Waist Land

Wind-sculpted tree on rocky coastline with turbulent ocean and cloudy sky
A lone, wind-shaped tree stands on rugged coastal rocks under a cloudy sky

Image generated
not by Big Brother
but by Little Brother
who left the Frying Squad
to become a painter
and mind-reader

Waist Land

Jack Pine Sonnet

living in a waste land
surrounded by books
he writes in his journal
things false and true
in memory of the old days
when the world seemed so new

a life built on sand
slips through his fingers
wouldn’t it be grand
if the sand stays and lingers
refusing to pass through
the hour glass’ waist
so time stops to flow

then he could say no
leave me alone
there’s more sand to fall
I don’t want to go

Comment:

It’s a bit like a cliff-hanger, isn’t it? Hanging on by our fingertips and not daring to look at the depths down below. We know they are there, but look, there’s a tiny fossil in the fissure in the rock, so much older than us, we’ve got a long time to go to catch that up. And remember – 80 is not old, if you are a stone!

Treading air – great fun. Not as good as treading warm water in the local YMCA. Just a lovely sense of balance, floating there in the warmth, no weight on arthritic joints, and the world around us amniotic, as it was in the beginning. Ah, those original waters, we have all swum in them, the rich and the poor, the black and the white, and all shades in between. Even King Charles and the late Queen. And remember, they may speak of blue bloods, but all blood is red -and, if you cut us, do we not bleed.

Speaking of bleeding – blood-thinners – my favorite doctor’s latest joke. I cut my arm the other night, getting into bed. Didn’t even notice. Pillows and sheets soaked in blood when I woke up and my scalloped arm, stuck to the sheet, opened itself up and started to bleed again. Feels like seventeenth century Spain, the wounds of the dead man re-open and start to bleed when the assassin appears before him. Certain truth. Obviously 100% guilty.

And they tell me that in South Wales people are adding cooking oil to gasoline to make the petrol go further. Scotland Yard sent the Flying Squad to South Wales to sniff people’s exhaust pipes to see if they were cheating the tax man. I asked my friend – “Is this true?” “Ah, yes,” he said in his lovely Welsh lilt, “and we call them the Frying Squad!”

Rag Doll

A rag doll with button eyes and a patched outfit sitting against a wooden post near pink rose bushes in a garden at dusk.
A well-loved rag doll leans against a wooden post surrounded by blooming roses at twilight.

Big Brother read my mind
and painted the picture

Rag Doll

Jack Pine Sonnet

They fought over her
whenever they met
each one holding her
by a leg or an arm

An eternal tug of war
a terrestrial dog fight
with no truce called
and neither giving in

One day they went
a step too far and tore
the doll in two neither happy
with an arm and a leg each

as for the rag doll
torn apart in fury
she was discarded
thrown in the garbage

when nobody was looking
one child returned
rescued the rag doll
sewed her back together
and filled her with love

Comment:

Tragic, really, and really tragic. A reversed Judgement of Solomon in so many ways. An Allegory applicable to so many situations in this tiny, overcrowded world of ours. Every night, on the television, we can watch hour after hour of shows like this – minus the last stanza. Some endings can never be happy.

One night, for the fun of it, I counted all the deaths, shooting and murders on selected shows over a three or four hour period. I saw over 150 violent deaths. What sort of legacy are we leaving our children, our grandchildren. And what will their children learn in their turn? Food for thought to be taken three times a day while avoiding exposure to reality – or is this the alternative reality to which we will all be exposed?

Follicle Folly

Pink rosebuds hanging with water droplets on green leaves background
Close-up of pink rosebuds adorned with glistening water droplets

Photo AI generated
Big Brother was watching
and listening

Follicle Folly

Jack Pine Sonnet

I am happy with smaller things
the buds just budding on the ash
grass just being grass and green
beneath drizzle and mizzle and
the lightest showers of spring rain

grey / gray I don’t know nor care
clouds descend dampen spring air
dampness curls my remaining hair
some gone but not as much as I see
lost hairs missing from my friends

I traveled with a friend who counted
every hair he lost but couldn’t count
the cost of the weight of his worrying
about every forlorn follicle he lost

Comment:

No comment. That’s what politicians say, and people taken into custardy. What’s yellow and deadly? Shark infested custard, of course. There’s no flies on me said the Portuguese Custard tart as I brushed the ants off it prior to devouring it. Try the Garibaldi cookie aka the dead flies grave yard. The body count of a Garibaldi should be high. You’d be raisin the roof, if the count wasn’t as high as the Count of Monte Cristo. Take off that Iron Mask when you’re talking to me. Who was that masked man? I don’t know. Ask Tonto, stupid.

Warning – these comments were artificially generated by a lost intelligence that is only just coming of age in a time of jerry attic semi-conductor memory loss with everything under lock and key in a small room upstairs under the roof where the thatch used to grow. Even worse than losing your follicles is losing your ….. add your own ending. Don’t make me pull out my remaining hair and waste my time by searching for a word to rhyme. And remember the village church’s limerick competition – the only clean one won it.