Grimbeau

Scroodles

Category: flash fiction

diss-informatioN

Pressing buttons is fraught
With potential disaster
Self-destructive tendencies
Disregard consequences
Plunging headlong in the void
Swans dive slow in fetid lakes

Factors beyond dawn patrol
sense ebbs while love grows fragile
been there saw the t-shirt
savaged on the twilight wire
Scented sanguine tatters drip
On stony porous ground:
the first cut was the daftest
—how come we never learn
from our fascination
with cut & paste alibis?

Dubious communiques
arrive from far off lightships
coaxing weak sun jars pulsate
diligence smells of sawdust
meanwhile next door erudite
yes men jostle for number
one in the copycat charts
the truth fears for its life
in fugitive Siberia

Topiary

 

Chat Poem #1

The abysmal dancer witters on:

‘…got a tweet from Buddha

naturally I tweeted back–

O! How we tittered.’

 

Looking out at ragged garden:

took  a modest winter battering

noxious giant Sussex Hens

word mind selects: ‘Topiary’

 

Sculpted hedgerow dinosaurs

mock Gothic ramparts; all shapes

phallic by decree,

got no choice in theses matters-

black racing car minus

backseat driver,

equals a dead duck,

& a family of

unreal estate elephants.

~

so nearly lost to reason I paused

came upon my senses

scattered all around.

The duties of the day press in:

Wake the dead, feed the head,

Clean up, sit up, sit down…

All go

All go rhythm

 

Chat Poem#2

 

Just now something moved me

& stopped me in mid-step

& I teeter on one foot

like a Wallander

hopping on barbed wire

~

I saw her on my morning

in the middle of her night

Blocking up the toilet

by the stark hospital light

 

I will see her later on

On her morning off

And we will argue once again

:

 

Leaf over leaf

The page is made

From wood

Chopped,

chipped and pulvered

Mulched and pressed

 

Blotter and wafer

Are a mystery

To me

But you can eat always

Rice paper.

~

This evening in the middle

Of her day

The washing machine will

Stop me from napping

 

We will eat supper for lunch

And I will dream of Dali’s

Lobster Flamingos

sulking in green mud

 

#4

Sentimentality:

Just the very thought of it

& l just wet myself

Dry agony blocks sinuses

Swallowlessness

-welling floodgates spill over

 

 

#5

When weeping willows

Transgress their quota of woe

Tell them no worries

 

#6

Watched the wheel for all

It was not there some mud, chewing gum, and dog shit

 

#7

Jupiter turned up

uninvited yesterday

Orrery troubles

Waiting in the wings he said

Pre-stressed concrete blocks ahead

signifying nothing yet

 

 

 

Le Crunch

Ingratitude did not come easy to Adam at first, but he told me that once you get the hang it, it soon becomes a firm favourite with all the family, & creating just the right environment for it to thrive results in endless time consuming diversion…
—You’re obsessed! I thought, but he was my man and I did not want to prick his bubble
—What do you fancy to eat? I said
—Apple crumble, he replied contemplating apathy
The air grew thick with orange blossom.

~
—Maculate misconceptions are more frequent than first meets the eye, said the Omniscient Narrator, looking straight into camera two. And to me it seems somehow inevitable that this little episode will precede a fall to end all falls
—Well you should bloody well know, I thought, knowingly
Adam began to weep in despair, smelling trouble in the air, and cursed the green lentil stew for provoking his melancholia, exploiting his innocence.
—Fuck the crumble! I thought, angrily crunching the rosy apple, which, it must be said, tasted everso tangy if not a little toxic

~

Before I knew it I was flat on my back writhing in ecstasy with an Anaconda watching on, reading Constrictor’s Monthly, and smiling benignly at my antics
—You been at the apples, I see, it said in a broad, warm, matriarchal brogue
—Am I still in Eden? I asked
—No, Cirencester, the Serpent replied. All the apples you want here, my dear. Truth be told that’s all there fucking is. Excuse my French.
—Original Sin, I sobbed
—Non, mon petit dejeuner, said the Anaconda. Golden Delicious.

incantating…

…halfway between ludic rant
& macabre reality
really ought i have a shower
Now the gas is flowing?
& get changed into
shy retiring tweed
Priestess of Thaumaturge
Scourgess of Pareidolia
Tirelessly seeking out
a poetry of cartoon shorts
to embed in your third eye
therefore upside down
sometimes inside out
eluctable in the dark

