This is supposed to be 87 words. I cheated a bit. But THE and END are both words and I seem to remember them featuring at the completion of those magical movies of my youth. So they sort of belong here.

This is for a prompt from Sammi (#230 …. so I’ve only missed 228 thus far) … to be found here

*

I shed my worries, take my  seat

A box of popcorn at my feet

Brief encounter. Brush with fame

Though I don’t know your real name

You take me places I’ve not seen

With magic on the silver screen

Smiling starlet, look my way

Remind me of a yesterday

When everything was wrapped in gold

And I believed all I was told

This brief escape. Just you and me

This refuge from reality

Open curtains. Dim the light

Be my dream for just one night

THE END

 

*

I don’t know what’s happening to me. I don’t post often on here these days (I never did, really) but when I do it’s tending to come out all warm and fuzzy and suggestive that I have some sort of social conscience. I don’t. I’m rude, obnoxious and self-absorbed. I like nothing more than talking about football, heavy drinking, irresponsible drug ingestion and women’s bare breasts.

Any yet, occasionally, something blurts out that seems to point to a conscience, of sorts. Is this some sort of emotional breakdown or simply another symptom of senility???

My ‘sort of’ relative, Kate, (don’t ask … it’s complicated) is always banging on about flowers and cute animals and peace and happiness and incense sticks and meditation and how we should be nice to each other and all sorts of other crap. And whilst I blame most of this on her mother I can’t help but worry that it might be having an impact on me.

I find myself writing ‘nice’ things occasionally.

Sometimes even a bit sloppy.

A recent post of hers suggested that Mother Nature might be a bit pissed off with us. I don’t happen to agree. I don’t think Mother Nature could give a flying fuck about us. Mother Nature is perfectly happy to see us out. We’ll be gone soon enough and Mother Nature is unlikely to really notice. To her, we will come and go in the blink of an eye. If we render the planet uninhabitable for humans, she really couldn’t care. She’d be perfectly happy if Earth became an uninhabitable gaseous wasteland. She’s seen it all before.

It might come as a bit of a disappointment for our great grandchildren, though.

She’s an observer. She doesn’t intervene. We create the floods and the famine, not Mother Nature.

Anyway … I responded to Kate’s post in a sort of embarrassingly warm and fuzzy manner, and I repeat it, below.

I will be back on to inflammatory insults and gratuitous nudity in my next post.

I promise.

*

Mother Nature doesn’t care

She’s barely noticed that we’re there

To her our presence will be brief

Our departure, a relief

She’s started packing up our toys

So much rubbish. So much noise

 

Mother Nature has no rules

(though some intolerance for fools)

And fools we are for our belief

That she will offer some relief

Many fools she’s seen before

To her we are just one fool more

 

So pack your bags. Arrange your stuff

Mother Nature’s had enough

She’s tired of us. She’s bored

We’ve taken what we can’t afford

She’s locked the gate. She’s slammed the door

Too late humans. There ain’t no more.

 

*

Over at The Carrot Ranch Community I stumbled upon an article about cemeteries. It is a very well written article and suggests, I think, that cemeteries are a treasure trove of human history, full of stories from our past. This may be very true in some cases, but I have always been struck by the notion that they rarely tell the full story and tend to gloss over the less palatable realities.

Nowhere does this notion come to mind more than in military cemeteries – where the great myth of war heroics is perpetuated.

My response to the lovely people at Carrot Ranch was, therefore, a bit negative. Because cemeteries, military or otherwise, have always struck me as outdoor museums of human folly.

This is what I had to say …

*

A call to arms. Another land

Ideals I did not understand

Buried story. Hidden truth

Ideals are not bullet proof

A fallen hero? Fallen son

Lost to what could not be won

An epitaph to bold and brave

Here etched in stone upon my grave

Words of praise, of noble fight

Words that I would never write

 

Don’t search through words you’ve  heard before

These words were not worth fighting for

Don’t search these graves. Don’t ask the dead

Search within your souls instead

No heroes here. Please move along

Go back to where you all came from

There is no honour, only fear

Death is the only message here

I was a soldier, was a fool

Do you see honour? More fool you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*

I am feeling, today, less than enthusiastic about everything. Well …. more or less.

You know how, on most days, you just think that life is absolutely meaningless? But on others you are sure of it? Today fits into the second category. And tomorrow. And the one after that. In fact, I feel so confident in my conviction that life is some sort of cosmic joke without a punch line that I’m fairly certain that every day will be this way from now on. I will plan for that, anyway.

It’s good to have a plan.

So, in the spirit of sharing, I thought I might try to drag everyone else down too, with a dull little poem.

But don’t worry.

It’s nothing, really.

****

Another dawn. Another day

A sun will never rise

A fog, a coat to keep me warm

And smoke within my eyes

To see today what wont be seen

To hear what won’t be heard

To speak what won’t be spoken

A death in every word

Beyond the fog, the grey abyss

The future cold and black

One step into the vortex

Brother, hold me back

One step into the nothingness

I hear the sirens call

One foot before another

Sister, let me fall

 

 

****