Eight-line Poems

Homage to Ted Flower

Homage to Ted Flower

Though he’s long dead,
I think of Ted,
a man of boundless jest.

Those childish pranks,
below his rank,
innocence at its best.

So broad his smile,
yet gone this while.


Line count: 8
Rhymed aab ccb dd, syllables 446 446 44
For Express It In Eight, 12.12.22
Prompt: Prank.
Notes: Ted was a nobody who tired of being a teacher in England and came out to Africa to build a new life. He was in his forties when I knew him and I much younger, but we shared a silly and sometimes practical sense of humour. It was a shock to learn that he had died suddenly at so early an age and I often think of him and his gloriously inappropriate surname. He was never what you’d call floral. Sleep well, Ted.