Yes, quite something! And yes indeedy to petitions. Things from Change.org pop up every day in my inbox. It only takes a few seconds to sign :-)

It's coming up to midday here; I'm still on the liquid diet, but Coo points out I can eat anything I want online 🥪🍟🍩🍒🥂

As we're with Little Mo (sphinx-guinea), here's her villanelle:


Mo lopes and leaps in autumn air
beneath the cider apple tree,
the sun upon her golden hair,

then stops awhile to sit and stare
before another glad Whee-hee!
Mo lopes and leaps in autumn air

of windblown apple, plum, and pear
and music of the bumbling bee,
the sun upon her golden hair,

and sniffs towards the crop rows, where
there's ryegrass growing fresh for tea;
Mo lopes and leaps in autumn air,

as I throw in some snacks to share,
she eats her fodderbeets with glee,
the sun upon her golden hair;

I smile and watch her from my chair,
this little life, such joy to see:
Mo lopes and leaps in autumn air,
the sun upon her golden hair.

https://i.imgur.com/DYrhVax.jpeg

'Basil' grows fodderbeet especially for the guineas :-)

Five days of plant-sitting (rev.)

They're tiny now, in one small shade of green,
these weeks-old infants in their perfect rows.
Already, though, I see them start to lean
towards the east, tenacious on their toes.

Dad told me that there isn't much to do:
just keep their bedding damp, no need to flood.
I tend, recalling 1992:
the drownings, accidental, in the mud;

and all my errors through the teenage years
then adulthood – neglect while I was high
and shining smiles or low and raining tears.
He's confident, these days, that they won't die.

They'll leave me soon, returning to his home
to find the summer sunlight all around
amidst the pots and saucers, grinning gnome,
and finest compost for their planting ground.

https://i.imgur.com/Uwi4KOR.jpeg

Published on Insight Eye (Philosophy and Aesthetics) 8>)

Another from our silly Scilly series. The party, comprising the mossops, Coo, and FT, learned of the plight of the SS Thames while on St Mary's and resolved to take flowers to the rescued figurehead, at his home on Tresco.


SS sonnet

In yester years I rode the Scilly seas,
0the SS Thames my steed, from London town,
oh! how she raced across the swell – such ease! –
0until that night she hit the rocks, plunged down,
with only four survivors from her wreck,
0and I, wrenched from her body to reside
in Abbey Gardens, quite the dulling deck
0for one who thrills for salt and spray and tides;
still, I may dream upon my pretty plinth,
0receive this party with their gift of flowers –
stout agapanthus, joined with hyacinth,
0shall form fine fumes to help me through the hours;
so thank thee kindly, mossops, FT, Coo,
for lilies pink and purple, white and blue.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._SS_Thames.jpg

Andrewrabbott, Figurehead of the SS Thames

https://i.imgur.com/siauI2k.jpeg

[Silence.]

Comforting tea for the Tea-Lady ☕️ and a coo-kie for Coo 🍪 'Yay!' :>)

Also, a high coo after this pic (by me, with help from 'Basil'):

https://i.imgur.com/QN0EnSi.jpeg

September solace:
Jack Frost could not slay
every flower

❄️❄️❄️

Fliss, That's a wonderful haiku. And I really like that picture.

I think I'll post an SF poem, one of my stranger ones.

A Head for Her Times

She’d lost her head, but has a new one now.
Precisely how it happened, no one knew.
This flaxen-festooned oval-shaped machine,
whose retroflective eyes at twilight shine
like galaxies, sits nicely on her neck
and fits her ways. What’s more, it has a knack
for making her feel smart. She knows she’s blessed
to have it. With her trendy trousers bloused
over her boots, she rambles round the mall,
window-shopping, stopping for a meal
of sampler soups but, lonesome as a mole,
soon heads back home to brood about the future.
Time’s blemishing her body. The one feature
still fair — in actual fact downright bewitching —
is ever on the lookout, scanning, watching
for signs of wear below and, then, at last,
will take its leave for others who have lost
their noggins on its never-ending list.
Now, as she samples soup at the mall again,
a bozo moseys in with a laser gun.
While heads are being lost, her own stays cool,
showing her how to cripple or to kill
with a flying kick to the rogue’s unguarded belly —
a thing she’d never practiced, like ballet.
She’s wonderstruck when pondering this tool
atop her trunk, which never fails to tell
her soma how to keep from harm. She leaves,
a woman of courage, and (for the moment) lives.

(Appeared in Goreyesque.)

Thanks, Martin. I have quite a lot of pictures of that flowering plant. I can't remember what it's called at the moment. Later in Autumn, it'll fruit! The fruit looks like a small elongated orange.

I like your SF poem. Anything that starts 'She'd lost her head' sits pretty well with me, lol. I'm afraid my head is rather overwhelmed with outer space policy at present, a deadline day, but W.-B. and I might be able to comment in a more sensible state idc. 'One can only hope,' W.-B. smiles :>)

Martin, those slant rhymes are delicious.

Fliss, I think that's Passiflora Caerulea.

Fliss and W.-B. rush to Google together. Thanks, Ann. A very pretty passionflower :-) :>)

I've just found another photo, from mid-September 2018. I've uploaded it to Flickr because Imgur informs me it's illegal; I'm not sure why. There wasn't a problem with Jack Frost that year, clearly. The plant occupies quite a lot of length of fence, then you round the corner and have views of a very colourful garden. I think I have photos of that too, somewhere.

Martin, I like the slant rhymes too; and I find the poem very interesting. Congrats on its publication; I'll have to take a look at Goreyesque at some stage. as I'm pretty keen on SF. I think I've mentioned I'm quite a fan of TXF :-)

Best wishes,
Fliss