Snapshots

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

A mid-thirtyish guy
pushes a stroller so large
and high-tech that the baby in it
looks like a very young empress
serene and only casually aware
of her vast empire

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Londoners have the most amazing baby strollers I've ever seen, like small cars really -- complete with umbrellas, rain covers, hooks for purses, baby bags, shopping, you name it! I didn't get close enough to find out if they also have hotplates and kettles for making tea on the run.

I see those high tech strollers today and wonder where they were when I used to take my small kids on a hike! ;) :)

A Sunday morning club of runners
come chundling up Esplanade,
make a dog-leg at Fairmount
and continue south,
a forest of pumping
bare, male and female legs
beneath shorts, t-shirts,
sweatshirts, windbreakers,
floppy or stiff-peaked hats,
a fiesta of joyous colour and energy
in every conceivable colour and design

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

From my table outside Le Paltoquet
I catch sight of a serene, classically beautiful
Chinese woman’s face, incongruous
atop her taller than average body.

She looks back,
as if from her mountain temple,
at me, a lowly villager, one of those
who are forever beseeching favours.

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:thumbs_up Nice one! I think that I can actually see that woman!

As someone mentioned before, if there ever was a book of these snapshots, a good artist could actually draw these people almost perfectly without seeing them, simply by reading your text!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

A Sunday morning club of runners
come chundling up Esplanade,
make a dog-leg at Fairmount
and continue south,
a forest of pumping
bare, male and female legs
beneath shorts, t-shirts,
sweatshirts, windbreakers,
floppy or stiff-peaked hats,
a fiesta of joyous colour and energy
in every conceivable colour and design

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Does anyone else think of butterflies after reading this one?

Four-months old Louisa,
who reminds me somehow
of a very young Winston Churchill,
wobbles on her daddy’s lap
and over his shoulder
engages with me and I swear
I can see the intelligence
growing behind her alert, bright eyes

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

Four-months old Louisa,
who reminds me somehow
of a very young Winston Churchill,
wobbles on her daddy’s lap
and over his shoulder
engages with me and I swear
I can see the intelligence
growing behind her alert, bright eyes

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Babies often remind us of Churchill. Or WC Fields. Or Babe Ruth...

A woman with sparrow legs,
pursed lips,
in a drab, lime-green cardigan,
arms folded behind her back
like the Duke of Edinburgh,
moves slowly up the street
in no apparent hurry
to get anywhere at all

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

A woman with sparrow legs,
pursed lips,
in a drab, lime-green cardigan,
arms folded behind her back
like the Duke of Edinburgh,
moves slowly up the street
in no apparent hurry
to get anywhere at all

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Love this one. Great visual. :)

Without meaning to, I overhear a snatch
of conversation between two regulars
at the table behind me:
"the guy who built the boat
is sleeping with his neighbour’s wife"
and one or both of them snicker

haha, did you laugh too?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Umbilical

haha, did you laugh too?

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No, but I hungered for a few more details... Did the (poor?) husband know anything of what was going on? Was there any sort of connection between the building of the boat, and the affair? When the boat was completed, would the adulterous lovers take off on it leaving the cuckolded husband staring after them?


I have felt that my own snapshots are becoming a bit less fresh or spontaneous so I'll be taking a break from them. In the meantime I invited others to contribute snapshots of their own...

Facing houses
with matching empty porch swings,
rocked softly by an invisible hand,
waiting for their owners
to join them in their
contemplation.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by CdnReader

Facing houses
with matching empty porch swings,
rocked softly by an invisible hand,
waiting for their owners
to join them in their
contemplation.

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Many thanks, D. Interesting to view things through another lens.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin

Many thanks, D. Interesting to view things through another lens.

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Let's just say...... I learned from the best.