KIND
As the New Year arrives for us to greet,
Keep this resolution in your mind:
With the ongoing opportunities we will meet...
Whenever we can - let us be KIND!
......................................................................
Wednesday 27th December 2017 4:15 pm
THOUGHTS AT CHRISTMAS - a seasonal re-post
How fitting now in deep December
When days are short and spirits low,
That in our hearts we will remember
Those we knew who had to to go.
Christmas hours are briefly bright,
Their spark is spent in Winter's pay
And soon surrenders to the night
When light retreats and fades away.
But O how wonderful this living!
How magical this life we own,
That we are given...
Thursday 21st December 2017 4:04 pm
CHRISTMAS SNOW - Instrumental - recorded by Pete Dymond
Remembering those who have gone from this world but still keeping the positive gratitude for this life,
here's an instrumental version of my song Christmas Snow...put up in the style (I hope) of the James
Last Orchestra !
A FOOT-TAPPING MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ONE AND ALL!!
.............................................................................................
Friday 15th December 2017 7:44 pm
THE ENGLISH KNOW
Go back in history and it will show
It's mostly about either "stay" or "go!
Choosing the time to head away
Is down to experience come the day.
Acquiring an empire provided that...
Knowing when to tip the hat.
If being run by others is your need
This seems contrary to our creed,
Buccaneers and bravos bold
Fill the history books of old,
And who amongst those doughty bra...
Sunday 10th December 2017 12:53 am
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS
Here's my contribution towards the coming Festive Season. Grateful to Diamond Studios of Bristol.
...................................................................
I was sitting alone, long after you'd gone
Wondering how love had gone wrong
When in my mind your face I'd find
And with it the words for this song
That Night before Christmas all on my own
Was the loneliest...
Friday 1st December 2017 11:46 am
NOVEMBER UNIFORM
Still with the written word - my comic-crime novel of the above title is now available via Amazon (Kindle
version) plus a "look-in feature/ while print copies can be ordered from the above and other major retailers. I've managed to include some rhyme/verse at various points in my story and that pleases me.
ISBN 9781786232502
Christmas is coming!
Sunday 26th November 2017 5:09 pm
AGE OLD CONCERN
Pondering the expression longevity
Leaves little leeway for levity;
So I will stay serious -
And whilst age may weary us -
I prefer abundance to brevity!
.............................................................
Friday 24th November 2017 3:23 pm
TELL ME
Tell me - who's your equal in terms of "health"?
Tell me - who's your equal in terms of "wealth"?
Tell me - who's your equal in terms of "living"?
Tell me - who's your equal in terms of "giving"?
Tell me - who's your equal in terms of "gain"?
Tell me - who's your equal in terms of "pain"?
Tell me - who's your equal in terms of "caring"?
Tell me - who's your equal in terms of ...
Thursday 16th November 2017 4:54 pm
A THOUGHT FOR REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY
War is madness,
War is sadness;
Its consolation -
Freedom's gladness.
...................................
Sunday 12th November 2017 3:32 pm
THE MENIN GATE - Remembrance Day Remembered
My uncle, Ernest Valentine Venner, Lieutenant: The Rifle Brigade, has a grave that is marked, but many
who served and died do not, and these lines from 2014...the 100th anniversary of the start of WW1...are intended to mark and maintain their memory.
................................................................................................................
Thursday 9th November 2017 2:48 pm
JULIA HARTLEY-BREWER
For the sake of comment in poetical form here is a re-working of a previous entry.
Listening to Julia Hartley-Brewer
Makes me wish somehow I knew her.
That sense of razor sharp summation
Addressing the wounding allegation
Returning from a distant past
With virtue's rising hot air blast
To put a long lost act on show
That only those concerned can know.
So - look to yours...
Thursday 2nd November 2017 11:43 pm
JULIA HARTLEY-BREWER
The resignation from high office of Sir Michael Fallon evoked a notable response from his erstwhile victim -
Julia Hartley-Brewer: talk-show host, panellist and newspaper journalist. She has displayed what is
demonstrably missing today -a maturity and no-nonsense attitude towards what can occur in the real
world occupied by the male and female human species....and what are called "rite...
