THe Poetry Bus has broken down somewhere on the lines of communication that criss-cross the blogosphere, but fear not stout-hearted travellers of the poetry universe, we have a spare bus in the haggard and it's raring to go.
Choose one of the four photos above and write as much as you can, then whittle it down into a FOURTEEN line poem
Or planB, Van Morrison has a song , 'You Don't Pull No Punches But You Don't Push The River' (below) in it he mentions 'The Veedon Fleece' I don't know what the feck that might be so write about whatever the Veedon Fleece may be to you and then whittle it down to FOURTEEN lines
PS. Goodly news! Horrible Header comes down tomorrow night after the polls close. (Socks got it, BTW) Hopefully a horrible header won't be required again too soon, but I can't promise, so gird up your loins blogpeoples!
PPS When I said 14 lines I wasn't meaning a sonnet ! Do one if you really want to though, it's your poem , not mine!
Lots of different poems on the bus every week.Everybody and anybody can get on this bus and say what they like. How exciting is that? So many different minds and ideas, so many different lives all on the same bus. You never know who will sit next to you on a bus.
Tis Poetry Bus time once more. Many thanks to Her Royal Bugness for drivelo so brilliantly last week and for all the great passengers, whose poems I really enjoyed. Twas a good crop methinks.
Anyways tis the turn for newbie driver 120 socks. (Round of applause)An interesting blog name,apparently 120 is (on average) the number of single socks a person will lose (not wear out) in their lifetime. Other unrelated but equally interesting statistics are that we will eat, on average, in our lifetime, 535kg of salt, 4,675 bananas, 10,431 loaves of bread and 16 Brussel sprouts. We will drink 5 olympic sized swimming pools of alcohol (surely that's in a week?) We will (on average) sleep for 35 years and be in the toilet for 5 years (but not in one session) 4 years and six months of that five years in the toilet will be spent doing a poo.(Not the one poo, several poos, thousands of them. Fifteen thousand seven hundred and fifty nine of them to be exact. That's a lot of poo.I'm not sure if that includes Diahrrea, maybe that doesn't count as a poo? I always think of a poo as being solid. I'll delve into it and let you know. Statistics are important you have to get them right, put a bit of effort in, especially when it comes to poo. It's no use just going through the motions for the crack and making an arse of yourself.
So, on to this weeks bus driver. 120 socks loves to walk backwards to see where she's been, in fact she is the current world walking backwards world record holder (20 metres)and has developed and patented special rearview forward view backwards mirrors that attach to your forehead using a system of steel girders, pulleys, suction cups and superglue.A little awkward in size Socks is hoping to develop a lightweight system that can be lifted by one person and fitted into the boot of a car. An all-round athlete Socks enjoys knitting,scrabble,cheese rolling, sky diving,scuba diving, monkey wrestling,base jumping, mountaineering,politician baiting,badger fondling,skipping, and standing on one toe (someone else's)
Get thee gone to the land of socks and get writing. HERE
Well whadya know? Tis election time here where smug craven individuals who, out the whole planet's population, are the least well equipped to be in charge of a social clubs annual outing fund, let alone a whole country of 6 million people, are seeking power via my vote.
Repeated evidence through the mists of time shows that any individual who has the self- serving regard, audacity and pomp to consider themselves a likely candidate should automatically be disqualified from ever having anything to do with politics and really should be deported to a far-flung and inhospitable alien planet to live with all his fellow would-be politicians.
The whole political system is broken. Politics is a haven of crooks, liars, cheats, arseholes and back -slapping croneyistic profiteers. Nobody with an ounce of decency, common sense, or altruism has the least interest for getting involved in the current miasma of uncharismatic medoicrity, corruption and sheer blinkered, ivory towered pretentious arrogance that is Irish party politics.
I'm also fairly convinced it's a similar story in whatever country you happen to live in dear reader.
If any of these people call to your door tell them politely that they are not normal human beings, to go fuck themselves, and that if they persist in talking to you, that you will set them on fire. Keep a can of petrol and a ready supply life sized dummies/ shop mannequins* and a blow torch by the door to demonstrate to them.
