https://youtu.be/iTV6F3lTU7o

The accompanying video is of Emma Kirkby (an old family favourite of ours) singing “Dido’s Lament”  by Henry Purcell. It’s one of the saddest pieces of English music I’ve ever heard, and so, is most appropriate.

I’ve modelled my poem around Dylan Thomas’ “Do not go gentle into that good night”, on the premise that the night we currently face is not, in any sense ...

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To a Fellow Artist

It’s often asked: wherein does beauty lie,

In mystery bound, proportions magical,

Deciphered only by the observer’s eye,

Or in some poet’s words deemed lyrical?

I know that beauty’s not in sparkling dross,

Perfection is for fools; an empty frame,

In masterpieces, lines are found and lost,

And here, in life’s chiaroscuro lives a flame,

A caring smi...

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During the American Civil War, which ended in 1866, Walt Whitman worked as a clerk in Washington, DC. For a period of three years, he cared for soldiers, dressing their wounds, and comforting the injured.

His 1865 publication of poetry, Drum-Taps, which drew from his experiences in the civil war, includes, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d,” Whitman’s elegy for President Lincoln.

I ...

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My love of Beauty, nurtured through the years,     

Of form and fair proportion’s served me well.    

Yet often I ask: where does my true love dwell?   

Within my soul; this heart; these eyes; or ears? 

Does she conduct the music of the spheres? 

Or, sit in silence sweet on Lakeland fell? 

Are roses’ heavenly scent bound by her spell?    

Her spirit surely lives in all...

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Mis-Match of the Day,

Tories; Truth and Compassion.

Wife-beaters; Knighthoods.

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We’ll drink a drink a drink,

To an empire pink so pink,

The saviours of the human race.

The truth we speak is ever so profound,

We speak the truth in every case.

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Bit of a cockup in original posting -here goes!

Their Favourite Things

Teardops they’re shedding; with lies they’ve been smitten,

“Bright sunlit uplands” still promised for Britons,

Brown paper packages, no attached strings,

Those are a few of their favourite things.

When reality bites, when the truth stings,
When they’re feeling sad,
They’ll simply remember their fa...

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