"Her Matters!" (Entry 449)

I shouldn't have asked what was the matter. 

For she went on and on and on, fermata! 

Oh, for that shrill voice to stop. 

Then she was gone. Peace, pause and rest. 

"Street's Secrets" (Entry 389)

With case in hand, at the top of the street. 

She stared at the houses and shuffled her feet. 

Wrought iron fence at 47. 

Black arrows upright like

The gates to Heaven. 

The only way was life. 

Freedom! The world!

Experiences to be had 

Out of Brownton Road. 

This place was kids kicking balls. 

Mums calling them to tea. 

Dads in armchairs,

asleep in front of the TV. 

What will the neighbours think?

Street gossip. Prickle-prattle.

Dirty washing behind closed doors. 

Twitching curtains. Tittle-tattle. 

Today, where her road lay was... here. 

She looked back to the high road and life. 

She glared at Brownton Road, 

Stepped into 47 and strife. 

Each tread, a twitch of curtain thread. 

The jeers, Unheard gossip rang through her ears.

"So, she's back!"

"She's here!"

"How could she show her face!"

"You'd think she'd disappear!"

"Sacrifices her parents made"

"University's not cheap!"

"Only for that to happen!"

"Oh, I could just weep!"

"Didn't even finish her degree"

"Her poor parents, my heart goes to them."

"More fool 47 for taking her back!"

"I heard the court was absolute mayhem. "

"The jury was wrong. Dead wrong."

"Dead, just like the guy. Totally agree."

"Not guilty, they said."

"I'd have convicted her, if it had been me."

"Her poor parents."

"She'll have to go! She's caused such a fuss."

"Disgrace on the street."

"Poor Brownton Road! Poor us!"

"Tale of Nail" (Entry 311)

Nail taps. 

Nail bitten. 

Nail breaks. 

It was written. 

Nail filed. 

Nail painted. 

Nail shaped. 

Words now tainted. 

Nail cut. 

Nail cleaned. 

Nail shined. 

Not what it seemed. 

"Newsprint's Dyes A Lie" (Entry 230)

Lies! Lies! Gossip's evil tongue.
Written not in black and white,
But blood ripped along wrist's vein.
Seeping across the headlined grey
to be dirtied by many rumoured thumbs.
A life destroyed by words,
Then death succumbed...

"Whisper" (Entry 190)

They're talking in whispers.
Behind closed doors.
Dealing out justice,
gossip and chores.
Blighted with phlegm,
delirious of power.
Middle management meetings
onwards to grasp the Ivory Tower.

************

That's the first third (and a bit) completed.

Only a year to go!

Thanks for returning and reading my verse.

Please tell your friends, family and foe.

"All Screech - Less Tweet" (Entry 167)

All dissected.
A row deflected.
By wrong word at alternate time.
Gossip! They did not say that!
Nothing is simple.
You calling me simple?
It all has to mean something.
You started something.
In the bitter twitter.

"The Life He Lived" (Entry 44)

They always said they expected it.
(Seeing the life he lived)
They said they always knew and reflected,
(Seeing the life he lived)
He disappeared from their cosseted world,
Living the life he lived.
It was when job lost, his lot unfurled.
Given the life he lived.

They smugly gossiped, he was out on a limb.

(Seeing the life he lived)

What can you expect from a man like him?
(Seeing the life he lived)

"When She Came In, The Sound Went Out" (Entry 38)

As cockroaches rattle around
the edge of the room,
sniffing out the latest droppings,
the gossip skitters from
vile mouth to
evil tongue.

Each adds and embellishes to the din,
like enormous web woven together
by venomous spiders spitting out
maliciousness and
innuendo roar.

Without any silver thread of
evidence resonance to be found,
but truth on longer mattered.
The flies to excrement,
they shudder and shriek in ecstasy.

She knew that, for
when she came in,
the sound went out.