For the story
I would ruin it—
just to write it.
I'd be ruthless,
less private, shape up
my front porch,
sharpen these claws
on concrete
images—
metaphorically speaking
imagine
how to re-frame
bad guys,
wrench in a plot twist,
unmask villains' masquerading
makeup—
maybe even
find
myself.
Shagged in the back of a shotgun shack
at night by moonlight
peeping past curtains of burlap sack
such a sore sight
surrounded by fields of green
willing as she'd been
tho' torn
she surely wasn't about to be seen
with a child out of wedlock born
so with a bun in the oven
she had her Dad invite he
who did the dirty deed
and plant the seed
the Father-to-be
down south way out on the steading
to shape up show up and in the end
attend a shotgun wedding
My heart aches for something more,
I long when I wake up,
I need to shape-up,
This feeling has been so prominent,
That I no longer remember why more remains dominant.
The false apparatuses are presented on the tiny stage,
The surgeons want to shape up your archaic days.
The larger your poisons are,
The more lethal is their care.
You only care for the austere suggestions,
I want to undergo your sweeping portions.
I want to shake your hand in between infinity,
You want to pull me through this lumbering calamity.
I am another deceased man in this war,
Can you recall the black October?
There is so much rapture in the grave,
You only yearn to be brave.
You are now in a favoured hell,
I want to conjure you back and well.
I want to bring back my old salvation,
Where you were the most cataclysmic passion.
I beg you to wait for me in the uninhabited cave,
I will converge with you soon where you are already paved.
You are situated in your befitting place,
There is awaiting you the perpetual grace.
curlicues perhaps
the Catholic nun
wouldn’t let me engage
in penmanship shape
“shape up, sit straight!!”
yet the ancients
would whirligig
with their featherings
fill up the page
with their zorro-like signature
tap-tap-tap
the teacher’s brought me back
to life, to engage
in this ((yawn)) bor…ing
admonish the swording
don’t let me squander her time
keep in step with the four wall attack
windows of daydreams grow black
march march march
in two straight Madeline-s
the feather tickles my digits
my mind metamorphic
the rhymes fantastic
tap-tap-tap
this time near my ear
the fearsome whip
that steers me
into correction
dear nun’s satisfaction
i’ll get an A
in penmanship
but conduct -
can’t shut me up
It was November first, Hedgehog Grandpa’s birthday.
"We’ve got to be going!" Mom was yelling that day.
The one that was keeping us back was brother Gay.
A slow poke again, on that cool Saturday.
"I am leaving now." The voice was loud, from Dad.
"I am right behind you!" I yelled. My name is Thad.
My mother was holding a gift, so that is rad.
Because it is the birthday of H.G., our granddad.
As we headed down to Gramp’s tree, Gay caught up.
He had six excuses, most of them about having to sup.
He was still carrying a bit of toast and a coffee cup.
"When we get there," Dad said “You had better shape up!”
Grandpa came to the door and yelled “I’ll be!”
If anyone acted surprised ever, it was certainly he.
We do this every year, but still this pleased thee.
“Happy birthday!” I yelled to Grandpa. He said "You surprised me!"
I enjoy not my ride when
Am seated in fast moving cars!
I enjoy not the sceneries;
Whether they be construction workers
Toiling to shape up the town
Or gardens of roses, so soothing to the eyes!
I manage not even to let the songs
Playing from the radio
Get immersed in my soul and
I can feel not
Their beats in my veins, thereby,
Letting their words come alive!
Yes,
I enjoy not my ride
When am seated in fast moving cars!
After all, life simply wants us
To be thus,
Running to work, to meet deadlines,
To fetch our kids from school,
To prepare dinner,
To sleep even,
So as to meet up with the challenges of a new day!
Is it not best to take the time
To sit in slow moving cars,
And to enjoy the air that fills in our lungs,
The caress of the sun as it warms up our hearts
And let the sceneries
Overpower our senses completely
So much that living becomes, in itself,
A pleasure?
In my family, a convent in Lucerne, Switzerland loomed legend large.
