Stapelia

Stapelia, Stapelia, your beauty makes me sigh,
yet I fear precipitation might be drawing nigh.
Stapelia, Stapelia, how marvellous your bloom,
but a sickly stench of carrion invades my living room.
Stapelia, Stapelia, do you have no shame?
I sense I’m going to vomit, and your flower must take the blame.

Stapelia Variegata bears lovely blooms – but they stink like rotting meat. My plant has lots of buds. I can’t help admiring her… from a distance.

©Jane Paterson Basil

Miscalculation

Or

Inebriation
Flirtation
Assignation
Sensation
Titillation
Lubrication
Elation
Vibration
Gyration
Deflation
Cessation
Frustration
Castration
Prostration
Hospitalisation
Recrimination
Investigation
Litigation
Mitigation?
Erectile emigration vexation

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Written for the Word of the Day Challenge: Investigation

Inspired by Nestle Five Boys Chocolate

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©Jane Paterson Basil

Games with Names

Within wildest Wales,
Will will walk with warm, wilting Welsh women,
Wayland will wail with whales.
Warner’s warning whispers will waken wary Wade;
Wade won’t wade – will wonder why Wally wildly wallows.
Watching wistfully, Wiston will wait
while Willow weaves wet withering willow.
Wanda will wander,
Woody will whittle wood, wishing Walter wouldn’t waste water.
Wan will wanly wave wands, wasting wishes.
Warren will waft weak warrants,
Winnie will whinny, wearily watching,
Wayne will whine woefully.
Wendy will wend westward
while Wallace will wince and writhe in shame,
since Jane is tired of playing alliterative name games.

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©Jane Paterson Basil

The Last Laugh

I got a soggy dog-lick-kiss, breakfast on a tray
with the dreaded birthday sentence: Fifty years today.
Gifts enshrined in angry bills, ring box on a tin can,
and on the bed beside me, my oh, so funny man.

I wouldn’t touch my breakfast; the tea was weak and cold,
the bread was stale, the marmalade thickly furred with mould.
I unwrapped all the presents; fake poo and inked perfume,
I threw aside a birthday card, then marched out of the room.

He chased me to the kitchen; he knelt on knobbly knees
to offer me the ring box, said: Please don’t be a tease.
He looked so hurt and serious I thought he was sincere.
I’m glad I chose to take it, or he would still be here.

I carefully prised it open, expecting glittery bling,
but in that stupid jewellery box there was no diamond ring;
no long-denied proposal, no promise from my champ –
curled amidst the velvet was a grubby postage stamp.

I glared at him in fury, but he waved my rage away,
and laughing shrilly, said to me: It’s for a holiday.
Climb into this box, I’ll add the stamp and the address
of any destination, North, South, East or West.

It might be midlife crisis, but I’m weary of his humour;
I wished a heart attack on him, or a most aggressive tumour,
so feeling thus disgruntled, I shot him through the head.
He’s curled up in an outsize box, not joking now he’s dead.

I’m posting him to Timbuctoo, with no return address,
So I will never get him back, and I’ll suffer no redress.
It’s funny what you think of, when you scrub a bloody floor,
kitchen units and two windows, one kitten and a door:

We met on Friday the thirteenth, an unlucky day for me,
but the thirteenth has returned; how unlucky now is he!
I don’t regret the past, and there’s something I will miss;
I’d like to give him one last breath and see him laugh at this.

©Jane Paterson Basil

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Written for Three Things Challenge: thirteen, midlife crisis, past

©Jane Paterson Basil

Stiff Upper Lip

This is your conscience speaking;

I know you feel
like flaying the next-door fiend,
leaving her festering in a smelly heap, to the applause
of almost every tenant on these three floors,

and you fantasise
about an unacceptable, inconceivable set-up with the bed-eyed,
dread-locked sex god you’re forever ogling
in the second-hand shop.