Insolent Green

Life enhancement calls the old & infirm ,
the homeless amputee, the various frail sticks
the homesick summary rejects of this gruel regime,
clumsy messages lost on deaf or dormant ansaphones—
perhaps they did themselves in overnight
& were swept up in the alms of public thaumaturges,
cleverly disguised as aliens in lime reflective dayglo
Mickey Mouse onesies who compress them

into giant black bin liners and stack them aboard
green public transports and drop them off
for re-cycling as motorway bollards by
Maggot & Maggot Ltd,
Proud exploiters of anything that’s going
since shite drew its first corrupted breath
& fucking weebles wobbled but never fell down…
Alternatively they might be having
A well deserved lie-in on this soggy Sunday morning

Dreaming of spring lambkins
Gambolling tumbling spilling
leaping giant cowpats
& kissing dandelions to
drift off in four leaf clover…
or just say I’ll call back later
Or another day or never again
as I know they are
deliberately not
Picking
it
U
Ppppp…

Twelfth Night Fiasco

Elsie Gassbang-Trott
always told it like it was-
essentially transvestite
noble by disposition
or by dint of nature—
girls will be the boys
& the boys will be the girls:

Whatever you want
Twelfth Night of twelfth day

—Now is the winter
of snide discontent—
Wrong Play, Belch
Burp, barf, bark…
Enter broken head:
Well, why you did ask!
~

Coming up three in the sub-post office, rain, pretty dull, quiet, the games have started, think I’ll take a break, go below for a quiet smoke, finish my too sweet coffee; brains gone native, so to speak, not responding to all this gender swapping on the company wireless.
I can see the Puritans giving out soon if they don’t put a sock in this…
~

—No
more cakes & ale, Toby-Baby
Think I’ll forge a billet-du or two
Set the ball
Gallivanting mad
in love’s tacky bagatelle

—Pray,
entreat those three interlopes
loitering by the knick-knacks
come hither nuncles
excorcise the stable stench
with bawdy ballads:

Feast of Fools, Feast of Folly
Indented coastline
enchanted Adriatic
Harbouring novelties
under your nose, Malvolio
Ship of Folly, Ship of Fools

time to open up…

…belated birthday cards
cautiously pessimistic
murmur down below…

Will there still be Fennel cakes & Indian ale for tea?

mauve creams &  nice ointments salve
bruises aches lacerations
let us sing a daft song of sixpence
Baked in an Bean

 
Miser winds up radio
Widower haunts bungalow
Ghost of Xmas done

 
Sweet pea inside glum drum hums
My favourite things
Howls for hope & provenance
Thinks like ships in bottles
How did they get there?
Most of them sleepwalked
Others saw the writing
On the wall·

still do
mussed by brutal firelight

Honky Tonk Shaman…

Timidly in new boots & scanties
Checking through messages
Lost in space in time
Pull blinds back…one two three cars

Unusual: three suspect pallets
strew non-conformist corners
heads jack-knifed on thin ice
black hole spills its load

All is quiet on New Year’s Day
Repeats on me like
Suspect mackerel
Wished my nostrils

happy birthday
Instead of New Year
Onset doolally
Or transubstantiation?

The clue lies in the carpet—
Cleopatra is present
If not quite with it
Still beggars can’t be choosers
& Donald where’s your trousers?
The wind blows high blows low
Over hollow land
Silly Land

Penultimatum

Enshrouding us all
consumptive sageful frozen
fog obscures year’s end
taking one more day for granted
gormless formless fug
makes a list worth forgetting
declaring snidely:
auctions speak louder than words
citing crumbling masonry
ebbing sands of time desist
Soft! A milkman clinks
Stumbles through blue gloop fetching
discounted chocolates all
the way from bonny Belgium
and bumper size toilet rolls
meticulously trialed on
pliant Labrador puppies
in magnolia kennels

 

A Work of No Literary Merit

grimbeau's avatarGrimbeau

HST

Five hundred before

legendary lost lunchtime

Torrential London

buses, easy similes,

heavy workload for

eternal editors,

that which is permanently

out to luncheon,

wield escutcheon spoon

limply with panache

seas contain plenty fishes

most worth throwing back

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