Observations about postal services, blog posts and posters

Esther’s challenge for this week is to write about post. You can join in here: https://estherchilton.co.uk/2025/03/12/writing-prompts-56/. She meant post in the context of mail received through a postal service. This brought to mind the demise of South Africa’s postal service through corruption, theft, and mismanagement. It started with the theft of parcels which resulted in the establishment of private services for sending parcels. Amazon UK and US would no longer send parcels to South Africa via the government postal service and the services of private couriers had to be utilised for any orders from Amazon. This increased the cost of Amazon deliveries significantly and now I only purchase a few paperbacks in bulk orders and mainly read ebooks. Poor service soon resulted in the expansion of these private services to include the posting of letters and cards which just went missing or took three to four months to arrive at their destinations.

I didn’t want to write a poem about the sad disintegration of our postal service, but I thought I’d share it as an introduction to my poem about a poster so that my author readers understand why I generally purchase ebook copies of your books.

My next port of call was blog posts. I love reading interesting blog posts and I thought about writing a poem about posts but then I read a post by Rebecca Budd about her visit to the theatre and inspiration struck. You can read Rebecca’s post here: https://rebeccasreadingroom.ca/2025/03/16/and-then-there-were-none/

The Poster

The poster attracted my eye

“My Fair Lady’ splashed across its shiny surface

A black umbrella boldly silhouetted

Against a bright floral background

Childhood memories flooded my mind

Catherine and I singing ‘The Rain In Spain’

Me dressed in Mom’s bottle green theatre dress

Cath attired in a scarf dress in different shades of pink

Both of us sporting velvet theatre hats

One black, one dark blue

There was another, in brown tweed

That one languished, it was to masculine

For two giggling girls playing dress up

Who’d not yet reached double digit birthdays

Of course we had to go

Tickets were booked

The day awaited with eager anticipation

What a marvelous performance

Elize was magnificent

Henry Higgins perfect

With slouched shoulders

And a typical English cardigan in beige

The actor, another childhood memory

The lead in all my high school plays

It was a little shocking to see him

Sporting greying hair

But it worked, he was perfect for this role

We sang along with the songs

Clapped until our hands hurt

And laughed uproariously at the funny parts

In the basement, on the way to the car

We girls danced the can-can

While singing ‘Just You Wait’ at the top of our voices

Our menfolk lagged behind

Pretending they did not know

These two crazy women

Immersed in happy memories

Easter is coming so I’m taking the opportunity to remind you that Michael and I have a Sir Chocolate Easter story. A book is so much better than more chocolate. Sir Chocolate and the Valentine Toffee Cupid is available from Amazon US here: https://www.amazon.com/Chocolate-Valentine-Toffee-Cupid-holidays-ebook/dp/B0BT9GBNHL

This is my YouTube video which still makes me smile!

Dora is hosting this challenge which I’ve summarised as follows: Give us your take on the romance of the open window through your poetry.

You can read other contributions here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/03/11/the-romance-of-the-open-window/

Beyond the Window

An alien and eerie landscape

Fills my limited view

Through the oval window

Of the double decker airplane

That drags me forward in time

An eight hour journey

Pulling long and thin

Into a fourteen hour time difference

Clouds, lumpy and thick,

Like cooked oats porridge

Not what I expected

They look smooth from ‘down below’

I look for the cloud men

Of Roald Dahl’s vivid imagination

In this surreal place and time

Anything is possible

Wispy men rolling chunks of cloud

Into soft, floaty snowflakes

To shower upon a sleeping world

Seems quite reasonable

The sun creeps highter

Throwing shards of golden joy

Turning the soft cloud peaks

Into mango ice-cream

And deepening the shadows

I’m trapped behind

Three layers of transparent stretched acrylic

I pull down the shutter

Close my eyes and

Step into the enticing white world

This is De Jackson’s prompt:

New to the Q? Here’s what to do: 
Give a hoot about the rules and write us a poem of exactly 44 words (not counting the title), including some semblance of the word hoot.

You can join in here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/03/10/quadrille-219-a-poetic-hootenanny/

It’s a Hoot

The man hooted with raucous laughter

when the owl made its entrance onto the stage.

It hooted loudly.

The rest of the audience didn’t give a hoot

except the man was drunk as a hoot owl.

Collectively, they hooted him out of the theatre.

