Month: August 2023

Double Quordle

We
CRAWL from birth to toddlering, and – it seems to be an
EDICT – from late old age to death, though every
FIBRE in the ancient body hankers not to
GRIND from Y to Z, behind a walking frame, as the skin
MOULTs, leaving its traces hither, thither and yon, to be
QUASHED by upright bodies, blissfully unaware that they
SMITE carelessly what was recently life, like that hooded
STALKer with the scythe.     

Sardaka –
Man with walking frame, Florence Street, Hornsby, Sydney

Helpless laughter

TRAWLing through the death notices, I’m seized with a
SPASM, my legs won’t hold me, I’m feeling
SHAKY all over, and giggling begins to bubble up. Very
PICKY, normally, about what I read in the paper
OWING to the way disasters, violent offenders, murderers
LEVER me, for some unknown reason, into helpless
LAUGHter. It’s a psychic-physiological thing.
HOMER cracks me up, his Iliad seems a farce. Once-
EASELled savage paintings by Goya and Munch, or the thought of a still-
BIRTH, reduce me to whoops of hilarity, the tragic made comic. You’re
BIGOTed about me but I can’t help it. I hate it that bad news is in
AMPLE supply. Here, for example, unexpected, is my father’s obituary.

Spasms and Levers

SPASM–muscles’ healthy strength gone awry, as though health now
TRAWLs for malign opportunity, joining in the fall, in entropy. What
LEVERs, choices, join in the fall, not mere nature’s malfunction? A
BIRTH: chance to find spasms and levers anew. And hope for grace.