Bags of beads dissembled from their strings, soon
to be dispatched to Oxfam, that they may sell
and be threaded afresh.
Pendants awaiting examination, findings
laboriously sorted into colour, size and functionality.
Earrings bedecked with gems, bracelets dripping
with jingling charms and shells.
Diamante, painted clay, hearts and stars, creamy pearls and wiry curls.
Repro art deco, retro pop, lots of wood and polished rocks.
Every kind of chain boasting various metals,
rainbow ropes of globules in plastic and glass.
Contemporary, classic and all in-between,
mementoes of places that people have seen,
waste from a spendthrift’s unreachable dream.
Speckled memories of a thousand brief vanities.
Fashion which faded to old hat,
yesterdays mass-produced tat concealing
tepid treasures and better shards of a class,
recently rejected by browsers who briefly scanned
the second-hand display as they walked past,
or maybe unseeing, turned away.
It would be premature
to bin this tarnished beauty, so
my living room has become the last-chance saloon
for unloved jewellery. It’s time
to give it
a new kind of shine.
Let the upcycling begin.
Written for The Daily Post Word Prompt: Premature
Shop sustainably. Buying responsibly recycled/upcycled products cuts down landfill and slows the increase of pollution from mass-production. Also, if you buy from Charity shops, you are furthering their cause as you save money – and then you can donate the goods back to them. Ethical charities that receive donated goods that don’t sell, recycle as much as they can. It’s a win-win situation.
©Jane Paterson Basil
I would do the same thing! I love ANYTHING shiny. I was a crow in a previous life. Did I ever tell you that? Loved this: Speckled memories of a thousand brief vanities… Isn’t that so true!
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Well, except for the good stuff his nibs has given me over the years. 🙂
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Naturally… 🙂
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I never wear jewellery – I prefer draping around my home – that way I get to SEE it 🙂
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Fabulous Jane. What a great idea.
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Thank you. So far I haven’t got much further than sorting it into colours and staring at it… 😉
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That is important preparatory work. 🙂
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I’m a charity shop frequenter, especially the MS shop, of course. It was Carole’s Aunty Betty’s funeral yesterday. She was our Ms shop manager for 20 years, Yep I cried heaps, but that’s ok, she deserved every outpouring I had in me. BTW, I love your colourful poem, you put a sparkle in me today xx
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You seem to have attended a few funerals lately…
A sparkle? That’s nice, but don’t go out in the sunshine, or you might blind people 🙂
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Don’t think I’ll blind them today, It’s raining here. I’m off to my poetry group this morning, it’s a once a month thing.
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I’d like to join a poetry group, but there isn’t one around here…
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That’s a pity, I had fun at mine yesterday, and I read my poem “Down Along The River Bed”, and the group quite liked my words, and they suggested a few nice little changes, and the new version is here.
https://wp.me/p6B6QE-18p
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There’s so few charity shops here in the north of Spain. Miss the rummage for those more unusual things.
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Maybe that’s a bonus for you – with your lifestyle you’re probably better off without those unusual things.
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True that!
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I’ve done more than my fair share of rummaging in Op Shop jewellery boxes – and upcycled the into works of art 🙂 There are some real treasures to be found in you take the time to look.
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I used to create all kinds of art from recycled stuff, but I seem to have lost the drive. I’ll have to pull myself together – or I can send all my bits and pieces to you, and you can send them back re-worked 🙂
I wish we were neighbours…
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Aah, that would be bliss – to be neighbours 🙂
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I’m pleased that you agree 🙂
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I love your wander through the treasure trove of the charity shop jewellery cabinet. I don’t really wear jewellery, but love the idea of reworking the old. creating something new from something unloved. A sparkling gem of a poem, dear Magpie Jane 🙂
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I never wear any jewellery – not even a watch or a ring, but I have a few pieces hanging on my walls, and my dining chairs are draped with Oxfam cast-offs, duly sorted into colours. That’s as far as I’ve got so far. I think I’ll blame my lack of progress on my stupid, rock-filled gall-bladder. 😉
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Oh, no – gallstones? You poor thing. Hope they’re not too awful. I can imagine your flat, draped in jewels, like some Sultan’s palace in miniature, glistening in candlelight, scented with pomegranates … I may be getting carried away 🙂 Hope you feel better soon.
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Replace the pomegranates with incense, shove in a load of bookshelves and a bad tempered vulture made of dog-eared fur fabric (don’t ask…) and you won’t be far off the mark 🙂
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Ha! Trying to imagine the vulture – failing 🙂
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He’s a handsome fellow with a great sense of humour. He recommends that I inform my readers that I was only joking about his bad temper. before he pecks out my other eye. Please don’t tell him I said that 🙂
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Just as long as he keeps that sparkling sense of humour …
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It’s OK. I’ve had a good life. I’d like you to witness my will. I bequeath my socks and the contents of my fridge to my children, the residue in my bin to the vulture and my collection reclaimed buttons to the woman who resides in the song of the shirt. I know I can rely on you 🙂
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Leave it with me. Though, do you have a forwarding address for the vulture? Eaters of carrion are notoriously difficult to pin down … 🙂
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This one doesn’t go far. He just sits on my dining chair all day, staring hungrily at my rabbit, who insolently stares back. Rabbit knows that vulture is a stuffed toy. Vulture doesn’t know that they are both stuffed toys. Rabbit is cleverer than vulture, but only has half the story.
I’m painting an image of a batty old hag with a houseful of teddy bears. That’s not who I am. Rabbit and vulture are squatters, and as such I allow them the rights which are refused by our government, although it’s hard to cope with vulture’s aggression and rabbit’s silent disapproval of my mess.
🙂
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Ha! Lovely. I love the idea of them as squatters who don’t exactly know the full story. You paint a sweetly whimsical picture. I feel you should definitely include them in a short story one day
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Maybe I could include a few photos of the antics they get up to 🙂
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Would love to see that!
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It could happen – who knows? But I keep getting distracted. I’ve just come back from a few days in Brizzle – when I’m there I never get anything done 😉
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It is that kind of city 😉 x
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