Thursday 2nd November 2017 12:57 pm
SO LONG, FATS
Yesterday brought the news of the passing of my favourite performer from the great days of Rockn'Roll -
Antoine "Fats" Domino, and it took me straight back to my 1950s boyhood when the Hit Parade had a
new Number One virtually every week and a wealth of talent competing for a place in the Top Twenty
in the Melody Maker and the New Musical Express charts...every pop lover's' "bibles" of th...
Thursday 26th October 2017 4:06 pm
PITY THE MANAGER
Being a Premiership football manager isn't much fun these days,
At the beck and call of money-men reminding them who pays,
And suffering prima-donnas with self-obsessive ways,
And whining "for the moment" fans who demand who goes or stays.
It's all about the ego now, with players priced in zeroes,
Over-estimating their own worth - unlike true sporting heroes,
Fiddling around whil...
Monday 23rd October 2017 4:10 pm
FOGEYS AND BOGIES
As inevitable as a farm track's newly laid dung
Is the poetry competition aimed at the young.
What about those who have progressed to age,
With long life to savour and flavour the page?.
I make the case for a competition for the old
Who write what they know and not what they're told;
Let's have more from knowledgeable old fogeys
Still rattling along like a steam loco's bo...
Wednesday 18th October 2017 2:08 am
MEDIA WISDOM
Why go to the expense of an encyclopaedia
With all those brains to be got in the media?
I heard the following from a press-preview bloke
Who clearly didn't think as he spoke:
"Obesity is a huge problem", he opined...
Obesity and huge forever defined!
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Tuesday 10th October 2017 8:18 pm
GRASS
Testing the venality of a politician
Does not require much erudition;
In fact it's quite an easy task...
All you have to do is ask:
"When you see grass
Would you vote to save it?"
or
"When you see grass
Would you vote to pave it?".
Would you bet money on what they'd do,
Despite anything they'd say to you?
...............................................................
Thursday 5th October 2017 6:08 pm
THERE ARE WAYS
When we met you'd been hurt by love,
The pain was plain deep in your eyes;
Punished by its careless push and shove
And being told too many lies.
I made a vow as I came to know you
True love would play its part;
Every chance I got I'd show you
There are ways to mend a broken heart.
...............................................................
Monday 2nd October 2017 4:39 pm
HEAVEN SCENT
She glided past me in the street,
Sweet, petite...good enough to eat.
And leaving - to mark where she went -
She left a lingering heavenly scent.
.......................................................
Wednesday 27th September 2017 6:23 pm
LEAVES AND LIVES
From the tree, the leaves lose hold and fall,
Their wrinkled faded fabric, once glorious green then gold,
Evoking human lives meeting their own approaching winter,
Coming to their rest as the world turns cold;
Making way for those that wait their turn,
And like the leaves: they're beneath the foot or they burn.
........................................................................
Monday 18th September 2017 5:08 pm
HOT (AND COLD) AIR
On a Stateside visit years ago,
I was warned - and with good reason,
To take care to avoid when hard winds blow
At the time of the "Hurricane Season".
The storms that have materialised
To reek recent havoc there
Are coincidentally appearing
With what is witnessed elsewhere.
The media news has been omitting
Stargazing's overheated surprise:
Excessive activity...
Friday 15th September 2017 5:56 pm
PONDER THIS (2)
Love leaps high
And readily vaults
The high bar set
By human faults.
..................................
Tuesday 12th September 2017 4:01 pm
PONDER THIS!
If you must fall in love -
Fall in love with your self;
That way you'll never
Be left on the shelf.
......................................
Sunday 10th September 2017 6:49 pm
THE PROPERTY DEVELOPER - 2017
Present efforts to conserve the countryside around the White Cliffs (Dame Vera in action!) -
and ongoing threats elsewhere persuade me to post this current comment on today's world.
.................................................................................................................................................
What care I for gate or fence...
Come - let us talk of pound...
Wednesday 6th September 2017 4:15 pm
WHEN YOU WALKED INTO MY LIFE - audio reprise
For all who have found that "special one" - or who are still looking! Be happy, whatever!!
.................................................................................................................................
Friday 1st September 2017 5:46 pm
DOWN BY THE MEWSTONE - audio version
Come with me to the small car park by the fields of Higher Brownstone high above Kingswear and the
River Dart in South Devon where the track to the old World War Two coastal defences is marked by a
solitary tree. Breathe in the salty air and step out down that track towards the sea.
