Tag Archives: plums

Doggerel & Pastiches

Far over the cracking pavement grass’d

Far over the cracking pavement grass’d
To supermarket car park glass’d
I must away ere it’s midday
To seek some plums to break my fast.

The other day I bought some fruit
Not yet quite ripe, but soon to suit
My morning taste. And, bag-encased,
Those plums were mine beyond dispute.

I bought red apples to give to Bill
So he’d have fruit to eat his fill.
He loves what’s sweet, and dares to eat
The food I leave in the fridge to chill.

We’ve had this argument before
Since he will oft my signs ignore.
I write “Keep out, you dirty lout.”
And “Eat this food and you’ll get what for!”

And so I hid those plums from him
Behind the milk, in a corner dim,
I’d planned and schemed, and so I dreamed
Of cold sweet plums on the way to gym.

Far over the cracking pavement grass’d
To supermarket car park glass’d
I must away ere it’s midday
To seek some plums to break my fast.

The sun was hidden by the gloom
And woke me not. In our bedroom
I slept past eight, while Bill, up late,
Had got the munchies, I presume.

The wooden floor in the kitchen squeaked
The icebox door with menace creaked
And in their sack, open to attack,
Sat plums with condensation streaked.

The bag it rustled, then it tore
That pig ate one, and wanted more.
The plums were gone, that I’d counted on:
My breakfast plans did my Bill ignore.

And on arising, what did I see
But the note that Bill left me
In timeless verse (which makes it worse):
A self-indulgent fauxpology.

Far over the cracking pavement grass’d
To supermarket car park glass’d
I must away ere it’s midday
To seek some plums to break my fast.

Originally posted on Making Light

Doggerel & Pastiches

Song of Plums

(One of a series of pastiches of other poems to the plot of William Carlos William’s Plums)

I sleep, but my tongue craveth:
it is the scent of my beloveds that tempteth, saying,
Open to us, our eater, our vore,
our predator, our hungry one:
for our skins are covered with frost
and our stones with the chill of the icebox.

I have put off my bathrobe;
how shall I put it on?
I have brushed my teeth;
how shall I defile them?

My beloveds wafted their scent past the holes of my nostrils,
and my tongue was moistened for them.

I rose up to open to my beloveds;
and my hands dripped with juice,
and my fingers with sweet sticky juice
upon the handle of the icebox.

I opened to my beloveds;
but my beloveds had withdrawn themselves and were gone:
my soul failed when I smelled them:
I sought them, but I could not find them;
I sniffed the air, but smelled them not.

The roommate that goes about the flat found me,
He shrugged at me, he denied all knowledge;
The sharer of the icebox took away my plums from me.

I charge you, O lovers of Damsons,
if ye find my beloveds, that ye tell them,
that I am sick of hunger.

Originally posted on Making Light

Doggerel & Pastiches

The stone-fruits of Gondolin

The morning dawned clear and bright, and Gandalf rose early to walk along the terraces and slopes above the loud-flowing Bruinen. The rising sun shone pale and wan through the silver mist, and the webs of the spiders glistened among the trees. On a small bench beside the path he came upon Elrond, who rose to greet him.

“Fine is the morning and fortunate the meeting, O Mithrandir! Long have I sat here contemplating the paths that lie before us, and now find myself in need of sustenance. I have in my cool-rooms a hoard of stone-fruits from Gondolin, which I would gladly share with you.”

“Many years has it been,” replied Gandalf, “since I have tasted the stone-fruits of Gondolin. They grow now but sparsely among the fallen stones of that once fair city.”

Elrond rose and led the way to his cool-rooms, which stood in a shadowed corner of the Last Homely House, sheltered from the sunlight by the high walls of the building around them. There he kept many foods from all over Middle-Earth, cooled by great blocks of ice carried down from the Misty mountains.

The thick stone door of the cool-rooms stood ajar. Elrond and Gandalf entered to find Pippin seated on a wooden chest, wiping his mouth with his handkerchief. Beside him lay a small pile of fruit-stones, the last traces of golden flesh still clinging to them.

“Hullo, Gandalf! Hullo, Elrond! I just popped in here for a little something to eat. It’s a long time yet to breakfast, and waiting is hungry work, as my gaffer always says.”

Elrond stood still within the doorway, but Gandalf strode forward. “Gluttonous fool of a Took! You have eaten the stone-fruits of Gondolin, which we had preserved in the cool-room for our breakfast!”

“Forgive me,” cried the hobbit, cringing before the wizard’s wrath. “They were so sweet and so cold that I could hardly resist them!”

Originally posted on Making Light