I realise you recently considered
ripping off your jeans and summer vest in the hey-day high street,
screaming “ I hear you knocking but you can’t come in”,
then running away, giggling.

and you are tempted
to tell that frosty screw what her silly victim –
her lily-livered excuse for a libertine loser – plotted to do
to you when she was at bingo, sandwiching his confused pseudo-love
between the pages of a detailed medical dictionary, as if
each irritating phrase was a ribbon-wrapped gift, every
trumped-up twitch and flickering heart beat a treat;
and yet he knew you didn’t want to swim
in anyone’s swan song, let alone
sink through his forlorn
funeral tune.

I understand
that – until you did it – you might think it funny
to cut off your extremities and wiggle your stumps,
singing “Look, no hands,
and no feet, either”,

and you have been dying
to tip your wardrobe through the window, crying, “look – it can fly”,
wait for the smashing crash to attract the neighbours’ attention,
then yell, “and so can I”,
and try.

It’s true that their lives are dull,
and it would give those old folks a thrill
to see your blood churning the earth into rusty mud
to feed the geriatric rose bushes,
but don’t.

This
is your conscience speaking, old bean;
don’t do any of the above – let us not forget
one is British; such activities are simply not cricket.
Extend your stiff upper lip; use it
to lift a kettle, then settle down
with a nice cup of tea.

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©Jane Paterson Basil

The Cut of his Jib

He meets a woman
who
fits
the general
image of his florid dreams.
Flexing his biceps he feels the sleeves
of his long-suffering shirt
squeeze. Somewhere between elbow
and armpit a punished seam
gives up the ghost.
Shoulders bulge, muscles
swell his chest, threatening
to burst his buttons.

He preens, his regiment of
all-the-better-to-eat-you-with teeth
standing neatly to attention.
I’m built
to protect myself, he says,
should someone come to shoot me dead,
I need no bullet-proof vest;
I’ll disarm them with a flicking blow.
I’ll take the life of anyone who tries
to cut me with a sword or knife.
You’ll be safe with me,
and I will show you all the ways I know –
all the sweet techniques that go –
to
please
a homecoming queen.

She surveys the stranger,
taking in
his toned build,
his suntanned skin,
his hair the hue of a fox’s
mane, every strand contrived to
look stylishly out of place, the ice-
blue eyes that gaze, the handsome
face, chiselled in such a way…
and
the cut
of his jib.

Get outa’ my way, she coldly cries,
killing him with her scimitar eyes.

©Jane Paterson Basil

The Ballad of Dreadful Cecil

Cecil was a vile pretender
whose cruel disguise was retail vendor;
in market stalls all round the county,
he set up alluring bounty
of stone and marble kitchenware,
then sat in wait upon a chair.
He displayed to avid eyes
pestles and mortars of every size.

On his stall, the largest vessel
was devoid of matching pestle.
“Where could it be?” I hear you ask –
Why; in his hand, and tightly grasped.
Before I tell you of his ruse,
you need to know it won’t amuse,
for he was evil to the core –
a scofflaw who loved blood and gore.

If a housewife took a shine
to a pestle quite divine.
he didn’t sell it as he aughta,
but hit her with his mighty mortar,
then hid her underneath the table
just as fast as he was able,
making sure that no-one saw
her collapse upon the floor.

It gave him joy for many years
to cause such agony and tears –
but one fine day he came a cropper
via a woman in a topper;
when he hit her on the head
she pretended she was dead.
He didn’t know that her dark hat
had deflected his hard bat.

He had caught a clever sort
strong of body, quick of thought;
She jumped up and pushed him under –
was that lightning, was it thunder
he heard crashing in his ears,
summoning his deepest fears?
No, the poor old wormy wood
had taken all the weight it could.

The table smashed to smithereens
to the sound of Cecil’s screams
from beneath the splintering table –
it was like the fall of Babel.
Stoneware hit his back and head,
turning concrete bloody red.
As he desperately wrestled
He got tangled in the trestle.

