Laundry Room
The central activity in
the laundry room isn’t the action of
washing and
drying my tatty, smelly clothes, it’s
the Daily Redback Spider Race.
Also, the laundry basket leaks
gas. The linen cabinet doors in
the laundry sometimes turn the
dazzling colour of a
butterfly.
A Secret Recipe
I have a secret recipe.I bake it in a pan.
I got it from my mother, who had it from her Gran
Her gran was five and forty when she found it in a book.
She baked it on a big black range. She was a wondrous cook.
The book was old and tatty, belonging to her aunt
Who got it from the tally man, he was a handsome gent
The tally man was Irish.The book his mother‘s pride.
He didn’t want to part with it for her spirit was inside
His mother was a spay wife. Her writing it was bold.
She copied down her recipe that never can be told
Aunt Annie loved the tally man, and so became the heir
To the very precious recipe that no one else could share
Until Great granny found it, after auntie died,
but she knew it was a secret and a secret it would bide.
And so it passed on down the line, until it came to me.
I treasure that old tatty book that no one else can see
I’ll leave it to my daughter when I go off to heaven
That precious old and tatty book from eighteen twenty seven.
Fragmented
Worn out
My veil has been stretched and torn at it seams
My face tells a story
Hardened by the damp and the cold
Embittered and coarsened by the wind
The heavy gusts blow me
To and fro
In a whirlwind
Stranded and distant
Solitary
Solitude
Solo
My hands shiver in the cold
The frostbite takes hold of me
My clothes have become tatty and battered
Dusted and covered in mud
My soul lives in a different realm
Beyond myself
My eyes and the soul concealed behind it
Is a façade
It shows a person and a soul
But it is merely an after-image
A ghost
A story
And a front
Sadly
My soul has long since been dead.
From the unravelled and now exposed mystery
Tales of leafy Nottinghamshire
And the dusty tatty books of it's long history
Comes a tale
You'd think it was just a jest
However, it is a fact and true
With hand upon heart and chest
I am telling you
Way back in time long before Robin Hood
And the Major oak
Was a mere sapling about to bud
A small settlement in a sunny green forest glade
Once lived a tribe
And built their huts
Working the land to survive
Their name
The Snot People.
Named after their chieftain Snotter
And the famous Nottingham was born
The Surrounding encampments
And Hamlets found it so funny
They laughed made fun and teased
''The Snotters''
It was just too hard, to believe
The Snotters
We're op so embarrassed
And how poor Cheuften Snotter must have cried
For his name and his people
Were ridiculed for their true name
Had sadly been denied
So they had no option
But to change their name
From Sottinghamt to Nottingham
And no longer ridiculed
Or had to had to bow their heads In shame
Peter Dome©2024.
Arid, bony-shanked carapace.
Shiny, weathered patina
tells of desolation,
Belies any promise of richness;
Yet when inverted,
Becoming regal.
A tatty, crown implies
The ancient purport.
Tough, yet easily-torn in avarice.
Revealing, inner passion
Shrieks fecundity and blood,
Gleams with shiny liveliness;
Yet when sundered,
Serried jewels.
A secret, inner-order shows
The abundant warrant.
Red, a study of translucence.
Deep-hued, each perfect gem
Fades to stalk-umbilicus,
Foretells the unborn orchard;
Yet when amassed,
Bitter-sweet.
A fruitful sumptuousness gives life
The noble pomme grenate.
In time, in time, always in time
The prophets always say
There is no time in heaven
It just gets in the way
Perhaps the madness of my life
Has seeped inside my mind
Perhaps the sadness of my heart
Has reaped the poorest kind
For chains and locks are what they gave
To middin folk as me
And others hang from castle wall
Or from a tall oak tree.
This is my time, in dark and dank
With brain of silence, bruised and blank
And all for a tatty small and hot
They gave me a preacher and a prison shot
They gave me a time to fail in the gloom
Of a black hearted cold cruel room
And who will remember me
She will and no other
The day they stole me from my mother.
abandoned beautiful child wandering like a lost leaf
all she can do is quiver as rain splinters fall like a river
her name was Clara and she has scary thoughts chimera
she has "tattered, tangled, tatty" hair with eyes aching
she is "hungry, hunched, hurt" a fragment in a chasm abysm
"dangerous, dark, daunting" doorways she seeks as a sleeping place
frail, gaunt, helpless her spirit is disconnected and broken_
in the morn' dead on the cement . . . ending her torment
_________________________
September 12, 2022
Poetry/Verse/FRAGMENT
Copyright Protected, ID 09-1486-757-12
All Rights Reserved, 2022, Constance La France
Written for the Standard contest, 'The A's Have It '
sponsor, Joseph May, Judged 10/02/2022
Fourth Place
Reborn here now without baggage;
moving on was my dawning thought.
The torn, fear the clout; the salvage.
