Yesterday, to Sainsbury’s for vittals. They are doing the ‘two-fers’ for all they are worth and, after checking the ‘ok to home-freeze’ button, I find them hard to resist. There’s something inherently comforting about a good store of high quality grub.
So I gulped when I saw the total at the check-out, but soon recovered. It’s worth it. Me and the squirrels, eh? Must be the time of year.
Mind you, Christmas is spreading out along the shelves in Sainsbury’s now, like ice fingers in The Day After Tomorrow though not as fast. Or final. Come the new year it’ll all get swept aside, ready for the next festival.
This morning I was just getting into the opening phrases and rhythms of a new poem, soothed along by something innocuous on Classic FM, when Graham came into the study bearing a CD.
“Let’s hear something that’ll show how good your hifi is,” he said, snapping the radio off and clicking the CD player on.
“What’s that, then?”
“You’ll have to guess.”
I tried but failed. Sort of classical in bits but increasingly modern and pop as it went along.
“I give in,” I said. And then the vocal cut in. “Oh. It’s Muse. I should have known.”
So we listened appreciatively, and Graham went away again, leaving me with…
Another failed poem.
All I had left in my head was the title, and no real idea where the body was going to go. Ah well. It’s a shame to waste a good title:
~~+~~
HOW TO BOIL A HIPPO
First, place your hippo in water.
Season to taste, then apply heat.
Run.
~~+~~
Hippo in hot springs
Potato absorbs sulfur
Then add salt
G’morning, John!
You, the squirrels and me. A man in a supermarket van will shortly be delivering my winter food stash.
If you sit quiet maybe the muse and her hippo will sneak back in from whence they fled?
Run… that’s pretty funny for a failed muse John.
That’s very funny. Stick that one where Graham won’t fail to notice it. LOL You could retitle it, Failed Poem” then you can have another go at the first title.
Ah, I know the frustration of losing the thread of thought when the cat bumps her head on my arm or the phone rings, just when the muse strikes and the pen is poised! Perhaps she’ll swing by again, just when you least expect her. You can’t prove it by me, but I have this theory that no thought is lost forever. It’s in there somewhere, just playing hard to get.
The nice thing about boiling hippos — if you give them access to a big pile of onions and turnips first, they’re pretty much self-stuffing.
Funny!
OH JOHN! Season to taste then run!