So enmeshed was dreadful Cecil
he was buried with his trestle.

My best friend challenged me to write a poem with the last two lines ending, respectively, in Cecil and Trestle. This was the result.

©Jane Paterson Basil

Magnate

 

I’m in love with a magnate, a married man.
We try to meet in secret whenever we can.
I’ve got a little sister who is only four,
and I’m ashamed to tell you what she saw
in the park where I met him today —
now I wish that my parents had given her away
as soon as she was born, or at least before
my mother’s new friend came knocking at the door.

Mum introduced us, said “This is Kate,
Kate is the wife of the local magnate.”
Suddenly I didn’t know where to look,
worrying that she could read me like a book.
while little sis’s eyes grew big and round,
and for twenty seconds she uttered no sound,
but she put the thoughts together in her head,
then looking at me this is what she said:

“If he’s a magnet, then my sister is too,
‘cos when they get together they stick like glue.”

The Daily Post #Magnet

©Jane Paterson Basil

A Poor Example

Six foot three,
gleaming, even teeth,
walks with confidence,
clean, impeccably dressed
rippling with reassuring muscle,
manicured, shaven and trim:
Magnificent him.
Mmm…

His eyes hint at an intimate secret
hidden within a mystery
five fathoms beneath a turgid sea,
where he and I, alone,
may swim… must swim… have swum…
in an alternative reality.
His lips pulse a promise of depths to plumb…..
sensual pleasures to come.

His voice
is a blatant embrace;
in a purring masculine bass:
.“You have the face of an angel,” he says.

I’m fevered and flustered, bashfully blushing,
I’m stumbling and flushing. I don’t know what to do.
I want to drink champagne out of his shoe,
to sweep inhibitions out of the way
and make crippling love for the rest of the day.

His velvet voice becomes husky, like rough hessian:
“Have you had surgery? It’s essential to make the best of yourself.
Look at my perfection;
I’ve had hair implants, a tummy tuck, liposuction, silicon, botox shots,
a nose job, throat job, butt-cheek job, a penis extension –
all the better for a blow j……”

……As I leave
he is yelling that on closer inspection,
his first impression had been a tad sketchy,
and I’m not the woman he’d thought me to be.
My legs are too hairy,
my attitude lairy;
to bed me he’d need a large fee.

As far as I can see, the flat of my hand
has left a strong impression on his plasticised face;
as for my impression of him…
he’s a pretty poor example of the human race.

The Daily Post #Impression

©Jane Paterson Basil

Atrocious poetry

WARNING! POOR QUALITY POETRY! ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.

STOP! THINK!

CAN YOUR FINE SENSIBILITIES COPE WITH DREADFUL POETRY?

Just try the first stanza, and see how it goes,
though I’m not trying to lead you by the nose
but just a little note to  pursuade you stay,
it’s all about the trouble I’ve had today.

It’s a perfect day for atrocious poetry.
Today day in particular I hate technology.
I’ve run out of internet, my phone’s up the creek
I’ve unlocked a new one, but it’s too late to seek
a simcard that fits onto the neat little slot.
I wish I’d refused this new phone I just got.
I liked my old phone, should have let it be,
but I’ll blame my mistakes on all but me.
I’ll blame it on my son and the and the bloke next door
the man in the shop and a few people more.

Congratulations on getting this far,
you’re a brave little tinker, a hero, a star.

The laptop has no bytes, as my son used too much,
watching lots of movies and comedies and such.
I missed an important Webinar last night,
Thinking my phone would display it all right,
when I could have gone round to my daughter’s home –
which I would have done if only I had known;
my phone has the web, but no technology
for sharing the necessary webinar with me.
I’m unable to talk to my friends on the net,
as my phone has its ways, and it’s ways are set,
Neither can I open my most essential sites,
as I’ve tried several passwords and none of them are right.
I can’t even access my recent emails,
as every time I try, for some reason, it fails.
So I can’t exchange old passwords for new,
with my emails concealed, so what can I do?

