Something is wrong. A grey fog
stinking of wet wool hovers
above my bed when I wake.
I hit reset and instantly a citrus
glow permeates the Sense-o-Net.
Lemon scent cuts through the fug.
Bitter-sweet, my six naked limbs
dissolve like butter on hot toast.
I hit open and the view unreels;
a newborn sun rising from the sea,
a debonair yacht with a white sail,
a labrador chasing a beach ball.
Let’s get this show on the road,
I hit extraterrestrial to transcode.
THE DECEMBER 1st DEADLINE FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE COMMUNITY POEM HAS NOW EXPIRED – sorry but it’s too late to post any more lines.
The completed group poem can be viewed by clicking on this link
https://purplehermit.com/2019/12/02/titanium-dreams-a-poem-created-by-the-wordpress-community/
Thanks for your interest.
Please help write a group poem. You don’t need to be a writer to do this. All you need to do is provide one line in response to the opening line. It can be funny, long, short, serious or crazy. There are no rules. Write your line in the comments box. After one week I will combine the lines the best I can to create a WordPress Group poem and post it on this site. Please join in – it’s fun and who knows what might emerge! All the contributors will be credited.
Here is the opening line written by myself. Hope it will inspire your creativity:-
“She was the only titanium woman in the village.”
Small boys sell silver bullets
at the road side, for emergency
use only. In the Land of the Free
clockwork sheep graze sleepless fields.
Do they dream of a lambing
snow tumbling from neon skies?
Do they recall punch-drunk
poppies beyond the electric fence?
The mocking bird twitters
from his gilded tower. Syncopated
rhythms pump black gold. Blood
moons rise. Hunters summon the blue
-eyed to the door. She drives north
as a skein of geese flies the other way.
“There is no truth. There is only perception.”
Gustave Flaubert
One morning, when you are least expecting you
wake up a hole
in your abdomen, a salivating
red circle, slap bang middle of the soft
flesh beneath your ribs,
big enough to fit two fingers.
You feel no pain, just uncomfortably numb.
There’s a hole and you can’t recall
what was there before. You try not to look,
put a sock in it and Elastoplast over the top.
After fruitless Googling you
ring in sick and visit the doctor.
She’s wearing lipstick and a feather boa.
She advises vitamin D and camomile tea.
Just one of those things, she smiles and hands you
a free whale music CD on your way out.
Next day, you wake feeling cold.
The ceiling is scabbed with mould.
There’s a strange smell in the room, like geraniums.
When you study the hole, it’s become a tunnel
and you cannot see the end.
You shine a torch and for a moment
glimpse the white shriek of an eyeball.
On the last day
you wake before dawn.
The cornflakes taste stale and you’re out of bread.
You worry about office dead
-lines and the state
of the carpet where the cat is digging for gold.
You take a hot bath and try not to look.
Through the opening you
hear the trill of bird song.
A mermaid delivered the note, handwritten in wavering purple ink.
She chose a secret location on Long Island at midnight.
Strictly no pictures, no questions and I must come alone.
She said she admired my honesty and the scoop on Leonard Cohen.
The tide was out, the mist was in and it looked like a no show
when suddenly she appeared by the rocks, lapping quietly at my feet.
She wore a blue mac. A fedora pooled shadows over her eyes.
Such an honor to meet you, I began. Thanks for letting me tell your story.
This is not about me, well not much, she said.
Her voice rippled and skipped through the dark.
It’s about you guys. My warnings
aren’t getting through, not
even the tsunami of 04. You morons
have short memories and no understanding
of omens. We don’t know where we went wrong, me
and Neptune. We were good parents. Fuck knows
we tried our best. Ever since you crawled
onto dry land you’ve lost your way.
What do you mean exactly? I asked.
I told you no questions, she replied and a cold wave rose up and slapped me in the face.
We sent clear signs, reminders every day. It’s hard work
maintaining the tides, the rhythm, all that pulling
and pushing to teach you the value of self-discipline, of balance
and how to give and take. We’re sick
of your abuse and the shit you dump in the water. I could
go on and on but I’m not here to give another
lecture cos the truth is, you’re screwed. No,
I’m here to tell you I’m quitting.
Neptune hitched a ride to Andromeda
five years ago. He sent a postcard last month
and says he’s doing swell. I stayed behind, hoping
for change but now your time is up. There’ll be no
more marinara pizza, no more calamari fritters, no
more weekends hanging out at the beach and no
more yachting holidays for the jet set. There’ll be no
more clouds with silver linings and no
more rain on your dahlias. You will be forever grounded.
I’m off to Orion for my new job as Head of Desert Prevention.
My advice in these dying days is to forget love, it will fail you.
Read Dostoevsky and respect your cat, he is wiser than you know.
And before I could protest, she disappeared,
dancing and leaping into a vortex of spray.
I was fascinated by the weird shapes of these oil drill bits I saw discarded at the site of an onshore oil well in Northern Scotland. They remind me of alien seed pods from a sci-fi film! The drill bits were originally diamond tipped and cost thousands of pounds each. They were quickly worn out by the toughness of the granite.
“I believe alien life is quite common in the universe, although intelligent life is less so. Some say it has yet to appear on planet Earth.”
Stephen Hawking
Early alarm, Tuesday, already. Sales meeting at nine-thirty. Me in dog house
probably. Power shower. Red or black, white or cream, toast or cereal?
Remember buy bread today. Clean teeth, empty dishwasher. Feed cat.
Defrost fish, clean shoes, forgot to floss. More tea. Leave note to milkman,
check e-mail. Turn on Radio 4; spies, lies, Brexit, austerity, food banks.
Trump bombs terror, sunshine, showers, intervals, fog in parts. Think positive.
Check bag; keys, iPhone, Mars Bar, Polos, Panadols, tampons, luminiser,
lipstick, mascara, tissues, iPad, pen, comb, compact mirror, sanitiser.
Stop for cash and petrol. Text boss. Idiot! Check hair, OK?
Lock door. Running late, play Taylor Swift, take short cut, Camster Cairns,
single track floating, peat bog, passing space, sleeping sheep, speeding car.
Archaeologists believe the 3,000 year old leather pouch discovered at Camster Bog
speaks the fate of a young queen from the Plastic Period who, through folly
or misadventure, was deemed to have failed to please the Gods Apple, Mars
and Pan on whose benevolence her people depended. She made blood sacrifice.
The pouch contained phallic objects adorned with the names of her lovers;
Elizabeth Harden, Max Fatter and Christi Door suggesting that Plastics enjoyed
multiple partners in frenzied fertility rites. Androgyny was inevitable as male
potency and sperm count decreased. Simple signalling and recording devices
typically used by breeding queens to attract a mate were also found at the site.
Technos hope to retrieve images which may explain why Plastics self -destructed
by releasing gender bender chemicals into the wild until the rivers ran red.
Hope roosts on the table where I write.
Life on another planet may be possible,
a race of shape-shifting rocks.
The Purple Hermit 