Muse Swings set this prompt on behalf of The Poetry Bus this week. The challenge was a poem about our most useless Christmas present. I don't think I've ever had a completely useless one - or I've cast it into my mental limbo - but this one came pretty close.
A cosy for your egg, she said.
A present from my aunt to match
that of the year before -
the famous Fair Isle socks
The cosy, too, was Fair Isle,
and like the stockings, knitted
by her own fair hands -
and just as generous.
She was alive to every
possibility, my aunt,
even that some day we might
start keeping ostriches.
Two thicknesses and lined,
turned inside out - I can't
think why - it made the perfect
blindfold for our party games.
This Haiku almost suggested a new verse for The Twelve Days of Christmas
frozen snow ice-filled craters
two magpies slipping
19 comments:
What a delightful poem Dave - yes egg cosies are pretty useless things. I found an element of whimsy in the poem and i liked that.
Sounds like something they advertise on the Shopping Channel. Tired of your hard boiled eggs going cold too quickly? Introducing...
How enterprising to find an alternative use for your egg-cosy! (If by any chance you read "Photoshop 7 for Dummies", you'll find a reference to a knitted cosy for your printer!)
The interesting reference to ostriches? An implication that the egg cosy was somewhat oversize?
An egg cozy? You do live on a different planet than I. I will have to think hard for any useless presents...there are ones I did not want or like...but useless?
Maybe it was intended for a whole clutch of eggs, Dave? And what's wrong with an egg cosy; there are plenty for sale out there!
"... even that some day we might
start keeping ostriches."
:)
I'm having a hard time visualizing this egg-cozy and figuring out how it was used as a blindfold. I did enjoy the poem though.
Kat
Bwahaha! Loved how you crept in with the ostrich line. Others above, more practically inclined, suggest the cozy may be for a dozen but if that were the case it would be called an eggs cozy - and it's not.
Hehe, at least you found a use for your awful gift. A most amusing poem.
I do bremember egg-cosies as being if not all the rage at least a product of an early Arts and Crafts lesson. I agree that they have very little use unless for someone who eats breakfast quite a time after it has been cooked. The poem is very economical with fine ironic juxtapositions. Thanks Dave, and a Happy New Year to you.
Dave, so funny. I must confess I had never heard of an egg cosy. But you certainly put it to good use.
That takes me back a few years! Cosy's for eggs and I do recall for loo rolls as well!
Perhaps it was really a prototype 'beanie'?! LOL
When I was little, our knitted egg cosies were little owls. Where has all that magic gone? Neat poem, BTW.
I have a number of egg cosies made by my grandmother. I use them to decorate plastic eggs at Easter. Some of the cosies are made in the shape of chickens.
Nice poem.
Thanks Weaver
My aunt was noted for such presents, but was much loved. The wimsy was intended, so it is very gratifying to find that it was noted - I wasn't sure it would be.
Peter
I guess it was a bit like that... who would have believed my aunt could have been before her time!
Mrs Trellis
Wonderful! No, I didn't know about the cosy for printers. Absolutely, the cosy was enormous, like a barrage balloon.
Tabor
Exactly, there's a world of difference. As an egg cosy it was useless - there was so much space around the egg it got cold anyway!
Derrick
That is the suggestion of an advanced thinker... maybe that's what my aunt was - and we never knew.
David
We never did.
Kat
We pulled it down over our heads like a sack. (I did say it was generous.)
Muse Swings
Give that lady a lollipop! Exactly so.
Argent
Thanks for that.
Lucas
I don't think my aunt would have thought it out like that, but yes. Thanks for the useful comment.
Helen
Glad you saw the funny side of it.
Gwei
Yes, but can't think what their purpose was on a loo roll. Maybe some folk warmed them up on cold nights...
Jinksy
I think you may have put your finger on it!
Lucy
Hi, good to have you visiting. An what a good question: where indeed? Thanks for the comment.
Kass
Sounds like a brilliant idea - would not have been for my cosy though!
Egg cosies - I'd all but forgotten the phenomenon! They belong, I suppose, to an era in which ambient cold was simply taken for granted and the egg cosy was a reasonable response for any situation in which the boiled egg wasn't consumed immediately.
I like the revelation at the end that the problem was not so much choice of artifact as its size. A great closing stanza.
Dick
Yes, they point in several ways to the differences between the two eras.
you are right, the whole point was the size!
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