croquet and cucumber

[Catherine Edmunds]

I was watching the children play croquet one day
amongst rounded towers and buddleia
lost in my thoughts, and barely aware
when a seagull flew overhead
calling a warning I should have heard
but foolish me, I ignored the bird
didn't heed, didn't think I need worry

seconds later, the head of a mallet
came flying at speed and knocked me out cold

I wandered alone for twenty-five years
in a starry place
where seagulls play croquet with eels for mallets
(which don't work, being hopelessly bendy)

you okay, mum? asked a passing haddock

I think I mumbled, 'yes pet, don't worry',
before setting off on a deep sea trek
in my patent diving bell
that chimed on the hour every hour
ding dong shrimp
bong

the gong was so loud that it woke me up
brought me back blinking and stupid
I touched the bump on the top of my head
it wasn't too bad
so I gathered the children and took them inside
for cucumber sarnies and tea

[joanne chapman]

Hello Delph_ambi

What an imagination you have!!

I like your style.

Had a bird shit on a new white suit years ago, no heads of mallet.

What is Buddleia?

Jox

[Louis P. Burns aka Lugh]

Hi delph

Nice intro

I've read this a few times now and see that it could lend itself to film, or animation, very easily... Were you aware of this while writing it..?

Please don't feel pressured to answer. My thoughts are just observations for now ...

Classic piece mate...

[Catherine Edmunds]

Hi Jo

Buddleia is 'butterfly bush', that garden shrub with the intensely scented purple flowers that gets covered in peacock butterflies in the summer. Glad you liked the poem My stuff varies from the whimsical to the marginally obscene to the incredibly formal stuffed shirt sonnet type thing.

Lugh, I was more thanking my lucky stars that my son didn't actually manage to fell me with a flying mallet, though it was a close thing. I've never really thought much about poetry in terms of animation, but can see I'm in the right environment here In fact... yes... hmm... I have quite a few poems that might lend themselves to that sort of treatment. I'll dig a few out now and again.

[joanne chapman]

Thanks, I like marginal obscenity (and complete lunacy) I reserve formal stuff for Union meetings.

Check out Leanders work sometime, he's very imaginative as well, think you'd enjoy it.

Jox

[the_leander]

Poetry is an artform I could never master, though I do enjoy reading it a lot, so hi delph_ambi, hope you have a good stay here!

I also note that you're a fellow deviant (I spotted the url of the image you put up), so doubly hello

[Catherine Edmunds]

Thanks Leander

(I hope the fact that we are "fellow deviants" doesn't get misconstrued...)

[the_leander]

Meh, let them talk

[Salvador Oria]

Croquet, cucumber sandwiches and tea... that's Victorian poshy, Delph. Mrs. Beeton's 19th century editions give a large selection of fingers that can be had with tea and some which ought to. Cucumber sandwiches come in these choices...

Croquet keep children busy, while grownups of course are for badminton...
or siesta.

Good atmospheric poem, full of images from la belle époque blended with postmod metaphores in a unique dream environment suddenly broken by the no less classic flying mallet. A toad's cold belly is good for this kind of bumps as well as for toothache, my grandma would have said.

-----------
Late, everywhere, this should have been posted three months ago

[Catherine Edmunds]

Mrs Beeton advocated eating fingers? Good grief. I have a facsimile of an early edition; will have to go and look up her cannibalism recipes.

Glad you enjoyed the poem, Argie.

[Salvador Oria]

Finger food...