Month: October 2016

He hung on me the clothes of his desire

I love him but he does not love me
Although he  did seduce me with his art
His    complex face I still may wish to see
I love him  so but he does not love me.
I puzzle over this anomaly
And wish the grief of lies  to leave my heart
I love him but he does not love me
Although he  did seduce me ,broke my heart

I detest him  yet for I was then unknown
He hung on me the clothes of his desire
And when I called him once on his i phone
He  labelled me a whore and  quite  unknown
His fantasy was not one I could own
Tried,judged ,condemned to perish in his fire
I detest him   hate him for I was then known
And knowing me, he sent me to my pyre

Two religions are better than one

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    Pray Father,give me your guessing.
    My guessing!Don’t you mean my blessing.
    Oh,probably.Possibly..who knows.
    So have you any sins to tell me?
    Yes,I broke a glass jug.
    Whose was it?
    It was mine,Father.
    Surely it’s not a sin to break your own jug?
    It is if you hit yourself on the head with it!
    What made you do that?
    I was angry with myself…I had been committing effrontery.
    Do you mean adultery?Your main problem seems to be bad language.
    No,Father I never say” Fu*ck”
    You just did.
    Well, I had to do.I had no choice!
    That’s what they all say…if only I heard some original sin I’d find life more interesting.
    Well,it’s hard to think of anything original to do especially if it has to be a sin too.
    You are just not using your creativity.
    All right Father,Put your hands up.i’ve got a gun.
    Where did you find that?
    In my wife’s handbag.
    Now we are getting somewhere.. that’s threatening a priest,interfering in your wife’s privacy and stealing a gun.Any other sins?
    I could shoot you,I suppose.
    No.no!That is going too far.
    Shall I slap you?
    No… just say something rude to me.
    Your sermons are the most boring I have ever heard.
    Well,that’s enough…I’ve never been so insulted in  all my life.
    You have been very lucky then… you should hear what people say to me!
    Well,you are both ugly and unintelligent.I don’t know how you had the nerve to marry.
    I had no choice.She forced me.But I gave in quickly in case she changed her mind.
    And you have seven children.
    No, they are not all mine,And they are Jewish.
    How can they be Jewish.
    My wife is Jewish!
    I thought she was just a lapsed Catholic.
    No,she’s Jewish but not even an arranged marriage could be arranged for her so she used her imagination and decided an overweight ugly Catholic would be grateful for her love,
    And are you grateful?
    Yes, and so are all her lovers!
    Who are they?
    The curate is one of them and has two children .. they look just like him too.
    And does she want them raised as Jews?
    She just let’s them rise naturally and go with the flow.

    Do they have to wear hats?
    Only in the Synagogue!
    Are you Jewish too.
    Yes,it’s quite handy as we have Sabbath on Saturday and then we have Sunday on Sunday if you see what I mean.
    I never met anyone who practised two religions before.;
    Well,I figured it would double my chance of salvation!
    Well. I must speak to the Rabbi.For your penance you must give £50 to Homeless at Xmas.
    Am I absolved?
    If you stay any longer you’ll be dissolved!
    Thank you,Father.
    And take that gun away.I don’t want it.
    I can get you a good price for your cassock.
    Why,thank you,my child

Detestable

The frog in my throat came out …… she’s gay

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  • She cried in the ointment but soon climbed out.She sucked it  dry first and it was cheesey then
    A more fun  conclusion, I have yet to find
  •  That frog in my throat came out …… she’s gay
  • The frog in my throat frightened the doctor.He thought it was my tonsil going mouldy.
  • A wood man cared  enough  to wind my bobbin
    A good rule of  aplomb is to stop blushing when you meet another sex.Or is it  agenda?
  • A chair of the dog that  likes  you is still full of hares
  • A half-baked  crime here,sergeant
  • A hard man is not good to  lie  to
  • a  corpse of a different color  got  laid in the bed.Is that a crime?
  • The curse, a curse my  god I bleed  so worse
  • A house divided against itself cannot  blunderstand,
  • A  smack of all shades is a bruise far gone
    I never could gell. even as a baby
    No wonder I have gone mad.Would you ever believe Trump could be decadent?

Is Free Verse Killing Poetry?

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

http://www.vqronline.org/poetry/free-verse-killing-poetry

 

I’m not advocating control of vers libre, which has been around since the Book of Kings,just that its adherents stop stifling rhyme and meter poems. If poetry is to survive, it needs to use everything in its armory, especially metrical rhymed poems—serious, humorous, nonsensical, satirical, even insult poems. Variety, as Christian Wyman found, is the spice of life, and it’s absurd to think that vers libre should be the only form American poetry should take. No wonder John Barr found stagnation in American poetry. So loosen up, vers librists, and ask formalists to join you. Poetry needs all the help it can get. Or can’t you write good rhymed and metrical poems? Walt Whitman couldn’t.

Why I still write poetry by Charles Simic

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Kite by Mike Flemming Copyright

 

 

Why I Still Write Poetry

 

“There’s something else in my past that I only recently realized contributed to my perseverance in writing poems, and that is my love of chess. I was taught the game in wartime Belgrade by a retired professor of astronomy when I was six years old and over the next few years became good enough to beat not just all the kids my age, but many of the grownups in the neighborhood. My first sleepless nights, I recall, were due to the games I lost and replayed in my head. Chess made me obsessive and tenacious. Already then, I could not forget each wrong move, each humiliating defeat. I adored games in which both sides are reduced to a few figures each and in which every single move is of momentous significance. Even today, when my opponent is a computer program (I call it “God”) that outwits me nine out of ten times, I’m not only in awe of its superior intelligence, but find my losses far more interesting to me than my infrequent wins. The kinds of poems I write—mostly short and requiring endless tinkering—often recall for me games of chess. They depend for their success on word and image being placed in proper order and their endings must have the inevitability and surprise of an elegantly executed checkmate.”

