Fox has the keys to the town’s coffers
So, they make him mayor and make him a crown.
It’s an easy chair! He yelps, delighted.
His petootsie feels warm and soft next to the cushion.
His fluffy tail curls around the back as if in tandem agreement.
What else do you need? His subjects ask.
They run to fetch him hot lemon tea and cucumber sandwiches.
He spits them out, so they are replaced.
They bring out trays of meat with horseradish cheese sauce.
Tasty and delicious! He assures them.
Bring me a large book to devour, he demands.
They bring him all sorts of volumes.
He keeps the one that shows photos of plump hens.
These pin up photos make me salivate! He tells his wife.
She leaves home shortly after and it takes him years to notice.
Joji Varghese Kuncheria
Summer Vacations
I looked forward to summer holidays,
Free from school, to run away, to
My maternal home amid paddy fields,
Reachable only by boat those days.
To play on snake boats in the lagoons,
To go fishing around the back waters,
And give the catch to nanny to be fried,
And eat it all well before lunch time.
We wait for the sun to go down a little,
To be out again for a session of games,
To cool it all down the river after a while,
And to dash back home before sun set.
Reaching home before the church bells,
For the evening prayer that's long always,
We pray for the vacation never to end,
And not to go back soon to school.
Bed time is a world of fantasy tales,
With grandmama's cooked-up stories,
Each day a new one from her store,
And to sleep to the tune of her lullaby.
*******
When my well-fed cat dies will he go to heaven?
Will he make it in cat years to fifty-seven?
Or eighty-six or one hundred and five?
Just what is keeping this fat sassy tom alive?
Shark has a kill room around the back.
Has killed varmints from here to Hackensack.
Will he ever reach the Rainbow Bridge?
He annihilated my mean Aunt Midge.
Sure some do not think it was Shark my cat.
But he’s wearing her rings, so what about that?
Some memories from childhood
are hard to forget.
I now remember one
without regret.
Our house never knew a lock.
No need for anyone to ever knock.
How strange then to find
no entry at the front....but never mind.
Around the back I dashed.
The scullery door for sure unlatched.
In I bounded but again how strange,
the main room of the house remained
unassessable.
My little eight year old brain was puzzled.
I stood there silently befuddled.
'Twas then I heard my mother's giggles.
Muffled.
11/12/2019
Rednecks and roundabouts, they don't mix.
Don't try and fool us with your media tricks.
We drive around the back roads throwing bottles at signs.
Your roundabouts make us slow down or the ladies spill their wine
Our latest product is the Viv mark one,
please stop and take a gander,
coated with skin of medium grit
and an ass like an orbital sander.
Adjustable nozzle to help you reach
in all those hard to get places,
plus two large air vents for cold air intake
on a range of adjustable faces.
Exhaust pipe set down around the back
starts first time on the coldest mornings,
but use of improper fuels may lead
to blowbacks without warning.
Will decorate, and dig, and clean
all your household stubborn grime
and is guaranteed to get all jobs done
in probably six months time.
For contest 'Make me laugh', sponsor Robert Haigh
24th February 2018
Blimey times are tough lately,
and most of the stations too.
I haven't eaten for a week;
the squatters offerings is 'shoo'.
My wish is flour for some damper;
a small handful of leaves for tea.
They reckon we're all pests out here,
the blokes who walk the track like me.
What's that ahead? Is it a pub?
It is! Oh glory - glory be.
There will be a scrap or two,
for a hungry bloke like me.
I’m not allowed in the front door
to beg for food where they serve beer,
so I'll just sneak around the back,
to where the tradesmen enter here.
I ‘gives’ the door a gentle knock,
and then quietly I wait there.
A barmaid opens up the door,
then she gives me an icy stare.
"What do you want?" she say's to me,
in a tone extremely rude.
I says "Ma'am I ain't ate all week,
I wondered if you had some food".
"I've got nothing here to offer,
but let me tell you what I'll do,
I'll give to you this option,
would you eat day old stew?"
"Oh lady yes! Yes! Yes!" I drooled,
then my stomach churned in sorrow,
when coldly she said back to me …
“Good - then you come back tomorrow!”
He waits for me in my dreams each night
I hear his soft neigh when he catches sight
of me. I am only a tiny little slip of a girl
who sits on his back as we travel the world.
Into the stirrups then up to saddle of gold.
Around his powerful neck, my arms enfold.
A few times we circle while the music plays.
Up and down we gallop with blacks and grays.
"Hold on tight," he flicks his tail and we fly
off the carousel, all the way up into the sky.
Around the back of the moon, we chased a star.
Up and down all night, we journeyed afar.
Down to the meadow to greet the morning sun.
My carousel stallion and I have so much fun.
