Gossip

The flap over the marionette was too much, really.

Questions about massages and pumice stones and all other crap.

Even talk about an octopus found in a pail

outside the rectory last winter.

People thought that was an omen.   “A warning from God,”  they said.

Someone said he startled the boys at the campfire.

Said he brewed Irish whiskey in a jug

in his back room.  And fakes his limp.

Even heard he left a bruise on one of his parishioners, during morning prayer.

No one remembers which one.  Parishioner, that is.

Some town folk even accused him

of  hiding rock n' roll sheet music under the rug by the chimney. 

What? So he could strum a few notes on his guitar
late at night when everyone was asleep?

Crazy. I’d have heard it.

Well, I say, it was them that drove him out of town.

If you believe that kind of tittle-tattle and choose to

spread it like manure, it might just be true.

Besides, I’m the one in town who pulls the strings.



Today's RWP prompt instructed us to write a poem using at least 12 of a list of 24 given words, something that tastes terrible (Irish whiskey),  some part of another poem that didn't pan out (maybe this one), and a sound that makes you happy (guitar music). The 14 words I used were:  flap, marionette, startle, massage, pumice, octopus, pail, campfire, limp, jug, bruise, rug, chimney, strum.  It's Day 9 of the NaPoWriMo April Challenge. 21 to go.