When faith to love is what we cannot find

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When doubts and drawbacks struggle on the mind

And certainty seems but a demon dream,
When faith to love is what  we   cannot find
For even when asleep, the mind still schemes

When darkness and defeat seem close at hand
And lights dim even as we pray for grace
when wrecks and ruins rile the native sands
When in this life we feel we’ve lost our place…

Then at the saddest depth we see the light
Surrounding with such warmth,with love adorned
The path that seemed so wrong now leads us right
And in our hearts, warm feelings are new born

For in all storms there is calm still eye
From which we note the fiercest clouds  rush by

 

In that silence

Sparrows
Sparrows (Photo credit: Sergey Yeliseev)

In the still green hedge.
I saw the lake and your reflection
And my reflection.;
and did the sparrows see
as the sun shone slant side
over the steeply falling bank?
Dd they see this natural mirror?
And my mind’s mirror
gave me new reflections
in the  reverie
Of the dreaming evening,
As I slid slowly down
Into soft slumber;
Trusting the life within,
Trusting you;
Trusting myself;
and in my reflections
I see you too,
smiling in welcome;
smiling the beautiful smile,the true smile of love itself.
The embrace of the dreaming world
comforts
and holds us
as we breathe gently
in the sweet air
of love.

Images odious or pure

This odious slander pains my heart
Commodious, strangled ,sore  we part.
Invented words and meanings seen
Where my heart has never been.

When evil is conceived to spite
In the darkness with no light
I’d like to tell you,save your breath
The vision ‘s created by your wrath.

Children fear those faces seen
In flowered  wallpaper and in dreams
Some see monsters,some see elves
All conceived by their own  self.

If imagined demons writhe
In the corners of the mind
Hard indeed to be secure,
To wrest from fantasy its power.

And to feel that others lie
When  your image they defy.
Yet to  a mountain, lions are nought
A gazelle in fear is caught.

Images  odious  or  pure
Must be  shared by  human viewers
Like awakening from a dream
We realise   we need not scream.

Though sometimes Pollyana’s ways
Must to anxious fear give way.
Life is good and life is bad
Double vision is not sad

 

 

Slander

slander—- noun 

UK /ˈslɑːn.dər/ US /ˈslæn.dɚ/

a false spoken statement about someone that damages their reputation, or the making of such a statement:

The doctor is suing his partner for slander.
She regarded his comment as a slander on her good reputation.

Odious, the meaning.

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odious

Origin
late Middle English: from Old French odieus, from Latin odiosus, from odium ‘hatred’.

Together we can play the music

You play on the clarinet;

I play my old cello.

Your music is poignant;

My music is mellow.

I can’t play from your music;

You can’t play from mine.

I have longer fingers.

You have bigger hands.

You play some from memories

which I don’t understand.

I play from my own history,

You compose your own.

You have tortured feelings,

which I have rarely known.

Would you play my music?

Then it must be transposed;

but we can’t transpose our feelings,

Unless we are s first hown

By some blessed vision

From the dark unknown.

I love the music that you play.

I know well you love mine.

But can we play together

In some meaningful design?

Transposing keys and feelings

Is an arduous lifetime task;

Much easier to play pretend

and never,never ask.

I cannot share your lifetime hurts

and you cannot share mine.

Is it easier to share happiness

and supremely holy wine?

Oh,play your poignant music for me

with your meditative art.

I shall listen with my ears.

I shall listen with my heart.

Then I shall respond to you;

My instrument is here.

I am playing quite new music,

I feel you drawing near.

Together we are moved to play

A completely new design.

I seem to know your feelings

And I can hear that you feel mine.

Together we now make a work

For torment’s sweet relief;

Though this music is so tragic,

Its design has brought me peace.

Play on,play on,for now I know

I begin to understand,

without more words or gestures,

but those from your curved hands.

I cannot find your face

When you are far,
so
far
away,
The longest night,
The shortest winter day,
will be places where
I
might die.
The heart’s interior
no-one else
Can view.
When you are lost,
I cannot find
your face…
Its outline on the pillows,
My fingers shaped to trace…
The new design,
the stellar rhyme,
Where have you gone?
You slipped from out my arms.
You slipped away.
Was night or day
Ever cut by such a narrow line?
In your embrace I lay.
You seemed so strong.
Yet,sighing, took the path away.
I can ‘t see where
Is
it
night?
Or is it
day..?
I tried to write
to bring white light,
It’s dark, and still.
I long for you to come.
Oh,will we ever quite
Find out our way?
Or is that pure illusion?
As we stagger through
the wandering furrows
in the fields
They shoot us down.
What is this confusion?
The war goes on
The world goes round
The mirror gapes at each new clown.
But in a crack, a seed may grow..
I can’t see you,
Thus is it so.

