Royal

(based on suggestions from @pinknantucket, @_camer0n, @timsterne, @marklawrence, @TheEndeavour, @slimejam, @realnixwilliams, @snazzydee)

Don’t want to give the wrong impression

about monarchs. They’re no butterflies.

He’s not a mis-heard lyric and

she’s not an ill-placed homophone.

No one mistakes Groban for Mr Hankie

in the after-dinner set list.

Confirm the banquet menu.

Kipfler or kestrel or King Edward?

Mini Yorkshires or cottage pie?

Anyone who says “Let them eat Kate”

will find themselves with takeway noodles

quicksmart. Zero tolerance pho puns.

The date looms like an oversized tiara.

Important issues like pet names –

Pickle and Honey puff?

Big Willie and Babykins?

Don’t see any votes for Squidgy.

Funny thing, that. Discuss.

Even if I was still fourteen

You wouldn’t see a royal poster

gracing the paint adjacent to

my Take That wall. Mark Owen’s

come-hither tattoo was enough of a

fantasy for this princess, sweetheart.

_____________________________________________

Today's poem is based on suggestions from eight peeps:

• @pinknantucket: “pickle and honey puff”
• @_camer0n: “Lady Mondegreen and Mrs Malaprop” (apologies to Prince William for making him into a lady)
• @timsterne: “Monarchs!”
• @marklawrence: “kipfler potatoes. And pho.”
• @TheEndeavour: “confirmation, tiaras!”
• @slimejam: “Romance misconstrued. As defecation.”
• @realnixwilliams: “MY POSTER OF TAKE THAT FROM THE CD I HAD WHEN I WAS A TEENAGER, literally the only band poster I had on my wall back then!”
• @snazzydee: “Perhaps ‘come-hither’ could make an appearance”

Obviously I had to make it about the Royal Wedding. Right? No choice. *cough*

Dromaius novaehollandiae (the emu)

(based on suggestions from @msmisrule, @_boobook_, @_camer0n, @hleighthree)

Emus tap staccato tables,

yoink a snag or two off

forty cent fizzing grills.

Meat spiked from bread,

white pinwheel corners nicked

from slim picnickings.

Avoid mock turkey with

thin fluorescent pickles,

stick to sauce sangers.

Swift as hungry wet cats,

big brown birds skip rapport.

Nip past oncoming droplets

with necks held ahead,

feathered devils. No one

says their nonsense names

or invokes thieving beaks.

No one calls them William:

they appear anyway.

Artless flightless antichrists

jab noodle necks across

a lunch spread surrealists

would puff up with pride.

Soggy triangles droop,

melted mealy timepieces.

Long past rain o’clock

children scream; sausageless.

Parents shoo the prehistoric.

____________________________________________________

Today's poem is based on suggestions from four peeps:

• @msmisrule: “rain, cats, lunch”
• @_camer0n: “cut-up nonsense dada Ftumch”
• @_boobook_ : “tapping”
• @hleighthree: “thin pickles”

Somehow, all of this made me think of emus and how they steal your food at picnics. The buggers. I've lost sausages right out of the bread in my hand.

Also, sauce sandwiches! Best barbeque food ever.

Stenography

(based on suggestions from @timsterne, @pinknantucket, @notcharming, @slimejam, @dogpossum, @realnixwilliams, @marklawrence, @_camer0n)

Hermes 3000 inherited from a racehorse

named “Light Fingers”, he bought that

light green machine by a nose.

Might have been lost to hard rubbish

instead it was won from mum and adored.

My own fingers small, tipped in bandaids

apostles to the apostrophe

so they weren't cut like keys.

Not quite old enough

to be eight.

Apple IIE wanted to know where

Carmen Sandiego was.

CrimeNet insisted flags of

Reykjavik, Kigali and Bamako.

were playground life skills.

Broderbund crowns made space

for my big head, covert

covertext like Leia’s holograms.

Could’ve hidden behind my age

at thirteen.

Brother AX-10 sold

to Brethren girls en masse.

Long hair, long skirts, they had

purpose for electric typewriters.

Headbands thrilled back

interrobangs and questioned the end

of uni holidays. Their clothes were

my clothes, sorted and recycled.

