Much to my surprise it seems that I have been bitten by the poetry bug. Early samples have already appeared hereon, now here are a couple more for your delectation. One of them is my first venture into blank verse and iambic pentameter; the other is of the rhyming variety. Here goes:

LIBECCIO

The sounds of shutters rattling and the squawk

Of plastic chairs being buffeted around

 Outside the house did me from slumber wake

And thus I guessed Libeccio was in town

Some girl that is! So massive strong was she

To ope’ the door unto the terraced yard

To look for any damage she had caused

Took almost all my manly strength to budge

Out there, the booming roar assailed my ears

As chunks of sea were lifted up and thrown

Upon the shore, there shatt’ring into foam.

Libeccio does not gentle tap on door

To get in, but with her ferocity

Unbridled she kicks it down to enter.

At one with her majestic power she

Whirls around making flagpoles creak and groan

Flags snap and stand straight out ashamed to sag.

Sailing boats moored in the marina

Toss around at their docks as she causes

Waves uncommon rough to haste up channel

Tight hawsers hum her tune and strained halyards

Are set a-chattering against their masts

As she calmly twangs them while going by.

She bends the trees and liberates some leaves

Sending dozens of them swirling all round

And harried sweeper vainly tries to push

Them into piles ere loading them in cart.

Coming from the north of Africa she

Has a Moorish shade but squeezing thro’

The Strait of Boniface she garbs herself

In her Napoleonic warring dress

And races from that Strait and now with naught

In her path she gallops fast, in mad dash

Across the Tyrrhenian Sea to slam

Herself hard onto the Maremma shore

And shake my shutters to drag me awake.

 

So much for blank verse, now for a rhymer:

THE VIEW FROM BISTRO 22

Ensconced within the Bistro yard

I sit and watch the world go by

Oft close enough to reach and touch

But rare a contact with the eye

Uncertain why our pathways cross’d

Could Dame Fortune be awry?

 

While townsfolk stroll to left and right

A flowing placid promenade

Young children in chaotic flight

Dance back and forth through the parade

And tiny dogs on lengthy leads cause

Trips and oaths in high tirade

 

In groups of three or maybe four

Girls in early teens do caper

Babies born with a woman’s wiles

Yet conscience clean as silver paper

Unrealized charms that will rise

And fade like hazy vapor

 

On platform shoes and spikéd heels

Gals in tight leggings teeter past

By skimpy blouse cleaved flesh revealed

And gaily flaunted unabashed

Cascading curls on shoulders fall

Painted pouts plight pleasure vast

 

Boys with shorn heads but not yet men

Waylay the girls with merry flirts

In hope to find a chance to play

Upon the knolls beneath those shirts

But girls are not so easy led

To offer up sweet desserts

 

Aged dears plod with wearied gait

Cling on the arm of friend or nurse

Do they recall those days long gone

When youths pursued and would coerce

To bare their secret fruits and yield

Their all to ardent outburst

 

And old men yearning for lost youth

Hair combed across a balding crown

Eying chicks in skintight leggings

Aroused by urges not yet gone

And not by thoughts of time gone by

Nor of poor decrepit crone

 

The Bistro then is now the place

Where this old boy can quell his parch

Aley and engaging Greta

My splendid hosts, and now their verge

My delectation dome has ’come

For the evening’s first perlage

 

Has a monster been created? Watch this space…