Write On Trevor!
J. Otis Powell‽

Comment is about Trevor Alexander (poet profile)

Original item by Trevor Alexander

JC - the advances in technology are surely indicative of
progress in the physiology of the human brain. The crux
is whether the brain has a lock on the basics of emotion
and self-preservation whilst allowing for development in
the parts that can move from discovering fire to discovering DNA.
It certainly puzzles yours truly who is tapping out the
above from one personal stage of evolution!! :-)

Comment is about ACCOUNT CLOSED - 18th AUGUST 1916 (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

Lucky Escape

In bed dreaming
sexy blonde bombshell
what a night
front door slammed
husband coming upstairs
flying out window
naked run home
in the morning
finding a note
on black bag - - -

Your clothes inside
put back on
and please hurry
to satisfy my
hungry sexual appetite
see you soon
I have kept
the sheets warm
he has gone
fishing this weekend x

Comment is about August Theme (blog)

Original item by Stockport WoL

I, too, had the theme as "butter dream", but I decided to try to be clever and take the theme as "but a dream" - so I wasn't as original/clever as I had imagined myself, Martin!
And Andy: I am sure that Nigel's dreams are quite holy ones (or perhaps "quit holy" ones?) - I choose to believe the former, Nigel!
D
x

Comment is about August Theme (blog)

Original item by Stockport WoL

Thank you so much Cynthia & suki :)

Comment is about 'Tranquil' by Sharvari is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Thank you. She was horrible but we loved her!

Comment is about Merle Gibson: Rose from the Dead (blog)

Original item by CathyLCrabb

Thank you guys, please share and stay tuned for more work:)

Comment is about Please Don't Grow Up (blog)

Original item by isaac wright

That's great, Stu! I wish to goodness I could be there to hear it..

Comment is about pissed jeans (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

thanks elP, thats a great compliment and has made me grin. i am going to perform this live next week, twice infact, so these comments have given me a confidence boost.

Comment is about pissed jeans (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

There is something very artful in the way you write, Stu..like a cinematographer sets a scene. It's so very vivid and true to life, I feel as if I could have been there before.

Some great evocative work, and not the first of it, as far as I'm concerned..

elP

Comment is about pissed jeans (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

Superb read, Rick. So much detail and etched in time past. Interestingly I believe Norrie Paramor recorded the Black and White Minstrel shows , not sure though. The name Big Ben Banjo Band was one of his inspirations I think. I love "Delicatesse of urine." So many lines admirable. Stu has all the right comments.

Ray

Comment is about "Wallflower" (blog)

Original item by Rick Gammon

I miss my childhood as well.

Comment is about Please Don't Grow Up (blog)

Original item by isaac wright

heartbreaking. a whole life of regret and longing summed up beautifully. excellent imagery, i especially love 'burtons mannequins', speaks beautifully of the similarity of most people at those dances, but you single out brenda nicely and her (and your) downfall is well written and soulful.

Comment is about "Wallflower" (blog)

Original item by Rick Gammon

lovely. a great use of metaphor and a killer first and last line that bookends the piece really well. lyrically mystical and tinged with barbarism, quite like the plant of the title. clever and well written.

Comment is about Nettles (blog)

Original item by Alexandra K. Parapadakis

yes excellent. i can identify with this, like most people i spent my childhood wishing i was one of those 'mythical' adults who spent so much time complaining about what seemed to be a truly amazing, free experience. now i am an adult (well, in numbers anyway) i find that i understand why they complained and that i long for those halcyon days of lego and afternoon snacks. excellent piece.

Comment is about Please Don't Grow Up (blog)

Original item by isaac wright

thanks david. i am both glad you like the piece and extremely pleased you are still here to comment on it.

Comment is about pissed jeans (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

thanks! obviously its a very emotive topic so it was quite hard to reign it in some places. im glad you like those lines, i was a bit self-conscious that they sounded a bit selfish and weedy (unfounded just the feelings most people get i guess) which is why i added the verse directly afterwards.

anyway, thanks for the comment im glad you liked the poem.

Comment is about pissed jeans (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

Ha ha, MC. Who indeed?
Did he have his focus on one of today's supermodels, perhaps, or was he "gripped" by Sarah Bernhardt or Marie Lloyd? The mind boggles.

Comment is about "A LOT BETTER, THANKS" (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Trees remind me of True Love
When they seem to seek the sky above,
Reaching for the unattainable
To show us why Love's unexplainable!

Comment is about Blame the trees... (blog)

Original item by Malissa

Ray - if poetry is to be deemed clever - then a superior
example must surely be Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written In A
Country Churchyard": as relevant now as it was when
written.

