Augustus Young       light verse, poetry and prose
a webzine of new and unpublished work

MIETTES  

O Corona
I’m all alone-a

Words Change

Ah! once upon a time a confinement was ‘a happy event’

House Arrest

Worried that if dropped dead on a Friday and my femme de ménage comes Thursdays, I built a glass-case around myself with a little hatch for food.

Lent

This year I’ve given up people.        

Against masks

What a waste of a face.
The bandaged zombies rise,
white rictus grimace.
Hear their mumbled cries,
‘Don’t spit in my eyes’.
 
For Gloves
 
It’s all about hands.
Mine (like my eyes)
show their age. 
 
Deconfinement
 
The first day of the deconfinement was a Monday so nothing was open in France.
 
Sport but not sunbathing is permitted on the beaches (eating and drinking is a sport).
 
The age of the burka has arrived. So much for France’s laicite law (1905) and masked bandits. I don’t know who I’m speaking too and neither of us know what the other is saying. Maybe people should have name-badges and microphones.  
 
Bats 1
 
It was the Chinese (3/1/2019)
were the first to land on the dark side of the moon. 
 
Bats 2
 
An epidemic is nature’s revenge for its abuse. The meanest of its creatures is chastening mankind. It is a punishment and a warning of more to come. ‘If things remain the same after this is all over, it will be a true catastrophe’ (Walter Benjamin)
 
Bats 3
 
The handling of the pandemic clearly demonstrates that capitalist countries with neoliberal economies, and communist countries with their dictate-cultures, are ill-equipped. Anarchism with its mutual support ethic would work.  
 
Bats 4
 
Now uncertainty reigns in all but a few countries that were prepared.
 
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  Motto 2020

Keep close to the ground but not under it.
Soundbite
Why is silence always ‘profound’? It’s merely empty.
The O’Brien Fallacy
 
‘The reason love is so painful is that is always about two people wanting more than two people can give’. Well said, Edna, but doesn’t it depend on the two people?  
 
Also, she says, ‘You get back what you put into others’. Lucky girl.
 
The Original Key
 
was to close rather than open a door.
 
Restaurant screaming
Late-onset parenting breeds monsters.
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Political ethics
Nowadays it’s necessary to apologize for
telling the truth.

Marx on Trump Supporters

Opiates are their religion.

Populism

Fly me Emirate t-shirts are free handouts on behalf of dictatorships.

Democritus

the laughing philosopher, would agree democracy has gone beyond a joke.

Presidential Hopefuls USA

All except one is older than me. And I’m fifteen years past retirement age.

Democracy

More power to the billionaires (they don’t need the money)

Reading Brexit

I blame Harry Potter.

Heroic fool

‘I’m sticking to my illusions’.

Eco-future

The triumph of stupidity is followed by the era of the zombie.

Neo-Communism

All property is public. By spitting on the ground doesn’t mean you own it. 
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Crass cliché
‘I nearly took up smoking again’

Evil Communication

They don’t listen to me. That’s alright. I’m less likely to be misunderstood.

Umbrage

People who offend me deliberately I find flattering. When it’s inadvertent I could kill…

Christian Duty

It’s not that I don’t forgive people who offend me. I have nothing to do with them in case I don’t.

Righteousness

I am not evil.  I merely think evil of others.

McEvilly

I don’t need to tell lies if people believe I’m telling them
Christmas 2019
I hate the Xmas lights with their blinding cybernetic mayhem.
I long for a dark night so I can see the star of Bethlehem
 
Holy Masochism
The surest way to become a saint is to be a martyr.

Insolvency

The problem with me is I have no problems.

Paradise Beach

‘La mer allee avec le soleil’. Baudelaire (in suicide note to Jeane Duval, June 1845)

Widower’s RIP

Being on his own who could have known
how he felt? Pain and joy remain
buried with him, his last words being:
‘Ah once with love I was a sharer.
Now I’m a null, a not-carer.’ 
 
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Sur le tard 1
 
Buttonholes in shirts get smaller.
 
Sur Le tard 2
 
My glasses on a chain
beneath my chin displayed
pick up crumbs when I eat.
Harnessing my hearing-aid
the birds flock at my feet. 
 
Sur le tard 3
 
I can find only one sock. I’m wearing
the other.
 
Sur le tard 4
 
Time is wasted by choice. Fiddle-faddling with electronic nick-nacks
shortens the lifespan.
 
Sur le tard 5
 
Learning by your mistakes is the bright side of being
punished for them.
 
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Augustus/James
 
I made my living with numbers, but words kept me alive.
 
Literary endeavour
 
I’m not driven.  I drive myself.
 
Literary Virtue
 
In the vice-grip of word-rutting, I’m good for nothing.
So, I let myself slack and the evil genius is back.
 
Literary Glory
 
The Irish ex-laureate of prose who is to be nameless, said, as she took up a professorship of fiction (which doesn’t exist), ‘writing is a way of making sense of the world, and it is also, if you’re lucky, a way of making your name’.  
 
The Publicist’s Din-din
Nobody is ‘cancelling dinner dates’ to read my latest book. Bon Appetit. 
Literary correction
 
Put that yoke back in its shell.
 
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Me-too#

Come to me, my melancholy baby.

Cuddle up and don’t be blue.

All your fears are foolish fancy.

You know dear I’m in love with you.

Every cloud has a silver lining.

Wait until the sun shines through…