My cat

Feeling the sadness in my heart
and in my arms a tender feeling
as if the flesh is calling out;
My breath’s coming in gasps and
my throat makes a murmur
as if trying to speak.

Sensitive skin on my inner arms yelps
and my heart aches like
I’ve run too many miles .
My legs feel strong
My mouth is dry and my back
needs an arm around it
for protection.
My eyes are wet with the moisture
that might have made saliva.

My cat died
And then my other cat died.
Whatever.

i wish i was a cat (thechanhandle.wordpress.com)
The Simon’s Cat Story (neatorama.com)
Stunned commuters watch as CAT hops on Victoria Line Tube at Seven Sisters (standard.co.uk)
Cat gives birth to litter and then lends teat to baby squirrel (metro.co.uk)
Fielding’s Cat Art In LA (thevelvetonion.com)

I see the sun through closed eye lids

Cornflowers (Photo credit: simone-walsh)

Underneath the deep sky,sweetheart,
You shall be the one.
You were with me in the dark
When all the rest were gone.

When the trees grow their green leaves,
I’ll love you all night long.
When the flowers fill the cornfields
Love shall be our song.

Poppies red.and linseed blue
Shall decorate my dress.
Hold me in your arms tonight
While I my love confess.

Meadows filled with buttercups
Fill my inner eye.
I love the scent of minty leaves
When my mind is all awry.

I see the sun through closed eye lids
And rose scent’s in the air.
Wherever summer joy comes from….
We have had our share

Changing Seasons (rogerswritings.wordpress.com)
Waiting Haiku (jikokuten.com)
The Inspiring CornFlowers of Spring (groundtoground.org)
The Lone Poppy (robboyandjulesadventures.wordpress.com)

Touching with tenderness

Let your lips meet gently,

the top one resting against the lower,

touching with tenderness

your own skin to skin.

Forefinger propped on chin,

I let the others dangle,

like leaves on a branch;

how softly gravity tugs them downwards.

Let heart beat quietly,slowly

as the blood circulates

carrying its music,

a river,

following the path of least resistance.

How the blood vessels receive willingly this flow,

touching it kindly as with tiny open fingers,

helping and being helped.

How the hair on the head

floats

on the breeze,

like tentacles of an octopus

waving goodbye.

Top eyelid loves the lower one;

as we blink they touch

like lovers kissing swiftly

behind a tree.

and how the light comes in

we see a world.

[mine may not be yours,]

but the blink of my eyelid

sends waves through the air,

so we’re all touching and being touched,

lips kissing each other,

kiss all living creatures.

skin to skin.

air to air.

And inside us,the rich darkness

of creative night

transforms,in turn,

these touches

into dreams.

Kisses… Types… Meaning (sitederelacionamentos.wordpress.com)
7 Interesting Facts About Kissing (zealnote.com)
Affair with Ecstasy (thepockabook.wordpress.com)
Guilty Pleasure (paperdollsletter.wordpress.com)
The Kiss (whatisityouseek.wordpress.com)
Poetry: Just Another Love Poem (moregreenteaplease.wordpress.com)

A sorry story

No human being comforts my sore heart

No human being looks with favor on my doubts.

Yet still I ate a tasty apple tart

And went to bed in nothing but a clout.

No human being loves me as I am

No human being wants to comfort me.

Yet still today I shall have cakes and jam.

And drink ten mugs of boiling China tea.

No human being looks inside my soul

No human being cares about my cares.

Yet still today I’ll eat a bacon roll.

And spray some perfume on my golden hair

For God helps those who help themselves to most.

So I shall talk with his lamented Ghost

Trying to recreate the world

The bus is late and I’m

Thinking of what you said,

trying to understand, but

I’ve never met you,so

I have nothing but written words

which,however beautiful,may not give

enough for me to truly imagine

the depths of your heart.

My legs hurt and I have a cane,

but I don’t like it.I can’t accept

my own infirmity,my troubles,

my pains,my disagreements,my mistakes.

Rain falls over me and drips down the lens

in my spectacles,as if the world is weeping

the tears I can’t shed.

If I cried now,standing at the bus stop,

for all the years of pain

noone would know,they’d

think it was just

raindrops running down my cheeks.

