By: Lydia Crow

“Well I do declare,”
Said the man in first with a bowler hat
And a rigid smile like the Cheshire cat,
“That this here train has got it right.”

“I quite agree,”
Said the businessman with a business case
And an important look upon his face,
“And the engine’s such a pleasing sight.”

“Oh, I concur,”
Said the lady in fur,  on the opposite chair,
With wide brown eyes and perfect hair.
“A delight, my dear, a true delight.”

“Tickets please!”
Said the smiling guard in his smart blue suit
With shiny buttons and his polished boots.
“Come on, we haven’t got all night.”

And on it ran
With no delays or leaf-blocked lines
Or signal problems or stolen signs,
But with due respect to the tabled times
And a wistful sense of auld lang syne,
And with cheerful staff who were always polite.

Toy train company makes child’s play of west coast mainline bid

By: Lydia Crow

Nothing to say, nothing to give.
Nothing to die, nothing to live.
The tar of the greasepaint, the feather of time
Scars my skin in this pit of lime.

A moment in time, a pause in the air,
Dead echo of feet on the backstage stair.

Nothing in me, nothing but him.
Enter stage left from the shadowy wing
And deliver the lines to the critical crowd,
Costume dragging me down like a shroud.

A moment in time and an actor stripped bare
And a ghost of a ghost who wasn’t even there.

Did Daniel Day-Lewis see his father’s ghost as Hamlet? That is the question…

By: Lydia Crow

Leave it there, my love,
Lest you disturb far more
Than dust and bones
And corpses of flies
Who withered in the attic there
During long, hot summers
When the room’s dead air
Was still and thick,
Yet safe.

Leave it there, my love,
Lest you lie in bed
Awake at night
Scared and alone
As her voice wails high
Through the summer air
Long after dark, and dry
Creaking wings beat
The night.

Leave it there, my love,
Lest I wake in the morning
And find you gone,
Switched for a changeling
Of grass and straw
And though I’ll weep
I will see you no more.

Leave it there,
My love.

Concealed shoes: Australian settlers and an old superstition

By: Lydia Crow

Dig, dig, scrape, dig, dig.

Bark, bark, bark, BARK. Bark. Bark. Bark.

“Bugger.” (In Spanish.)

Paraguay: Stray dog’s barking foils prison break

By: Lydia Crow

A silence in the corridors,
A silence in the halls.
Then: whispering masses out of sight,
Out beyond the walls.

A low thrum of humming
Echoes from the lawn,
Ever getting louder:
The battleline is drawn.

The songs are almost deafening now,
The walls begin to crack.
Finally they start to see:
They are not turning back.

Gold-encrusted mannequins
Are shaken and they’re stirred:
Power to the people,
Voices must be heard.

It’s been a while since we introduced a new blog or series of regular musings for all you ShiverWrigglers, so here you are: fresh off the farm (or perhaps out of the oven), Lydia Crow will be serving up some tasty morsels for you on the subject of the week’s news. A headline here, an apology there, a half-forgotten addendum somewhere else: the inspiration might come from anywhere within the documented press and could take any form. Well, any form of poetry that is.

Yes, that’s right. Today’s times in rhymes. Yesterday’s news in haiku. And, because clearly not all poetry rhymes (and also because we can’t think of any more rhyming examples off the top of our heads but think three examples would be quite neat and tidy), last week’s headlines in sonnet form.

Check back later this week for the first from Our Girl on the Outside.