I kissed his algebraic form

my-feet

 

He gave me a last parting tickle..
I kissed his algebraic form.
He’s only a number to me.I am numb all over.
He says he’ll give me peace of mind.But did he mean a piece of his mind?
What tense are your muscles?
Is the past infinite?
Can we split the indifferent?
Was the past subjective?
Subjunctive is Latin for may be.
How about past, perfect?
What is the future when not dense?
Grimmer than grammar: the autolieography of a woman of many alarms.
Can a noun be irrational?
What about an infinite sequence of jumbles?
What is a transcendental word?
I hate logs but like rhymes.Log-o-rhymes is my next book.
Why do letters need indices?So we can locate them?

But answer came there none

Cats

Stan was standing on a small step ladder washing his windows yet again with a clean blue microfibre and elastane cloth and some windolene he had bought in Tesco’sI don’t know why I bother,he whispered to Emile, who as usual was watching from the back of the sofa,which he was “milking” gently with his paws.With all the rain,the outside of the windows was besmirched by leaves and bits of mud.A wiser man might have left it alone but Stan had O.C.D which made him very nervous if he failed to carry out certain tasks… so he made use of it in house chores and baking perfect cakes and buns..and in taking photos of frogs,birds and flowers.Neurosis can be useful sometimes.

All of a sudden he heard clattering footsteps…
Up the garden path walked two women dressed in the latest style of 3/4 length silk cargo trousers with matching blouses, all in a subtle shade of violet.Except for their faces,of course,which were both a light shade of beige and they had Revlon peach blusher on their cheeks and Chanel scarlet lipstick…on their lips.They also wore dark blue nail varnish from Rimmel
“Good morning,Stan!” called one of them.”We are Anne’s cousins from Pittsburgh.She told us to call on you today.”
“Well,I never knew wearing expensive makeup ran in the genes… can there be any other explanation?”Stan cried.
“Anne told us we must wear it all the time in the UK.”
she responded,”even in bed.”
“You seem a bit fast,” he answered,
“I’m not sure I want to go to bed and as you seem like identical twins,which of you should I bed?”
They burst out laughing….oh,what a noise!
“I was just saying what she told us,not meaning that you need to go to bed with us.In fact, we sleep together at night.”
“As children that would be normal,but don’t you think you should separate now?People might think you are gay!”
“We never worry about stuff like that… and by the way,this is Ruby and I am Rosie.”
“I’ll put on the kettle and make you some coffee,” the dear man said in a kind tone of voice before he went into the kitchen and swallowed a handful of red and green striped valium tablets.
“I wish the psychiatrist would give me some therapy.I don’t like taking valium but I seem to be having visions again… and I don’t want to get worse.. never heard Anne mention cousins in the USA. I wonder if CBT would help me?”he said to Emile.
“I see visions all the time,” the cat replied in a matter of fact and calm way.
“Do they not make you feel anxious?”Stan called.
“No,I just watch them drift by,” purred Emile.”I enjoy them.”
“I wish these two women would drift off.”responded the weary yet charming old man.Ruby and Rosie came inside and admired the kitchen where colanders in many colours hung from the wall into which someone had knocked a few dozen nails.
“”Why do you have sixteen colanders?”asked Rosie.
“Why do you think everything has a reason?”Stan replied.
“I can see you studied philosophy,” Ruby cried disconsolately.
“No,I have just read Ray Monk’s Life of Wittgenstein eight times,” he quipped merrily.
“Wow,is it not boring?”
“No.it’s so good it put me off reading lesser books.And I love to understand things,”
Just then Stan tripped on the rug and fell over unconsciously
.Emile picked up his mobile with its full Qwerty key pad and texted 999.
“Why are you texting?”asked Ruby.
“Well,it difficult to mioaw down a phone and now I have this Blackberry it’s so easy…. why even a mouse could do it.”
“Do you know many mice,Emile?” enquired Ruby wistfully
Rosie slowly made some instant coffee, walking around poor Stan ,unconscious on the floor…and she and her twin sat down on some white Swedish chairs at the old oak table and drank it,gazing shyly at the huge weigelia blooming outside in the shed.
The front door opened and in ran Dave,the bisexual paramedic.
“Is it you,Emile.Have you lost your hankie again.Are you sad?” he moaned nervously.
“No,it’s Stan… but at least he’s not broken the chair”
Stan came too and looked up…
“Oh, lovely,I feel much better for that nap” he said brightly.
“Don’t you have a bed to sleep in?” said Ruby querulously.”I like your mean expression,my dear man.”
“Now,look here said Stan,”I’m too old for any monkey business.
Besides,I don’t know if you are real.”
“We just wondered why you slept on the floor.”
“A man has to do what a man has to do,” came the mystifying response.
“Now that Dave is here,he can take one of you and I’ll take the other.”
“Where will you take us”the twins asked delightfully….
“Do you fancy the cinema… they are showing Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday”
“Don’t tell me he’s still on his summer holiday!” riposted Ruby
“Let’s go in the ambulance.I’ll lie on the stretcher” offered Rosie generously.
“I’ll lie by you,”said Dave.” and Emile can drive.Stan and Ruby can lie on the floor.”
Sometimes life seems so simple,it’s rather like a dream controlled.
Controlled by what,asked Emile,clutching his Blackberry.
But answer came there none…
And that was very odd because.. they’d vanished every one…
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Truncate

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http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day

truncate

Definition

: to shorten by or as if by cutting off

Examples

“Apparently, a federal law … requires printed credit card receipts truncate not only the credit card number, but also the expiration date.” — Jack Greiner, The Cincinnati Enquirer, 28 Aug. 2016

“Google’s own URL shortener service … instantly truncates the URL you’re visiting and copies the new address to the clipboard for use anywhere.” — Eric Griffith, PCMag.com, 23 Aug. 2016

Learn a new word every day. Delivered to your inbox!