The bus comes,but it’s half term…

The shops are too crowded,I can’t

stand in queues…imagine how most of you

say it’s boring.Well,I’d love to do it

but I’ve decided the pain is greater

then the rewards.

The bus driver stops at a place where

the pavement has been lowered to allow

the owner of this house to drive

their car into the front garden

so they won’t need to buy

a resident’s parking permit.

It makes it a harder task to descend

from the bus and I hope he won’t

start while I’m still getting down.

In the coffee bar are exhibits from

a local museum,and I think,one day

my cane and my watch from Argos,

my shopping bag with a picture of Monet–

such vulgarity…..

they may be in a museum too…

along with my door keys

my bike lock and my spectacles

and will somebody try to conjure me up

in their imagination.

Someone who used to like Topology.

knitting,writing and holding hands with lovers

on the top deck of the bus

crossing central London without noticing

anything except their reflections in the eyes

of the other.

Light bounces to and fro.

My mind shuts down, the words

packed away in boxes,till there’s only

you and me and a few elementary particles

trying to recreate the world

with the big bang

that will end it all.

Hedda Gabler at The Met (fiftyfortyninetyclub.wordpress.com)
The Secret for Happiness Physicists Don’t Want You to Know (davidyerle.com)

The butterfly

The butterfly is like a flower
which moves its station every hour.
Oh,happy is he on the wing.
The vision makes me quick to sing.
The flower is open in the sun,
And to its heart, true love shall come.
The bees shall feast and fly replete
With nectar they are now full sweet.
I sing of color and of love,
Blessings that rain down from above.
I wish to be a flower too.
Ah,that the bee could but be you.

Flutter-Fabulous Butterflies for Your Home (terrysblinds.co.uk)
Sun on their wings (local2globe.wordpress.com)

Tempests of the mind

Biltmore Art Glass Glow (Photo credit: cobalt123)

We were sitting by the window
gazing at the trees
You began screaming:
The house is under attack,
A storm is coming up.
The glass will shatter
We’ll be stabbed.
We’ll be killed
Looking out I saw only the bare branches
Of the maple
And two wood pigeons in the fir tree
were chuckling to each other.
The wind had not changed.
I know it’s midwinter with the bitter
breeze with an edge to it like a knife.
The sun low like an almost empty glass of lemonade.
Sending light through the forsythia onto the old fence.

I turned to you puzzled
Reached out my hands to comfort;
But you shouted
Keep away
as you grabbed your thick coat
and ran from the back door into the dark woods.

If there was real danger,why did you desert me?
Afterwards you told me of bad news you’d had.
Seemed like the inside and outside got confused.
I became a Fascist.I was a flaxen Anglo-Saxon.
I was Hitler’s grand-daughter.
I would break my glass and cut your face
with the jagged edges;
And, unlike science,
We can’t go back and repeat the experience
as if it were an experiment.

If you’d stayed a few minutes more
You might have realized
You were half asleep
And dreaming.

Once gone,you’d probably never return
To the house where you thought the glass splintered
into shards and cut you to shreds.
I don’t blame you
We are often deceived by our imaginations
We see not what’s here
But what we most fear.
And flee the human contact
Which alone might help.

I always leave the door ajar
And some food on the kitchen table;
In case you come back hungry and tired
It was your mind that shattered,not the glass…
And that’s much harder to mend.
But it can be done
When you stop struggling
And let the inner seas flow free.
You needed a hand
But closeness also frightens you,
And,besides,my hand is not strong enough to hold you.
Only to touch you gently
To say how sad I am

What’s Wrong with Anglo-Saxons? (financialsurvivalnetwork.com)
Soul-sucking sadness? I get it. Cause I’ve got it (randomthingsiknow.wordpress.com)
You Are Not Alone With Your Mental Health Condition (jharnisch.com)
Your Condition Does Not Define You (alostsoulsoutlet.wordpress.com)
Crazy Soup for the Soul (herselfimage.com)
mental health of our young people (kathleenreidcollege.wordpress.com)
Every Hurricane from the Past 170 Years, Mapped (theatlanticwire.com)
The Whirlwind – inspired by “Ariel’s Song,” from “The Tempest” by William Shakespeare (darthjohnny48.wordpress.com)
Nature: Hummingbirds Amidst the Storm…..Seriously, They were (swittersb.wordpress.com)

Please make a full answer with brevity

North America and Pelican Nebulae (narrowband) (Photo credit: DJMcCrady)

Is keeping a blog a necessity?
Is reaping the whirlwind atrocity?
Please make a full answer with brevity
Or my wits may explode with sheer levity.

