Geranium

I thought I had better write a tribute to the only flowering plant that consistently survives my “gardening” – bruises, amputations and all.

A geranium in my garden

Geranium

We understand each other,
me and this ballsy bloomer,
roots as deep as a cheap sandwich,
leaves all thick fists down the alley.

It thrives on my perennial neglect,
dies every day in a new ugly,
screaming ‘Cut off my head, you big nelly!
Pass me a pickled egg and slap me.’

Sneering down at reedy violas –
Bosh! It steals sunlight from the needy,
coming again and again like a prop forward
throwing up to make space for a bevvie.

Red-faced, white-faced, pink-faced,
fat cheeks every colour of pushy,
broken nose flourishing with hubris,
it mocks every nibbling beastie.

Oh, but it is beautiful,
bruising through each new lobotomy,
a rolling maul of carousal.
A lover. A fighter. A softie.

 

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If laundry be the food of love

If laundry be the food of love

Because it never ends…

If laundry be the food of love

If laundry be the food of love
then my love’s food is abundant,
crammed into its glutted mouth
with potions grim and pungent.

If laundry be the food of love
then I am served with plenty.
May ketchup pour on shirts galore
so my platter’s never empty.

 

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Photo by Nik MacMillan on Unsplash

Squelch

And now, a slightly dark and gooey poem for hypochondriacs…

Squelch

I heard the squelch of death again –
or was it just a neutron firing
deep within my boggy brain,

or possibly a cell expiring
down amongst a mucus mess?
It could have been my heart perspiring

(that may be a thing I guess)
or, deep down in the adipose,
the squealing of a fat-lump pressed

to serve as fuel, and I suppose
it might have been a small mutation –
“Pop!” (we get a lot of those),

a bronchiole’s sharp inhalation,
“Hiss!” a membrane’s gooey breath,
a bile-duct’s bitter salivation…

Probably, it wasn’t death.

 

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Photo by Pierre Acobas on Unsplash

Growing Boy

In “George’s Marvellous Medicine”, eight year old George’s gruesome Grandma declares that growing is  “a nasty childish habit”.

Now as the one who has to fund the growth of an almost eight year old boy… well… let’s say she had a point.

Growing Boy

He is not even eight,
But he eats like a bear,
Pile it up on his plate –
In a blink, it’s not there!
So I hide all the snacks,
(He’d consume the whole pack),
But I cannot, I cannot keep up!

As his belly peeps out
Of his nearly-new tops,
And yet MORE ankle sprouts
From his trousers, I shop
Like a ninja on speed
For the clothes that he needs…
Yet I cannot, I cannot keep up!

And those telescope toes
Punching holes in each sock,
Mean I’ll pay through the nose
For more shoes… Should I lock
Up the fridge, nice and tight?
Feed him shrink-pills at night??
For I CANNOT, I cannot keep up!

© Nina Parmenter 2018

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Photo by Enrico Mantegazza on Unsplash