Tag Archives: colours

3372. Excuse my English

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Final in a week of Science (non)-fiction.

You must excuse my English. I come from what you call outer space and I have been sent to boarding school here on Earth to learn their customs and ways. First of all I would like to say that we are completely different from Human Beings. We don’t communicate with sound at all. Your ears are much more developed than ours but our sight leaves yours for dead.

We communicate with colours which have a far greater range and subtly than what you have on Earth. For example, a novel is just coloured patterns on each page.

So you see, it had been a huge learning curve to use words expressed in sound and not in waves of light. I still haven’t mastered much when it comes to the spoken word. My mouth seems to be arranged all wrong for speaking.

There are two main things I find difficult; in fact I find almost impossible. The first is because I am just learning to communicate with sound the Human Beings seem to think they are therefore more intelligent than me. I showed them a coloured page of patterns and they said “It’s just a white page”. It was the opening of one of our more famous novels. These Human Beings are so arrogant.

Secondly if they are going to communicate via noise I wish they’d call things what they are. They use all these words and phrases that are totally meaningless. Like “Don’t rock the boat” when there’s no boat. Don’t get me started with people “speaking a load of bullshit.” I have a dictionary. I know that such words have nothing to do with the real stuff. Let alone the meaningless sounds they use when they are annoyed that aren’t even in my dictionary.

So all in all I’m doing okay. I tell everyone that my planet sent me here because they want me to be a cosmic diplomat. So I need to learn how these Human Beings think. I have no intention of becoming a diplomat. In fact the military sent me here to determine Earthlings’ weaknesses before we declare war on Planet Earth. As the lord of my planet conveyed in vibrant colour: “Find their Achilles’ heel.” I had to look that expression up in my dictionary.

Poem 97: Self-portrait on a blank canvas

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(Today’s story will make an appearance at midday (New Zealand time). But first I wanted to post a poem. This is the third (and possibly final) self-portrait poem. The first was “Self-portrait in landscape“. The second was “Self-portrait in still life“. And here’s the third – “Self-portrait on a blank canvas”. Thanks for taking the time to read/listen!)

The blank canvas calls for colour;
a pale blue perhaps for endless sky,
a fresh-filled swimming pool,
Our Lady of Lourdes,
a blue cat.

Perhaps a vibrant green
for vernal growth,
jade parakeets,
new chestnut leaves,
bile spewed or envy all-consuming.
Not everything on a palate’s palatable.

Blotches of red;
too much splattered that
the portrait’s doomed and ruined.
Scarlet garnets show for miles.
There’s no grace in brazen crimson,
no joy in bloodshot blood.
I wish that red would fade.

Other tints ungrace and grace the picture:
a cowardly yellow,
fractured gold,
orange sunlight shattered, a purple patch,
brown (common brown), a slice of black, a splash of grey,
bits of missed transparent canvas.

Sometimes a person comes along
and scrawls unprompted in a space.
Most (but first let me stir another sweetened brew)…
most enter; and exit after scribbling… nothing much.
They mutter in their passing, “What a… what a mess.”

I’m sorry, but it’s all there is and it’s all I’ve got.

To hear the poem being read click HERE!

1628. Tatty blues

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Gazing out the window at his clothes on the line Bruce realised just how tatty his clothes had become. Not only that, but everything was blue. What was needed was a visit to town and some new clothes. Fliers advertising the coming season’s garments had just come in the mail. This was the answer to a prayer:

New range of colours in our Spring Collection! Join in the innovative springtide riot! Throw all caution to the wind with our symphony of hues!

Feeling a desire to “branch out” this was an invitation to recklessness. Bruce got in his old truck and headed for town.

There they were! Row upon row of the new season’s clothes! All black or a lovely shade of grey. The swimming gear was black with white dots. There was one white shirt in different sizes, and (ah! one colour amidst the dismal rows) three pullovers in dark, dark green.

The next time Bruce hung his washing on the line it was identical to the previous load of laundry: all blue and quite, quite tatty.