Is marriage a convenience like a lavatory?
Is washing the bed sheer depravity?
Please prove your email’s veracity.
Or my Company will be very nasty

Why do we sin with tenacity?
And have sex when we have no elasticity?
Do write down your thoughts without acidity.
And reflect your emotion in tranquility.

A game is such fun when in amity
And is fair except when played in emnity.
Please kiss your own arse with great dignity.
I speak here in jest without bigotry

Categorical Errors? (drmoose.wordpress.com)
The beauty’s in the brevity (patrickbutleropinion.wordpress.com)
The Endless Stream of Purified Nonsens…and one thing… (rationalarrogance.wordpress.com)
“I like nonsens… (sunnyjoysp.wordpress.com)
US Spying on EU – A Big Charade? (rationalarrogance.wordpress.com)

Must we walk into that darkness?

Four o’clock– and the sun’s still glowing
Four o’clock – of a colour bright day,
Up above, pink-tinged clouds are sliding
Down still sky, sweeping sun away.

Come back sweet sun, do not leave us.
Come back bright beams,I need sunlight
Down on earth,it’s witch moon darkness,
When your golden face is out of sight.

I see the orange tinged clouds extending
I feel such sense of sky lit bright.
But gently now, the mist surrounds you
And sweeps away that happy sight.

Into velvet blackness sinking,
The dazzling, dreaming darkness falls.
Goodbye to haste,and glare, and sunshine,
Time for reverie,night time calls.

On the night-trains gentle journeys,
On this trackless train we ride
Strange visions and haunting pictures
We will see in dreams’ designs.

In my night train,I’ll be happy
In such rich deep reverie.
We visit darkness in our sleeping,
There we learn its ecstasy.

Now we may have no God to hold us,
In His Hands of Living Love,
What will help us trust deep blackness
If there’s no Saviour from above?

Must we enter that great darkness,
Go back to dark from which we came,
Into dark all living creatures,
In that darkness find our home?

Trust the dark unknown, to hold us,
Trust the dark,both night and day.
Must we walk into that darkness
And trust it is our safest way?

Trust the unknown force that grew you, (wordscat.wordpress.com)
traces of autumn’s mysticism (thewanderingdakini.wordpress.com)
Poetry (mayurveerhangloo.wordpress.com)
Mysticism- G.K. Chesterton (morrisonsdm.wordpress.com)

Lucian Freud

Moses receiving the Law (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The apple it was that made man glad

http://www.ancient-hebrew.org/28_chart.html

The language your forefathers spoke
Dwells in your images.
Faces bleed with feeling.
Bodies rise out like rocks.
Your self portrait sings
Me,myself.I am.
As God spoke from the burning bush
You took the flame and ran

Lucian Freud at the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (galleryintell.com)
A letter to a “Naked woman on a sofa” – Lucian Freud, 1984-1985 (mayamaor.com)
Lucien Freud (youonlygettoliveitonce.wordpress.com)
Portrait of Lucian Freud, a dangerous, devoted artist (telegraph.co.uk)
Neighbourly writer paints a spitting image of Lucian Freud (standard.co.uk)
Lucian Freud’s Assistant Dawson Steps From Shadow – Bloomberg (bloomberg.com)
Geordie Greig’s biography of Lucian Freud: ‘A stitching together of racy tabloid features’ (independent.co.uk)

Trust the unknown force that grew you,

Trust in God and fly away (Photo credit: Martin Gommel)

Trust the unknown force that grew you,
From the joining of two cells.
Act of love, of self giving,
Thus to grow a newer self.

Trust the dark,the unseen aspects
Of the life we all do live.
Trust that there is wisdom elsewhere,
To your emptiness to give.

Wait in patience for the time
When inspiration comes at last
Trust in darkness,silence,lowness.
Opposition forms the cross.

