A Progress In Work

There are sinews everywhere
of umbilical despair

Tattooed souls of ingrained chasms.
Picking through the carcasses
in the doll's graveyard.

On spindly legs of porcelain
they tip-toe through the plastic cadavers
Here they gather, amass and share
With but one pure teardropp as a looking glass,
they scan and search in turn.

O'er these trenches of perpetual twilight
a peahen waddles, unperturbed.
Its presence, no distraction
in the realms of the disturbed.
Seeking out vibrations
Unable to trust their ears
But these constant, sapping, babies' cries

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poem by Hola Mentirosa
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The NOT so Royal Mint.

I never liked the smell of mint
when I was only four.
That bush by the back door
burst through the railings each year

The path was wide enough
when I think back
But not then.

Then,
I would hug the wall on tippytoes
arching my back like a concave mirror,
dreading the lightest brush with death
which would follow that dreaded scent.

One day, after a downpour, the damp-
ness amplified this poisonous perfume.
The summer sun seemed focused
on that path, the roots, those leaves.

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poem by Hola Mentirosa
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Behind the Iron Gate

Behind the Iron Gate, we saw so many different things.
I saw the crazy-paving path, you saw the wrought-iron wings
stretched out across the lintle, o'er the blackened double door
a welcoming of angel's warmth, a refuge for the poor.

I saw the march of tattered dandelions of neglect
the next door neighbour's foliage, Leilandia, I suspect.
You saw yourself some years ago, a paint brush in your hand
Nothing boring in restoring distant memories, so grand.

A few decades, a few decayed and teetering on the rim
last vestages of childhood and the days we spent with him.
A stranger with a thousand tales who swore that none were true
Behind the Iron Gate I peer, and wish I saw the same as you.

poem by Hola Mentirosa
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A Fairy Tale of Sorts

There once was a flower who learned how to think
evolving to harness it's best chance of life
no visible brain and no definite link
to show how or when it fell on its own knife.
For as it evolved it saw chances to rest
relying on beauty for its future seed,
as man, captivated this plant at its best
and so cultivated this true prize indeed.
As the flower developed it petals and sheen
increasingly moving away from its roots
no nectar was needed, no insects were seen
as man took his cuttings, they worked in cahoots.
Till one day the flower changed one stroke too far
assuming the men would attend,
so just as the fate of the Tsaress and Tsar,
the strings of their genes met a quite abrupt end.

poem by Hola Mentirosa
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Daddy's late?

I know a man who has two drinks
then talks like he's had ten.
It isn't long before he thinks
'I'll have two more, again.'

And so the day goes two by two
a chaser and a beer.
He talks to folks, he seems to know,
whose names just disappear.

The drink is like a dagger
nestling snuggly in his back
I've never seen him stagger
but his tongue gets awful slack.

I've never seen him carried out
nor fall down on his knees,
but I have seen, without a doubt
the worst of his disease.

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poem by Hola Mentirosa
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Transcendental Incremental 14,15,16 beats

The wherewithal within us all, remains a quest too far
If time should cease in times like these, but leave the door ajar
The door which guards us from ourselves, both keeping out and in
The doorway to the land of Elves, of pleasure and of sin

For therein lies the course, of course. The path to see the self
To poke, provoke and twist the joke we should leave on the shelf
As not all that derives from us, will surface as it should
Some sources lead to bitter seeds, not every core is good.

Lifetime's filter, out of kilter, clouding how and what we see
Let the door swing to and fro, revealing things I may yet be.
Contradictive contraband, once stowed away for fear of capture
Gilded over with the gloss of our internal self-made rapture.

poem by Hola Mentirosa
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Departure Delayed?

I caught a thread upon a nail, unravelling my thoughts
of flashing lights and siren's wail and children in their cots
Of such urbane banality with apathetic gaze
each Zombie-esque fatality adds more to the malaise.

' I cannot live this city life, this claustrophobic cloak,
The 'Gun' has now replaced the 'knife', the scum replace the common folk.
I cannot bear to raise a child amongst such filth and fear
I sense, your mother will go wild, on her return when we're not here.
What Promised Land awaits we two, what scant reward and praise?
What horrors wait for me and you, what plagues to wreck our woeful days? '

I took the pillow from the bed. Approached. 'You sleep so soundly, Jack.'
That smile stunned, as you turned your head.
Disturbed, I put the pillow back.

poem by Hola Mentirosa
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25 Seconds

They often found the open caskets
far too grim, bizarre.
The shuffling friends and family
in a procession of painful etiquette.

Looking at the young girl's eyes
he saw her thoughts racing and jumbling
like a 1950s fruit machine in full flow.

She was watching and timing the people ahead
desperately groping for a mean or average length of stay
Not to appear too overly sad, nor yet too blase and cold

The crowd moved along and the face came in view
His nostrils had never been so clean in life
she squinted, prying between the closed lids,
to see the faint stitches of staples or thread

'25 seconds! ' She decided to wait.
'That should do the old bastard proud'

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poem by Hola Mentirosa
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A toast to poets on Burns' Night

How can the merest mortals mend the world from all its ills,
when words are all the ammunition left, to pay the bills?
What kind of self-delusion does it take to make a Bard,
when Barred is more be-fitting as we play the drinker's card?
How many inspirations spiral up and down and through
the maelstroms of emotions separating us and you?
Is yours the doleful duty to disect and then display
the integral integrity of every mundane day?
But then you go and shock and awe the audience as one
by painting joyous masterpieces, perched upon a pun.
Showing us the way to say the things we only felt
by bottom dealing and revealing, the cards which we were dealt.
For every type and intent that may drive the poet's duty...
I toast you all who have the gall to bring us truth and beauty.

poem by Hola Mentirosa
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And this is why you shouldn't mock the aged in Perth.

Two young entrepeneurs admired their store
it held the stools they sat on, nothing more.
The place was bare but there, potential lay
in wait for stocks which they'd sell everyday.
One jested to the other as they sat,
'How long d'ye think it will be, before that
some auld grey-heeded punter gi's a yell
and asks us whit the feek we're tryin' tay sell? '
Sure enuff, afore his words had hit the floor
a Cotton-wool Heed, knocked upon the door.
'Hello boys, can ye tell me whit ye're sellin'? '
A glib retort within their mind was jellin'.
' We specialise in r=soles' came the jest.
But the auld lassie's reply, by far, was best.

'Ye must be crackin' salesmen, keen an' deft.......
it looks as though ye've just two r-soles left! '

(Based on a recounting of a supposedly true event)

poem by Hola Mentirosa
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