Did You Know?

Truncate descends from the Latin verb truncare, meaning “to shorten,” which in turn can be traced back to the Latin word for the trunk of a tree, which is truncus. Incidentally, if you’ve guessed that truncus is also the ancestor of the English word trunk, you are correct. Truncusalso gave us truncheon, which is the name for a police officer’s billy club, and the obscure word obtruncate, meaning “to cut the head or top from.”

Quantum vobiscum

Is ” never use cliches” a cliche?
Is using short words  like having a  short temper?
Is  using multiple Latin/Greek  derived words  like  quantum  or   domina vobiscum something you are not  non-au fait   with, in every day patois?
Is it wrong to swear in front of women, especially to swear blind?
Do you parade your knowledge of irrational numbers to impress new acquaintances  only to find they have disappeared?
Whom should I strike whilst the iron is hot?
Why is there many a peignoir twixt cup and lip?
Who wants a bird in their hand?
What work is enough for many hands to make light of?
Why would a stone want moss?
You can sometimes judge a book by its cover.If it is a bad design that is a sign of  poverty  of spirit
Can broth really spoil when the kitchen is full of cooks?
Is idleness bad? If Hitler  had been idle then Germany would have been less evil

Rosa Benchez fails to buy a loaf

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Rosa leaped out of  her deeply sprung bed  and ran into the bathroom because she was meeting an old friend in Cafe Zero.What to wear< she wondered as the weather was “in between” seasons.She settled  n  khaki trousers which  she had bought for 12/6 in  the market and a long black and white tunic and some black trainers in case the old friend turned amorous.
Sitting at the table, she applied “diego  salla paqlma “foundation  to her face without looking into the mirror plus a littl pink rose lipstick..She put a long necklace on and several big  faux jewel rings.Snatching a bite from a loaf she hastened to the bus stop just in time to  miss the bus.As she sat waiting she told herself,well,it’s fresh air.
As Rosa walked to the bank she suddenly remembered she had not brought her cards.She went into Cafe Zero.
There was James sitting reading the Oldie.She crossed the room and asked him for a shilling to pay for her coffee.
You sit down,dear girl, he murmured.Let me get it
It’s a good thing it’s only coffee ,she thought.Nowadays men do  not expect to pay the whole bill nor do many women want them to do.She gazed around the crowded cafe where smiling people speaking many different languages chatted amiably.
James came back. I left my cards in the cat’s basket,she told him gratefully.
Does Emily like to play with them? he joked.
No,I just thought thieves would not look there,she carefully informed him.It’s hard to know where to hide them.I suppose I could cancel all except one.But then I might decide to buy a new computer or TV  or even  a camera.
Are you into cameras, he whispered roguishly.
Not in a big way,she smiled.I know nothing of the technology so I just use intuition and gut feelings.How about you?Are you a techno whiz? she asked admiringly
Yes.I know more than anyone on earth,he  said  narcissistically
That is either a joke or you are boasting  when you cannot know  whether others know more.Mind you,your photos are very good.
Would you like to come to my apartment and see my pictures, he whispered shyly?
No,I hate looking at other people’s photos, she said decidedly and cruelly.
I could take some of you, he offered  kindly.
Rosa thought of her underwear which was mauve with little cats all over it.I wonder if he means erotic photos, she said to herself.This set was quite old and would not charm the birds off the trees., nor the stripes off the bees.
Thank you but it’s against my religion,she answered cleverly.
What,having your portrait done ?
Yes, it’s against the First Commandment.
Thou shalt have no  other gods before me, she rattled off
Well ,no one else seems to think that way.Are you Jewish? he enquired with empathy.
Mind your own business, she admonished him.We hardly know each other.
Well,if you won’t tell me that we’ll never get to know each other.And already I love you a lot, he informed her neatly
So you love a woman you don’t know, she joked.
Well,I can  tell from your face what you are like, he admitted.You have a kind  and vivacious expression which appeals to my poetic heart.
How about my poetic art? she questioned him.
I  have not read any of your poems, he told her with  breathtaking frankness.
I’ll read you one.,she told him ruthlessly.

A man who never pays a compliment
Will never pay the bills or half the rent
So keep away from men who prey
If need be ,go and live in Rome or Ghent

A man who’s always late  at a venue
Is sending a clear signal  out to you.
He cares so little for your time
He  knows not that it is a crime~
So if you love him you will  turn royal  blue.

How do you like that  she asked James calmly.But when she looked up from her iphone he had disappeared.Maybe he’s gone to the loo, she thought but the man behind the counter came over and said, your friend ran out and he’s not paid for the coffee and cream cakes.
I didn’t have  any cream cakes, she cried.
Well, he did, the man said  angrily.
Legally I don’t have to pay but I will. Luckily she had found a £100 pound note in her handbag which just about paid the bill.
Thanks so much the man said gratefully
As she walked  home via the church yard she thought ruefully
I only wanted a companion
But now he won’t even be a friend.I’ll go home and wash the cat’s blankets and iron her hair ribbons.These little tasks and a  cup of tea are a good way to recover from life’ shocks.Some people like to  meditate whilst others enjoy a few murderous thoughts
Each to their own

 

 