Pain is bearable in lowness,
Like the worm in earth I dwell.
When I look I see the sunrise

And I trust all shall be well.

Special connection between siblings (alexcrowix.wordpress.com)
To Trust in Something Else (alwaystrulyelizabeth.wordpress.com)
Musings….. (theviewfrommywindowlaura.com)
Fear of the Unknown (treasuryofdailyprayer.wordpress.com)
God ain’t impressed with religion (godislovechristianblog.wordpress.com)
Ex-pope Benedict says God told him to resign during ‘mystical experience’ (theguardian.com)
Against Nature (unapprovedmusings.wordpress.com)
Stages of Spiritual Growth (integral-living.com)
progressive theology (highergroundacloserlook.com)

As if I were

November (Photo credit: Cape Cod Cyclist)

I was walking behind you

on the footpath

by the river

and I stopped for a moment because

I could see some wrens inside a shrub.

When I looked up

I saw you were

quite far away and walking fast

as if you were already leaving me

and going on to

the next phase.

The sun shone on the playing field,

It was obscenely green for November,

as if to deny the end of the year

is getting nearer.

I left the wrens fluttering

inside the shrub

and hurried after you

as the swans eyed their five cygnets

and a few drops of rain

ran down my cheek

as if I were weeping

in the sunshine.

You looked smaller,

more determined,

as if anxious

to be off….

I’m singing in the rainforest: Researchers find striking similarities between bird song and human music (sciencedaily.com)
Baby Birds Grew Up So Fast – And Were Gone! (faintertransmissions.wordpress.com)
Transplant trees, shrubs in fall for best results (dailyherald.com)

A thin poem

POETRY SOCIETY POSTCARD (Photo credit: summonedbyfells)

I have to write

these very thin poems

because

my hand hurts

So,

if I make them thin

they look longer

as if I’ve written

much more

than I really have.

And also

it’s easier to read

a short line

than a very long one like I sometimes write when I get that feeling

wanting to tell you

the whole story.

But now

this way

You have plenty of lines

To read between.

See what I mean?

It gives you more

chance to invent it yourself

which means

I talk to you and you

talk to me

even when we can’t hear.

What is a poem so thin called?

I got my linear poetic licence now.

So I’ll write

as best I can

and listen for an answer!

Linear or non-linear.

As we say

It’s the thought that counts.

lists (& poems) (& what ray bradbury says) (wedrinkbecausewerepoets.com)
Through the Looking Glass – poetically (allthesnoozethatsfittoprint.wordpress.com)
‘Ars Poetica’ by Archibald MacLeish (englitblogblog.wordpress.com)
Langston Hughes-Poetry…articles/summary/Metaphysics of Simplicity. (bringmeallofyourdreams.wordpress.com)
Of Post Modern Poetry (seshatwuji.wordpress.com)
Aphorisms on Art, Morality & Spirit. ~ Yahia Lababidi (elephantjournal.com)

The line of your lips

The line of your lips is finely made,
as suffering accepted has transmuted pain
into a sculptor who
has given you much beauty;
yet the pain has shaped too
the eyes setting,
as if a slight question waits
in the back of your mind
asking,is this right?
and I perceive this and how you may suddenly tremble
with a memory too piercing;
yet how you love
the world so broken,
so humane
so vulnerable
so strong.
what are you saying to me?
I gather you ask me this of me:
Tell me it’s good to be alive.

And I do.

Music Therapy (musingsofms.com)
Have You Heard Enrique Iglesias’s New Duet Physical With J Lo? a Fantastic, Awesome Song! You’re Gonna Love It Very Much. Listen to It Here (everythingaboutenriqueiglesiasmybiggestidol.wordpress.com)

Don’t love as if

A map's a guide to find a world
Knitted by angels,plain or pearled,
And though you need a map as guide,
Keep your own eyes open wide.

I spent a year caught in a map
Until I found a big enough gap
I crawled out through this exit slit,
So here I am,like some half wit.

Words can act like heroin,
You live so high ,where I have been.
But onto earth I gladly fall.
air the sun the rain is all.

My senses are my lovers long-
My ears,my eyes,my skin,my tongue.
The winds caress my naked flesh,
To dwell on earth is all I wish.

