he's an "aspie" and whose Asperger's Syndrome makes it seem to make sense to him to find a wife by using a lengthy and extremely specific questionnaire to weed out the smokers, vegans, slobs, etcetera. Naturally, this fails spectacularly, but when he meets the completely unsuitable (as per his questionnaire) Rosie, a delightful and very funny romance begins. 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others, and then find yourselves bewitched by someone out of left field, or by a book like The Rosie Project. 

And now, your List!

arms

art

breakfast

clown

correct

dance

emotional

fever

finesse

freeze

glass

mania

museum

normal

overload

popped

project

reminding

swings

wad

In the House of Time and Mirrors

 

A woman I used to be got up out of her grave

trailing rose vines and the scent of men's cologne.

She swung the decades on a knotted ribbon

and said, "There you are, more wounded, more brave."

I replied that I am made of newspaper and moondust,

a castle composed of carnations and  wives' tales.

Meet my lover, incorporeal and not yet born--

she admires my home-baked bread and scent of must.

A woman I used to be gifted me a moue

useless and juvenile, then beat me with her 

limited beauty. "You are wise but ugly," she 

said, haughty and stupid, then looked away. 

A woman I used to be got up out of her grave

trailing rose vines and the scent of men's cologne.

I swung her head from an antique silver chain

and said, "Here you are, more wounded every day."

_________

January

 

I said to January,

just born and tilting like an upset vase

between heartbeat and nothingness,

"Borrow my hands

to hold yourself here. Rock yourself

into this motherless place."

Summer is an orange

in sections, skin as thin as a pulse,

her bright dress never meant for us. 

I said to January

with her hair of stars and darkness,

"You were born to grace the river ice."

January said to me,

"There is one kimono, spun of morning silence--

wrap with me inside it, as pleasure does with melancholy."

We slept and were steeped

in both love and loneliness. When she vanished,

I kept both and went on, into what was, and would be.

_______________

Shared with What's Going On?