How To Plant A Poem For Action, comic poem number 190 by Angela Lansbury

 Bunched, jumbled words jump in my brain

I sort them into sentences

Space them like trees down my clean page

And decorate new thoughts again

I let the prefixes explain

Recall poets should not complain

And throw out all their dirty words

Like drenching rain down a dark drain

But after each poem's begun

Plant seeds, prune, 'til verses harden

Through wild meadows lay a clear path

To secluded, secret gardens

Thoughts start to flow, start to grow

You do as much as you are able

You think of seeds, uproot a weed

The day's tasks listed like flower labels

Where choruses like trellis grow

And in full sun bright colours glow

End with faint glow like setting sun

You, and the last perfect word, go.

Go to picnic, go to dinner

Go to rest, to drink or party

Go to sweet sleep, resigned to die

Leave behind gardens you started.

-ends-

The poem is a joke about how you wake up muddled in the morning and try to sort out your thoughts day with lists. The joke in the last verse but one is that the last word is short, go, and ends the distraction and inactivity of writing or reading a poem. Then I added the last verse. Go to party, go to sleep, go to die. Prepare to die is less hard but resigned echoes the vowel. Your choice when copying and reprinting. But remember to add by Angela Lansbury.

 

Yesterday's Rain Again Pain - Wiped By The Blessing Of Amnesia

Angela with silver-lined umbrella. Photo by Trevor Sharot, edited and cropped by Angela.

The blue sky said no umbrella
I strolled off in strong sunshine
All day long it's bright, no change
Except the gradual drip of time

The day's blue sky a fading dream
When I reached the edge of town
The path looked like a river
The rain was pouring, pounding down

Then when I left the station
I faced a dreadful shock
The clouds had emptied bucketloads
To drench each road and rock and block

The morning's sunshine haunts me
A dream I can't forget.
My sandals slosh through water
I hop from dry through swirling wet

The water's wet and dirty black
The only way's uphill and on
There's no point turning back
Just think, next year, this will be gone

What blessings come from water?
This monsoon could go on for days
It must make the flowers and trees grow
I hope the mist dispels the haze

My clothes cling wet, my hair hangs wet
I look like a half-drowned rat
I'm half way home, but not there yet
Rain cares not if you're thin or fat

I should have left home earlier

I should have packed spare socks

I should have done a hundred things

Not biked uphill past riverside rocks

My umbrella is far too small

The cloud is far too big

I should have worn a sombrero

Wellingtons and a wig

A journey of ten minutes
An obstacle race, takes half an hour
Strangers make friends, we share this war
They advise me, 'Have a hot shower!'

                

 ***

Next day by the pool, in sun again
Where the elderly can't remember
That yesterday it poured with rain
Their mind's in life's dead December.

The advantage of amnesia
Is that you forget bad days
If you suffer from dementia
You forget rain, complaints and praise

'It rained,' I say, 'it poured last night
That thunderstorm - you must have heard?
The sun, then rain?' I'll save such scenes
Preserve wet weather with wise words

I can move the memory away

My words paint over yesterday

And warm the world with what I say:

'Today's a lovely sunny day!'

Angela Lansbury

Revised Monday March 7th 2022. Copyright

Why I Must Dust - And You Must Dust! Comic poem 1

You'll Dust I Trust

by Hazel Nutter

I have to dust 'though I'd feel better

Painting pictures or penning a letter

If I left dust I'd cough and wheeze

My allergies would make me sneeze

I'd have red eyes, I'd sniff and snore

And so, although it is a chore

I'll Hoover, wash and dust some more

Clean folk live longer - that's the score

One boyfriend's flat was full of dust

His health and sense I did not trust

In his dust, large, I wrote my name

He'd dust before his next girl came!

I'm happy when I'm neat and clean

I'm glad Hoovers came on the scene

The new clean sweeps kept all alive

Before, graves tell, kids died by five

I knew someone really dirty

Don't know him now - he died at thirty

For me, cleaning's an hour or two

Then ten hours gained to write for you.

A restaurant, hotel, cafe

Will watch its business walk away

if everything is full of rust

Their profits lying in the dust.

What falls in open, cracked, milk jugs?

What lurks in dirty, long-haired rugs?

What feeds dust mites which feed bed bugs?

My friends who dust deserve my hugs.

2014 Feb 24

Written in response to the poem on Dust if you must reproduced in Facebook.

Comic poem number 1.

About the Author Of This Post, Angela

Angela Lansbury, travel researcher/writer and photographer, author and speaker. 

Author of Wedding Speeches & Posts, Etiquette for Every Occasion, Quick Quotations, Who Said What When?

You can contact Angela through Facebook, LinkedIn, and Braddell Heights Advanced Toastmasters on Facebook or Toastmasters Interntional.com find a club. Angela is a member of four Toastmasters Clubs and BHA IPP, Immediate Past President, and VP PR (Vice President Public Relations) for 20202-2021.

Feb 19 2022. I revised what fall in open white milk jugs

white jugs or white milk, to cracked, not just dust, but cracks, although the subject matter is dust.

I revised My friends who dust will win my hugs

I changed the alliteration to another alliteration which sounded more natural, 

to read My friends who dust deserve my hugs.

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