I'll live with mice and birds and plants,
I'll share my food with miscreants
I'll keep my words inside a tin,
And only, now and then,go in.

I'll live with cats and spiders three.
And like a wild flower grow quite free.
I'll give my words to those who hear,
And eventually I'll disappear.

Earth to earth then ash to ash,
When soaked with rain I shall disperse.
My atoms wing like butterflies,
And to the Flower I'll fly,disguised

NSA Denies Spying on Pope (aworldchaos.wordpress.com)
EU Proposal to Monitor “Intolerant” Citizens (aworldchaos.wordpress.com)
A Celestial Impact and Atlantis (world-mysteries.com)
Professor Orlando Ferguson’s Square Map of the Earth from 1892 (biblicaltimes.wordpress.com)
10 Places You’re Not Allowed To See On Google Maps (aconservativeedge.wordpress.com)
Defining Metaphysical Literature (intothebardo.wordpress.com)
Metaphysical Analysis of Death be not proud (slideshare.net)
Dorothea Lasky: Poetry & the Metaphysical “I” (theadvocateblog.net)
Understanding Metaphysical Poetry. (loveenglishlearnenglish.wordpress.com)
The Works of John Donne (studyel.wordpress.com)

short eared owl

short-eared durham owl
meditating over the dale's edge,
shadows the fields and folds
in elegant diurnal flight.

on windside,careful sight
may swoop to prey
and away.

your yellow broad-eyed look,
at once both sharp and distant,
holds me.
oh,silence,
oh ,wind on green,
oh. earth,
sky.

immense your held vision,
sphere without centre,
pied geometer of flight,
sketch your descent and ascent.trees bunched by dry stone wall
call heart home.

Close Encounter of the Owl Kind (stilllifewithtortillas.com)
The Owl (seesawnetau.wordpress.com)
T S Eliot Prize Tour recap – Durham, 12 October (poetrybooksoc.wordpress.com)
Snow owl in flight (easybranchesnetwork.wordpress.com)
The Owl and the… (fairieslovesugar.wordpress.com)

Reverberations

What a day

Serebro in the music video Lets Hold Hands. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like a piece of ground where bombs go off repeatedly,
my inner landscape is perpetually marked
by these explosions of sorrow,
made all the worse
by the lack of a listening ear,
a warm open heart
or an outstretched hand.

I have constructed a map
but it's incomplete,by its nature;
so even now,I might stumble into an old hole
or a new one,created
by reverberations underground;
the noise like distant music,
a  constant drumbeat.

We do not dance
I might call it the Liturgy of Loss,
a dance to the music of rhyme;
Patterns and shapes hold the feelings
and express them.The shape of these forms
is a container for the grief.

In this way,I indicate
that life will go on;I hear the healing music
and sing to its melodies
like a mermaid on the edge of the sea in winter
when the water is cold and green like his eyes,
and the rocks are hard like large fists.Nature can be a symbol for such emotion
we cannot walk without a tear in ech eye
and a softening of our hearts
as tenderly we touch the world
and are touched in turn by each other.Stretch out your hand to meet mine.
We can hold each other better
than each can hold theirself.
Like in sex, the meaning is not the climax
but the giving and being given;
receiving and being received.
The sacredness of the erotic needs no explanation
to a gardener or a fisherman
but may need it for the information saturated,postmodern
who dwell in the fascist virtual reality we call life today

Reverberate by Erik Johansson (inprnt.wordpress.com)

Yet runs my nose and do my eyes not blink?

I have no teeth and combless I remain
My hair once silk is now a tangled briar..
Men gaze on me with ruthless cold disdain
My visage does no longer light their fire.

I have no mind and so I cannot think
I cannot love nor hate now I grow tired.
Yet runs my nose and do my eyes not blink?
Where is that man with care nd with a desire?

I have no heart,or it turns cold and hard.
Yet soul I have and spirit and my sight.
At life’s long game I fling down all my cards.
And ask for nothing but a means of flight.

For beauty withers as my wisdom grows.
And none observe the circling of the crows.

