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!

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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...

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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!! 

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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...

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Here's my contribution towards the coming Festive Season.  Grateful to Diamond Studios of Bristol.

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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...

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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!

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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!

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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 ...

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War is madness,

War is sadness;

Its consolation -

Freedom's gladness.

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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.

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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!

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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...

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Love leaps high

And readily vaults

The high bar set

By human faults.

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If you must fall in love -

Fall in love with your self;

That way you'll never

Be left on the shelf.

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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.

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What care I for gate or fence...

Come - let us talk of pound...

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For all who have found that "special one" - or who are still looking!  Be happy, whatever!!

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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.

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My thanks to Marcie Summers of Bristol for recording this poem for me.

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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 ...

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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...

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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!

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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...

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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.

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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."

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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.

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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!

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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...

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Intended for August but I mixed up my dates and it appeared on 31 July.  Oops.  So here it is again.

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Written following a memorable blue-sky afternoon looking out over Preston Sands, Torbay.

Pausing high above the beach,

I watch the children ...

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There are those who will -.

Because they must -

Call it love

When meeting lust.

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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.

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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"!

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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?!

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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...

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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 ...

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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.

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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!

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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!

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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.

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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...

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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...

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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...

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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.

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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 ...

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