Flowerspeak

Poppy, scarlet, fantastic extravagance,
Damask rose, brilliant complexion;
Camellia, red, unpretending excellence,
Japan rose, beauty is your only attraction.
Mistletoe, I surmount difficulties,
Rose, daily, thy smile I aspire to;
Citron, ill-natured beauty,
Mulberry tree, I shall not survive you.
Sorrel, wild, wit ill-timed,
Butterfly weed, let me go;
Hundred-leaved rose, dignity of mind,
Cistus, gum, I shall die tomorrow.
American starwort, cheerfulness in old age,
Locust tree, green, affection beyond the grave.

(Flower meanings from Collier’s Cyclopedia, 1882)

Drop/drift

There is a big drop
from daytime to night-time
temperature, wind
dies down by early evening
and night. Cloud cover
is a quarter or less, odours
seem more intense.
Far away sounds can be heard
clearly, cumulus
clouds collapse toward evening.
Smoke or dust hangs in the air.

(Environmental cues for temperature inversion from Crop Protection Guide for Apples)

Death from laughter

On the twenty-fourth of March 1975,
Alex Mitchell, from King’s Lynn, England,
died laughing while watching the Kung Fu Kapers
episode of The Goodies, featuring

a kilt-clad Scotsman with his bagpipes
battling a master of the Lancastrian martial art
Eckythump, who was armed with a black pudding.
After 25 minutes of continuous laughter,

Mitchell finally slumped on the sofa and died.
His widow later sent The Goodies a letter
thanking them for making Mitchell’s
final moments of life so pleasant.

(From Death from laughter, Wikipedia)

Bubbly Creek

One long arm of it is blind, and the filth
stays there forever and a day. It is
constantly in motion as if huge fish
were feeding in it, or great leviathans
disporting themselves in its depths. Bubbles
of carbonic gas will rise to the surface
and burst, and make rings two or three feet wide.

Here and there the grease and filth have caked solid,
and the creek looks like a bed of lava;
chickens walk about on it, feeding,
and many times an unwary stranger
has started to stroll across and vanished
temporarily. The packers used to leave
the creek that way, till every now and then
the surface would catch on fire and burn
furiously, and the fire department
would have to come and put it out.

Once,
an ingenious stranger came and started
to gather this filth in scows, to make lard;
then the packers took the cue, and got out
an injunction to stop him, and afterwards
gathered it themselves. The banks are plastered
thick with hairs, and this also the packers
gather and clean.

(From Bubbly Creek on Wikipedia)

Recursive

(From Recursive islands and lakes, Wikipedia)

#FFF8E7

Cosmic latte is the average colour
of the universe.

Like Fraunhofer lines
the dark lines displayed
in the study’s spectral ranges
display older and younger stars
and allow Glazebrook and Baldry
to determine the age
of different galaxies
and star systems.

Their survey of the light
from over 200,000 galaxies
averaged to a slightly
beigeish white.

Cappuccino Cosmico, Skyvory
Big Bang Buff, Blush, Beige
Primordial Clam Chowder
Cosmic Latte, Cosmic Cream
Astronomer Almond , Univeige
Cosmic Khaki, Astronomer Green

Latteo means Milky in Italian
Galileo’s native language. It also leads
to the similarity to the Italian term
for the Milky Way, Via Lattea.

They also claimed
to be caffeine biased.

(From Cosmic latte on Wikipedia)

The Ladies’ Love Oracle

It will be too glorious.
Go to your ruin, if you will.
It is needful that he be very good; yes, in spite of delays.
He will love you for a month.
Yes, at a country ball.

Wait, you will congratulate yourself,
Do not be uneasy.
You would be wrong by appearing frank and open.
Your least virtue.

No, my fine lady; be upon your guard.
By a more careful toilet, without doubt.
He’ll be handsome, like your present one.
The future will teach you it.

You ought not to hope. Why not, if you love him?
Yes, from midday to midnight.
Could you do without it?
Many things are opposed to it.

By a skillfully-managed intrigue
Don’t wait for it, you’ll only lose time.
Yes, a hussar. Yes, all except one.
Thy wit equals thy beauty.

Continue to ignore him.
You must renounce the world.
Handsome body, but deformed mind.
He smokes his segar and forgets you.

Count no more upon it.
It is useless.

(Answers to oracle questions in Madam Le Marchand’s Fortune Teller and Dreamer’s Dictionary, 1863. Submitted by Lori Hahnel)

One of my hermits is moulting

What should I do?
Nothing. Moulters already
have to suffer from stress.
Disturbing them will make it worse.
Place a cave over them
to provide darkness.
Most will harden.

How do I distinguish a dead hermit?
Look for a claw in the shell.
The eyes should be hollow
and translucent.
The eyes of dead hermits
are dark in colour, just like
when they were alive.

How long should I wait?
You are better digging
up a dead hermit
three months later
than stressing one to death
that was alive and could
have surfaced on its own.

Why is my hermit being lethargic?
This is normal behaviour.
Offer protein and calcium.
There is not much else you can do.
Sometimes they experience
difficulty shedding
so they give up and drop.

(From Hermit Crab Paradise, April 2016. Submitted by Linda Goulden)

Which Of These Fires From The Fire Catalogue Would You Like For Your Birthday?

(#3) the perpetual house-hold fire?
(#4) consecrated fire taken from the house-hold fire and placed in the east side?
(#7) powerful, mighty fire?
(#8) the fire that destroys?
(#9) the classical fire, belonging to the world of men?
(#10) the old or ancient fire, the fire pertaining to the stomach?
(#11) the entwining fire?
(#17) the calm, peaceful, serene fire?
(#20) the luminous, pure, brilliant fire?
(#21) the fire who is the priest?
(#22) the great, auspicious fire?
(#24) the fire consisting of wealth, or of good things?
(#26) the fire which is ethereal?
(#27) the conveyor of virtuous persons to heaven?

. . .the fire of time?
the fire of hunger?
the cold fire?

the fire of anger?

the fire of knowledge?

(Fires conveying the sacrificial butter in the Sabha Parva of Mahabharata, via Variants of Agni. Submitted by Maya Surya Pillay)

Blind Man’s Bluff

It may be some days before
relatives or nursing staff
stumble onto the fact that the patient
has actually become sightless.

The patient ordinarily does not
volunteer the information
that he has become blind,
but he furthermore misleads
his entourage by behaving
and talking as though he were sighted.

Attention is aroused, however,
when the patient is found to collide
with pieces of furniture, to fall
over objects, and to experience
difficulty in finding his way around.
He may try to walk through a wall
on his way from one room to another.

Suspicion is still further alerted
when he begins to describe people
and objects around him, which,
as a matter of fact, are not there at all.

(MacDonald Critchley on Anton–Babinski syndrome. Submitted by Howie Good)