Bric A Brac Poems | Examples

And Then There Were None - For Agatha Christie

I’ve only desired to light old lamps with young wicks
(the tongues of flame must be blinking hard with vigilance)
Across dark, mildewed alcoves that smell of ink —her writing ink —
But one thing led to the other, and the ink I
Found froze in my eyes, the bottle instantly petrified among desert ruins.
I searched, from my village to Nantucket, borrowing
The courage of voyaging storms, seeking earnestly her quill feather,
Just to caress her pretty face with it.
But the power of distance arrested me midway and warned me
Of the dangers of costly adventures.
I hankered after a trained parrot —an amanuenses of note—
With less brilliant plumage,
Electrifying elocution,
To detect to me the protocols of her language.
But that, too, failed.
The parrot was either born mute or chose to be.
I did all I could? to seek, to find, to locate, to identify items
Belonging to her —bric-a-brac of a telling age.
And then there were none.

Becoming

There are days
when I don't look
for much, just an old chair
on the back porch,
a few thoughts
to pick over, perhaps
a memory to recall and,
to entertain the eye,
splotches of sunlight
to dance around 
a cup of coffee
cooling on a table.

Life distilled
to such a simple array
of mental bric-a-brac
set in a familiar scene. 
Cezanne knew it
in a bowl of fruit.
And yet how clear
the moment, how 
this bright beam
of consciousness illuminates 
a patch of existence
making it a lens
into a world trembling
on the brink of becoming.
I keep returning
for more.

Stars Of Night

The art was most masterful on the dark canvas

Within the thick of night his hand was full of sweep  
beneath the Muskan moon the artist quivered not 
Etching silver dollar stars the artist took a leap 
as he painted up the sky with orbs of sparkling dots 

Celestial objects bright as light, a candle spark 
moonlight, starlight, airglow, all a  work of art 
Applying white on black creating a celestial ark 
he mastered in the light with darkness off the chart  

Tinted colorants of amber midnight grains of gold   
every brushstroke took him, to a journey home 
Van Gogh signatures and visions stories yet untold  
all night long he painted, from a sonic neo zone  

Light to dark, with different distinction 
he played shadows with God's bric a brac   
Twas' a Masterpiece of fact and fiction 
Oh !   He really had the knack !

Madame

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.

In Memory of Backyards

Back then,
backyards were big enough
to nurture a growing soul
and provide a space
for the earth to play out
its seasons in full rehearsal.
There were wide tracks 
of grass, trees to climb, 
old sheds to rummage
with their interiors full of tools 
and bric-a-brac 
webbed in history.

There was food - ripe tomatoes
and corn from a vegetable patch, 
grapes swelling 
under a cool canopy of vines, 
soft skins bursting 
their dark sweetness
inside expectant mouths, 
almonds, apricots and the luscious 
dribble of a warm peach
down sticky cheeks.
Some had roaming chickens
with their bounty of eggs.

Backyards were blotting paper
for a child's hurt, a hiding place
to get away, a theater
for projecting the phantasies
of a sheriff or a princess
high in a golden tower. 
And in summer, a sprinkler
casting a gauntlet of cold spray
for tiny feet to challenge.

Then it all ends
when backyards become
too small and more exotic places
call a restless soul to leave
its Eden and break the spell
of its beginning.

Create a Special Dream Place

create a special place to dream
your own niche, a loner’s paradise
a nirvana, where you can relax

fill it full of comfortable things
pretty items that you have collected
bric-a-brac that you love

bring in scents that bring joy
sights that help your heart leap
people who uplift you

Our Yard Sale

Salvaged trinkets from less mindful times,
doodads and trifles - mainly yours.
Electrical dinosaurs, 
wrapped in wires and plugs – mine.

Not much furniture: particle board,
cheap impulsive clutter.

Browsers turn over knickknacks,
hope for an overlooked value;
we have none.

We have this jetsam, and this, and this
and that.

Treasures in-between bric-a-brac 
and thingamajigs -
almost priceless, almost worthless.

Bric-A-Brac

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

My Blood Calculated

My blood calculated 
The width and diversity of my body
My hopeless spirit level
My anchor placing sunken paws
Into the grips of the dirty earth.

I have grown like good stock
And unhinged myself of 
My restraints and set foot
Before foot and conquored a gait.
My body all the while
A little box
Full of grey bric-a-brac.

I have manipulated my mouth
To mutter animal sounds
And pieces of precious code
That the others can understand.
These pictures fluctuate and flutter
Painted inside my head
A screen of endless manufacture 
And invisible machines which
Surely stand higher than a god.