Virgin introduces blinking technology to skip YouTube adverts (telegraph.co.uk)
Yoga for Eyes: Techniques to Keep Your Eyesight Healthy (udemy.com)

A newly discovered sonnet by William ~Snakeswagger

English: Edward Lear, illustration for "T... — English: Edward Lear, illustration for “The Owl and the Pussycat” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My mistress’ eye is like a currant bun

Though she has problems,she is quite divine

Her bosom is bared,bold out in the sun.

I hope that what his hers is also mine?

My mistress eye looks fine as it is glass

She lost her marbles playing with a fox

She’s good at letting errors whistle past

And mending fuses in that little box.

My mistress dear I gaze upon that breast.

I see her skin is warm and she does sweat.

I too have lusted and I have confessed

But still she gambles and she places bets.

In truth I am as fickle as a weed

but each must act according to his need

Shakespeare’s Sonnets 18 and 130 (cstoessel100.wordpress.com)
Those Who Judge (Terza Rima Sonnet) (reowr.wordpress.com)
sonnet IV: This I Wish (davidemeron.com)
William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (timothyxu.wordpress.com)
A Terza Rima Sonnet and Challenge: Promise Me (readinpleasure.wordpress.com)
Armitage in America: Anchoring the Kite (lareviewofbooks.org)
Shakespeare the Way It Was Meant to Be Spoken (entertainment.time.com)
What Happened to Poetry? (A Lecture by Shaykh Hamza) (therefugiaxo.wordpress.com)
Limerick master Edward Lear celebrates his 200th birthday (3quarksdaily.com)
Limerick Poems (dorcasyeohforever.wordpress.com)

The Death Throes of Romanticism: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath – University of San Francisco (USF)

The Death Throes of Romanticism: The Poetry of Sylvia Plath – University of San Francisco (USF). by J C Oates

This is a fascinating essay by the novelist Joyce Carol Oates..so intelligent and thoughtful…not to be missed

Excerpt From The Unabridged Journals Of Sylvia Plath (psycheactive.wordpress.com)
Sylvia Plath’s (anthonypapa95.wordpress.com)
“FIesta Melons” and part of my essay (idartyou.wordpress.com)
On Sylvia Plath (nybooks.com)
Sylvia Plath 50 Years Later: What Modern Feminism Can Learn From Ariel (3quarksdaily.com)
13 Pinterest Tragedies Explained By Sylvia Plath Quotes (buzzfeed.com)

Sylvia Plath – Online Articles and Texts

Joyce Carol Oates, 2006 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sylvia Plath – Online Articles and Texts.

This has a long list of all you can find on line.I am looking for a review by Joyce Carol Oates.This is a very good resource for literature students and like minded people.

Excerpt From The Unabridged Journals Of Sylvia Plath (psycheactive.wordpress.com)
Sylvia Plath’s (anthonypapa95.wordpress.com)
November book club: Sylvia Plath and Kate Lebo at BookWoman on Nov. 7 (thefeministkitchen.com)
13 Pinterest Tragedies Explained By Sylvia Plath Quotes (buzzfeed.com)
On Sylvia Plath (nybooks.com)
Book Review: The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath) (keepwatchingthewords.wordpress.com)
Sylvia Plath…Extra Reading (adifferentkindofbazaar.wordpress.com)

If it were laughter ….

Bloggers,beggars,buggers… in dreams they are all one.

Wrapped in a grey blanket,who can tell one from another?

They all begin with B

As a matter or tact

My dreaming mind hides the buggers

Inside calm astute faces

Who are political braggers

At daggers drawn with the rubrics of formal

I mean,normal,life.

Who’s to say who wrote The Four Tartlets

,Or what rough breast Yeats hoped was coming?

Sometimes they say,it’s behind you now;

that’s an asinine remark.

Idiosynchronizing all my devices

I find my heart and mind left out.;

makes me doubt,

However,negative capability will pull me threw

the stone you chose to cast.

So you are without sin,a TV

Sin in a tin

A smartphone is not a trombone

Yet it creates more noise

Sneaking categorically,

I’d say I’m tired of the gales

all these tablets are creating

If it were laughter then o.k.

But it’s more like domination

Say it again,Sam.

Wham!

That the world contains THIS, this person,this scenery,this light.

