Learn the Language

After they were gone
the anniversary song
of the day they’d wed
soon came along

They met at the appointed spot
to share a dance, neither forgot

With dangly limbs and bony nibs
they soon found that they’d
locked their cagey ribs
and so it seemed he forgot to lead
went for a dip but got only kneed

They faltered and soon fell to giggles
but lacking in fat or skin that jiggles

They stepped on feet and clacked their heads
jaw bones rattled —
no apologies said

for by now you’ll know that when they still
drank tea, ate jam and bread
they’d failed, quite failed
to study hard;
to learn the Language
the Dead.

© Jilly & Silly Jilly  All Rights Reserved

Couldn’t resist a Silly Jilly for this one! Enjoy, have fun and have a listen to the Sound Cloud, which always seems necessary when Silly Jilly is around 😉

 

for Day 15 of 28 Days of Unreason

“I’ve spent a lifetime
trying to learn the language of the dead”
~ Jim Harrison from Sister in  Songs of Unreason

Cobble-Slobber

Cobble-slobber
words a-droppin’
don’t trip over
tongues a-hoppin’
clip-clop down
the sunny street
to tipsy-flirt
and dish it up
freshly tilled
piles O’dirt

Never fear
be slaves of
mettle
your ears won’t scorch
o’er the tittle-tettle

Clobber-slobber
do ’em in
go ahead,
‘taint-no sin

© Jill & Silly Jilly  All Rights Reserved

Doing Double-Dutch jumping here today by writing a Quadrille for dVerse that uses the word ‘Cobble’ and also working from the Day 4 of 28 Days of Unreason. I felt like it was a good time to write a Silly Jilly; it’s been awhile.  🙂 

I am hosting the 28 Days of Unreason for the 3rd year in which we write poetry in response to selected lines from poet, Jim Harrison.  Everyone is welcome to jump in!  Today’s line is, “Fear makes for good servants and bravery is fraudulent”  from Vows.

Eggscomunicated

A Silly Jilly story with a not-so-subtle allusion for the Eggerific Quadrille at dVerse.  Eggsellent of you to read, my friends!  Do scramble on down and leave a comment; serious or yolking.  A toast of the nog to Kim for being such a good egg and hosting tonight.

Eggnominiously eating every
bruised blackberry blini
Wallace wasn’t worthy
of officious offerings of
forgiveness feigningly foisted
upon undue umbrage

Unrepentantly he penned:
“This is just to say”
and
“Forgive me”
but
Wilimina was
swayed
not.

The pantry was purged
of all prestigious
fruits forever.

© Jilly & Silly Jilly  All Rights Reserved

 

 

It’s Only a Syndrome to Peter Pan

Jacks on the kitchen floor
Mom had the advantage
she could do the splits
I could only try

Casting aluminum stars
silver, purple, red, green
Tossing the red ball

Snatch!

Over the fence!

Double-bounce!

She
ever a child
lesson learned
never drop a star

© Jilly & Silly Jilly  All Rights Reserved

A Quadrille for dVerse where De has us bouncing into a fresh week of poetry!

SuperMoon!

Look – up in the sky
SuperMoon in cape and tights
Winter’s on the run

© Silly Jilly’s  

 

Last week for Haikai Challenge #9, Frank J. Tassone had us writing about November Rain.  I wrote my snarky “Ain’t Gonna Happen” and then whined to Frank about how we are in the dry season here in Florida and was bold enough to tell him we were going to ‘have a talk’ if he persisted with these northern slanted prompts. (Good thing Frank knows I’m both crazy and harmless; why else would he put up with that?!)  This week, he gave what I considered a bit of a hint about the prompt when he mentioned the super moon, so I crafted this in anticipation.  Then, wouldn’t you know it — out of the goodness of his heart — Frank posted an unconventional challenge in response to my sass;  Arid.  Yep; a dry season prompt.  And there I was with this amazing super moon Haiku and no place to post it!!  (Not to mention a big plate of crow for dinner.)  At the bequest of Frank & qbit, two very indulgent friends, I post this.  For the record, this is not my official offering for #10 – Arid;  I actually wrote a Haibun called Thirsting (my non-standard Kigo word).  That post appears right before this one.  Okay, Frank, go ahead and rush headlong into those cold and snow prompts – I’ll behave 😉

Duck, Ditch and Dissemble

Sing a song of six-pence
a pocket full of whys
two and eighty Februarys
ground into a pie
and when the pie is opened
the years begin to bleat,
“Aren’t we all just little more
than lonely, roving sheep?”