“You’re all there to study, aren’t you?”

Nineteen in college I lied

said yes.

Thinkpad wasn’t really for keeps.

“Borrowed” on permanent basis

like a stenographed cup of sugar

Never really going to give back.

“portable”, “lightweight”, “mine”:

end ambivalent airquotes.

Bluescreen mid-diploma.

Work all day, evening class, weekend

assignment, sleepwalk at twilight.

Swapped all time for a library

at twenty-six.

iPhone 3 fused to my hand.

Every bar and café with ready

power point mapped

in my head. Charger carried long

wind it down to ‘dismiss’ twice a day.

No sharp keys to slip between

no small ding, no red ribbon lifting

the carriage. No holes pepper the page

where ‘o’ punches too hard.

Thirty years old I miss

my green typewriter.

_________________________________________________________

Today's poem is based on suggestions from

• @timsterne: "holograms"
• @notcharming: "interrobang"
• @pinknantucket: "Superceded technology - the typewriter, the reel-to-reel, the minidisc..."
• @slimejam: "Making space. Hard rubbish."
• @dogposssum: “end of a holiday?”
• @realnixwilliams: “sorting out what you’re able to recycle?”
• @marklawrence: “ ‘borrowing’ a cup of sugar from a neighbour. As if we’re ever going to give it back. And how come we don’t do it any more?”
• @_camer0n: “apostrophe apostles, air-quote ambivalence http://bit.ly/fIeEWT (Chapter 8)”

I learned to touch-type before I learned to write, mainly because I was too impatient and wanted to write stories NOW. So Mum taught me. She had a green Hermes typewriter that was bought for her in 1966 when my grandfather had a win on a horse appropriately named 'Light Fingers'. My fingers were small enough that they slipped between the keys and got little cuts on them, so I was often bandaided up in advance, ready to type.

Sliding my fingers around on the screen of the iPhone I have now made me remember that typewriter, and all the writing-machines I've battled in between. I kind of miss their familiar noise, eccentricity and tactile nature. I even miss the bandaids.

Unclean

(based on suggestions from @realnixwilliams, @_boobook_ and @skippy_2)

Filigree of frost and mould on windows

prickles out a ream of stars

spiral galaxies press against

glass for private screening.

Pretend they’re far away, stream

orbital arms from years ago

long-forgotten halos of dust.

Couple of hours til reminders beep

breakfast orders grind jam into carpet

greasy tiles demand elbows and sugar soap.

Grey light will rise responsibly,

like a shiny straightened paperclip

pierce a hole in the morning

restore tired factory settings.

But not yet. Heater glows orange

wordless purring companion.

On a clear day, who needs forever?

Grimy stars three feet away

are as far as I need to see.

Better housekeepers never know these

impossible squalid diamonds.

_________________________________________________

Today’s poem is based on suggestions from three peeps:

• @realnixwilliams: “Glimpses of the milky way on a clear night”
• @_boobook_: “jam”
• @skippy_2: “one shiny straightened paperclip”

I really should clean the windows one day, but it’s a job that never quite gets done, due to more immediate requirements (clean clothes, meals, empty nappy bins, day job etc). On these increasingly chilly mornings, condensation clusters around the mould on the window panes. Once dawn breaks, it looks wet and filthy. Before dawn, it reflects the outside lights and looks like a belt of stars stretching across the glass. If I was more hygienic, I’d never get to see that.

Three possums

(based on suggestions from @cochineal, @jellyjellyfish and @margolanagan)

The largest of the possums is

a common one. She comes

from the Greek for ‘furry tailed’

and the Latin for ‘little fox’

and you’ve probably seen her

running along your back fence

in the dark or kicking back in

the Carlton Gardens.

She falls asleep easily and

sometimes comes a cropper

if the branch is unsteady.

She can hold the world in a hug.

The most medium of the possums

is curly and quiet in his eyes

and he smiles like an upside

down cat. He comes

from the Latin for ‘pilgrim’

but you will only see him

calm as a shrine to the night.

His tail curves like a coil of

woodsmoke, white at the tip

as a conductor’s baton

a perfect ferrule for pairing

journeys with songs.

