A few Haikus

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✔☜☠☃✝

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ʤᴟσϸƕ
ɰɻʁæðƈʄ
ɮʩʬʑʔ

Remembrance

Suddenly
(Like a truck filled with old clothes
Hurtling down the M4 to Cardiff
With no rear view mirrors)
You came back into my life.

I remember
The taste of your lip gloss
Lock of hair stuck across your face
The sweet tang of your crusted saliva.

That summer's day you let me in
Holding hands we learnt new ways to touch
Breathed deeply, tacky with sweat.

Our bodies locked in young infatuation
Air rushing from our young lungs.

How times change.

Now you've broken it all
Thrown bricks through the greenhouse.

I was left naked, screaming
Curled up like a fox caught
With its hind legs in a snare.

"Put your fucking pants on"
You said, sneering
Through lips, now painted
Only with your lies.

The hair has gone from your face
And the slightly crusty saliva
Has long ago been wiped away with my tears
(Not to mention your breath,
Lost like an autumn breeze).

55 Fiction

For those who don't know, 55 Fiction is a style of storywriting using only 55 words to tell a story. I've always been a fan of constrained styles of writing, so I thought I'd give it a go. It's always nice to blur the tenuous divide between poetry and prose. I thought I'd make it in a sci-fi style; I think it's pretty existentialist.

§

Riker left the Quasarbar, and took a drag on his photon cigarette. Polaris-beta was seething with off-worlders this time of the solar cycle. “Buy Zzkzzon's!” the billboard opposite screamed. Bio-flies hovered, scintillating in the Phosphos. Ash settling fast, he sighed, breath hanging in heavy atmosphere. Life was better when the humans were still alive.

Jazz

Zippydeepipdepippdepowwww
zoo--WOP--zoo---WOP-zoo-WOP-----

scibbydideebadoosriddyBAOdiBOW
doo--WOP--doo---WOP-doo-WOPdePOW
boom boom (boom) boom boom boomboom
!doobiedoobiedoobie!
boom boom boomboom boom boom

dee!

pow!

DEE!

POW!

(ba) DUM DUM DUM (ba) DUM DUM DUM DUM
sribbyscribbysribby -!-!-!-
p.p.p.p.p.p.ppppp.p.p.p..p.ppp.p.p.p.p.p.

RREEEEEEOOOOOOOEEEEEOOOOOUUUUWWWWW

scra!

Ode to an Aeroplane

East to West
Great grey skytube
Held aloft by nothing
But air
Filled with travellers
Some business class
Some economy
All travelling forwards

West to East
Returning home
Weary wanderers with eyes
Filled and hearts
Made lighter
But not their luggage

O, aeroplane
Glint in sunlight
Scudding through the clouds
You are the globe shrinker
The train of tomorrow
You are our saviour

Wisdom

Hi, Calvin here. I was listening to The Maccabees the other day, and I started to wonder about where they got their name from. It's a nice word, rolls off the tongue well.

Anyway, it turns out the Maccabees were a Jewish way back in the day who liberated their homeland from the Seleucid Empire, which is pretty cool. I'm always in awe of collective action against oppressive regimes.

The story inspired me, so I wrote short poem about it. I suppose it's a commentary on the parallels the story has to the modern day, what with the situation in Palestine and Gaza, and how The Media twists the image of these conflicts to its own ends.

===

Fight them hard, men
Fight them back
These cursed Fiends
Followers not of the true G-d,
But heathens, the lot of them

With simple swords
With bronze and stone
And the righteousness of our lord
We smite with your fury
Taking back our land

And so we won
And our marvelous legacy
The Hasmonean dynasty
Achieved through lusty battle
Will stand forever more

But what of our land now?
But what of our great home?
A thousand lies and rockets
Bring death and horror
To our glorious homeland

Fight them hard, men
Fight them back
These cursed Fiends
Followers not of the true G-d,
But heathens, the lot of them

Unto the Gates

"Follow me, and do not be led astray"
You said
With back arched and tongue
Lasciviously flicked
In my general direction.

"Lead, and I'll not be far behind"
I said
With fool's hope and heart
Open to all possibility
Of you and I.

Oh, that I were able to turn back time
(But not like Cher, even though that was
Our Song)

It took me many mournful months
To come to terms
With the way you the waylaid the wayward ways
Throughout
Our tender summer, now bitter hiver.

February came
That stunted month
Runt to Mighty August,
Proud March
Prosperous October.

"Once more into the jaws of hell"
I thought to myself
Like some modern-day Orpheus
Or another unlucky fool
Laid down in tales of times gone by.

You blinked once, twice
But not a third time
Scissors, dangling as did Delila's
My hair, not cropped
But still not long for this world.

Gripping his lyre,
Orpheus stepped
And forwards
And through
He rose
Ridding the past of its poison.

Lain, pieces cast
Like chicken bones after a feast
Your body
Lies
The final words to escape from
Her Lips:

"Do you believe in life
after love?"