Comment is about DO NOT BE FOOLED (blog)

Original item by ray pool

I like this essay on the presumptions of religious teaching.
I've this to say for a bomber's religion
It's like the droppings of an infected pigeon,
And HOW dare they presume to send
Better folk to death before their end!

Comment is about THEY DID IT ALWAYS (re-issue) (blog)

Original item by ken eaton-dykes

Rather like a salacious "Thought for the Day" on BBC Radio
of my younger days.
I wonder what (who?) was in his mind...in passing, so to speak.

Comment is about "A LOT BETTER, THANKS" (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Sex at Six

Different menu tonight
dressed to thrill.

Scantly see through
nylon tease pleaser.

Text is sent
randy redhead waits.

Manager asks you
to work late.

Decision to make
perhaps costly mistake?

A pizza ordered
crusty twelve inch.

When asked inside
unexpected payment accepted.

On getting home
finding lover asleep.

Cardboard box discarded
cold untouched contents.

One theme for Monday night is indecision
the other is - - - but a dream.

Comment is about Write Out Loud at Stockport art gallery on Monday tonight (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Wow, this really exudes emotion and you do it so specifically and genuinely. I love the descriptive details. The running line 'this is how far i have fallen' really works rhythmically.

And I loved these lines:

the wrists you cut were not mine
but the scars belong to me

Comment is about pissed jeans (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

This reads so playfully. Love the imaginative adjectives - really conjures up some unique imagery. It really works & reads well!

Comment is about In-Love Doggerel (blog)

Original item by Suki Spangles

Thank you!! Your comments are appreciated as always

Comment is about The Other Bloody Mary (blog)

Original item by Alexandra K. Parapadakis

Well done, and a warm welcome to a great site. May you never lose that sensitivity to, and mind-filling grace of, 'natural beauty'.

Comment is about 'Tranquil' by Sharvari is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

I like this Ken.
I think the Big G is savouring his opportunity to meet me. He'll be thinking, "I'm going to have some fun with you, laddie".
Harry - they're virgins for a reason, you know.

Comment is about THEY DID IT ALWAYS (re-issue) (blog)

Original item by ken eaton-dykes

Congratulations on winning Poem of the Week, and welcome to the Write Out Loud community Sharvari

Comment is about 'Tranquil' by Sharvari is Write Out Loud's Poem of the Week (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Hi Harry.

Don't know about rotting on my own, every cadaver planted is among'st bits of their predecessors. Next time you buy a bag of potting compost from B&Q it'll probably contain a human element.

Comment is about Harry O`N eill (poet profile)

Original item by Harry O`N eill

Ken! Ken!,
Just as I was kneelin` down to say me prayers I come across this `bung `em all in together` rant` :)

It`s a good old mish - mash of the usual stuff save for that
the Christians don`t get promised virgins for blowin` people up. (they prefer to be blown up unaccompanied)

And where did you get this `tranquility` on Judgement day from (most of us will be shakin` with fright man!)

I`ll tell you what though: If I was a terrorist and had blown up oodles of people, I`d feel really sold short If I got an ugly virgin.

As for that last stanza;

`You think that it`s `profound`
Lying rotting in the ground?
You ugly miserable old moan
.........lie there on your own!

I`m off to finish me prayers...(you know I luv ya really):)

Comment is about THEY DID IT ALWAYS (re-issue) (blog)

Original item by ken eaton-dykes

i'll check that out too, Harry.

Comment is about A SONG OF PATRIOTIC PREJUDICE (Pt 2) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Folks,
An excellent (and short) Chesterton comment on
the intellectual strengths and weaknesses of both the English and foreign nations is `The Riddle of the Ivy` (it is on the internet)

It contains the kind of common sense that both the 52% of the `outs` and the 48% of the `ins` should be using at the present moment.

Comment is about A SONG OF PATRIOTIC PREJUDICE (Pt 2) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Thanks, MC. I'll check out the Chesterton reference.

Comment is about A SONG OF PATRIOTIC PREJUDICE (Pt 2) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

I won't admit to it, but you may be right... : )

Comment is about Nigel Astell (poet profile)

Original item by Nigel Astell

THanks Mark. You do point out a state of mind which usually does well in exams, therefore moving up in life . I was cursed with blind spots of memory , but have been blessed with creativity and am happy with that to be honest. Some people think poetry is "clever." Another thing to discuss I'm sure.