I’m sure since then
I have seen more beautiful places
but what was once called
The Shock of the New
washed over me before I could think.
Then I might say
That the world contains this,
That the world contains THIS,
this person,this scenery,this light;
That the world contains this..
this beauty,this love at first meeting;
THIS person
The total lack of expectation makes the experience possible.

Approaching by rail,on a line now closed
the train needed two engines as it rose from the coast
to Newby Bridge.There we walked onto a steamer and the sail began
At first the long lake is banked by dark trees
It’s peaceful but not remarkable;
turning a bend, all of a sudden the Langdale Pikes are manifest
And ever after they have lived in my heart like a blessing
I’ve even climbed on as a foolhardy schoolgirl;
getting down is the hard part.
Further and further into the heart of the Lakes
Every view is truly loved
but it was this view,the first,from just a small hill
That took away my breath.
Wanting nothing,we sometimes receive everything.
A person , a place,once loved,
is loved forever as they shape our very being
into a truer form;show us possibilities,
Transform us,even though,through them.
we make acquaintance with the sadness of loss and grief.
Love and loss our twin polarities that form our souls.
“And the Spirit of God moved over the face of the waters”

Just arrived ! (vivas7.wordpress.com)
Langdale Pikes Climbers Routes (allthegearwithnoidea.wordpress.com)

You so love me

In the sudden hotness of the day

The bench beside the roses seemed set right.

We talked about the flowers so sweet so gay,

And whether Love is visible to sight,

The flowers seemed more beautiful and rare

Than any flower I’ve let my eyes rest on.

I welcomed them with bold yet merry stare.

Ah,all too soon bright summer will be gone.

The sun was at the apex of the sky.

We caught the moment like a netted fish.

And as we looked the broad white clouds blew by.

All we can do is wish and wish and wish,

Now back to dishes,socks and “what’s for tea?”

I live so well because so you love me

How to Dry Flowers (proflowers.com)
Weeds and flowers (meganabigailwhite.wordpress.com)
How Do Flowers Follow the Sun? (proflowers.com)

How I wrote this poem

The subject matter of a poem must come from whatever is inside your head.So reading more poetry or any well written literature contributes.The form of the poem may determine what rises to the surface as you write.I got the idea of beginning with a negative from some poetry newsletter I get [Sorry,not kept reference] I was reluctant to write a sonnet.Iambic pentamet sounds frightening.To help me keep in my the right structure I recite

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day

Then I have to start,I think if a first line

“Not love nor money should we seek to steal;”

I like that as there is some alliteration,it’s the right length.and I agree with the sentiment.Once I have a first line then the next lines seem to come more easily.THe whole sonnet is a surprise to me.Did I know I thought like that?Well,in a way, but r so explicitly.I have written about five now.They do resemble poems by the Metaphysicals like Donne.So I am unsure if I have found my own voice.I think the more one write the more likely it is you will find your own voice.Check the meter.Check for cliches.Check for adverbs used to correct the meter

Read poetry in books,on blogs,on the internet.Study some guides like

Teach yourself:writing poetry.

I like

W H Auden ,,Sylvia Plath,SimonArmitage,Donne,Marvell…..,Shakespeare,Rilke,Seamus Heaney,Hopkins,W B Yeats/

but you really need to read some modern poetry,

BY SOME GRACE

Not love nor money should we seek to steal;
Nor for self praise and honor be in need
For these things cannot ever truly heal.
And onto a wrong path may often lead.

Not to vice nor virtue must our wills be tied;
Yet by some grace we gently may be led
Our will directs attention which denied
May let our pride control our thoughtless head.

Not good nor bad can track the vane of God
Far from our sightless eyes are his affairs.
Yet Faith and Hope can be a dowsing rod
With Love the force to trace the Spirit bare.

Oh,come down,Spirit,take me as your wife
Fill me with holy grace and with new life

Remember any poetry

Which poetry do you remember without trying to learn it?I remember Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll…author of Alice in Wonderland and Island by W H Auden.Also the Lady of Shalott and some of Wordsworth and Shakespeare.I wonder why those?I am glad I did learn some by heart but sometimes my heart has learned them by itself!!

Why poetry matters by Mark Doty

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

Is writing poetry theraputic?