It’s name is “La Madone Noire” (the Black Madonna) and according to my mom, it is a “finishing school” where captious girls, who lied or who wouldn’t
behave, were sent to live with and be schooled by nuns.
It was, from all reports, a terrible and stern place where there was never any
ice cream or bedtime stories and the toys, when there were any, were made of straw.
Most of the time it was my older sister Annick getting the dark Poe-like lectures, but I was there, in my high chair, listening wide-eyed. The very idea that Annick could be snatched up, for some infraction, and sent off to the nuns horrified me to the point that my heartbeat seemed to come through my whole body.
Eventually, as we grew, “Lucerne” became a shorthand for “shape up or else,”
and oddly, it never lost Its potency. Hmm, you know, come to think of it - there
was no equivalent monastery for my brother.
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***Audio by John Denver
Matthew 28:20 ESV
"...teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold,...
* T O * * T H E * * E N D * * O F * * T H E *
* * * *
S IIIIIIIIIII * A M * W W //U U A
Y II * A A M M * W W // U U G
A II * A A M * W W W // U U E
W II * A M * W W W W // U U |
L IIIIIIIIIII * A M * W W // UUU |
A <~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ \/
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2020 November 27
*1st*
SHAPE UP
~~Brian Strand
* *
Shape Up Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Brian Stand
shape up said the circle to the square
you’re a bit rough around the edges
far too closed in for comfort and joy
I can’t help it I’m all full of angles
right ones and wrong perspectives
constant rectangular doom so to speak
look at me I am a ring of fire and passion
diametrically sound complete at the centre
rounded and packed with infinite promise
you’ve no beginning unaware of the start
state you’re a wheel in perpetual motion
while I am grounded and sure of myself
no such thing for you are rigid and static
unsure where you’re going if moving at all
condemned to inflexible and taut stiffness
and so they squabbled from angry premises
valid arguments and debatable conclusions
righteous and unbending in their opposition
until an ellipse and parallelogram came along
change needs shifting paradigms under pressure
the square opened and jumped into the circle
anchored tangents perimeter and firm compromise
let us please wed our disadvantages and strength
no contradiction but complementing each other
Pythagoras meets Sisyphus and they applaud
27th November 2020
O I
am so
sad now
that she left
for up above.
Twenty years
is a long time
to love a cat,
this sweet.
A kitten came
that fit my hand
all fluffy and purring,
she loved to cuddle
all the long nights.
I held her in my arms
till her body was stone.
And now I go to the place
where I buried my beauty.
I told my friends- no, no,
more cats for this here girl.
They say just give it time!
Oh, oh my- days are empty,
sometimes, I hear her soft
meow call, calling for me,
and that breaks my heart.
Tears,
now
fall
fall
fall
like
rain
on
my
new
wee
cat.
______________________________
August 23, 2018 - Repost
Poetry/Concrete/Concrete Cat
Copyright Protected, ID 08-1307-284-23
All Rights Reserved, 2020, Constance La France
Submitted to the Standard contest Shape Up
sponsor, Brian Strand, Judged 11/29/20
First Place
A
discarded
plant was I
that a traveler,
a kind, gentle traveler,
picked gently up, and
planted in a rich, fertile land
to make me a tree,
a big, blossoming tree,
but no, - not for him,
yet for all the passers-by.
I’m that tree, that tree,
that he wanted me to be,
with boughs so bent and so low,
with fruits full of ripe and so raw,
caring those that come under my bough,
yet
he cannot see me,
because
he’s
Nor
More
*A 1st Place* in the following contest (judged on Nov. 29, 2020)
Nov. 23, 2020
SHAPE UP Poetry Contest
Contest Sponsor: Brian Strand
Originally, I published this piece in 2016 for About Page on My WordsPress account.
Pru was trying to keep the purple and yellow caterpillar safe.
But he refused to be socialized, kept running off.
So Pru put him back into the grass and tried to socialize a snake.
He sneakily slithered off, giving out a small cough.
Pru was irritated now. For she wanted to boss something.
She finally found a mama’s boy to train and shape up.
He thought she was wonderful and took orders like a hero.
She and mama are both bossy; hard to say who wins the cup.
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