VACANT, FOCUSED, PAIR

For Three Word Wednesday #301

FAT DC CAN VAPOURISE

• Vacant

Nic, vacate pad for us...

• Focused

Repaid VAT; can focus...

• Pair

Duo faces PC variant

ON THE TWELTH DAY

For Sunday Whirl: Clarity, Practice, Listen, Breath, Giddy, Step, Bitter, Venture, Tumult, Fire, Within, Awake

ROUGH TRADE

Vocal clarity, standard practice
What you preach is pitcher perfect
They listen to your every breath
Getting giddy at each step
Ever better, never bitter
Venture forth, create a tumult
Light a fire within their hearts
Awake a passion... Sell it hard!

OUT OF TUNE

For The Sunday Whirl: Pop, Stars, Ice, Flame, Strewn, Deliver, Tangent, Creek, Knead, Brood, Against, Point.

PENNY DROPS

surely
even ancient pop stars
must have memories...

perhaps of
a now ice cold old flame
...or two

strewn across the remains
of brains
that fail to deliver

just shoot
off at a tangent

minds addled
...no creek to paddle

no bread to knead
no brood to feed

...then suddenly

against all odds

...point taken...

NOT THE END OF THE WORLD

For The Sunday Whirl: Seemed, Insistent, Clench, Rapid, Burst,

Rustle, Rare, Hurl, Through, Spacious, Spasm, Enigma

MASTER, CHEF...?

Seemed insistent; 'There and Then'
Clench those fists and count to ten
Rapid burst of gaseous flare
Rustle up a steak, grilled rare
Hurl the plate through spacious hall
In a spasm, hit the wall
Stooge? Enigma? Who can say?
Don't rub him up the wrong way

2012 REVIEW

2012 – A YEAR TO REMEMBER

 

By now, everyone knows that 2012 was the year when ‘impossible’ things happened.

For a start, The Stone Roses famously said that the day they’d reform, would be the day Man City won the Premier League… didn’t they…?

Well, here’s a less well known, but equally inadvertent prophecy that follows a similar vein to theirs… And just in the same way that The Stone Roses are bigger than even The Beatles, this one is more serious even than… Football…!

Yes, believe it or not, I actually said… in public… and on more than one occasion… “The day I return to Manchester will be the day The Stone Roses reform…”

And just as everyone laughed… everyone who’s a red, that is… at the thought of City winning the Premier League, so everyone laughed at the thought of me returning to Manchester… Well, you know what I mean, some people giggled… a bit…

But we all know how truth is stranger than fiction… don’t we?

And still the laughter continued… and still the die-hard believers, not only continued to survive, but also continued to believe…

And then…

2012 happened… And believe it or not… City won the Premier League…! And the Stone Roses reformed…!

And I returned to Manchester…?

Yes! Believe it… it’s all true…!

And in Manchester, the crowds lined the streets, and cheered City, and everyone said “Nice one… about time…!”

And also in Manchester, the crowds filled Heaton Park… three nights running…! And they cheered The Stone Roses, and everyone said “Nice one… about time…!”

And also in Manchester, the crowds filled the lobby in Terminal 1 at Manchester Airport… and waited patiently for their planes to take them away on well-deserved holidays… while I got off my plane… in Terminal 2… smoked the last of my Khrong Thip cigarettes, and waited… impatiently… for the 105 bus…  to Moss Side, in Manchester. And I cheered when, at last, it arrived, and I alone said “Nice one… about… time…”

So… just to re-cap… We all know that 2012 saw City win the Premier League… We all know that 2012 saw The Stone Roses reform… thus fulfilling the prophecy that the two ‘impossible’ events would occur, (almost) simultaneously… And of course, now we all know that 2012 saw me return to Manchester…

But hang on a sec… did some of us forget something…?

On May 13, did anyone actually do what I remembered to do…? (In the Claremont Pub, on Claremont Road, Moss Side, Manchester 14) What I’d so vehemently and vocally promised to do, for more than 30 years…?