Comment is about DO NOT BE FOOLED (blog)

Original item by ray pool

G.K. Chesterton's "The Secret People" deserves
to be read in this context.
Also - the closing lines of Shakespeare's famous
"This England" speech have a contemporary ring to them:
"This land of such dear souls, this dear land,
Dear for her reputation through the world,
Is now leased out - I die pronouncing it -
Like to a tenement or pelting farm:
England, bound in with the triumphant sea,
Whose rocky shore beat back the envious siege
Of watery Neptune, is now bound in with shame,
With inky blots and rotten parchment bonds:
That England, that was wont to conquer others,
Hath made a shameful conquest of itself."

Comment is about A SONG OF PATRIOTIC PREJUDICE (Pt 2) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

I like the use of the butterfly in this view of the ephemeral
nature of life.
All life forms, in their various ways, flutter by within the
context of all-consuming time.

Comment is about Butterfly Beauty (blog)

Original item by JOHN PRITCHARD

These lines had me thinking of the popular TV quiz show
"The Chase" in which individuals acting as a team seek to
outpoint an appointed "Chaser" with their answers to a
variety of questions. Those involved call it "clever" but
I wonder if having a retentive mind for a range of information justifies that level of esteem - or whether
"creative" is the true "clever"?

Comment is about DO NOT BE FOOLED (blog)

Original item by ray pool

An enjoyable treatment of what is surely an unpleasant
aspect of life for its sufferers. The rhyme pattern and its
progress brings to my mind the famous nightmare song by
W.S. Gilbert...."When you're lying awake..."

Comment is about Sleepless (blog)

Original item by Trevor Alexander

A nice concoction of self harming and frustration - a yearning for making a strong impression in the face of something horribly ordinary. I hope I've got that right, Stu. Powerful as always.

Ray

Comment is about some things to make me forget about the fact you died (blog)

Original item by Stuart Buck

Thanks all for challenging and thoughtful comments.
elP
Where this came from I'm not sure but I thought of the shape of the brain as a starting point, roughly circular.
With poetry, I feel we should explore the illogical and give it a name and to cause discomfort sometimes. I understand your concerns, and perhaps all ideas are as it were on the perimeter and thus hard to delineate in terms of other's experience. Confound is like an epithet and feels frustrating I think!.
Robert, an image that maybe serves some illustration - thanks.
LCPTB
Hopefully, we do learn, but often cleverness is admired at a distance which becomes too far to travel for some.
I think one is a form of knowledge and the other a philosophical point.

Many thanks all, Ray

Comment is about DO NOT BE FOOLED (blog)

Original item by ray pool

Thanks, Lancs.
I'm not sure we "owned" much of France. The Plantagenets were of Norman stock. Most of them couldn't speak a word of English so the 100 Years War was fought over Norman and French designs on what we now call France.

Comment is about A SONG OF PATRIOTIC PREJUDICE (Pt 2) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

thanks Graham.

your edits are correct.

i need to correct them.

glad you like this poem however.

regards

andy

Comment is about sadness (blog)

Original item by Andy N

Nice - we're all skating round the ice rink of truth ;)

Comment is about DO NOT BE FOOLED (blog)

Original item by ray pool

It’s summer, which means one festival after another in Kyoto.
Flocks of tourists, foreign and Japanese, descend on the city and parade around in kimono, which they do all year, but even more so in summer.
It’s like an oriental Disney Land or garden full of gaudy moths and butterflies.

Anyway, I came up with the following semi-limerick about those people who can’t get enough of taking pictures of kimono-clad Japanese beauties (who are more often than not Chinese tourists). What do you think?

Comment is about There was a Young Man from Kyoto (blog)

Original item by Robert Mackie

Hi Ray,

Please don't be insulted but I keep getting a spiral or whirlpool (like the flushing of a toilet) when I read this. It is as if we could ONLY meet on the outside because the closer inward we get, the further our thoughts (machinations?) are from existing at all. Thus, maybe the clever guy is only clever in his own mind.

Oh, btw, I use the word "confound" regularly in my inner dialogue. I've found it quite useful in relegating the utterly illogical (or otherwise irreconcilable) unto its proper space.

elP

Comment is about DO NOT BE FOOLED (blog)

Original item by ray pool

I can live with 'But a Dream'.

However, 'Indecision' might make a good alternative theme.

Comment is about August Theme (blog)

Original item by Stockport WoL

i'll have a go at writing something for next week guys on dream or dreams then. Dread to think what Nigel's dreams are like (:

Comment is about August Theme (blog)

Original item by Stockport WoL

Wonderful Rick. This doesn't need a heavy analysis, as it speaks eloquently from the heart and is a revelation.
It feels like a pact with a nature which also holds all the cards whichever way we may spread them.

Ray

Comment is about "Pilgrimage" (blog)

Original item by Rick Gammon