Here is a website which says so:

http://www.poeticmedicine.com/

Some people say it is but poets have a much higher suicide rate than any other people/

I read:It is diagnostic but not therapeutic [Sylvia Plath]

I also read that writing to a strict form is more likely to help you then writing free verse…seems intriguing.I believe if you have suffered a lot in life,writing may bring it to the surface.Fiona Sampson in The Expert Guide to Poetry Writing advises one to keep the phone number of the Samaritans to hand!That tells you a lot.I wonder what T.S.Eliot would say or Ted Hughes?What do you think?

Seems like the ice is inside me

Air,bitter they call it,whispers to the sweet planes of my face,

Shrieks shrill to my cavities,ears,mouth and nose;penetrates all that’s open;

Probing like a surgeon’s knife,to see what healing damage it might do.

A frozen finger,touches my heart;

Seems like the ice is inside me sending urgent warnings.

On that high inner mountain,you’ll feel nothing at all…

You’ll be the snowman, a bloody icicle;

An Old Testament of Endurance;

A legend like the pale polar bears,

snuffling uneasily around the summit

Touching a woman’s heart is the quickest way to gain her attention

I’m looking at you;you’re in pieces.

You’re a puzzle,a jigsaw with two double dynamos.

A broken racing bicycle crossed with two ice skates.

Ten motorboats crashed into a yacht and abandoned on a Swiss lake in winter.

Can I leave you scattered like this?

You’re a man in a penguin suit;

Diplomatic, attached with the coldest reserves.

You’re a spy from the court of the Vatican City

A screaming Pope;

An unbaptized demon.

A lost angel with no hands;

A half hung side of meat;

An unbroken rampant horse deluded by winds east.

We were split,one from another;

Split in ourselves too–thoughts and emotions

Are raw like meat,weeping as they are pulled apart into islands.

I see there’s a cold window between us.

I rub it with my damp coat sleeve,like children do,licking on it;

And see your eyes gleam in hope like greenish diamonds.

Yet I can’t touch you,until we learn how to melt glass.

Are you trying too as you smile weakly,

desperately holding onto this impossible slippery glass?

We’ll try reach you at the bottom of whatever frozen ocean you sigh in.

Here you are,a flat and two dimensional Prospero.

You rise like a non-U-boat already firing at the upper orders.

Here you are walking through what seemed like ruins

And you are not just alive, but burning.

THE KEYHOLE

Sometimes I had my eye too close to the keyhole

Pulled there by some force like gravity.

I was gazing with a sharp but narrow focus

into what I thought was the real.

But the precision of my gaze

left out the surroundings, the other doors and rooms

that I might have inhabited.

As he came to me and opened his arms with no rancour,,

so my eyes opened wider,I took in the new wide vision

and left my crouched and aching position

no longer attached like a magnet to your force,

He was there with his sea eyes.

He knew the human condition

And how to inhabit a conversation.

Of course he’s had his wounds but never failed to feel

for himself and others.

In the night he went through in his mind’s eye the faces

of his friends;holding them ,like he’d once held fragile rose buds

when we were married,

and asked silently for grace.

The keyhole no longer seemed important

I suppose narrowing the focus can keep out knowledge of pain..

But the pain is atill there;

I have always loved the word “Acknowledge.”

And now I use it. I acknowledge this pain

Our vocations

I think my vocation is sacred
I keep seeing visions of God
He’s like a bright light
Exceedingly right
Does anything seem to be odd?

I have a calling to follow
I just do not know the details
I pray and I wait
By yonder lychgate
Do vocations ever get into the Sales?

I would like it if I could buy one
I’ll give you all the money I’ve saved
Sell my idea?
My dear,no fear!
Just consider how well I’ve behaved.

Everyone has a vocation
To be who they know that they are.
Yet I am not me
Without you to be
Here in my arms by the fire.

I’ll get an answer tomorrow
As I dream of God during the night
She will give me an image
And the much needed courage
To go on till I see the Light.

The problem is one of translation,
For God speaks in symbols not words
Symbols are wells
in which truth dwells.
And the Spirit swoops down like a bird.

Why not find your vocation?
It’s possible whatever your age.
Attend to your dreams
and how your life seems
Vocations are now all the rage.

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