Here’s what I did… I looked back… admittedly not over my shoulder, to the person sat in the stand, behind me… as the song indicates… because I wasn’t actually at the match, at the Etihad Stadium, was I…? I forgot we’d moved from Maine Road… honest… ;) so I was just sat in the pub, watching it on the telly. But did anyone, anyone at all, apart from me, actually “…look back and say ‘There’s no-one quite like John Bond, he has helped us on our way’…?”

If you didn’t… and I’m pretty sure most of you have forgotten the promise you all made, amid the euphoria of getting to the 1981 Centenary FA Cup Final… there’s no need to worry. We’re still Champions, and there’s still (at least) the whole of the rest of the season to go, in which to clear your conscience…

So, next time you’re at the match… preferably during a quiet period (if there are any), just stand up, and ‘look back’… wistfully, if you can (if you know what it means…!)… over your shoulder… to the person sat in the stand behind you… and say “There’s no-one quite like John Bond, he has helped us on our way”… Just like you always said you would… ‘one day… when we’re Champions’… And even if for no other reason, it’s well worth the funny looks you get…!

DISLOCATION

For Sunday Whirl: Unless, Pride, Beauty, Wrong, Faces, Silent, Pawn, Sorry, Life, Fire, Bust, Find, Belong

NOT LEAST

Unless I'm much mistaken:

Pride is no thing of beauty
It makes all the wrong faces...

A silent approach won't help
Why be a pawn in the game...?

Feeling sorry for yourself
is no way to live your life...

With fire burning in your eyes
bust a gut until you find
the place you truly belong

STRANGER THINGS

For Sunday Whirl: Rotten, Wrath, Depths, Scramble, Flees,
Swelling, Enable, Charm, Key, Shore, Upbeat, Tumultuous

SHIPSHAPE

Sailors rotten misfortune
incurs wrath of ocean depths
Order given to scramble
Crew flees ever swelling surf

Enable charm offensive
from captain who holds the key
Reaches safety of the shore
Disembarks in upbeat mood

Tumultuous reception

STITCHED UP

For Sunday Whirl: Bound, Within, We, Think, Way, Damaged, Men, Women, Power, Wish, Single, Thread
And Haiku Heights: Witch

TREAT OR TRICK ?

Bound within this spell
could we think of any way
to mend damaged hearts

Could men and women
transfer power from a wish
to a single thread

Or would we deploy
a darker shade of magic
the craft of witches

IN A WHIRL

For Sunday Whirl
This weeks words are:
Shelter, Cafe, Job, Happening, Guide,
Score, Fern, Face, Sturdy, Peanuts,
Handle, Recommend, Cabinet

JOBSEARCH

Seeking shelter from the rain
Enter internet cafe

Need a job - what's happening?
Online guide will know the score

"Twelve thousand species of fern
Require replant to face south
Steady graft for sturdy guy
Permanent post"... Pays peanuts!

Yours if you can handle it
Wouldn't recommend it though...

File that in your cabinet!

STILL STANDING

For Sunday Whirl

This weeks words are:
Thunder, Vowed, Inherit, Deeper, Stand, Umbrella,
Become, Joined, Shifts, Excuses, Childhood, Light.

It's been a long time...

LIGHT SOURCE

Under a dark thunder cloud
we both vowed to inherit
a deeper sense of merit
letting us stand together
under the same umbrella
to become joined at the hip
working continuous shifts
to un-make old excuses
renewing childhood truces
... and at last seeing the light..

EVAPORATED

For A Wordling Whirl of Sundays
This week's words: tugs, seaweed, released, breathes, slides,water, river, supersedes, evaporation, mist, tiny, embroidered

WISH YOU WERE HERE?

Evaporation, condensation
Tiny particles of vapour
Mist, to you and me

Dreams released; truth supersedes them
Picture slides back into focus
Face reality

Your embroidered imagination
River cruising, water splashing
Sun soaked summer leave

Our experience – tug boats, seaweed
Frost bite, seasick and an oil slick
As I live and breathe…!

