Rattler’sTale #2

More RATTLER’S TALE Stories
by Anthony North
for
Friday Fictioneers
dVerse
Poets & Storytellers United
The Sunday Muse
in association with
KEYUDOS

PHOTO PROMPT © J Hardy Carroll

SODOM ‘n’ STUFF

‘And the Lord God said: “Let there be cars … and there were cars” …’
‘Is that how it was Dad?’
‘It was son; but it all went wrong.’
‘What happened?’
‘Mass production, motorways, broken communities, air travel, globalization, climate change …
‘Well, in the end Planet did a HG Wells & shut things down.’
He became reflective then. Said:
‘If only we’d looked in the right direction, we wouldn’t have ended up like Lot’s wife.’

HYPO FLORA
FOR POETS & STORYTELLERS UNITED

Why does Rose have thorns?
‘Cos she’s got a prickly temperament.
Why is Daisy in chains?
‘Cos little girls like her.
Why don’t we have the freedom to roam?
‘Cos gardeners imprison us.
Why don’t the little ones grow?
‘Cos they’ve been classified as weeds.
Why do people keep cutting us?
‘Cos they can’t hear us scream.
What is Ivy doing now?
Strangling humans.

HUNDRED
FOR THE SUNDAY MUSE

Okay, excuse the way I’m saying this;
Shouldn’t really be saying anything – I’m not very bright …
I’m 100, you see.
For ages life seemed boring –
No opportunities, no nothing, as if I was stuck in the dark.
Then, when life took over, it happened so fast.
No time to think, plan, nothing.
I was just buffeted this way and that, pressures mounting all the time …
It sometimes felt I was going at 100 miles an hour.
Of course, careering at high speed had consequences.
I made no money – I’d only have burned it anyway.
No photos of relationships – never had any; never loved.
It was just a jig-saw with no doors opening.
And then, at 100, I found myself in the proverbial tunnel.
And then the light approached …
And now, I suck my mother’s breast, happy to forget the 100 minutes of my birth.

Book 27 of 68, Mysteries of the Bible, out 27 March

90 comments on “Rattler’sTale #2

  1. An interesting take on the prompt. Eventually the human race might learn to care for the planet, I suppose.

  2. I have heard it said that the current virus may be the world telling us more forcefully what some have been saying for a while – we need to reset and think about how we consume and use the world. Good stuff.

  3. And there was air travel and highways and climate change and globalization. Interesting to talk and write about globalization these days. There have been so many positives to it and yet here we find ourselves in the midst of a global pandemic which is anything but positive. Borders closing. Stores, restaurants, arenas, concert venues….all closing. And now, after all of this globalization, we are retreating to the simplicity of our own homes and with just a few people. I keep waiting for the plague of locusts to come.

  4. As a child of the 50’s, I had a love affair with muscle cars, but in the last couple decades as cars have become computers on wheels, the thrill is gone. We drive a hybrid Camary that gets 42 mpg, and global warming has taken the fun out of twin glass pack mufflers.

  5. We walked such a very fine line with globalisation, especially as everything seemed to happen so fast. When I was a child, not many people had cars or telephones, I didn’t know anyone who’d flown on an airoplane. I agree with Lillian, about it now being anything but positive.

  6. With the pollution clearing up and the animals trotting out of nowhere, I do feel like the pandemic is nature’s re-balancing act. In a way, we were like a virus on earth. Polluting and killing rampantly.
    Your biblical references are so apt for this situation.

  7. Such speed through a hundred years and that ending…the wonder at the end makes me question whether the speaker will remember or pick up speed once up again.

  8. Brilliant the way you incorporated pieces of each photo in you poem. It does seem we are living in a time of great change. A reflective piece. My mother who has ailing health issues said to me the other day “maybe, we all need to slow down we have lost our way”

  9. I have to admit I’ve always taken umbrage with the story of Lot’s wife. After all, he, the old rapscallion, was the sinner and she was punished only for looking back! I always wanted to have a long talk with her!

  10. A bit overwhelmed by your multiple submissions, and lengthy comments. I got into FRIDAY FICTIONEERS for the first time. I picked up on it from Bjorn’s site. All this helps to make your poem even more interesting.

    1. Hi Glenn, thanks for that. If you want to know why the multiple submissions & long comment thread, you can find out from Keyudos, linked on this post or from the header button.

  11. Well…trust me to get it horribly wrong. I thought Anthony’s Grandpa was living some sort of delusional fantasy as Hemingway …hmmm there is a good story here and I want to know more. I really enjoyed this poem you didn’t write:)

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