Friday 55 May 11 2018

Welcome once again to the Friday forum, where we fight to fashion 55 words of prose or poetry, no more no less, in memory of the G-man, whose meme this is, and whose humanity and hosting skills I will never equal. Link your effort in the comments below between Friday and Saturday midnight, and I will be by to see what this week has brought forth in your fertile little mental workshops.

So, without further ado, let's begin...

 Caravan

You always come

with summer

heat's blue anvil, the drought,

still

night's insect pulse,

its glittering

banquet of stars; they seem

to pull your wagonload of wax dolls

and cheap mirrors like

gypsies' mismatched ponies,

with all your disarray of wares

spread like a fortune-teller's promise

on the frayed brown velvet   

wilderness

of your eyes.

~May 2018

Images: Encampment of Gypsies with Caravans, 1888, Vincent Van Gogh      Public domain.
The Fortune Teller, 1933, (Georges) Brassai     Fair use.

Five Charms

by  lolamouse or babymouse 2014

Five Charms

Five charms I picked up

from the dimestore dust,

all silver and blue and black in my hand:

A vase, an acorn, a button of fire,

two eyeballs with a look of command.

I strung them up quick

on a spaghetti string, tied as

tight as a tattoo on my wrist

but the vase tipped over and spilled its blood,

the acorn poked, the button burned

and the eyeballs saw more than they should.

So beware of the luck

that you find in the dirt.

Some things should be left,

some things charm up hurt.

~April 2014

posted for     real toads

 Challenge: Whozits and Whatzits

Lolamouse (Mouse Droppings)  has given us some truly unique photos of various arcane and odd ..stuff..taken at a shop she visited  on a trip to Portland, Oregon with her daughter. Bizarre as it may sound, I had already had the dream (including the eyeballs) that sparked this poem and written  a few lines of it down--I couldn't ask for a better pic to have enabled its completion. Thanks, LM!

Image by lolamouse or babymouse.

Used with permission.

Too Long At The Fair

Too Long at the Fair

A Cautionary Tale 

with a  Happy Ending

You put me on your midway

you dressed me in a sack,

you gave me beads you’d won at bottle toss

then promptly took them back.

The cotton candy kisses

didn’t last  outside the tent

but the marks you brought to see me,

they never seemed to end.

You made me tell their fortunes

all miserably the same,

charged a dollar for admission

and a quarter for each claim.

They chewed their grease like cattle

as they pointed at my face

where your words scrawled as graffiti

had taken reason’s place.

I left your crooked shell game

where you always hid the bean

and ran off with the carny hick

from the Tilt-a-Whirl machine.

Now we’ve seven strapping farmboys

in our fields under the skies

and each night I get a corn dog

that would win the Fair’s First Prize.

May 2012

Posted for   Poetics   at dVerse Poets Pub

Claudia is hosting a fairgrounds rollar coaster ride over at the pub today. Come join us--the gates stay open at 3:00 PM EST through midnight Sunday.

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Image: Salome, by Alphonse Mucha, 1897
Public Domain, via Wikipaintings.org