We like tatty. Not what we ought.
A new horizon full of hues.
Reborn here now without baggage.
One with myself; I’ve found my muse.
Rebirth reworks the worth; adage.
A ton of truth; tiny package.
Twisted words, prove which screws are loose.
Reborn here now without baggage,
You must put my insight to use.
We like tatty. Not that we ought.
Every idea; a passage,
corridor, where lessons are taught.
Reborn here now without baggage-
[According to Mr Google, what we Brits call a vest is
what Americans call an undershirt]
The completely cuckoo cuckoo
Had got too big for his nest
And so he made a hammock
From a tatty old string vest
But when he hung it up he slipped
His feet went through the mesh
He flapped until his skin rubbed raw
And he was featherless
So looking like a chicken
Or an oven ready duck
He shouted I need stuffing
Flapped his wings and went cluck, cluck
Pulled faces acting bonkers
Happy as a pig in muck
Then made a swimming motion
Going quack, quack like a duck
He thought he’d keep on clucking
Until all his feathers grew
And then just like a turkey
He went gobble gobble too
But when the farmer raised his gun
And said my lunch is you
The completely cuckoo cuckoo yelled
CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO!
(Coming Back Home)
Crimson sunsets trickled beyond the moor
Opulence of one’s youth a mindset forever stays,
Miracle of homely birthplace the lure
Inspired by non-forgotten special days.
Neon lights above the door lost their glitter
Garish gowns grew tired torn and tatty,
Bothersome marriage a divorce turned bitter
Asylum that sends a sane person batty.
Calling out aloud in hope a childhood listens
Kindred spirit says let the passing of time begin,
Heart and mind to put behind all that glistens
Oh, and the carousel of show biz and the spin.
Memories are many so are the steps to climb
Epic journey the apex or slippery slope for a dime.
© Harry J Horsman 2021
I have held my last pot of hot soup
I've come to the end of my threads
Befraggled and muffed
Bedraggled and fruffed
A raddled cloth corpse that's dead
Frayed so soft and shabby
As the cotton boll that bore me
Worn to a frazzle
I have lost all my dazzle
Faded and haggard and tatty
So tattered in my casing
My splayed stuffing is facing
The dog who has chewed
What was left!
May 11, 2020
The Potholder Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Craig Cornish
To ward off those germs from afar
I’m using a tatty old bra
It can’t be a task
To make a face mask
I’ll model it like a film star!
But sewing skills, none to be had -
My home made mask looks very bad
No way does it fit
I look a right tit
My husband won’t wear his, I’m glad!
Limerick Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Janice Canerdy
04/27/20
Oh How Then
The powers that be took us into this mess
And we as people decided to act
Yes that’s right we banged our pans and spoons
Screeching ENOUGH IS ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
You there over there yes you in Europe
With your plans and rules and laws and languages
We are English and do not want your rules
Or to be ruled by you from citadel Europe
What will we gain from this?
Having to use Metric instead of Imperial
Pity the market traders now in jail
For refusing to bow down to Metric
In a clink with druggies and gangsters and murderers
But the Euro MPs should be inside
For maiming our lives with their red tape
From fishing quotas to banana size
They say jump and we ask how high?
So we did jump and jumped out of Europe!
Some wanted to Remain but I voted Leave
Yet what a mess it created oh dear
May’s leadership is tatty just like her
And her job is hard even damned
But there is No Deal with the chaos it brings
Brings to us in England and you in Europe
What will it really bring?
A sense of leaving but then what?
Increased air fares, a need for Visas and new wars???
Time will tell...
Comfortable Slippers.
.
True love
Gifted from above
Maybe compared
To a pair of slippers
.
They go together
But don’t quite fit
Have room to grow a bit
.
They may get worn old
And tatty over time
Treading through sunshine
And the cold
But they remain comfortable
And too good to throw away
Best kept as a pair.
.
Peter Dome©2020.
The Book Of Life.
.
I earnestly searched for the book of life
I looked in every store
I always got the same answer
‘’We never had one
Have you tried next door?’’
.
My endless quest finished fruitless
And I gave up my restless endeavour
I began to think
Of life never existed ever
.
But one day
I came across an old book shop
And looked around
I came across a book covered in dust
Nicely bound
.
As I turned the pages
I finally knew
I found the book I’d been searching for all my life
And my quest was over my dream
Finally come true
.
Although old and tatty
The words inside told the truth
And the mystery and key to life
Was no longer aloof
.
It’s prophecy
Is the best advice to living and life
Even for today
But so many don’t want it
And blindly turn away.
.
The book
The Bible
Its the only book you need
To be happy and content
And shouldn’t cost a cent
.
In a chaotic world where people ask questions
What is happening to the problematic world today
I say
What we see now happening in the world
Was prophetized long ago
Man has lost his way
And only God can save us now today.
.
Peter Dome©2020.
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