There are plenty of these available as almost every shop in town has now closed down.
I'm not voting for a remake, or a revamp, or a re-shuffle of the same limited twisted deck of cards. I'm voting for a revolution.
And now this weeks Poetry Bus, driven by Dana Bug..........
Here we go again! I'm behind the wheel & being dangerous in the curves - but I promise that you'll all arrive safely. Really!
It's Valentine's Day (or it will be on Monday - stop being so technical!), but you don't have to write any love sonnets or Conversation Heart verses. Unless you want to - go for it if that's what's on your mind. I'm listing three different picture prompts below which should hopefully stir some creative juices. I'm sorry that it's on the heels of last week's picture prompt, but not sorry enough to change it.
1. Our neighbors took this picture of the driveway across the street last week. What do you think is going on here? Make up a story about it!
2. Dr. M took this picture of furniture in the cornfield. Now that seemed extra odd to me. I supposed that perhaps a frigid tête-à-tête was going on. What do you think?
3. A closeup of the chair - I'm not sure why this icy furniture has grabbed my attention, but I would love to see what you have to say about it.
After you post your poem come back here & let me know & I'll post the link on this post. Good luck!
I managed two poems this week, using firstly the love hearts in the snow and secondly the furniture in the snow. Go to Dana Bugs blog to marvel at all the wondrrful passenglos!
Dana Bug , or Penelope Postlethwaite to give her real name, was, at 7ft 10 inches, the world's tallest woman but the pressures of public attention forced her into groundbreaking reductive surgery that should have reduced her down to 5 ft 3 inches.
Unfortunately the aging dyslexic Russian surgeon Dr Sergei Lopitov , misread the calculationss and now Penelope stands just 3ft 5 inches tall. Her emotions have been swung like a pendulum and were the catalyst that sparked her into writing.
Currently undergoing strenuous experimental 'Greenhouse' treatment under military conditions in The Mojave Desert, Penelope is hoping to be an average 5ft 6 by the end of this summer.
Her hobbies included peering into letterboxes and basketball. A keen amateur astronomer Penelope, using only a pair of reading glasses and an empty coke bottle to fashion a telescope, discovered many new planets, galaxies, asteroids and other strange manifestations including a gaseous anomaly emitting from Uranus.
Her ambition is to reach the door handle of the green house.
And this reminder from the Photography prose website
One point of clarification though. The images are owned by the photographers who submit to us, and therefore must remain on the site unless they give permission for you to copy them to your site. You can, of course, write your prose on your own site and link to the image on our site, but that link will only work until another writer adds their prose to that image, at which time the image is removed from the gallery. Drop us an email with any more questions...
Take off your thinking caps and swap them for a drivers cap. Then put your thinking cap back on and come up with a prompt. All welcome. Have a go, goon, you know you want to!
Emergency exits to the front and rear, current prompt below and on the right. Don't fly by night, go by bus!
Put your names in the hat (comments box) and I'll give you the keys. The whole world (of bus) will be yours for a week. You might change someones life, you may even save it, who knows the power of the bus.
Something a little different this week.There is a new website of Photography and writing HERE called Photograph Prose- 'The virtual collision of photographers and writers' I saw it on Nuala Ní Chonchúirs blog HERE and put 3 photos in and a bit of prose, which they took,real quick and painless.
So painless that I want you to visit the site have a look at the pics and words already exhibited then visit the 'UP exhibit' (clickable along the top of the page) and choose a picture to inspire some words. There's a simple registration process that takes two minutes.( email and password, I think)
Then you can either submit those words to the website for a selection process (simply click on the photo and it will appear with a title box and a box to put your prose /or poem in) or just post it on your blog, or both, as they don't mind, but don't copy the pictures to your blog for copyright reasons.
It's a nice opportunity to try to get published without any hassle, just fill in the box with words and the selection process takes only 72 hours. How cool is that? The site is in it's infancy so now is a good time to try. C'mon bus poets, have a go!
(You can submit photos too, if you like) Get thee gone now and get stuck in, good luck!