Tomato Sauce: Finishing the Bottle

I have faithfully stuck to all the given topics for GloPoWriMo and am now up-to-date. Actually, I went to town on some of them far more than I had intended to do. I hope they make the effort worth it by entertaining and amusing. In the case of the first one, astounding. The narrator claimed a relative had been at that police station.

Day Topic
(8) (MYSTERY/MAGIC)

A man one dark night gave a ride
To stranger, who just climbed inside
And nothing said, but chewed and chewed
As if devouring something good.

The motorist, increasingly,
Uneasy felt, as questions he
Asked of this stranger were ignored:
Just by more chewing underscored.

At last his nerves could take no more:
He drove at speed up to the door
Of the police, dashed out of car,
And told of passenger bizarre.

Though car had been in fullest sight
And only he climbed out that night,
They found the passenger had fled …
And then the driver dropped down dead!

Of cause of death there was no doubt:
His insides had been eaten out!
Not man, that he had chewing seen,
But hungry tokoloshe had been!

This tale, in full, by Zulu maid
To us was graphic’lly relayed,
And nothing we could say or do
Convinced her that it wasn’t true.

(9) (BIG/SMALL)

An elephant, one day
Had terrorised a village
His favourite form of play
Was to invade and pillage.

A stranger offered, then,
Of pachyderms to rid them,
‘I’ll show a creature: when
It’s seen, to scram will bid them!’

A fee agreed, and so
The man went into battle,
With mouse just see him go
The elephant to rattle.

In hand, that mouse he shows,
And bragged, on leaving houses,
‘As everybody knows,
They run on seeing mouses!’

The elephant, indeed,
Ran swiftly — but towards them!
Squished, man and mouse now bleed …
Sad end, mouse-myth affords them.

(10) (SIMULTANEITY)

Our domestic scene is normal: chaos reigns;
The kids fight over the remote
To see what TV gets their vote
Their mother screams they get her goat,
I threaten viciously to beat out their brains.

The buzzer is buzzing: someone at the gate;
Ignored! The phone is ringing,
The maid in the garden singing,
Dogs dirt from flowerbed flinging;
There come calls from the gate, ‘How long must I wait?’

The neighbours are shouting as if to the deaf,
All the dogs are barking madly,
And the kitten mewing sadly,
Monkeys are behaving badly,
Birds at feeder chirp in a high treble clef.

Imagine these take place all simultaneous;
Multiply by hours of the day;
Put that into weeks and months, say;
Now to years, take it all the way:
Enough to drive you completely extra-cranius*!

(*Out of your head.)

(11) (FUTURE STATE)
Past and present determine the future,
And when those are in need of a suture
To fix up the gaps,
And mend the mishaps,
Then something quite drastic is due, sure!

The sea is all choked up with plastic waste,
And forests destroyed with unseemly haste,
Racism is rife,
Religions bring strife,
Increasingly, art shows most awful taste.

So, future is not where we’ll have a ball —
All indications do tend to appal,
Not jolly the scene
Where such folly has been
Will there be, in fact, any future at all?

(12) (HOME LANDSCAPE HAIBUN)

The bluff juts boldly to protect the harbour behind, and it stems the steady onslaught of the pounding surf. Here dolphins leap and sardines shoal, and whales will bring their young; there, above a steep forested slope where monkeys and mongooses and small buck play, the houses appear of the human inhabitants.
Giant sand dune meets sea
Creates shelter for welter
Of things there to be

(13) (FAMILIAR PHRASE UPENDED)

A jolly sailor sailed the sea, and to the rum-cask found the key,
so always in his cups was he;
Upon the deck he chanced to slip, and overboard he fell from ship,
and he did not survive that dip;
Though rum he drank quite constantly, took lots of cups to do for he,
which goes to prove, as you’ll agree:

There’s many a cup twixt lip and slip.

(14) (DREAM DICTIONARY)

Dreaming of a Teacup means you will visit Ceylon;
Dreaming of a Hammer — your partner had better begone;
Dreaming of a Seagull — means you have pooped your bed;
Dreaming of a Ballet slipper — you’ve stepped in it, instead;
Dreaming of a Shark means you’re going to need a loan;
Dreaming of a Wobbly table excuses your writing next to the phone;
Dreaming of a Dentist — Marry him/her; they earn well!
Dreaming of a Rowboat, you must work to move forward it will tell.

© April 2018 Colonialist