A beautiful piece of poetry Ray

Comment is about IN NORWAY 1976 (blog)

Original item by ray pool

hearing you read this Ray makes all the difference. This is a wry observation of the strangeness of life. Mind you Japanese tourists get everywhere. I remember seeing some outside York minister one boxing day.

Comment is about LAVENDER FIELDS FOREVER (blog)

Original item by ray pool

Lavender and Tyrian are my two favorite colors of all time. So beautiful. It smells wonderful too.

I have seeds of white lavender I have yet to plant here. Maybe one day.?

Comment is about LAVENDER FIELDS FOREVER (blog)

Original item by ray pool

Nicely done!

?

Comment is about Nightly hope (blog)

Original item by Louis Audet

I'm glad. I didn't think you did.
Someone who could write those first two verses couldn't.
Beno.

Comment is about My Old Beech (blog)

Original item by Chris Armstrong

I'm quite intrigued here D. Knape. It seems to have a steely resolve, with a threat at the end. I like the repetition of Don't as it hammers home and makes a pleasant change from softy wafty poetry which can be just too much sometimes. I can't help thinking of Coen Brothers films.

Ray

Comment is about Don't Ever Forget (blog)

Original item by d.knape

Put this in the diary Don - I am commenting! This is so easy to read, as the Blues is to listen to, and the two activities compliment each other. I think you have hit the spot here. At the end it is quite plaintive. You come over with humility; but you don't need assurance from others, just do your thing mate, and rise from the ashes of self doubt (or don't, whichever applies).

Ray

Comment is about Listening to the Blues (blog)

Original item by Don Matthews

Ah - memories! Such a lovely use of softness and- re assurance that I say congratulations!

Ray

Comment is about Drowning in your eyes (blog)

Original item by eve nortley

Hi Trevor. This has a sort wittiness to it due to the rhyming and metre, yet certainly is a considered and serious poem and is spot on.

Ray

Comment is about Near-Death Experience (blog)

Original item by Trevor Alexander

Fantastic closing lines John. Consolidates the poem, which reads so easily and endearingly.

Ray

Comment is about BOXES (blog)

Original item by john short

Small poem, small change , but change of loyalty must start somewhere Tommy. Why not here?

Ray

Comment is about Austerity (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

If I may make so bold Ria, I would like to say that within this there is a lot of potential which may need an edit to reconstruct some of the ideas. It seems scattered and therefore confusing. I don't often comment on poems here, but please take this as a compliment (a potential one).

Ray with respect.

Comment is about SLEEP (blog)

Original item by Ria Richardson

Entrancing with its hints and suggestions without absolute revelation, leaving us in a dream Taylor. An excellent poem that transports us and at the end sort of comes home. A clear leader in your body or work I reckon.

Ray

Comment is about The Dance (blog)

Original item by Taylor Crowshaw

This feels like a hammer blow of emotion. Direct and powerful.

Ray

Comment is about Ache (blog)

Original item by Megan Jones

A poem which expresses mountains of love. The word besotted comes to mind. Beautifully written and well expressed.


Thank you for this

Keith?

Comment is about Don't Say Goodbye (blog)

Original item by Kporho Raphael Oyeke

Just had to switch on my computer and reply! Thanks for your heartfelt comments which I love... as they show that the poem really works in the way that I intended! And, No - I would never cut down a tree just because it shades my lawn! Or at all, really! thanks again!

Comment is about My Old Beech (blog)

Original item by Chris Armstrong

MC.,

Thank you for a very well considered comment to this article. There are more, of course, to follow as I look closely at several poets whose sexuality was revealed by themselves through their work. The life of Christ in particular has a certain ambiguity attached to it which is open to speculation. The disciple who Jesus loved and what we read in Matthew´s Gospel Chapter 19 verses 10 -12 provide us with glimpses of an acknowledgement of another sexuality other than being hetrosexual. To grasp this one would do well to read a modern translation of the Bible as the word eunuch can be misleading. The Book of Leviticus makes a bold statement that God hates homosexuals, which must be at variance with the creation narrative when all that he had created he saw was good.

