Acrostic Sonnets

 Lonely As A Cloud

 Life's trials left me lonely as a cloud
 On high until I found some daffodils,
 Not in an adventitious golden crowd
 Extending by a lakeside near some hills
 Like Wordsworth in his poem, but below
 York's city walls on sloping grassy banks,
 Arrayed in row upon enticing row.
 So I plucked half a dozen from the ranks
 And clasped them and, like Wordsworth, felt a rapt
 Companionship that filled me with renewed
 Light-heartedness ... until a copper tapped
 On my left shoulder and rebuked me—"Dude,
 Unlicensed flower picking's stealing"—then
 Detained my blooms ... to leave me lone, again.

 (First published in the Spring-Summer 2024 issue of
  Rat's Ass Review)
 Security Lights

 Sweet dreams are recommended: wellness guides
 Encourage you to spend eight hours a night
 Cocooned in bed with darkness on all sides,
 Untroubled by incursions, which a light
 Repels when motion sensors turn it on ...
 It's on. It isn't meant to make you rise,
 Though does. There's nothing there. The moth has gone.
 You curse the safety expert who supplies
 Lights calibrated by AI to keep
 Intruding moths from tripping wires—you're owed
 Good money, since the bugs that stop your sleep
 Hide not outside, but in the expert's code ...
 Then you turn off the lights and, back in bed,
 Sleep soundly till at dawn you rear your head!

 (First published on 16th February, 2024 in
  Autumn Sky Poetry Daily)
 Sherlock Holmes

 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had learned to hate
 His own creation, Sherlock Holmes, whose fame
 Eclipsed the works the literary great
 Regarded as more worthy of acclaim,
 Like Poison Belt, White Company and lots
 Of other highbrow novels few had read.
 Could Holmes be made to fade? Sir Arthur's plots
 Killed Holmes in Switzerland. So far, so dead ...
 However, two years later, Holmes wore tweed
 On Baker Street again: he had been spared
 Lethality by fans who yearned to read
 More ace detective stories. No one cared
 Especially for Arthur's other tomes ...
 Sir Arthur should have loved his Sherlock Holmes!

 (First published on 4th March, 2024 in the
  Creativity Webzine. Story here)
 Stoop To Conquer

 So many old guys stoop as they walk by,
 That I once thought kyphosis had to be
 On steroids here. I walked with head held high,
 Observing them, and swore: You won't see me
 Proceeding stooped! ... But little did I know
 That I would buy a single-storey house,
 On top of which the attic door is low,
 Confining upright entry to my spouse,
 Or guests—too bad the attic is my den,
 Necessitating that I bend my waist
 Quite far, or bang my head ... I judged those men
 Unwisely: They may stoop because they're faced
 Each day, like me, by attic lintels that
 Require a stoop to conquer sans hard hat!

 (First published in the Winter/Spring 2024 issue of
  Light on 13th May, 2024)
 Marital Harmony

 Matilda's been a night owl all her life,
 Averse to sleep before the morning light.
 Ray's been a morning lark. Unlike his wife,
 If he's awake, it can't be late at night.
 Their paths cross during teatime every day,
 As she eats breakfast, knowing there will be
 Lunch later—during dinner time with Ray.
 Her dinner waits till he's asleep: at three
 A.M., she dines alone ... Six decades on,
 Ray swears he's never had a quarrel with
 Matilda, who insists their marathon
 Of wedded harmony is neither myth
 Nor magic, and contends the moral's this:
 Your time apart is good for wedded bliss!

 (First published in the Summer 2024 issue of
  WestWard Quarterly)
 Dawn Choristers

 Dawn choristers make sounds of many types:
 At dawn in Scotland, you may have to bleep
 What's sworn at bagpipe players, on their pipes,
 Not understanding people need their sleep.
 Cocks crowing are no welcome sound if you
 Had plans to sleep till noon: before the crack
 Of dawn, a piercing cock-a-doodle-doo
 Revolts you, were you late to hit the sack.
 In music student dorms, in early morn,
 Sleep may be broken by a saxophone,
 Trombone, drum, oboe, clarinet or horn ...
 Euphonic sounds are wonderful to clone,
 Record, and play again—but you should keep
 Some earplugs handy for your morning sleep!

 (First published on 4th July, 2024 in the
  Creativity Webzine)



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