Two stanzas on and you’re holding up fine –
you can manage the third one, it’s only four lines.

The bloke next door gave me a brand new phone,
As he’s already got two or three of his own.
I grudgingly took it, as he said it was posh,
and because it hadn’t cost him a lot of dosh.

The next one’s a sixer; and that’s not much more –
who knows what excitement you may have in store…

I got it unlocked by a very nice man,
and while waiting, I did some work in Oxfam.
When I returned to collect it, I intended to ask
him to put in my simcard – an easy task –
but I wanted to know that it fitted the slot.
In my hurry to get home I clean forgot.

You must have some stamina to have read all this text;
Perhaps you’d like to learn what happened next.

I got my old phone and I opened the back
in such a great rush that I made the screen crack.
But I didn’t think it mattered as I had a new one –
It’s all bells and whistles, a fancy Samsung.
So I opened it up, to put my simcard in it.
That’s when I learned that my simcard didn’t fit.
I shrugged my shoulders thinking, “that’s OK,
I can wait to use my Samsung for one more day.”

You’ve survived this far, so you might as well stay,
and find out all the rest that has happened today.

I replaced the simcard in my other one,
and that’s when I learnt how much damage I’d done.
The phone didn’t work, and now I’m filled with sorrow,
as I have an appointment with the dentist tomorrow,
and he sent me a text to tell me what time,
but I couldn’t read it, so tomorrow at nine
I’ll have to be there, as the one thing I recall
is the appointment is early, and I cannot call
him up on the phone, as my phone’s up the creek.
All in all, this is not a good week.
I’m feeling very stressed and it’s not hard to see,
I’m really too reliant on techology.

If you think it’s all over, I’m afraid that you are wrong,
But I’m injecting some fun into my monolithic song.

And just to add to my little tale of woe,
Another thing has happened to add to my sorrow.
I’ve lost my shoes! Yes, my shoes are gone!
Making it impossible to put them on.
They’re not in the living room, they’re not in the hall –
my comfy, cosy shoes are not anywhere at all.
They were in my bag when I left the gym,
I remember that I had them when I went in
to the shop where they unlocked my phone for me –
oh, where can my lovely shoes possibly be?
Did I leave them on the floor of the unlocky place?
Or in the back of Oxfam? In which case
Will I have to pay money, just for the treat
Of putting my favourite shoes back on my feet?
It doesn’t really matter – not to worry –
I’ll wear my boots instead, as I’m in a hurry
to find a friendly face to commiserate with me;
I’m going round to Claire’s for a cup of coffee.
(This poem would sound better if I’d typed in tea,
but I’d have had to tell a lie, and that just isn’t me.)

OK! OK! Please bear with my tale.
After all your effort, I’d be sad to see you fail.
There’s not much left, my story’s nearly done,
or to put it differently, you have almost won.

A few hours on, and I’ve had a great time,
telling this in prose instead of in rhyme,
including the bit that I haven’t told you yet
about another little factor that I rather regret;
I wrote this poem before I went out the door,
but clicked on cancel, so it was there no more.
I didn’t mean to do it – it was an accident;
a sad little mishap to my detriment.
I’ve wracked my brains and my memory,
and this version’s even worse, as far as I can see,
but I don’t really care, I’m devoid of shame –
I’m going to post it anyway, ABOVE MY NAME.

Wait a second – there’s a little PS
If you give up now, you will miss the best.

P.S
Oh happy me, my shoes are under my chair!
I can’t understand how they could have got there.
Now I’m off to bed, and whatever I may say,
All in all, it’s been an entertaining day.

I’m totally impressed with your sticking powers –
You thoroughly deserve this bunch of flowers.

Sorry they have wilted, but I’ve waited for days
to post my little ditty on this WordPress page.

©Jane Paterson Basil