St. Paul has a dig about homosexuals in a brief passage, often erroneously quoted but considering he was a Roman Citizen, a hetrosexual and a Pharisee one cannot expect otherwise. However, in a more generous passage of scripture he says emphatically that NOTHING can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

The use of the word gay was most certainly purloined but means Good As You, a challenge to all those who are not gay. One can hope that an increasingly more liberal climate will rid us of this awful prejudice and pave the way to genuine acceptance.

Thank you indeed for this comment.

Keith

Comment is about A History of Gay Poetry, 1: A Bare Canvas (article)

Original item by Mike Took

You didn't cut it down did you?

Comment is about My Old Beech (blog)

Original item by Chris Armstrong

Oh dude! I started reading and I was loving it, loving it a lot.
It sounded like it was wrote by someone who loved this tree. Like I love my oaks and hazel and ash trees in my garden. Some one who respects the fact it's survived man's destructive capacity. Someone who appreciates how it only takes what it needs and gives back what it can.
Then it comes.
Is he weighing it up for the chop in your last verse coz he wants a nice lawn and a boarder of bizzie Lizzie's?
The last 8 words broke my heart. ?
I hate this poem now.
Great skill here, but I still hate it. ??

Comment is about My Old Beech (blog)

Original item by Chris Armstrong

Thank you!

Comment is about Quaker With a Vengeance (blog)

Original item by 220August

Lerner and Loewe, apparently, MC. Hermione Gingold and Maurice Chevalier.

Comment is about UP THE ARSE (1) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Thanks guys. ?

Comment is about Near-Death Experience (blog)

Original item by Trevor Alexander

Brave stuff! Almost beyond the rarified stream of the poetical output..
"Blood in faeces, urine and semen...
Enough to frighten the most boastful he-men."

And - to recall more words from a favourite lyric writer:
"Ah yes, I remember it well."

Comment is about UP THE ARSE (1) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

My point is basic. The use of extremes that are clearly intended
to be taken as such - "Jabberwocky" et al - can entertain within
their chosen zone. But the intention to communicate is paramount
and that takes first place over idiosyncrasy met and employed for
a specific purpose. "Pushing boundaries" has a place but
disfiguring a great language as an intended course of routine
action in writing is not something to be applauded or encouraged.
Comic poets earn a reputation that permits their excesses but there
are limits, often self-imposed, on what is offered for "publication" -
and the novelty can wear thin in less gifted instances.

Comment is about THE WEALTH OF WORDS (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

Thanks, MC. I haven’t yet chopped it up into little lines. And you might have noticed the subtle rhyming pattern of “or” (para 6) and “door” (final para).

Comment is about UP THE ARSE (1) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Laid - prostrate - by - a - prostate!
Bottoms up!!
Is this what "modern" poetry encompasses now? ?

Comment is about UP THE ARSE (1) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Did either get released on "artistic licence"?.?

Comment is about Freedom of choice (blog)

Original item by hugh

So sad to see that in my long life, this home of heroes who knew
(including some who still know) about fortitude and sacrifice in the
maintenance of freedom and national sovereignty, that we are now sinking into the morass of mass self-deluding selfishness that bends
the knee to the cause of foreign jaunts and convenience-living at
the whim and behest of those who would have enslaved us in my
own time, even now led by the foremost practitioners of that aim in
the pages of history. We have become a pitiful shadow of our ancestors energy and enterprise, now led by fear and doubt - and
by the nose!
PS - As Sir James Goldsmith's Referendum Party predicted - and was mocked for the absurdity of the prophesy -
these EU leaders now plan an EU Army.
Who's laughing now? Certainly not the
real defenders of the Western Alliance - NATO.

Comment is about BELITTLED BY THE EU (blog)

Original item by Wendy Higson

There is a lilt to the piece which I like a lot:a ghost, an elderly lady, a presence behind the curtains, a young girl sensing her future? You leave it open - showing not telling is, for me, the essence of poetry. Your poem has something of the mystery of Charles Causley's poem 'Eden Rock'.

