TOP prompt "Revisitation"

AND STILL

With only an hour left for him to live, he sets out to make his peace.

Love letters to burn, skeletons to closet, and daughters to marry.

He revisits his old stomping grounds and finds a priest to confess to.

Poetry to erase, novels still to write, pictures that need painting.

People to forgive, sons to instruct, balls to kick, recipes to burn.

Aeroplanes to jump from, mountains to climb, rivers to ford and to swim.

Poets to read, websites to find, comments to make, more blogs to link to.

Babies to kiss, wives to dismiss, lovers to lean on, tears to cry.

Beer to drink, time to think, people to find, galaxies to explore.

Seeds to plant, crops to rotate, potatoes to dig, apple trees to shake.

And still, knowledge to acquire, things to see and do, other fish to fry!

280908

RWP #45 word fishing

These are my word fishing words

1. Roger McGough You and Your Strange Ways undersides

2. Anne-Marie Thompson Milkyway Moon camouflage

3. Adrian Henri Love Is… fanclub

4. Lemn Sissay Live Man Die (City Sigh) slick

5. Brian Patten On The Dawn Boat warnings

WORD FISHING

I applied to join your fanclub

Who knows which way it will take me

First I slide down the undersides

Then I get back into the groove

I’m really moving oh so slick

Automatic pilot now girl

There’s no need to heed the warnings

Flying high above the city

You alone are my camouflage

I’m so glad you let me join you

Word fishing in another world

240908
You can visit my other blog Proper Joe's clink-the-link.

TOP Free Prompt

2 GIRLS

They call you up

when you’re all alone

to let you know that they can moan.

On the flummin

dog an’ bone

and all they do is moan and flippin moan.

They hog the phone,

trunk call trombone

and moan & moan down the herringbone.

They say: don’t you know

what he did to me,

did he do that to you too?

They’re out to kill

they don’t pay the bill,

that’s how these phone girls get their thrill!

They moan and moan

‘til the dialling tone goes shrill,

‘cos that’s what phone girls do.

Hell, if you’ve got two girls,

when they call you up,

you’re gonna need two phones.

So that you can

just put phone to

flummin phone and let them flaming moan.

230908

Rewritten from an idea I had in 1971

You can check out my other blog Proper Joe's HERE

Sunday Scribblings. Invitation..

WINO’S BENCH

Dying in this melting pot of my little bit of bohemia.

The wino’s bench sits in all weathers inviting confessions all day.

They say, sixty-six languages are spoken in this neck of the woods.

By the same token the Jam-patios, unintelligible to all.

Except for to, some followers of the Ethiopian guru.

But like Dreadlocks once said, that that’s the way things should be after the fall.

Since the tower of Babel and hanging baskets of Babylon fell.

And we all fall, there is no escape and it is not will I? But, when?

And Jin Singh walks past with his brown-paper suitcase spilling out his smalls.

I knew it would rain, he complains as he hurries by the wino’s bench.

And they are in fine form today and out in force and speaking nonsense.

The bottles and cans empty and broken like the men who drank them dry.

And cold old Irish Pete hugs his shillelagh like there’s no tomorrow.

And slowly he downs the last drop from the miniature for the third time.

Across the street outside the corner shop even the currency talks.

They take Euros, dollars and cents, Zloty and Roubles for crack cocaine.

And young bodies change hands for ten pounds for ten minutes, dead or alive.

The Somalian’s have got their own café now and their own dealers.

They only speak Arabic to your face and perfect English at home.

Like everybody else, they want your money not your conversation.

Even the barber invites you to speak Hebrew; it’s all Greek to me.

Such and such a sort of double Dutch but those that speak Urdu still do!

And at the Delhi-deli they leave out the old veg for the wino’s.

But the alkies don’t eat unless they go to the soup kitchen at night.

Winter is coming fast this glorious Indian summer can’t last.

MSC210908

TOP Prompt - Blank Verse (attempt)

BLANK

VERSE

Bess looks so drunk, dehydrated these days

Like a memory line hung out to dry

As she must! Or might she one day recall?

Nodding, swearing, kicking. Screaming to squirm

Kebab and café windows are broken

Volkswagen surf bus down by the ocean

Everyone normal is sleeping by now

Rip-roaring Rangoon is closing down too

So by the time that the rickshaw heads home

Even the doughboy is kneading the bread

170908

RWP #44 Rememberances.

KING OF KINGSTON

Little Miss Sax goddess talking dirty, forty years back or thirty.

Time was simple then, they say, but the days were hard at the lumberyard.

And Mohican Sam, the ganger man, made us work for our bread and lard.

And Guitar Jim would sing ‘I’m the king of Kingston! der der der, der dum!’

Then old Surbiton Soap-box Joe, would go 'And I’m the king of Hong Kong!’

Suck blow suck suck blow, blue in the face, that Harmonica Kid could blow!

So, you can bet – we worked up a sweat when Miss Sax goddess crossed our path.

Can you remember all those years ago? How I remember them so!

250808

TOP Conversation. Paris Une..

VINGT GITANES.
I wander alone in this great place
no-one bothers me, hardly,
apart from a few girls,
calling out of upstairs windows after dark.
'Hey English!' and 'Sprecken sie Deutch?'
But I'm tongue tied, except for
Vingt Gitanes, Sil vous plait!
and Merci becoup, Madamossell!
After a while I start to read the shop front names.
The street signs come alive -
Rue de St. Germain, Montparnasse
and Parc de Champs de Mars.
Advertising bollards suck me in.
Newspaper HEADLINES shout at me.
Eventually, I speak my first French sentence.
But the girl behind the Turkish bar
answers me in broken English.
Chicago, hey Mac? she asks.
Manchester! I tell her.
Oh, Bobby Charlton! she grins.
And I can't tell if she's taking the piss
out of my haircut, or what?
From 1987 rewritten 20697 and previously posted on my
StraightTalkingStreetTalkingSweetTalkingGuy.. archive.
Here's a link to a picture of Sir Bobby Charlton.
Finally, the September issue of Nicola Batty's Newsletter Raw Meat.. is now Online.

Steve Taylor

Hi everybody,
Here's a link to a Manchester writer we know.
Steve Taylor author of The Fall and Making Time
has written some cool poetry and posted it on his website.
Clink-the-link-HERE.