The purpose of my recent trip to France was to visit Nantes where I painted a group of actors as they rehearsed for a production (more about that in my next blog) However, my good friends Bonnie an…
Source: My trip to France – beginning in Port-En-Bessin
All of Eastern Britain will be having heavy rhymes tomorrow and the next day.
The West Wind will bring refrains in its train.
Free verse is due to arrive in the afternoon in London çausing consternation
Forms of poems will be ghosting across the City but are not for sale.
Cursing and swearing insects are set to invade poets’ brains on Friday bringing relief from good behaviour with no guilt.Count me out.
Seven plagues are said to be on the way but so far they have only reached Calais.And do we care?
British rain will fall on Thursday. Foreigners will not get wet until their reign arrives
and /or they are turned out after the Referpendulum.
Are you bored enough? I am
– See more at: http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/source/b/biblical_proverb/#sthash.yvSbMvmT.dpuf
Patience can break through iron doors.– See more at: http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/source/y/yugoslavian_proverb/4.htm#sthash.yKtzY6GZ.dpuf
– See more at: http://www.special-dictionary.com/quotes/authors/w/w._beran_wolfe/176240.htm#sthash.PJeKGguo.dpuf
Sunset’s a dread shock.
The piano is frightened
Into jarring scales
Black or dark grey lines
Zero or infinity
Are all one to me.
They point to a hole,
Deeper singularity.
Everything’s broken.
Piano attacks
Drained away the coral sky
Now all black or white.
Why play the black notes?
He’s hurting me again,oh.
Will we live truly?
A pink cloud chuckles
Till the night whale comes once more.
Prophets shall look out.
Wailing trees darken
Birds asleep are ignorant
Rest in peace.Amen
Practise now the presence of the good.
For always good is there, though life is dark.
Acknowledging we live here where we should
Our attitude enlivened by love’s spark
Behind bright pageants and the idols gold
Quiet and modest is eternal grace
And with patience let this good enfold
Ourselves and those who dwell in this earth’s space.
Unnoticed by the rich and envious court
Like a stream love flows in channels sweet;
Known to artist and to waiting poets
Like music,goodness flows to its own beat.
Let us not deceive ourselves with light
Darkness contains gifts unknown to sight.
|
 OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA I gave away my heart to a false love
By his strange stories I had been beguiled. I was a fool and so I paid the price We must beware when for such love we seek.. Remember too that love is called a game. |
Illness is a plot to slow us down
when God sees we are about to catch him up.
His face is covered by a thoughtful frown…
till he bestows with love the poisoned cup.
For speed is alien to the human soul
we have to live as slowly as hearts beat.
If rushing on we may miss our life’s goal
running down some long and rain filled street.
Step by step across the dangerous flood
On stones placed there by patient long-gone men.
With care,perception guides us to the good
but haste leads often to a tiger’s den.
Beware impulsive speeding in your mind
For out of this come many acts unkind
He let a wish out for a saunter round his mind then he submitted to temptation
I’m as with it as a diamond ringing
Are you fit enough to be hung out to dry and maligned?
Her wits have been tried and found haunting.
She fits me like a love.
He fits like a brand from heaven above.
Is he as flash as a cat with a golden fleece?
I have only flashed a pan… it was a humane error.
My belly is as flat as a rugby players knee.
I wish I were reciting a Xmas cracker.
She’s very sweet footed..always an asset in this day of ragen
I only wanted to be flung onto the bed not out of your window..I’m not into SM and never will be.
His hip hops and his mind flops.
I’d like to whip you some cream,kid.
Can you spell the word ,Hoarse? Oh,of course,what’s it’s source?
Have you no ad voice?
My humor is ill today.
Bands of rhyme will be crossing the UK tomorrow.. streams of poetry will bring rain in the eyes.
Season’s Tweetings to Sinners
Shadow of the whole silence is folding over like an envelope.Post it now
The spice of wife..pepper.
Hop around the roses
It’s best to saunter nowadays.~
When inside out, a cat can still scratch.. with its reversible cat-claws.Try one tonight.Just unzip the cat and it will spring into the heir…to the throne or is it the air all round
Until the end of all rhymes I’ll be loving you
Time feels all wounds…and holes
Maps of the iceberg have melted..
Two hearts that beat as none ever did.
I wait for the lime to be ripe then it will be a lemon.
If you have a man,wash him weekly in a tin bath…don’t blame me if you get drawn in…..mate in the bath … saves washing the sheets.
![England's green and pleasant Land [from Jerusalem,by William Blake]](https://i0.wp.com/s3.hubimg.com/u/4360438_f260.jpg "England's green and pleasant Land [from Jerusalem,by William Blake]")
Note: This was a surprise to me when I was writing the last part .I will try to explain.At first I started off wanting to write a poem about nature,And evening falling as the sun set.However something else seemed to take over for the last few verses.I was especially surprised by the end….”.at last we have reached the promised land”
That is the best thing about writing poetry,that it can surprise the writer as much as if it were written by someone else.Also it is very absorbing so that the time seems to very quickly.Sometimes a serious poem has turned into a funny one and I laugh out loud.So it saves having to buy funny books….I can amuse myself.Writing is even better than reading.