The Romantics

Dr Stephanie Forward explains the key ideas and influences of Romanticism, and considers their place in the work of writers including Wordsworth, Blake, P B Shelley and Keats.
Today the word ‘romantic’ evokes images of love and sentimentality, but the term ‘Romanticism’ has a much wider meaning. It covers a range of developments in art, literature, music and philosophy, spanning the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The ‘Romantics’ would not have used the term themselves: the label was applied retrospectively, from around the middle of the 19th century.In 1762 Jean-Jacques Rousseau declared in The Social Contract: ‘Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.’ During the Romantic period major transitions took place in society, as dissatisfied intellectuals and artists challenged the Establishment. In England, the Romantic poets were at the very heart of this movement. They were inspired by a desire for liberty, and they denounced the exploitation of the poor. There was an emphasis on the importance of the individual; a conviction that people should follow ideals rather than imposed conventions and rules. The Romantics renounced the rationalism and order associated with the preceding Enlightenment era, stressing the importance of expressing authentic personal feelings. They had a real sense of responsibility to their fellow men: they felt it was their duty to use their poetry to inform and inspire others, and to change society.

Revolution

When reference is made to Romantic verse, the poets who generally spring to mind areWilliam Blake (1757-1827), William Wordsworth (1770-1850), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), George Gordon, 6th Lord Byron (1788-1824), Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) andJohn Keats (1795-1821). These writers had an intuitive feeling that they were ‘chosen’ to guide others through the tempestuous period of change.This was a time of physical confrontation; of violent rebellion in parts of Europe and the New World. Conscious of anarchy across the English Channel, the British government feared similar outbreaks. The early Romantic poets tended to be supporters of the French Revolution, hoping that it would bring about political change; however, the bloody Reign of Terror shocked them profoundly and affected their views. In his youth William Wordsworth was drawn to the Republican cause in France, until he gradually became disenchanted with the Revolutionaries.

Painting of the storming of the Bastille, 1789

Painting of the storming of the Bastille, 1789

Depiction of the storming of the Bastille, Paris – the event that triggered the French Revolution.

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Copyright: © De Agostini Picture Library

The imagination

The Romantics were not in agreement about everything they said and did: far from it! Nevertheless, certain key ideas dominated their writings. They genuinely thought that they were prophetic figures who could interpret reality. The Romantics highlighted the healing power of the imagination, because they truly believed that it could enable people to transcend their troubles and their circumstances. Their creative talents could illuminate and transform the world into a coherent vision, to regenerate mankind spiritually. In A Defence of Poetry(1821), Shelley elevated the status of poets: ‘They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit…’.[1] He declared that ‘Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world’. This might sound somewhat pretentious, but it serves to convey the faith the Romantics had in their poetry.

Manuscript of P B Shelley’s ‘The Masque of Anarchy’

Manuscript of P B Shelley's 'The Masque of Anarchy'

P B Shelley’s manuscript of ‘The Masque of Anarchy’, 1819, was a reaction of furious outrage at the Peterloo Massacre. An avowedly political poem, it praises the non-violence of the Manchester protesters when faced with the aggression of the state.

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Free from known copyright restrictions

The marginalised and oppressed

Wordsworth was concerned about the elitism of earlier poets, whose highbrow language and subject matter were neither readily accessible nor particularly relevant to ordinary people. He maintained that poetry should be democratic; that it should be composed in ‘the language really spoken by men’ (Preface to Lyrical Ballads [1802]). For this reason, he tried to give a voice to those who tended to be marginalised and oppressed by society: the rural poor; discharged soldiers; ‘fallen’ women; the insane; and children.Blake was radical in his political views, frequently addressing social issues in his poems and expressing his concerns about the monarchy and the church. His poem ‘London’ draws attention to the suffering of chimney-sweeps, soldiers and prostitutes.

Lyrical Ballads: 1800 edition

In the Preface to the Lyrical Ballads, Wordsworth writes that he has ‘taken as much pains to avoid [poetic diction] as others ordinarily take to produce it’, trying instead to ‘bring [his] language near to the language of men’.

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William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience

William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Experience [page: 46]

‘London’ from William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, 1794. Blake emphasises the injustice of late 18th-century society and the desperation of the poor.

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Children, nature and the sublime

For the world to be regenerated, the Romantics said that it was necessary to start all over again with a childlike perspective. They believed that children were special because they were innocent and uncorrupted, enjoying a precious affinity with nature. Romantic verse was suffused with reverence for the natural world. In Coleridge’s ‘Frost at Midnight’ (1798) the poet hailed nature as the ‘Great universal Teacher!’ Recalling his unhappy times at Christ’s Hospital School in London, he explained his aspirations for his son, Hartley, who would have the freedom to enjoy his childhood and appreciate his surroundings. The Romantics were inspired by the environment, and encouraged people to venture into new territories – both literally and metaphorically. In their writings they made the world seem a place with infinite, unlimited potential.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Walking Tour of Cumbria

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, A Walking Tour of Cumbria [folio: 3v-4r]

In August 1802, Samuel Taylor Coleridge set out from his home at Greta Hall, Keswick, for a week’s solo walking-tour in the nearby Cumbrian mountains. He kept detailed notes of the landscape around him, drawing rough sketches and maps. These notes and sketches are in Notebook No 2, one of 64 notebooks Coleridge kept between 1794 and his death.

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A key idea in Romantic poetry is the concept of the sublime. This term conveys the feelings people experience when they see awesome landscapes, or find themselves in extreme situations which elicit both fear and admiration. For example, Shelley described his reaction to stunning, overwhelming scenery in the poem ‘Mont Blanc’ (1816).

Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful

Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful [page: title page]

In this 1757 essay, the philosopher Edmund Burke discusses the attraction of the immense, the terrible and the uncontrollable. The work had a profound influence on the Romantic poets.

