Month: September 2023

BLACK thoughts prickle me like
CACTI. Once again the teacher’s thrown the
CHALK – and missed. I ask you, is it
CIVIL to be his daily target? Is there insurance
COVER for a kid so picked upon, abused? The
CYNIC in me sees this happening till the end of term, his
GREEDy target set at a chalk a day; a kind of
GRUEL he prefers to healthier stew. Should I
INFER he sees me as the white knight at the
JOUST – he the black and surly knight, of course.
MARRY! his lance is long but blunt, loose like the
METER of this verse, not worth the page it’s penned upon nor the
PENNY possibly paid for it. Like
RAYON, it’s weak when wet, and even
RECUT, these lines would still swillow as a
RIPER fruit will slobber over fingers, as a
RIVER slid from moorings spreads in a
SAPPY stream invading fields, streets, houses.
SCRAM! you dull and diffident lines, you
STALE and dribbling anti-pentameters that
STALL like undercharged EVs, set teeth on edge with similes too
SWEET, that let the excess of metaphorical verbiage
TOWER above all sense, run off the rails like a wayward
TRAIN.          

[For once it’s not me catching up…!]

MAGIC music brought alive the hop-step
POLKA, but here these Poles were violent. A
SPURT of blood startled the dancers: someone
THREW a Szabla at the man who stole his girlfriend.