He was in his concealing house
counting all his money
hidden wall(s) treet the mouse
cheese-faces bright and sunny

She was in the camouflage
eating cheese and wine
a fan to shade the ever-flaws
that fading personal shrine

and They were in the garden
hanging up the clothes
dirth-y laundry’s pardon
never truth disclose

© Jilly’s & Silly Jilly  All Rights Reserved

Mish has us contemplating the metaphorical mask at dVerse tonight for Poetics.  Join us!

Up a Creek

Hey, Little Kittle

afloat upon a creek

banks of shrinking skittle

flood your eyes with leak-

ing tears, make your paddle creak.

 

My Little Kittle

sculling against the swell

your old bones are brittle

cast you now a spell

clang you loud the bell

 

© Jilly’s & Silly Jilly’s  All Rights Reserved

Posted for dVerse’s Quadrille using the word Creak.

Auto Biograph Ick-ality

or “How I Turned Out Like This”

A Silly Jilly Poem for Scribbling indVerse. 

She was razed
up to be a
momconformist
so when she try-folded
the trowels
and dug dirt with bath
towels a Shirley-you-jest
beat her hibbity chest
proclaiming in voco-profundo
“Art thou no doctor of mime!”

Her tale is a glad one, but true
she stammered her pen and off flew
a self-percolating
and unliberating
poet of weirdness and wine

the children of kerfuffle and thyme
gathered their carrots and rhyme
tucked under their tosies
and sneezled their nozies
tilling the soil quite sub-lime.

they supplanted citrus and bells
all glorious hast’ning with spells
the magic was tragic
it flew from their grabick
and landed with happy unlines

© Jilly’s & Silly-Jilly  All Rights Reserved

Our Bartender has asked me to take the mic and record this, so here ’tis!

Stale Mate

O bland Adonis
she fell for his
six-pack abdomis

Movie and dinner
proffered he
with smiles sure
to swoon every she

Milk-toast he
turned out to be
with rippling
curls his brains
unfurled

A second date?
No enspicement
such a flavorless fate
tempted she!

© Jilly’s  All Rights Reserved

This brought out the Silly Jilly side of me; no apology. 

Mish spices up our Quadrille writing over at dVerse tonight!  Join us 🙂

Day 19 – Cacophony of Birds

Day 19 of the 28 Days of Unreason brings a return of Silly Jilly, my childish alter ego. Humor her; she gets cranky when she’s told to grow up and act her age.  I’m just guessing she wanted to break from poetic tradition about using birds for metaphors and symbolic crap like that.  Views expressed here are not necessarily those of the author.  Songs of Unreason yields a beautiful quote for today:

“The birds are a chorus…clearly relatives of Mozart”  ~  Jim Harrison

CACOPHONY OF BIRDS

Albatross
pigeon
moorhen
and loon
they sync ‘neath my window
from sunrise ‘til noon

the booby
the cowbird
great heron
and goose
put up such a racket
like a bellowing moose

the shrike and the snipe
I’d most like to strike
with a silencing muzzle
my nerves are a fuzzle!

the starlings most startling
the grackles a ’cackle
the raven shows up
with a tool belt and spackle
(to fix and repair a bust standing there)

oh, where can I go
I need a good sleeper
but when I lie down
along comes a creeper

at last downs the sun
at evening they rest
but alas that screech owl
busts his buttons and vest

On Mozart and Handel
Now Beethoven and Bach
fly away, fly away
put thy beaks in a sock!

© Jilly’s Poetry & Photos   All Rights Reserved