They tickle my fancy, they nibble my naughty;
sniggering, jiggling – sublimely or haughty.
They’re hard to catch, forever they’re wriggling,
my words on a hook – poem, story, or book.
They’re prancey and dancey and frothy with lace,
as they spin on the page at a furious pace.
They flounce from my pen, and they stagger with age –
then pick up their skirts as again they race
in a phrase then a sentence across that blank page.
In blood, sweat and tears, with indelible ink,
they portray deep emotion (sometimes they stink),
but all of it shows how a quick mind can think,
as it throws a lasso around a strange phrase
to pin it down here and aim at some praise.
Life’s a bull or a steer, a mad cow or a calf –
my words bring a tear or maybe you’ll laugh;
a cheer or a jeer at my bronc-rider’s dust,
flag racing, camp drafting, whip cracking to bust.
And then to go home for a roll in the hay,
damnation on allergies – I’ll be sneezing all day!
Words are choosy and picky and have a few tricks
as they roll up their sleeves and then hit it for six.
It’s all just a game, it can be such a ball
to throw around words when the muse comes to call.
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When Inspiration Visits
Contest Winner
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Author Notes
Author's Note:
1.) Iyenochka reviewed a poem of mine recently and said, "You're always finding ways to have fun with words!" That was the trigger to how this poem came about.
2.) The sport referred to in the last stanza of my poem is cricket.
The first recorded women's cricket match took place on Gosden Common, near Guildford in Surrey, as reported in The Reading Mercury on 16 July 1745.
The paper described it as "the greatest cricket match that was played in this part of England... between eleven maids of Bramley and eleven maids of Hambledon, all dressed in white. "The Bramley maids had blue ribbons and the Hambledon maids red ribbons on their heads. The Bramley girls got 119 notches and the Hambledon girls 127. The girls bowled, batted, ran and catched as well as most men could do." High praise - albeit slightly grudging.
Women's cricket was particularly popular in Sussex, Hampshire and Surrey. Crowd trouble was not unknown, partly due to sporting rivalry and partly due to the large bets placed on games. One form of contest pitted single women against married counterparts, and prizes ranged from ladylike lace gloves to ladette-style barrels of ale!
Early cricket saw balls bowled underarm, and some claim it was actually a woman who introduced today's roundarm bowling action when, in the early 1800s, Christina Willes tried it to avoid becoming ensnared in her skirt.
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