My blood calculated
And my evolution continues 
Locked and stifled 
On the sacred ancient ground
Where we bury our dead 
And build our cityscapes.

Passing It Forward

Had a purge on my study today,
Loads of stuff to go away.
CD's and books, DVD's too,
All gathering dust, I'll never view.
Lots of bric-a-brac, pictures galore,
Cushions and ornaments and much more.
All stacked and piled on the table outside,
Just sat there waiting for me to decide.
Where it's all going, I had not a clue,
Then came a memory of the blue.
I saw a movie, maybe you did too,
About when good fortune comes to you.
All this I have gathered, not wanted now,
Remembering the movie showed me just how.
It was called Passing It Forward",
What you don't want, you can award,
To those in need, without any reward.
Take it all to the charity of your choice,
No need for acclaim, so don't raise your voice.
The shop can make money for their worthy cause,
It's a bit like playing at being Santa Clause.
Bringing presents for being good the year through.
Now you can help others, like others helped you.
Pass it forward.
© Dave Timperley 02/11/2018

Miss Prudie Plunkett

Instead of a purse, Miss Prudie Plunkett carried a frumpy sack 
Brazenly swiping, filching, odd & ends and bric-a-brac...
Until one day at the five-and-dime
The store clerks gave her a terrible time
Banned her for life and labeled her a kleptomaniac!

Several of the Greater Nations

Your suicide 
Wrests the act from the hand 
So that fire can envelop the bottle 
And skyward 
And bright
And living 
Technicolour dances in extremes.

We effervesce and burst 
We rise up and with a fury
A million or more 
We wilt back onto the vine
Waiting to be harvested and 
Transformed into feed for machinery

The blocks and the slabs and
The blocs and the Slavs 
And the pointed jagged teeth 
Of a rusted saw three thousand times the size of the moon

We jigsaw and puzzle and pile up
And bric-a-brac away the inheritance 
Of dead men coming into dead men’s fortunes
We store up and cascade
And chisel 
At the face of a dam
As a plague of locusts descends 
Within the imagery of Uncle Sam 

We shoot in succession 
And with twenty-eight barrels 
We could split the world to pieces
And commit 

Several of the greater nations
Turn and shoot and all goes black
As the litter is circulated 
In samizdat and under purple cloth.

Might Have Been Haunted

I think back of yesterdays
And particular summer days
When my brother and I might be bored or
Deviously in the mood to explore

Instead of conniving trouble to arouse
We would remember that old house
Abandoned way down the road
Decrepit roof, ready to implode

Where never would we go on solo mission
But soon our duo launched expedition
To see if at least it was still there
Whose it was we were unaware

Tiny and dilapidated, barely a room
Unmistakably no larger than a bathroom
One time we found a china cup
Another time, a silver coin face up

We were sure by a ghost it was haunted
We came to suspect someone taunted
By repeatedly planting odd bric-a-brac
As lures to keep us coming back

It sounded creepy so off we’d go
As soon as curiosity was ready to tip toe
But when we thought we saw snakes, ho
Believe me, that got us moving pronto



AP: 1st place 2022, Honorable Mention 2020

Posted on March 18, 2018

Let It Be Recorded

Let it be recorded
my wish to live
where I can sleep 
in good weather or bad
on a beach festooned
in the bric-a-brac
of the ages.

Perhaps a vanishing glow
far to the south
all that is left
of that common pestilence
known intimately
as a lifetime
of earthly dues

Now I am leaning with shoulders leeward
still eyeing the reef submerged
a ship's pilot
steering his vessel
beyond the shoals
victorious
to the open sea

From breath to breath
I exhale the plague
once tyrannical 
against every stemming cell
once dominant
over every
pulsing heartbeat.

The sea now
lives inside my cells
where time itself
tunnels the sun
through woven matrixes
a surface below 
tethered skin

I can only hope
as I fall into sleep
that I soon be awakened
to sea birds squawking 
at something of interest
in the tumbling
surf

The Platypus

The elusive, furry platypus,
Is a surviving monotreme,
Living above and below the water, 
Of any Aussie stream,

Where it lives a pure autonomous life, 
With a bric a brac design,
Made up from bits of others, 
A sort of animal Frankenstein,

With its duck bill mouth and otter foot,
And beaver sort of tail,
And then it’s got its venomous poison, 
In a curly black toenail,

And, as a mammal, what’s really odd, 
It lays eggs like a chook…
These are reasons I love spotting platypus,
When they’re swimming in a brook.

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