• Richard


• Lisa


• Tom


• Serendipidy


• Norval Joe


• Planet Z

The next topic is Pencil case

LISA

The Dog Walk

Afternoon. The light fails fast. The poetry of the season doesn’t escape me as a golden glow hugs the park: it’s a feast for the senses. Russet leaves rustle underfoot. Mustard and claret cling on in trees above.

I forage with an urgency through damp, decaying debris in a thousand shades of brown. I find a perfect red mushroom straight from a fairytale but on I search to avoid a fine.

My foot, with full body weight wins the treasure hunt. It oozes either side of my deep treaded boot and smells like I should’ve found it a lot quicker.

LIZZIE

She wrote poetry.

He said it was garbage.

She tried again and again.

He laughed.

She cried.

He mocked her.

She wanted to stay, but couldn’t. She wanted to leave, but couldn’t.

He torched her poetry.

She wrote some more.

His rage became impossible. He destroyed her clothes and her books.

She grabbed her purse, her poetry notebook and her umbrella. She didn’t know why she took the umbrella with her. She just did. It was hers and it reminded her that when you look at an umbrella from underneath, you can see the sky and feel that you’re flying.

RICHARD

Poetic

I’ve never been one for poetry. Give me prose any day. I don’t need flowery language or complicated structure, just give me facts in plain, straightforward terms.

It’s not that I don’t like poetry. I appreciate it, and there are times it’s perfect for my mood or the occasion, but I don’t go out of my way to find it.

The same goes for writing.

I suck at poems.

I never have the time,

And they never really rhyme.

Well, how about that?

I’m writing on the train right now, so I guess you could say that’s poetry, in motion.

SERENDIPIDY

‘Roses are red, Violets are blue

With a shot to the head

I’m going to kill you’

I told you I wasn’t the artistic one in the family.

If I’d asked my sister to pen a poetic prelude to your last moments, she’d have done a much better job of it.

It would have been full of drama, pathos and emotion; you’d have wept at how she’d captured the moment in all its horrific beauty.

But, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me, and my less than brilliant grasp of rhyme and meter.

So…

‘Roses are red:

And now, you’re dead!’

NORVAL JOE

Billbert watched the old man spin up into the sky and disappear. He shook his head. “Poetry in motion.”

Bobbi squeezed Patrick’s arm. “What is wrong with your head? You were going to kill those women.”

Patrick shrugged away. “What does it matter to you?”

Tears formed in the tall girl’s eyes. “It matters because you’re my brother and I love you. And I don’t want you to go to jail.”

Patrick looked like he had been hit on the head by a brick. “You love me?” he asked. “Even after everything I did to you, you still love me?”

TOM

reads us stories out of I Ching

She was poetry in motion you can let go. An angel from the angel band. A shadow in a wasted land. A Specter rising up in the sand. Sweet Lorain. You know you should run, cuz your feet know better. The mark on the ground is big red letter. Sweet Lorain. The spell that she cast will be your end. To bottomless pits she will send. Sweet Lorain. Now you know it’s a shame and a pity you were raised up in the city and you never learned nothing ’bout country ways. You’re the not first you’re not last. Sweet Lorain

TURA

Poetry

———

In 1892, young Matilda Dunnett travelled by steamship from New York to Liverpool. During the voyage, she and a young man called James Hurt struck up an acquaintance, and discreetly became lovers.

At some point James wrote her a declaration of love on a ship’s biscuit, its durability promising his faithfulness. It is not known what became of the affair, but Matilda’s grand-daughter found it among her belongings after she died.

The biscuit is preserved at the National Maritime Museum in London. The caption reads:

“This ship’s biscuit

(inscribed with a love note)

shows signs of damage by larvae.”

Poetry!

———

Z

Jerry was posted to a far colony. Faster than light travel, made travel fast, but the infrequency of ships along the routes made communication less than instantaneous. A Data block would collect important information, and it would be delivered along the route. Sometimes a ship would be lost and news of the loss would take a while to arrive before another data block could be sent. Jerry sent poetry back to his fiancé, trying to entice her to get aboard the next ship. Eventually, she agreed. It wasn’t until the next circuit that Jerry learned her ship had vanished.