OF UNCONSIDERED TRIFLES

 

Photo by Emre Can on Pexels.com

Autolycus came to me and said:
You are a fellow Trifler
Collecting titbits as you go
A code, a pun, a cipher.

A slice of verse,
A photograph,
Graffiti on a wall.
A derelict old building,
A motto I recall.

A snippet here,
A smidgen there,
Nonsensical or sane;
Collecting trifles will pay off,
Nothing is in vain.

An old dead doll,
A fireplace,
A waste bin on a beach,
Have all at times inspired my verse
My writer’s block to breach.

For my creative muse,
Despite its times of dearth,
Enjoys the trigger of the odd
‘Tis inspiration’s birth.

NOTE:  Shakespeare’s Autolycus (in A ‘Winter’s Tale’, claims that he is ‘a snapper–up of unconsidered trifles‘.

 

The Back Door

Gallery Back Door – Photo: WHB 2019 ©

Disused since Golgotha
Defaced by ignorance
Scorned by the whole-some
Earning only derisive mirth
Unwelcome and Unwelcoming
This un-entrancing entrance
Inaccessible access
Faded to a depressing
Off-putting welcome
As resonant of hope as
Hades’ Tunnel of Love

Once undoubtedly
New and hopeful
Promising Portal
Someone’s pride become
The neighbourhood’s malediction
And the future’s disillusionment.

 

The Banksy Sweeper

Photo: WHB – 2018    ..  .©

 

The stencilled maid
Had visited
Alley cleanup due;
Her presence felt
The message there
For all who cared to view.

Graffiti or
A work of Art?
Few could say or tell.
Quickly done
Soon be gone
Litter made to sell.

Well-chosen site
A tasty sight
For all to stop and stare;
Banksy signed –
Who really knows?
But many now will care.

 

This image (above) appeared overnight on the wall of an alley in Tiverton,
Mid-Devon, England, sometime in late 2018.

The Art Of The Haphazard

‘Wall Art’ . . . Photo: WHB – 2019

Fortuitous
Or with intent
These boxed blotches
This gifted graffiti 
Spoke silently to me

To the devil’s design graffiti
Or the angel’s delight
This inconsequential glitch
Mysterious manifestation
Held a satisfaction
In its irregular symmetry
In its beautiful ugliness
Its unsettling surety

What whim
What prompt
Had given it life
What hand
Guided its design
What art
Inspired its scattered
Sporadic spread

Don’t tell me of its
Inconsequential birth
Of unintended consequences
For there is design in the inadvertent
As there is hope in destitution
As life succeeds destruction