Hey-ho!
This went a lot quicker than we expected… like a sleigh out of hell that careened across the sky in flames. Even baby Jesus himself is reeling!
Our Dearest Readers, because we didn’t receive any contributions for our last installment of Open Source Poetry, we feel it’s time to finish it. Yes, you have spoken and we have listened.
We have fashioned an ending of sorts and—as promised—we’ve mailed it to Santa. We’re dying to see his response…
by TETIANA ALEKSINA, TONY SINGLE & SONOFDEWANGAN
© All rights reserved 2020
I looked at my horoscope today, and decided to test it. To see if it actually works.
I’m a Scorpio. Apparently, I’m some kind of magnetic personality that makes others go weak at the knees. So, when a nearby toddler fell over and howled like a banshee, I nodded sagely and made a mark in my notebook.
However, when a sweet natured grandad asked me the time before collapsing on his bus seat—chest in hands—I quickly got off at the next stop. I guess I should have told the driver but I needed to process this newfound power.
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020
sorrow is not forever
whenever hope gains a foothold
give me your hand, dear
and leave these burial fields behind
we rest our old ways on the funeral pyre
and hatch new wings within its fire
fragile and strong are we
the lustre in our eyes
we’re spinning dreams in our sleep
look to my eyes, dear
we’ll move the world in our wake
we rest our old ways on the funeral pyre
and hatch new wings within its fire
fragile and strong are we
let’s shrug off our draconian veils
let these settle in the dust at their feet
lay your brow to mine, dear
in a nest full of golden eggshells
by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2020
Tis three years and a quarter since I left my own fireside
To go aboard a ship through love, and plough the ocean wide.
I crossed my native fields, where the scarlet poppies grew,
And the groundlark left his nest like a neighbour which I knew.
The pigeons from the dove cote cooed over the old lane,
The crow flocks from the oakwood went flopping oer the grain;
Like lots of dear old neighbours whom I shall see no more
They greeted me that morning I left the English shore.
The sun was just a-rising above the heath of furze,
And the shadows grow to giants; that bright ball never stirs:
There the shepherds lay with their dogs by their side,
And they started up and barked as my shadow they espied.
A maid of early morning twirled her mop upon the moor;
I wished her my farewell before she closed the door.
My friends I left behind me for other places new,
Crows and pigeons all were strangers as oer my head they flew.
Trees and bushes were all strangers, the hedges and the lanes,
The steeples and the houses and broad untrodden plains.
I passed the pretty milkmaid with her red and rosy face;
I knew not where I met her, I was strange to the place.
At last I saw the ocean, a pleasing sight to me:
I stood upon the shore of a mighty glorious sea.
The waves in easy motion went rolling on their way,
English colours were a-flying where the British squadron lay.
I left my honest parents, the church clock and the village;
I left the lads and lasses, the labour and the tillage;
To plough the briny ocean, which soon became my joy–
I sat and sang among the shrouds, a lonely sailor-boy.
by JOHN CLARE (1793-1864)
Public Domain Poetry
unbolt me 