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The second-generation Romantics

Blake, Wordsworth and Coleridge were first-generation Romantics, writing against a backdrop of war. Wordsworth, however, became increasingly conservative in his outlook: indeed, second-generation Romantics, such as Byron, Shelley and Keats, felt that he had ‘sold out’ to the Establishment. In the suppressed Dedication to Don Juan (1819-1824) Byron criticised the Poet Laureate, Robert Southey, and the other ‘Lakers’, Wordsworth and Coleridge (all three lived in the Lake District). Byron also vented his spleen on the English Foreign Secretary, Viscount Castlereagh, denouncing him as an ‘intellectual eunuch’, a ‘bungler’ and a ‘tinkering slavemaker’ (stanzas 11 and 14). Although the Romantics stressed the importance of the individual, they also advocated a commitment to mankind. Byron became actively involved in the struggles for Italian nationalism and the liberation of Greece from Ottoman rule.Notorious for his sexual exploits, and dogged by debt and scandal, Byron quitted Britain in 1816. Lady Caroline Lamb famously declared that he was ‘Mad, bad and dangerous to know.’ Similar accusations were pointed at Shelley. Nicknamed ‘Mad Shelley’ at Eton, he was sent down from Oxford for advocating atheism. He antagonised the Establishment further by his criticism of the monarchy, and by his immoral lifestyle.

Letter from Lord Byron about his memoirs, 29 October 1819

Letter from Lord Byron about his memoirs, 1819

In this letter to his publisher, John Murray, Byron notes the poor reception of the first two cantos of Don Juan, but states that he has written a hundred stanzas of a third canto. He also states that he is leaving his memoirs to his friend George Moore, to be read after his death, but that this text does not include details of his love affairs.

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Copyright: © GG Byron

Female poets

Female poets also contributed to the Romantic movement, but their strategies tended to be more subtle and less controversial. Although Dorothy Wordsworth (1771-1855) was modest about her writing abilities, she produced poems of her own; and her journals and travel narratives certainly provided inspiration for her brother. Women were generally limited in their prospects, and many found themselves confined to the domestic sphere; nevertheless, they did manage to express or intimate their concerns. For example, Mary Alcock (c. 1742-1798) penned ‘The Chimney Sweeper’s Complaint’. In ‘The Birth-Day’, Mary Robinson (1758-1800) highlighted the enormous discrepancy between life for the rich and the poor. Gender issues were foregrounded in ‘Indian Woman’s Death Song’ by Felicia Hemans (1793-1835).

The Gothic

Reaction against the Enlightenment was reflected in the rise of the Gothic novel. The most popular and well-paid 18th-century novelist, Ann Radcliffe (1764–1823), specialised in ‘the hobgoblin-romance’. Her fiction held particular appeal for frustrated middle-class women who experienced a vicarious frisson of excitement when they read about heroines venturing into awe-inspiring landscapes. She was dubbed ‘Mother Radcliffe’ by Keats, because she had such an influence on Romantic poets. The Gothic genre contributed to Coleridge’s Christabel(1816) and Keats’s ‘La Belle Dame Sans Merci’ (1819). Mary Shelley (1797-1851) blended realist, Gothic and Romantic elements to produce her masterpiece Frankenstein (1818), in which a number of Romantic aspects can be identified. She quotes from Coleridge’s Romantic poem The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere. In the third chapter Frankenstein refers to his scientific endeavours being driven by his imagination. The book raises worrying questions about the possibility of ‘regenerating’ mankind; but at several points the world of nature provides inspiration and solace.

The Mysteries of Udolpho

The Mysteries of Udolpho [page: vol. I frontispiece and title page]

The Mysteries of Udolpho (1794) by Ann Radcliffe was one of the most popular and influential Gothic novels of the late 18th century.

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The Byronic hero

Romanticism set a trend for some literary stereotypes. Byron’s Childe Harold (1812-1818) described the wanderings of a young man, disillusioned with his empty way of life. The melancholy, dark, brooding, rebellious ‘Byronic hero’, a solitary wanderer, seemed to represent a generation, and the image lingered. The figure became a kind of role model for youngsters: men regarded him as ‘cool’ and women found him enticing! Byron died young, in 1824, after contracting a fever. This added to the ‘appeal’. Subsequently a number of complex and intriguing heroes appeared in novels: for example, Heathcliff in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Edward Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (both published in 1847).

Illustrations to Wuthering Heights by Clare Leighton

The Byronic hero influenced Emily Brontë’s portrayal of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. This 1931 edition of Brontë’s novel is illustrated with wood engravings by Clare Leighton.

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Copyright: © By arrangement with the Estate of Clare Leighton

Contraries

Romanticism offered a new way of looking at the world, prioritising imagination above reason. There was, however, a tension at times in the writings, as the poets tried to face up to life’s seeming contradictions. Blake published Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (1794). Here we find two different perspectives on religion in ‘The Lamb’ and ‘The Tyger’. The simple vocabulary and form of ‘The Lamb’ suggest that God is the beneficent, loving Good Shepherd. In stark contrast, the creator depicted in ‘The Tyger’ is a powerful blacksmith figure. The speaker is stunned by the exotic, frightening animal, posing the rhetorical question: ‘Did he who made the Lamb make thee?’ InThe Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790-1793) Blake asserted: ‘Without contraries is no progression’ (stanza 8).