The smallest of the possums

is outlined in kohl and walks

the tops of trees like a red carpet

she was born to make flowers

into stardom and eats

her fill of honey without breaking

the blossom. She comes

from the Latin for ‘neat’

and has a lot surface area

that can lose heat quickly.

Larger possums hold her

keep each other warm.

________________________________________________________

Today's poem is based on suggestions from three peeps:

• @cochineal: “awards ceremonies”
• @jellyjellyfish: “tall possums”
• @margolanagan: “I think you should include three kinds of marsupial.”

The largest Australian possum is the Common Brushtail Possum. They're the ones you see everywhere, and (I discovered one evening after a movie) they like popcorn. Well, the ones in the Carlton Gardens do.

A mid-size Australian possum is the Common Ringtail Possum. They have long, prehensile white-tipped tails that remind me of conducting batons. I think they would make good mixtapes.

The world's smallest possum is the Tasmanian Pygmy Possum. It's the one in the picture, and it's about the size of a mouse. They're omnivorous, and when they eat pollen, they don't destroy the flower in the process. Aren't they lovely?

What I want

(based on a suggestion from @snazzydee and @robcorr)

The space between here and home is

as long as you can think.

What I say when I’m tired

or I can’t think or my hands hurt

Over and over I whispered it

in the delivery room though

I thought I was yelling

I want to go home

The space between here and home is

waiting in an airport with a 2 year old

endless as a repeated word.

Tarmac riddles out an unwound

cassette tape caught in the headlights.

I’ve been pretending all weekend

punching Braille into the wall

I want to go home

The space between here and home is

as bright as a supermarket aisle

glittered with chocolate when

all you want is bread and milk.

Sometimes I wake up and

don’t know where I am. Sometimes

I even say it when I’m home

I want to go home

_________________________________

Today's poem is based on a suggestion from two peeps (as I forgot to ask for suggestions until 4am and Snaz, being in another timezone, was thankfully awake, then at 6am so was @robcorr):

• @snazzydee: “distance”
• @robcorr: "Airports, because that's where I'm sitting now."

I often say "I want to go home" as a kind of mantra, when I'm upset or tired or...giving birth. (Apparently I was saying it really softly over and over when I was in labour, though I thought I was shouting).

Sometimes home seems so far away, even when I'm sitting on my own couch in my own lounge room. Sometimes I can't quite feel at home anywhere, or I know where home is but I can't get there. Then there are times when I do feel 'at home', whatever it is in that moment, and it's like an easy joy.

Aegrescit medendo (the cure is worse than the disease)

(based on suggestions from @margolanagan, @realnixwilliams, @greenspace01)

Mourning is no rollercoaster.

A flat, straight road towards

a flat horizon. Vanishing point

does not curve with tears or songs.

If there was a cure for kindness

I’d dose up everyone I know.

Morning is no miracle.

Sun is a cheap chocolate coin

Floury and greasy; a waste of calories.

Death tastes like low cocoa mass.

If there was a cure for grief,

I’d choose the blue pill.

Mourning is no sprint to the finish.

Take foot, place in front of other foot.

The thought of it is enough:

even a cheap sun gleams precious.

If there was a cure for fear

I’d pick chocolate over snake oil.

Morning is no uncommon birth.

Unpeeled gold foil coins prompt

surprised smiles at clichéd lining.

Kids like cheap chocolate.

If there was a cure for their pleasure

I’d criminalise it and flush the drugs.

______________________________________

Today's poem is based on suggestions from three peeps:

• @margolanagan: “I think there definitely should be some gold foil in there somewhere.”
• @realnixwilliams: “walking along long, straight roads towards a flat horizon.”
• @greenspace01: “Death, rebirth, and chocolate as an antidote to fear”

I was talking to a friend recently about whether if there was a cure for grief, if you could skip the whole thing, would you take the pill? Or is it a necessary process? The blue pill in the Matrix is the one that keeps you in blissful ignorance. I'm a bit ambivalent, I have to admit. I think I'd probably take the pill. Or maybe - yes well, let's just say I'm undecided.

Anyway, this poem reflects my mixed emotions about feeling vs. not feeling, about how numbing pain usually results in numbing pleasure as well.

And how sucky it is that the cliche is true: time really is the only moderator of grief. Stupid cliches.