Just think of anything at all for the first line,then make a second line,then all of a sudden …you are off.Some days are better than others and you need an hour or two to do it.Or come back to it later to edit it and knock into shape.It is a bit like sculpture,I imagine.
Joy sings sweet in golden light
Yet after day comes black of night.
New moon is rising by gray trees
This earth is where I want to be.
I want the day,I want the night
I want the dark,I want the light.
I want to see and to be seen,
And not to lose myself in dreams.
The sun has set ,gray clouds turn black,
The day just gone will not come back.
I’ll rest in quiet reverie
Until the Reapers’s scythe takes me.
And then I drop and mix with dust,
And worms and beetles sate their lust.
I fall into ten thousand motes
And in sunlight ,dance music’s notes.
No more striving.no more ambition,
No more fighting,nor competition.
Every particle’s the same,
Without even a personal name.
And side by side,we all are one.
The lusts of life have been and gone.
We dwell with dirt and grain and sand
At last we’ve reached the Promised Land,
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21722
This is very beautifully written and worth reading if you have time and if you care about language and expression of our subjectivity
From time and place and season I am lost, Disorientated ,missing tracks well worn Do not suppose I’m unaware of cost Nor label me with epithets of scorn For usual paths lead to the usual place The safest way to live and perhaps to die But wandering through the woods I find new space and in wild grasses with the fox I lie. Through distant trees, i see a way to go as narrow as a slit in pallid stone This is my destined way, I seem to know And courage rises even as I moan. Remember when we’re lost ,we may then find Another way,a place,another mind
– See more at: http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/source/m/macedonian_proverb/#sthash.9uK3o4t4.dpuf
I once had an email from a ghost.
I was eating a piece of white toast.
The message was clear.
It said,”I ‘m not
So I replied, “No need to boast.”
I had an email last night from the Pope
He said will you help me to cope?
I’m an immigrant, you see.
And no-one wants me
Don’t cry for Argentina,just mope.
If you look at books on writing they tell you to read. as much as you canAnd clearly we need to observe people and their behaviour and the world beyond us.Why?
Well when I wrote that last line obviously it’s because I have heard the song
Don’t cry for me Argentina.
So if you want to give out you have to take in.That’s what I think
And if you read poetry you will see how different people living at the same time will write totally different types of poetry.And it may help you to find what style appeals to you
Technique is important but emotion and feeling matters too.What affects us?What distresses us?What do we feel about the current political climate
The Pope is an immigrant to the EU
Everybody who lives in the Vatican city is an immigrant…100%
If they can do it,why not us.
We want more like
The surgeon who operated on my face and made me look as good as before .. so people say.He is Greek
My GP is Indian and is a Hindhu.
My newsagent is from India possibly via Africa
My new dentist is a child of immigrants, I believe from India.
My neighbours are from Tottenham so they are foreign too!
Most of my close friends are Irish or partly Irish like me.We like telling stories and talking.And singing.Eeeeeeh,I am a foreigner now!Send half of me back to Denmark and half to the Irish Republic and I will be happy in heaven.But which half is Irish?
I think it’s the lower half. and the top half is Danish.No wonder I am so talented or would be if my brain was not from Lapland.
I am one of God’s frozen people.I made that up myself!
And is it wrong to grieve when a cardboard box
Became for a moment,you?
As if my eye sees my need’s joy
Then,alas,the truth.
Is it wrong to grieve,when the birds are nesting
And I have no young?
When people say,we thought you didn’t want any
And,what you’ve never had you never miss~
As if.
Is it wrong to show a sad face or to weep
When the cow bellows for its calf
And the cat is distracted by loss of a kitten.
And is it wrong to be alive without
The one who knows you?
Is it wrong to grieve when nobody speaks
And others say,I didn’t know what to say.
When it’s the saying, not the what ,that matters.
The sound of a voice
A word,laughter,a phrase.
Some people say you never get over it
Is it a stile or a mountain?
A heap of rocks or bricks?
Shall I undress and go naked into the mouth of the cave
For clothes hinder movement
And in heaven we’ll have none.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/29/dannie-abse
Splendidly, Shakespeare’s heroes,
Shakespeare’s heroines, once the spotlight’s on,
enact every night, with such grace, their verbose deaths.
Then great plush curtains, then smiling resurrection
to applause – and never their good looks gone.
The last recorded words too
of real kings, real queens, all the famous dead,
are but pithy pretences, quotable fictions
composed by anonymous men decades later,
never with ready notebooks at the bed.
Most do not know who they are
when they die or where they are, country or town,
nor which hand on their brow. Some clapped-out actor may
imagine distant clapping, bow, but no real queen
will sigh, ‘Give me my robe, put on my crown.’
Death scenes not life-enhancing,
death scenes not beautiful nor with breeding;
yet bravo Sydney Carton, bravo Duc de Chavost
who, euphoric beside the guillotine, turned down
the corner of the page he was reading.
And how would I wish to go?
Not as in opera – that would offend –
nor like a blue-eyed cowboy shot and short of words,
but finger-tapping still our private morse,’…love you,’
before the last flowers and flies descend.