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake

In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, William Blake explores ideas of contraries which also feature in Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

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Wordsworth’s ‘Tintern Abbey’ (1798) juxtaposed moments of celebration and optimism with lamentation and regret. Keats thought in terms of an opposition between the imagination and the intellect. In a letter to his brothers, in December 1817, he explained what he meant by the term ‘Negative Capability’: ‘that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason’ (22 December). Keats suggested that it is impossible for us to find answers to the eternal questions we all have about human existence. Instead, our feelings and imaginations enable us to recognise Beauty, and it is Beauty that helps us through life’s bleak moments. Life involves a delicate balance between times of pleasure and pain. The individual has to learn to accept both aspects: ‘“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,” – that is all/Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know’ (‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ [1819]).

Manuscript of ‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ by John Keats

‘Ode on a Grecian Urn’ from a manuscript copy believed to be in the hand of George Keats, the poet’s brother.

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The premature deaths of Byron, Shelley and Keats contributed to their mystique. As time passed they attained iconic status, inspiring others to make their voices heard. The Romantic poets continue to exert a powerful influence on popular culture. Generations have been inspired by their promotion of self-expression, emotional intensity, personal freedom and social concern.

Footnotes

[1] Percy Bysshe Shelley, Shelley’s poetry and prose: authoritative texts, criticisms, ed. by Donald H. Reiman and Sharon B. Powers (New York; London: Norton, c.1977), p.485.

  • Written by  Stephanie Forward
  • Dr Stephanie Forward is a lecturer, specializing in English Literature. She has been involved in two important collaborative projects between the Open University and the BBC:The Big Read, and the television series The Romantics, and was a contributor to the British Library’sDiscovering Literature: Romantics and Victorians site. Stephanie has an extensive publications record. She also edited the anthology Dreams, Visions and Realities; co-edited (with Ann Heilmann) Sex, Social Purity and Sarah Grand, and penned the script for the C.D. Blenheim Palace: The Churchills and their Palace.

The text in this article is available under the Creative Commons License.

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Fish nudge me with big grins and teeth white

I’m in deep now,never been this deep before
The world’s hollow like a shell and I’m out its door.
In so deep, the ocean has its own startled floor.
I’m down,down.down.never been so dark , so more

I can’t rightly tell how I got where I am
I think I had an accident,fell over, then I swam.
Sometimes it’s a loss, be times it’s a man.
I guess I only do it cos I know some folk can.

I don’t know if the joy is worth the pain
Would I choose to relive if, I was born again?
The deep joy is the amazing gain.
But the sorrow is  damn sad, let’s admit it plain.

I’m in deep and it’s over my head
What was I thinking of,when I fell  out of that bed?
I look up and  the sea’s so  turquoise like  that mist   is red
When we get good and mad and wish some loon was dead.

At first, it was all just black,black pain
But from the bottom of the  well, I looked up with awed love again.
That’s when I recalled,feelings are deep and sane
Joy is much greater when we’re in the deep,deep zone.

I dunno if I’m  ever comin’ out.
We can’t control it,ain’t that what life’s all about?
I’ll never love with innocence again,nor not feel doubt.
But I’m no teapot and the devil ain’t got my spout.

I’m swimming and the ocean’s so   mysteriously bright
Down here we don’t have no day nor no night
Fish nudge me with  big grins  and teeth white
Sea flowers fondle me and whisper,turn off that light

Love has got its hazards;trees have leaves

Love seems like a good idea to me
As I ramble down the unpaved lane
Love and letting go will make us free,

Yet love can cause distress and  even pain
Wandering down the leafless lanes of life
We lose our lovers for our own endgame

Would you lose a husband or a wife
In ways you might lose papers or a book?
Being lost  on purpose    steals  our life

Death may enter like a dangerous crook
Hiding in the shadows like a thief
When he’s gone, don’t give God dirty looks

Love has got its hazards;trees have leaves
Yet  missing on  love’s joy can harm our  soul
With a struggle love  can be retrieved

Will we pay   for love the asked for fee?
Or fall down in despair to a deep hole
Love seems like a good idea to me
Love and letting go will make us free,

 

 

It seems almost like quantum theory.

FunnySigns7-ALAMY_3450159b

He’s writing the definite book on skin.
Do people want to hear any more about Sin?
Any more? I’ve heard very little recently.The Word has vanished!
You read the wrong newspaper.
Can a newspaper be wrong in itself,intrinsically wrong?
Can a newspaper be a Sin?
Well,there’s one called the Sun!
Why don’t they just call it The big Sin and have done with it?
You should write to Rupert.
Who’s Rupert?
You know him,Murdoch!
Now Iris Murdoch,she was a right one.
Well,she certainly wrote a few!
A few too many,in my view.
Too many for whom?
My,you talk posh don’t you?
Should it be,you talk poshly?
Me!I’m as common as ,as ,as as,a]]as,..muck!
Do stop,you’ll fall down a crack in the pavement soon and then where will you be?
I’ll be in Australia with Rupert!
Suppose you came out in New Zealand?
Well,it would be a change.I’m tired of England.
You never mentioned it before.
I didn’t want to upset you.
Well,I’m not so keen myself.
You sound like a knife!
Do you mean,a wife?
No, a knife…with a blade.
Yes, it does look well made.
Shall we buy one?
But do we really need it?
Do we really need anything?
Get a move on,you’re not at college now you know.
Who’re you?
My name is Wisdom.
I’m so sorry.
Why are you sorry?