SEASON

For Writers Island #19 - Season



CHILL

Her appearance was totally unexpected and her surroundings, though vaguely familiar were at the same time unusual. Instead of her customary preference to soft pastel shades, she wore a long, black cape, buttoned to the neck. The fur trimmed hood, thrown casually over her head, was speckled with delicate, white flecks of snow, fallen freshly from above. A trail of dark footprints in the icing sugar path behind her, led back to a point, where I could just make out slender tree trunks, rising and bowing to form a canopy of oversized leaves, enclosing the pathway like a tunnel. They faded out of vision in the descending gloom as a fresh fall of fine snow began.

As she opened her mouth to speak, an icy blast of air whipped her words away, whistling through the trees, and bringing with it a further, heavier fall of snow. A whirling wall of whiteness obscured the entire scene.

I awoke, shivering, disorientated and confused.

Initially, I attributed the chill I felt to the dream and my sudden return to consciousness. But as the chill continued to bite, I realised that I was experiencing something I’d not felt these past three years; cold. Not the artificial attempts of air conditioners, but the bone gnawing grip of winter.

“I’m still asleep.” I said out loud, immediately realising I wasn’t. It was almost light, so I sat up to take a look out of the window and try to make some sense of my dream. Outside, a thick blanket of fog, restricted vision to a few yards and an eerie silence added to my confusion. I inhaled a deep breath, which felt sharp as the cold hit the back of my throat. As I exhaled, a jet of steam shot from my mouth. For a fleeting moment, I imagined I was back in England and lightning flashes of memory reminded me of those bleak winter days, when it never quite seemed to get fully light.

LIMITED

For We Write Poems - Take it to the limits

INTO MY MIND

I’m going
Into my head
To see if it’s true
What they said about
No bread and half a loaf
Both not the full shilling
But the thing that’s nearly
Killing me
The thing I’m
Really dying to know
Trying to be
Oh so sure of
And not just so by the law of
Averages
Is this:

What exactly is the score?

Now
I’m not the sharpest tool
But I’m not a fool
Or am I?
Can I be less
Serious?
Clearly this is more the case:
No empty space between your ears
May not be
All that it appears
A full loaf only half baked
Make no mistake
Believe you me
Is gonna be
Most detri…
…Mental…!

So you see it’s not true
What they said…

…Now I’m going
Out of my head

OUT OF MY MIND…

WORDLE WORLDE

For A Wordling World of Sundays

This weeks words are: Aching, train, scribbling, thirst, resilient, sustain, revenge, visions, thrumming, animated, hillsides, whispered


BLACK SHEEP REPRISE

Resilient enough to sustain the pressure
Without upsetting your train of thought
You whispered calmly your good intentions
All the while, aching with thirst for revenge

Meanwhile, my head thrumming, I was having visions
Of you scribbling animated scenes
Of hillsides draped in death and destruction
... Like the ones you sketched when you were younger...

IF I KNEW YOU WERE COMING

For One Single Impression - Borders
And Sunday Scribblings - Cake


UNCOMMON

Friday sunshine in that London
South of the North-South divide
Mouths open wide... in awe? Or is it for
Cup cakes, tea cakes, just like Ma'am makes?
Or a cup of tea and a slice of cake?

Highland pipers, piping out
The icing on the cake - Kiss me Kate
That wedding gown - the talk of the town
Designed by the last queen of Scotland
Makes you look dainty as a fairy
... Or some fairly Great Escape artist

Oh William, it was royally nothing!
Just some old thing I threw on
Had it since I was crowned McQueen
Miss Happy Meals, Two Thousand and One

This day has all the ingredients
(All the greed and ignorance)
Just don't mention the Battenburg
So many layers could emerge
And I do have a figure to maintain
So I'll refrain, on this Occasion
With the Nation looking on

Of course I want to have and to hold... it
But those commoners - we'll let them eat it!