I've been holding on to his thick mane all night,
but now the sun is up and shining so bright.
We've been flying for hours; time to come down,
I promise to try my best not to frown.
It's time we return to your place at the park,
I'll be back in my dream when it's grown dark.
Handsome stallion of white, on my carousel,
where we go on our fantasies, I will never tell.
* * * * * * * * * *
February 24,2016
What Goes Up, Must Come Down Contest
by: Catie Lindsey
I saw the old stone cottage
A shell of all it used to be
Its gardens wild and overgrown
but that cottage spoke to me .
Here I'd get my independence
my family wouldn't be too far away
Sure I would have to put in the work
but that never killed anyone so people say.
So I bought that old stone cottage
Invested everything I had
Toiling for hours after work
My family thought I'd gone mad .
Sleeping in a two berth tent
Cooking on a small camp fire
Sometimes the work I'd done was not evident
Some days my body would tire .
Determination drove me onward
Restoration was my goal
If this dream was to come true
I must be prepared to pay the toll.
Six months turned to a year
Soon another 6 months passed
Then I stood back and admired
My work was done at last .
Golden roses round the front door
Purple clematis around the back
Every kind of herb and flower
I've really got the gardening knack.
Visitors I have many
Though its sometimes lonely being alone
Who knows what tomorrow may bring
Until then my stone cottage is my home.
Apparition
For several years
a photograph of my grandfather,
my mother’s father,
hung on my living room wall
There’s no date on his portrait;
family lore says it was taken
shortly before he deserted his family.
He was a handsome man,
easy with women,
or so I’ve been told.
In the photograph
he’s dressed formally
for a country man:
a dark suit, a white shirt,
a crooked bow tie.
I knew him as a broken old man,
pacing around the back yard fence
like an animal in a cage,
talking quietly to himself.
One evening long after his death,
as I sat quietly,
contemplating his portrait
(a casual close reading),
a ghostly hood emerged,
covering his face,
eye-holes roughly cut,
his bow tie and suit
disappearing beneath a white robe.
My grandfather
no longer needed Sunday clothes.
It's awkward and strange,
and if I had to sum it up
in about four words
They would be
My mom was driving.
Not romantic, just weird.
And when we got to the movies
mom went to the other side of the theater
realizing her presence on my first date was
ridiculously embarrassing
We didn't really talk to each other
I didn't know what to say
and you didn't either.
And I don't really remember much of the movie
because what I do remember is your arm
around the back of my seat
an inch away from direct contact
I'm sure you eventually recovered
some feeling in your arm
in a few years, I bet.
On the way home
it was equally silent
and equally awkward
And our relationship
didn't work out
but I hadn't really expected it to
So here's my hint to you, kids.
Just don't go on a first date
with your mom in the car.
~~~~~
Written for the contest: First Date
In the hallway, was the memo.
All avoided it! Some walked
around, the back way, past cubicles,
the copy room, to avoid it.
Being Friday, no one, I mean
no one, wanted to read it.
I took a chance. What do
I have to lose? I told myself.
I can deal with it. Slowly,
I approached the board. Eyes
focused on the yellow paper,
with a tack right smack in the
middle. I looked as sweat popped
off my forehead. Then relief,
NO OVERTIME! Gingerly, I skipped
to my desk. Stated loudly,
""Chickens"", grabbed my key, and
quietly said, ""Thank You God""
ran to my car, burnt rubber on my way home.
In Knotty Ash where magic lived
The trolley runs all day
The pillbox on the corner stands
Five flagstone from the bus stop
Outside the News and sweetshop door
The start of Eaton Road
The next left down East Prescot Road
Woodbourne winds around the back
An’ up above the nex las shop
Was where we ‘ad ar flat
The front door opened to the street
then straight up stair at that
With a landin’ an’ two bedrooms
With winders to the street
But if y’stepped two steps straight on
Past the bathroom door
You’d be in the famly
Dinin’ Livin’ Parlor Room
We called ar ‘appy ‘ome
With not much left but kitchinette
An’ veranda to stair down
The back garden had a shelter
Left over from the war
And three brick walls for climbin’ on
With a big door for the tea shop
And a single that was ar’s
Lookin’ back it was n’ much
But back then it was ‘eaven
Grandmother used
the same kind
of round, metal tub
that we put the Christmas tree in
to soak her laundry
before she washed it.
She used the same tub
to clean a chicken she'd kill,
holding it upside down by the legs
and chopping off its head with an axe,
holding the bird so that the blood
drained through the neck into a pan,
from which she's make blood pudding,
not letting the chicken run
around the back yard
flinging blood all over
like our neighbors did
for a laugh.
She'd plunk the chicken
into hot water
and let it set there
for an hour
to soften the feathers
so she could easily pluck them.
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