It’s hard to be called Wisdom when you are a complete idiot.
Well,better a complete idiot than a sharp-tongued wasp!
Do you mind!
Not at all.Better an idiot than a mutton dressed as lamb.
Are you a vegetarian?
I do eat the odd vegetables.
And who eats the even ones?
They all go to the supermarket.
So that’s how it works.You are so clever.
Well,I’m an economist.
I believe in economy for all.
I prefer comics myself.
No,they are called graphic novels now.
A bit like those Rupert books we had as children.
I wish Rupert Murdoch was called something else.
I’m sure he will be in tomorrow’s papers.
I mean,it defiles the memory of Rupert the teddy bear.
I learned to read from those.
A pity.
Why?
If you couldn’t read,think of all the other things you could do.
Like writing?
If you couldn’t read ,it would seem to follow that you couldn’t write.
Yet there are people who can read but not write?
Yes,it’s all to do with Venn diagrams and symmetry.
Venn is a weird name.
Yes,pity he wasn’t called Diagram.
I thought he was called,Venn Diagram.
All I know is that diaphragms were a form of birth control.
I was puzzled by that because we all have diaphragms, yet some of us have no control of any kind.
If your diaphragm doesn’t move you can’t breathe so you can’t procreate.
No,you’d be dead!
A very strange form of birth control.
Maybe you just faint and you husband can have his way with you.
But would you want sex with someone unconscious?
It’s another case of a-symmetry.. a man can have relations with a faint woman but if the man faints that’s the end of it.
How about carrots?
What for?
Can they faint?
No,but they make a nice flan.
Fancy that!
I do fancy it actually.
What is it?
It’s a big carrot!
How superb.It seems a shame to eat it.
Well, would like to worship it?
Not today.
Well,it won’t last forever.
In that case ,I’ll stick with God:
I’ll stick with Thee
Fast falls the chill of night
Send me an angel,I need something bright.
I have no fear,with Thee I’ll be alright.
Why not give in and have electric lights.
You are very odd.
Well,it makes a change…
Not with you,you’ve always been odd.
So,in a way I’m not odd.
You are right!
Odd.,is’t it?
And yet even simultaneously.
It seems almost like quantum theory.
Those were the days.
From Schoenberg to Schrodinger: cats for all.
Enberg to Dinger.
You could call the cat Dinger.
What a good idea.

Slough by John Betjeman

P1000322

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn’t fit for humans now,
There isn’t grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who’ll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women’s tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It’s not their fault that they are mad,
They’ve tasted Hell.

It’s not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It’s not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren’t look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

Why there are ten commandments

When Moses climbed the mountain And he got to the top,
God was waiting for him,
He didn’t say alot.
He said, Take my commandments
They are  this stone.
I have only fifty,
Or was it fifty one?
Moses was very worried
~about the human race.
Fifty-one commandments
Would meet with strong distaste.
So he told God his troubles
And God thought long and hard.
He came back with the commandments
Written on a card.
How many have you got there?
Moses politely said
I’ve got it down to ten, said God.
His eyes were very red.
So Moses took the postcard
And put it on his pad.
He said I’d better get back down.
Oh, and thank you Dad!
When Moses got to earth
He called his people near.
He produced his i Pad.
Look what I’ve got here!
I saw God on the mountain.
He gave me a few rules.
They’re easy to remember.
We are not moral fools.
How many of these rules
Has God given to you?
I got it down to ten.
Let’s see how we can do.
Ten is far too many,
Some of the people cried.
We don’t want these rules.
We hate to feel we’re tied.
But all games have their rules.
They’re what define the game.
If we had utter chaos
This loss would be a shame.
As pictures have their frames,
And lessons have strict times.
We need some good constructions,
Like poems need their rhymes.
So all his people heard him.
And they agreed to try.
They lived as best they could
Until they came to die.
But one part of this story
We will never know–
What were all those commandments
That Moses did not show?
And why did God give in
To Moses’ bargain plea?
Do not ask for Moses,
For Moses name is “ME”.

Why write?

IMG_0045 1

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/-i-write

Reginald Sheperd

The possibility of suffering being redeemed by art, being made meaningful and thus real (as opposed to merely actual, something that happens to exist, happens to occur), is still vital to me. Art reminds us of the uniqueness, particularity, and intrinsic value of things, including ourselves. I sometimes have little sense of myself as existing in the world in any significant way outside of my poetry. That’s where my real life is, the only life that’s actually mine. So there’s also the wish to rescue myself from my own quotidian existence, which is me but is at the same time not me at all. I am its, but it’s not mine. For most of us most of the time, life is a succession of empty moments. You’re born, you go through

 

 

The possibility of suffering being redeemed by art, being made meaningful and thus real (as opposed to merely actual, something that happens to exist, happens to occur), is still vital to me. Art reminds us of the uniqueness, particularity, and intrinsic value of things, including ourselves. I sometimes have little sense of myself as existing in the world in any significant way outside of my poetry. That’s where my real life is, the only life that’s actually mine. So there’s also the wish to rescue myself from my own quotidian existence, which is me but is at the same time not me at all. I am its, but it’s not mine. For most of us most of the time, life is a succession of empty moments. You’re born, you go through x experiences, you die, and then you’re gone. No one always burns with Pater’s hard, gem-like flame. There’s a certain emptiness to existence that I look to poetry, my own poetry and the poetry of others, to fulfill or transcend. I have a strong sense of things going out of existence at every second, fading away at the very moment of their coming into bloom: in the midst of life we are in death, as the Book of Common Prayer puts it.