They are waiting for me somewhere beyond Eden Rock:
My father, twenty-five, in the same suit
Of Genuine Irish Tweed, his terrier Jack
Still two years old and trembling at his feet.
My mother, twenty-three, in a sprigged dress
Drawn at the waist, ribbon in her straw hat,
Has spread the stiff white cloth over the grass.
Her hair, the colour of wheat, takes on the light.
She pours tea from a Thermos, the milk straight
From an old H.P. sauce-bottle, a screw
Of paper for a cork; slowly sets out
The same three plates, the tin cups painted blue.
The sky whitens as if lit by three suns.
My mother shades her eyes and looks my way
Over the drifted stream. My father spins
A stone along the water. Leisurely,
They beckon to me from the other bank.
I hear them call, ‘See where the stream-path is!
Crossing is not as hard as you might think.’
I had not thought that it would be like this.
Charles Causley
‘Eden Rock’

Comment is about The Dance (blog)

Original item by Taylor Crowshaw

Exceptional descriptive powers, Keith.?

Comment is about Winter´s Icy Blast (blog)

Original item by keith jeffries

Subtle yet powerful lines.?

Comment is about Big Dusty Man (blog)

Original item by Alan Travis Braddock

This is, hopefully, a humorous pice. The more important message, however, is GET YOURSELVES TESTED, FELLAS.

Comment is about UP THE ARSE (1) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

You’re right I’m a disaster. Thanks for the insight

Comment is about Built (blog)

Original item by Reggie

Hi John, pleased you liked it. Thanks!

Comment is about BOXES (blog)

Original item by john short

Thanks, fellas.
Brian - there is indeed a Part (2). Coming shortly.
Graham - I am persuaded by many of the contributions in Discussions that there are no rules in poetry. Hence this carefully crafted poem. “The Dark Side”!!!!????? How could you?????!!!!!

Comment is about UP THE ARSE (1) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Well!
There's not a lot of rhyming in this or come to that much of a stanza structure.

The nearest I can compare it to is Koan

It certainly gave me plenty to think about.

I'm just relieved (having initially only reading the title) you haven't gone over to the Filthy Dark Side at the Emirates!

Comment is about UP THE ARSE (1) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Jim told me it was The Royal Mail,the deed is done now.A post mortem is not necessary.You can blame Jim who is locked up.The rhyme is his crime.

Comment is about Freedom of choice (blog)

Original item by hugh

John - I note the use of (1)...does this mean there's a second instalment to come? Says he with bated (not baited) breath.

Comment is about UP THE ARSE (1) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Hugh - Sorry to be pedantic but post offices are not owned by Royal Mail. Can you think of something to rhyme with Post Office Ltd?

Comment is about Freedom of choice (blog)

Original item by hugh

You’re great. Good vision

Comment is about A Psychiatric Disorder (blog)

Original item by John E Marks

So true I’ve gone from poor left to rich right to poor don’t even vote anymore

Comment is about Austerity (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

This is my best hack. i like it. It’s dark

Comment is about Man oh man (blog)

Original item by Reggie

That was a swing and a miss haha just reread this. Good ending tho. I kinda like this self criticism thing. Something I would never do unless anonymously. I like this site.

Comment is about Not him (blog)

Original item by Reggie

Distance is sadness’s

Comment is about Taught Me (blog)

Original item by Mikey V Kinsey

That’s what I’m saying I’m trying not to but don’t know how. I’m just winging it over here. Is that not cool?

Comment is about Listening to the Blues (blog)

Original item by Don Matthews

Always interested in a fellow rhymer's work Reggie, but your profile and the three pieces posted today are not rhyming pieces surely?

Comment is about Listening to the Blues (blog)

Original item by Don Matthews

Disagree. "Our" pockets not "Yours". It's up to me to pay more tax, not just them others.

Comment is about Austerity (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

Good stuff I’m stuck in writing rhymes. Don’t know how not to. It seems sometimes the rhymes can dispose of the meaning for me. I try not to rhyme because i feel it loses sincerity so I’m looking to find help in not doing so. I just don’t know what kind of structure if any I should follow. I’m starting to think fuck structure and all that just put some words together and kinda leave some blanks and make it open to interpretation. I think art in itself is just that, making people relate on levels that you as the writer could never imagine.

Comment is about Listening to the Blues (blog)

Original item by Don Matthews

Don

There's not many
who would or could,
perhaps they should
write a good poem
on inability
to write something good

Comment is about Listening to the Blues (blog)

Original item by Don Matthews

Best poem I've read today, John. You could have written it for anyone, A universal and uniquely personal experience at one and the same time.

Comment is about BOXES (blog)

Original item by john short