Category: Poems

In response to The Bag Lady’s Tuesday photo prompt, pic below.

I sought another pic from Pixabay to go with it as further inspiration..

And I made this. Mostly a stream of consciousness, no real editing, just some fun with an idea…:

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The ‘click-fizz’ of the opening can caused Brian to stir from his nap. Excited neurons darting across the primary auditory pathways of his temporal lobe, back and forth in frenzied stimulation, a primal response triggered as he slept. His brain processed the inputs, considering past and potential future behaviour in relation to the ‘click-fizz’, the likelihood of a positive outcome to that input, the propensity for one ‘click-fizz’ to result in many more  ‘click fizzes’ and subsequently having a jolly good time being had by all. It then determined that an appropriate response to the stimulation would be to wake up and cause Brian to lick his lips.

“Yes please,” Brian said, reaching out an empty hand and sighing. His eyes opened slowly as his fingers clasped around the can he found placed into them.

“You seen that?” came a response.

Brian opened the can and straightened himself on the bench where he had been resting his eyes.

“Seen what, Carl?” Brian asked, opening the can, and taking a drink. It was not as cold as he would have liked but given the circumstances it would most certainly do. That is to say that given that when he went to sleep, he did not have any beer, and, now that he was awake he did, those were circumstances that now seemed decidedly in his favour.

“That,” said Carl, pointing into the sky.

It was hardly necessary for Carl to point given that directly in front of them, looming over the horizon, was something that was quite obviously the moon, but it stretched from one periphery of his vision to the other. Streams of reflected sunlight danced and swirled from the surface, and it had all of the appearance of a golden ball of flame.

“Well, that’s not mean to be there or look like that, is it.” Brian responded quite matter of fact, taking another drink. He paused for a moment, allowing himself to take in the full scene unfolding before him. Ten years on the streets and you think you’ve seen everything, but here he was, surprised once more. “Probably explains why everyone is running around rather panicked,” he added.

“You think?” said Carl, finishing his beer in one long slow gulp, and dropping the can on the grass beneath the park bench where they sat. He then opened a second.

“I’m no astrologist, but I’m pretty sure, yes. I imagine we ought to be panicking too.”

“You mean Astronomer.” Said Carl. “And yes, we could panic, I guess. But what would be the point.”

“Do I?” Brian asked.

“Yes. You mean astronomer. Not astrologist, that’s something completely different.”

Brian looked up into the sky again, then down to his beer, and then back into the sky.

“I expect you’re right on both points then,” Brian continued, “

He sat for a while and watched as a bride ran past them heading somewhere other than the direction that she was running from. She seemed quite determined, and she let her shoes and bouquet fall to the floor before disappearing behind two cars that had managed to have a quite inconvenient head on collision, smoke billowing from one as passengers staggered from both, pointing wildly at the sky.

“That’s a bit of a waste of good shoes,” said Brian, nodding to where they lay in the street.

“You think?” Carl replied taking another drink and opening a third can before he had finished his second. He motioned to the sky with a can in his hand, been spilling down his arm. “That thing’s getting bigger and bigger, so I doubt very much we will need very much of anything in a while.”

“Really?” said Brian as the wail of sirens echoed out across the city. “How much beer do you have?” he asked.

“Oh more than enough my friend,“ said Carl, offering his can to Brian as a toast, “more than enough.”