"Seven bums and fourteen legs,
a brazen ecstasy which begs
the question some of us are asking -
is Peter Goulding multi-tasking?"

Martin Parker, Editor, Lighten Up Online

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Is this poetry bus ticket valid??

It has occurred to me that I haven't been producing my usual unending flow of drivel recently but thanks to the Poetry Bus, I am managing to keep my hand in.
This week the bus founder, proprietor, owner, original driver and driving force, TFE, has come out of retirement to take the wheel again for the sake of auld lang syne. His prompt is to write a fourteen line poem on one of the pictures here
What I'm going to do, as I'm boarding, is to hold my thumb across the bottom of the ticket, so that he doesn't see, as I have only just done, that the bloody ticket has one line too many.
For more valid tickets and some cracking poems, check out the rest of the passengers here

Those city lights

Those city lights, across the bay,
shine brightest at the close of day
but those who keep the status quo
avoid the piercing neon glow
when whisking suspect men away.

Our son has disappeared and they
deny all knowledge. He will pay
tomorrow as He rides below
those city lights.

So, to that den of moral decay,
God’s blessing as a tourniquet,
we will, with bombs and pistols, go
and strike for all a savage blow
for freedom. Hurry, seem to say
those city lights.

13 comments:

  1. Wow, that's cool - and quite a different voice? An excellent extraction from the prompt.

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  2. Not only valid but urgent and brilliant, love the tourniquet line

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  3. Agreed!Another cracker! Another feckin surprise too in the change of style, tisa dynamite little piece, very dark and mysterious, yet has that 'real' feeling to it, a great take on the pic.The enigmatic quality only adds to the overall effect.

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  4. Thumbs come in handy for obscuring wrong dates -or lines- on tickets! LOL

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  5. TFE never minds the odd diversion, in fact he positively encourages it - fifteen instead of fourteen gives him more words for his money - and they are good words too.

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  6. Those shiny lights hide and say so much. Cool take on the prompt, surprising, which adds to it's greatness!

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  7. Chilling! 'our son has disappeared' ~ and beautifully written.

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  8. I found it chilling too. In a good way. I've been listening to tales from Libya.

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  9. This is a side we don't see from you on the Bus that often and I think we should!

    This is a mother's poem, I think.

    Shoot! Was there a line restriction? I forgot about that. (going back to count now)

    Kat

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  10. Well, I'm ready to read the rest of the story. This should just be the prologue...

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  11. That's a great poem. I'm very glad I didn't read it before I wrote mine, though. Excellent piece.

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  12. Yep, can only echo. Excellent poem.

    You're still rubbish at arithmetic though.

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  13. Thanks very muchly, all ye who entered here. Sums never was my strong point though.

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