The bric-a-brac shop waits on Rue Nationale.
In a sleepy French town.
It opens at ten,
And closes at one,
Till three.
Then on till seven in the evening.
Madame opens the shutters
Before going to feed her little dog,
Hettie.
Hettie's toenails clip clop on the ceramic tiles.
Madame feeds her green beans and tuna from a tin.
Hettie barks.
Madame sits at her counter
And waits for mail.
A customer comes in.
"Bonjour!"
"Bonjour. Ca va?"
A deal is done on a 1920s doll.
Three hundred euros until Christmas.
A good gift for a collector.
But no more customer's today.
All is quiet.
Evening comes.
Hettie barks.
She eats and drinks.
Madame is always kind. Hettie knows.
She clip clops to her basket again.
Madame thinks about her man in England.
She smiles, but no-one sees.
She shuts the shutters and puts out the lights.
Another evening alone with Hettie and the TV.
Her man is waiting. Her man is waiting.
If you found a fragment of an ancient Greek vase in sand on the edge of the surf, you can find as well all the others, provided that you have an eternity.
A time;
a sea;
salty and warm surf's hands, sorting through a treasure,
gifts from who knows who to who knows whom,
a bric-a-brac* of life:
green,
white,
orange shards of glass, turned into gems by numbers one and second on this list;
a button;
a dime;
a cork;
a toothless comb;
a children's plastic scoop;
an oval shell;
pebbles, tangled up in the algae's brown beard;
a cheap,
enamel on silver,
ringlet (my girlfriend lost it here in July. We got married in September, but she still feels sorry of this ringlet).
* (fr.) A collection of all sorts of rarities, art objects or just useless stuff.
24/07/2019
Writing Challenge 3, July 2019 - List - Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Dear Heart
Humpback
Blackjack
AP: Honorable Mention 2020
Let's all gather 'round
For a large glass of cheer
The way that we do it
At the first of each year
What brand of champagne
I can't give a real hoot
As long as it's not Brick-n-Brac Brut
It's Brick-n-Brac Brut
Thats ruined my life
I lost all my friends
My kids and my wife
I didn't quiet know what life was about
'Till my hair started thinning
And my teeth all fell out
No never again, Will I drink such a brew
I'll drink wine, I'll drink beer
I'll drink liquor with you
Since abstaining of it, this point is now moot
But, never no never drink Brick-n-Brac Brut
Once within these very walls farmers woke at dawn.
The field was full of vegetable, the cows were in the barn.
Life was full of chicken clucks, and Mother's who could darn,
bales of hay stacked within but, all of that's withdrawn.
Within my walls, my embrace, I hold one matron chaste
a Smokey cat, and bric-a-brac, she's a lonely one.
Surrounded left, surrounded right, all her chores are done,
I can but hold, I can not mold, the ones that I embrace.
Four walls within, four walls without, a box of reverie
meant to hold the dreams of tykes, of pets and chick-a-dees.
Head held high, I seal the deal by denizens decree
and in the night, the shadows talk to comfort such as she.
A house, a home, a room, a box what stories people tell
but walls will not for you see, these walls are ancestral.
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