Thank you to Frank for the inspiration to use a selection of idioms. You can read Frank’s post on words here: https://beachwalkreflections.wordpress.com/2025/03/08/283-words-v3/

Esther Chilton’s prompt for this week is Villains and Heroes. My poetic response also includes a hoot. You can join in here: https://estherchilton.co.uk/2025/03/05/writing-prompts-55/

Nagloper*

When the night is at its darkest, he comes

Slinking stealthily through the velvet blackness, unencumber by clothes

If you listen carefully, you will hear him approaching

His headdress rattles, the human toe and finger bones dancing and jigging

A baboon’s wa-hoo and an owl’s hoot betray his familiars

Carefully walking backwards, footprints intended to confuse

He approaches the huts, ready to infect the children with foul diseases

He also has his way with the female sleepers, leaving them weak and powerless

A fearsome creature, the Nagloper*

***

Doctored knobkerrie# at the hut door

This symbol of defense, authority, and leadership

Will stop this sorceror in his tracks

Binding him fast until the head of the kraal releases him

Deciding on a suitable punishment for the nefarious villain

***

Wisdom is required

To attain hero status

Leaders born not made

*Nagloper means Night Walker in Afrikaans. The Nagloper is a myth of the Khoikhoi people of South Africa (previously called Hottentots).

#Knobkerrie is a mace.

Melissa’s prompt is “Without further ado, today we write about cycles of transformation. Anything will do, but your poem needs to have a beginning, middle, and end.” You can join in here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/03/04/metamorphosis-of-sorts/

And Colleen’s Tanka Tuesday challenge is to write a syllabic poem using synonyms for bright and create. You can join in Tanka Tuesday here: https://tankatuesday.com/2025/03/04/tankatuesday-poetry-challenge-no-2-synonyms-only-3-4-2025/. My poem is a rensaku.

Red Wine

Juicy purple grapes

Still warm from the sun soaked vines

Skins dark and shiny

Filled with anthocyanin

Perfect for making red wine

***

In the winery

The stems are removed, or not

An important choice

Leaving adds astringency

But helps minimize sourness

***

Sulfur dioxide

Stops bacterial spoilage

Fermentation starts

Sugar-eating yeasts consume

Fructose and make alcohol

***

Stir fermenting juice

To submerge the skins – they float

Punch down floating caps

Or pump wine over the top

Do you want subtle or strong?

***

After completion

Of fermentation process

Drain free running wine

And press the remaining skins

Before settling in a tank

***

A little microbe

Converts malic acid to

Rich lactic acid

Tastes milky like chocolate

Or delicious Greek yogurt

***

Age in wooden tank

Producing vanilla smell

Or unlined concrete

For a softening effect

Time most important factor

***

Lastly comes blending

Biggest challenge of them all

Palette texture rules

Do not rely on your nose

Then, bravo, a perfect wine

My mom has been very sick. I admitted her into hospital for a fractured rib and bronchi-pneumonia yesterday. She is on an intravenous antibiotic and is doing better this morning. It seems a bit relentless with sickness and ill health in my family lately, but onwards and upwards.

This poem is for Esther Chilton’s prompt ‘beach’. It’s a bit of a cheat but I really liked this idea. You can read other contributions here: https://estherchilton.co.uk/2025/02/26/writing-prompts-54/

On the false beach

Sloth like

The Sand River

Meanders sluggishly

Streams and rivulets trickling

Through mounds

***

False beach

Animals sleep

Contentedly in sun

Dreamily digesting last night’s

Success

***

Long night

Mama’s worn out

But not tiny girl cubs

Who play fight and practice stalking

Life skills

***

Still cool

Cubs full of life

Mama’s tail a great toy

Tearing around to exhaustion

Great fun

***

Heat rises

Little one flops

Spread eagle on her back

Sister follows good example

Nap time

***

Sloth like

Animals sleep

But not tiny girl cubs

Tearing around to exhaustion

Nap time

Kim‘s prompt was to choose one of the basic four elements and explore it. You can read other entries here: https://dversepoets.com/2025/02/25/tuesday-poetics-the-four-elements-2/

I was away in the bush with limited wifi access this week. I did manage to read this prompt, and I wrote this American cinquain (2/4/6/8/2) while bouncing around in the back of the safari vehicle.

Marvelous earth

Shared earth

Inhabited

By numerous creatures

Each with unique adaptions to

Survive

This is a sneak peek at one of the sightings we had:

This is a video of the two lionesses and the two cubs. Look at the one cub playing with mom’s tail (it was windy so that is the sound you can hear).

Hi everyone

I’m back from my quick trip to Sabi Sands which was mainly to see leopards in the wild. Leopards are very endangered so seeing them in nature was high on my list of ‘must dos’. Afterall, with climate change and continuous habitat encroachment by humans, these magnificent creatures, and many others, may well be gone forever in the foreseeable future. It always saddens me that so few people (relatively) care about nature and the conservation of our oceans, forests, wildlife and birds, but there is only so much the few that do care can do to raise awareness in the face of a wall of indifference.

I know that the readers of this blog do care, and I thank you for that.

Thank you to Kaye Lynne Booth for hosting.

I’ll see you on Wednesday for In Touch with Nature.