How beautiful it was when the sun shone
And I walked with you,my dear husband,
through the gardens.
How happy I was to sit with you by the lake
and to hear the water from the fountain splash. I
It’s our our favourite music now we cannot visit the sea
To hear the tide rush in,then fall sucking on the shingley beach.
But I see it in my minds eye.
Aldeburgh,the fishing boats go out at sunrise.
I awoke early and saw the sun across the sea and the boats setting out in the soft light.
Dunwich,the heath filled with birds the cliff
and the beach where sometimes one can find marble
from one of the many churches washed away by the encroaching sea.
And Southwold,the marsh so quiet I heard crickets.
We went across the Blyth in the rowing boat
And saw the place from which our picture of Walberswick was painted…
If only life could be captured,slowed, for a few minutes
for us to receive the beauty and hear the sound of the sea
The everlasting music of the heart

No woman ever can be what he dreams

Nor can such give comfort on the road.

Yet every night he plots and thinks and schemes.

And rarely does he ever go abroad.

No food he eats will satisfy his tongue.

The best wine is as naught to mother’s milk.

He grumbles and will not admit to wrong.

I ‘ve known more men than him of this same ilk.

No bed can be the right one for his sleep.

No sheets and pillows suit his wary skin.

He often has made gentle maidens weep

Crying out they’re fat or boney thin.’

Beware the man who never can adapt

For in his own lone wishes he is trapped

 

Please do not view  your smartphone whilst on a stretcher going to the theatre

No selfies allowed during surgery.

Do not take photos of the doctors and nurses or they will leave,

Do not send your private part photos to anyone on the ward.They can see them when you get out of bed if you are wearing our wonderful split back gowns

Please do not fall over after rising from the bed.

We do not have a whistling kettle, it’s the night porter.

If you smoke, we will  pour water over your cigarette

The screams are cats mating, not patients on the next ward

Kindly do not tell the doctor he is stupid.He knows.

The doctor is only a pest to some

Kindly pretend to listen to the Consultant on his round.He is human,we presume

Kindly do not eat cream buns  or meringues in front  of the Consultant.He is on a diet.

Kindly avoid catching any bugs belonging to or emanating from this hospital.

Kindly do not sleepwalk whilst here.

Please do not swallow your Kindle before lights out.

Keep yourself clean.Take a bed by the open window during a storm.

Kindly avoid dying when we are busy or indeed at any time.Wait till you get home,please.

 

https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/writers/advice/971/dedicated-genre-advice/writing-poetry/

Extract

“We are busy—so very busy nowadays; we are assailed by the images that tell us how flawed we are; ……….

t. Why not be swept away by Porphyro’s extraordinary feast in Keats’s ‘The Eve of St Agnes‘? Find yourself utterly absorbed by epic simile and astonishing breadth of imagery and allusion in Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost‘? The middle English of Chaucer’s ‘The Canterbury Tales‘ is not as difficult as people may think to read and, in trying, a whole new world comes to a life. As it touches us, might we feel less alone in a world where we are often always ‘on’ and yet potentially more isolated? …………….

 

………..And an awareness, young or old, that poetry, as Dylan Thomas had it, ‘ is what in a poem makes you laugh, cry, prickle, be silent, makes your toe nails twinkle, makes you want to do this or that or nothing, makes you know that you are alone in the unknown world, that your bliss and suffering is forever shared and forever all your own.’

Poetry is always there; always important. For a challenge for us or a challenge to the status quo; to bring us joy or relaxation; it is that cordial handshake which brings with it words to surprise, delight and chronicle. It will always have its place and always be important. And maybe, as Shelley had it, poets are, after all, ‘the unacknowledged legislators of the world.'”