Hello to NaPoWriMo2018! Or, for those of us not based Stateside, GloPoWriMo (Global Poetry Writing Month). For the next thirty days I will be posting a poem a day. Sometimes it will be taken from prompts from the NaPoWriMo.net website. But not always. They are suggestions only. But I am going to take today’s prompt as my theme, which is secret shame or secret pleasure. Since I explored shame recently in on Being a Bad Woman, I am turning to the subject of secret pleasure.
Seven Magpies
For a secret never to be told
Which is not much fun
From a coven of flash feathered friends
Gossip will send you straight to hell
That kind of tell a heinous crime
At least according to mother
But the glee in the re-telling
Of hoists to a few petards
The retailing of curses that become blessed!
Of course, Higher Gossip, is by definition
For the greater Good of the Many broadening
The local moral spectrum, but
Lower gossip has much more juice and fizz
That precious pearl of information
Spilled to the gossip mill chaplin
It’s a mission this dissemination
Although there are other
Dimensions one can explore for delectation
So, once upon a time…
In a townland nearby
Paddy happened to spy
A courting couple canoodled
In the car parked up in the lane
Everyone thought Ted was after Madame X
But only Paddy knew from his own eyes
That it was really Y
And do you know?
I never told anyone for two whole weeks!
And he still slow smiled the satisfaction it gave him
Twenty years on
Copyright 2018 Bee Smith