One cannot please everybody and one would rather knit
Two cannot please themselves when one would rather not.
The don thinks everybody reads poetry like himself.
The box winks at everybody who reads in front of it.
Proof is the club that knocks down and kills every body’s mind
Logic is the good that tramples over and kills our hearts and their reason
When the fee is down, everybody runs to the doctor’s
When the tea goes down ,everyone runs to the privy
Smiling and winking holds body and soul together.
Beguiling and singing moulds body to body
Everybody knows best where his own truth pitches.
Every body shows best where her own truth leads
Everybody knows good counsel except him who has died of it.
Everybody bellows, good housefull except those who are tired to death of it
Everybody must have one chair or we will have to play musical floor.
Every body must hug one bear or we will pay the circus evermore
– See more at: http://www.special-dictionary.com/proverbs/keywords/body/2.htm#sthash.V9MPaMAW.dpuf
Hello and welcome to the Poetry Archive. And, to our old friends, a very warm welcome back. What you’re looking at now is a revamped version of the site, and I want to introduce it to you by saying I hope you enjoy what you see and hear as much as we’ve enjoyed providing it.
We’ve kept all the essential elements of the old site which have made it such a popular and valued place to find poems. And we’ve added many new features which we hope will make your visits all the more rewarding.
It seems a long time since we launched the Archive in 2005. We now welcome over a quarter of a million visitors every month, from all over the world and can reasonably claim, therefore, to be the world’s largest and best equipped collection of poets reading their own work. This means we’ve grown a great deal and learned many valuable lessons but we have remained true to the values we held when we began.
We continue to conserve voices that might otherwise be lost. We continue to prove that the sound of a poem is as indispensable to its meaning as the words on a page. We continue to show how fascinating it is to hear a poet read their own work. Not just fascinating, in fact – enlightening. Hearing their accent, hearing their idiom, seeing where they place their emphases. We continue to provide the lesson plans, the glossaries, the introductions and other material that have made us indispensable to teachers and students as well as helpful to the general reader.
And the new things? Well, let me begin by mentioning Poetry by Heart, the national poetry recitation competition for fourteen-to eighteen-year olds. It has its own website now. We hope you’ll enjoy exploring it, via the links you’ll find here.
Let me state the obvious and say that, in technological terms, a great deal has changed over the last eight years. So of course we needed a new site so we could provide the best possible experience for our users. In particular, we needed it to make it possible for you to download poems, in the same way that you might download a song from iTunes. This downloads store is the first of its kind in the poetry world and means, for the first time, you can take poetry with you wherever you are, create your own poetry anthologies and share and comment on the site via Twitter and the Facebook page.
Also, and just as significant, you’ll find a new section on the site in which contemporary poets introduce and read selections of work by their classic predecessors, giving a voice to our great forebears who lived before the age of recording. We’re very proud of this additional aspect of the Archive and hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we’ve enjoyed compiling it.
You’ll find a lot of other additions and improvements to the site, as well as a clean, clear, fresh look to the whole thing. And we’re very grateful for all the support we’ve received to make these things possible.
But, remember, the Archive only exists and grows due to the generosity of its users. So, please, if you feel able to help us collect existing recordings, fund the recordings of new poets, support our education work, we would love to hear from you. You can donate to us online and, if you’d like to get in touch, do that. This is your Archive. Help it to grow from strength to strength.
The great American poet Robert Frost says: “The ear is the best reader” and you’ll hear this proved by poet after poet on the Archive. As you enjoy listening to voices you already know, I hope you’ll be drawn to others who are new to you and find great pleasure there as well. So, happy listening!
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages.
(As You Like It by William Shakespeare
http://literarydevices.net/rhetorical-question/
This is a really good website for those who want to know more
Following my previous post I realised that it implies we all see the world differently and unless we are very open to talk with other people we cannot know how they see it except by analysing their behaviour,perhaps
So if people kill others who seem harmless to us clearly their world view is different.
It is possible and it has happened that some political leaders managed to persuade their countrymen and women that some other human beings were not really human and so could be killed.
I believe the Nazis did this vis- a-vis the Jews describing them as rats or cockroaches.And denying lavatories to people in Concentration Camps so they soiled themselves made it easier for the guards to kill them as their dirtiness reduced their status and made them seem less human.It’s not logical because anyone would soil themselves in such conditions but when has reason ever been used much in politics or ordinary life?
That is a rhetorical question.
I am sure most people who learn English are familiar with the expression
“Burying your head in the sand” or “Turning a blind eye
which is about a refusal to see.Well I had a dream that my body was buried in sand but my head was not.And my body was suffering pain.
So I think it must mean I am not willing to feel all the pain inside me.A refusal to feel.So if I feel terrible that may be a good thing….And our mind changes reality like I have changed the photograph above.But we don’t usually know about these changes and think the world we see is the real world.
Now some philosophers think there is no real world.However they still go to the lavatory and if they didn’t they’d really feel very uncomfortable.And more!
My older brother kindly sent me some interesting maps etc
Top 10 countries by relative share of the population made up of immigrants
How my heart sings 