.............................................................................................................
Wednesday 30th August 2017 7:17 pm
ENGLISH HILLS - an audio version
My thanks to Marcie Summers of Bristol for recording this poem for me.
.........................................................................................................
Our English hills like sentries stand,
Proud guardians of an ancient land.
Across their brows, God, ever wise,
Has draped the everchanging skies.
While in their valleys, gently laid,
There lie the ...
Sunday 27th August 2017 4:40 pm
DON'T MENTION THE ENGLISH!
I was giving some thought the other day
About the word "community"
And how being Scottish, Irish or Welsh
Can be boasted with impunity.
And how a multitude of ethnics
Within the population
Can claim a similar title
And do it with immunity
Yet if someone says they're English
Have you noticed - there's every chance
They'll be ignored or even derided,
With looks at be...
Thursday 24th August 2017 11:19 am
DANCING IN THE DARK
So Brucie's gone and the world's in a whirl,
Leaving life with a final twirl.
Always full of vim and fizz
Sir Bruce Forsyth was Mr Show-Biz!
Multi-talented, multi-faced,
Your passing on seems such a waste
But not in memories of fun and glee,
As I see you dancing into eternity.
You gave so much and deserved your fame,
God bless you Brucie: Good game...good game!
.........
Friday 18th August 2017 5:10 pm
PULLING DOWN STATUES
The disorder and death in Virginia seem to have begun with disputing the aim/intention of pulling down
a statue of Robert E. Lee. The man himself would have probably distanced himself from both public
statuary and the violence. Offered the post of commander of the Federal forces of the North, he
declined because he considered that his first duty was to his own state - Virginia.
The A...
Wednesday 16th August 2017 4:45 pm
TOLERANCE
Tolerance is a two way thing
That should never brook the attitude
It's somehow OK to go rioting
And be pardoned with some platitude.
It's not enough to command respect,
That's something to be earned.
How can anyone really expect
Respect for buildings burned?
.
Far too many doing crime,
Too many of them doing time.
.................................................
Monday 14th August 2017 5:51 pm
HUG
We were chatting like most siblings do,
About the past and who we knew;
Of times enjoyed and where we went,
The things we had, the money spent.
But in the chat there came a pause,
Even now I can't recall the cause;
Then my brother's words came quietly:
" I don't remember Mum ever hugging me."
.................................................................
Wednesday 9th August 2017 5:45 pm
STUPID IS
Stupid is as stupid does,
The two will always meet.
You'll see them at war with the weary Fuzz
On some unlucky street.
With mental toolbox short of a spanner
And willingly led by their noses,
Beneath some wildly brandished banner
Rational reasoning dozes.
................................................................
Monday 7th August 2017 2:51 pm
LAST POST - closing the book
This poem with its musical setting joins my collection of verse recorded for a personal CD
by Peter Dymond. The subject can be said to have been approached with the value of hindsight!
...........................
There's this to say for getting old:
You take more care against the cold,
And value each new day.
And this to say for getting old:
You want to keep and not to s...
Saturday 5th August 2017 4:34 pm
YESTERDAY ONCE MORE - a re-post for the summer hols!
Intended for August but I mixed up my dates and it appeared on 31 July. Oops. So here it is again.
..................................................................................................................................................
Written following a memorable blue-sky afternoon looking out over Preston Sands, Torbay.
Pausing high above the beach,
I watch the children ...
Tuesday 1st August 2017 5:04 pm
LOVE AND LUST
There are those who will -.
Because they must -
Call it love
When meeting lust.
.......................................
.
Sunday 30th July 2017 4:54 pm
LIFE'S LOSERS
Once upon a time life's losers were boozers,
But now life's losers like drugs.
In their self-obsession
They lose self-possession
And fall prey to predatory thugs.
....................................................................
Friday 28th July 2017 2:24 pm
SOLITARY
There seem to be many who find it scary
To be - or thought to be - solitary.
I've no such worry - and just as well
Logging on to W O L.
There is no other voice but mine
When the page tells me there's "1 online"!
...............................................................
Saturday 22nd July 2017 6:09 pm
Doctor WHO?!
During the many decades since I was a kid
Time Lord Doctor Who was "the man who did"!
Now today's BBC takes the view we are due
A Time Lady Doctor Who - a woman who'll do!
But despite all the approving feminist calls
I fear that the Beeb is losing its balls.
Who next will we be expected to greet.....
Shirley Holmes and Miss Watson of Bake-Off Street?!
.........................
Tuesday 18th July 2017 3:09 pm
MUCKING ABOUT
We know of the "faces" that occupy Facebook...
And the "twits" adding twaddle to Twitter.
The first with its trivia-filled waste of space look
And the second with its bile from the bitter.
But now the net allows anyone a voice
Or so it can seem - hardly cause to rejoice!
The stuff that appears can make one despair
Or at the very least, tear at one's hair.
Those who can't sp...
Sunday 16th July 2017 4:07 pm
THE VIEW FROM HERE (2)
Americans from the pioneer stock of the West of that great country have a term for those they perceive
as blowhards and fainthearts: "All hat and no cattle".
I was thinking about the mindsets that insist we must remain within the European Union - displaying
their preference for rule by a committee of various and varying political administrations that are able to
impose laws formed by ...
Sunday 9th July 2017 3:48 pm
FRIENDS AND ALLIES
Our friends and allies with all their faults
Are better than our enemies and their assaults!
If you judge, you may be judged...
If you don't budge, you may be budged!
Virtue is a wondrous thing
But, defeated, has a hollow ring.
............................................................
Friday 7th July 2017 3:44 pm
ONE FROM THE HEART
How come we hear "those who know" say
The heart needs exercise come what may,
While joggers drop dead as they go their way
And Stephen Hawking reached seventy five the other day!
....................................................................................
Monday 3rd July 2017 4:36 pm
SOMEBODY'S GRIEF
Never politicise somebody's grief
It never helps facts become clear;
You'll risk being seen akin to a thief,
Stealing what honesty holds dear.
Better instead to link arms and intentions
To ensure a repeat won't occur
And reject out of hand premature mentions
Of blame that make focusing a blur.
Let the desire for truth be the spur!
...........................................
Saturday 1st July 2017 7:13 pm
THE BLAME GAME
Give them the occasion...give them the day
And you will find they came
To play in everything they say
The easy game of blame.
...................................................................
Wednesday 28th June 2017 9:37 pm
THE VIEW FROM HERE
Now that I'm firmly in my 8th decade of existence on this old Earth, it seems a good time to take stock...of the past, the present and the future.
I was so lucky to arrive just as WW2 was drawing to a close and although the years that followed were marked by real austerity with ration books still in use into the 1950s and the country bankrupted by
the cost of its efforts to save the civilise...
Monday 26th June 2017 5:50 pm
EXCUSE ME
I know you'll excuse me when I write
In terms of envy, spleen and spite.
Holding forth in finger pointing finality
From my mountain summit of morality.
The well to do are there to be got at,
(If I had my way they would be shot at!).
Suspicious of their money and how they make it
Has me thinking of ways to take it.
And those that say they do their best
I find it easy to d...
Thursday 22nd June 2017 5:18 pm
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Look behind and you may find
A tale of two great cities.....
New York and London each defined
By two mayors and a thousand pities.
The difference as far as the fates agree
Between London town and NYC:
One mayor steps up to take the lead
The other to criticise and plead,
While saviours in Manhattan and North Ken
Are linked by courage - now and then.
No one blamed the p...
Tuesday 20th June 2017 10:30 pm
PERFORMANCE
An out of power politico's art
Is about a performance...playing a part;
Projecting an image in variable focus,
Cue: Abra-ca-dab-ra and hocus-pocus.
A mug shot...a hug shot...kissing a baby,
Don't look for deeds done: trust make believe maybe.
.............................................................................
Sunday 18th June 2017 5:36 pm
THE POETRY JUDGE
I'd love to be a poetry judge,
Know what I mean...wink wink nudge nudge!
Chosen for my poetical nous -
To indulge in wordy "pick and choose".
It seems that adding a uni degree
Would serve to see the likes of me
Complete a literary course or two
To hold forth on the likes of you,
And what you write and even how
You form your lines in lonely plough.
Be warned I may not ...
Thursday 15th June 2017 6:31 pm
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