I agree - this is lovely!

Comment is about A View to South (blog)

Original item by David Blake

Well Shelley sees God and heaven in the lark. He delights in it for its sake, but also for what it must mean for mankind. Hardy in the face of sadness, a religious man losing or having lost his belief - post Darwin, nods to Shelley and mourns in the Thrush, the beauty of which it seems is forlorn. The same delicacy, though fragile and not bound for a better place, but heading the way of us all. The Bird of both poems is above man in so much as they portend to much.

I would be amazed if you were not aware of the poems, poets and context above Fitzroy. Here man does not look to the bird as omen, good or bad, post-modern, perhaps the issue of God is not even a question that arises. As Nietzsche said - God is dead, and that is true for much of the western world.

Here ego has replaced God, rightly or wrongly. Man over nature, hubris is the plumage that has replaced feather.

I also like the stab at the notion of the robin playing for anyone, be it man or...The territory comment, humorous as is the notion that such pretty displays are for poets walking through parks lol The poet knows they are a part of the tooth and claw survival of natural selection. In an objective sense this could be seen as a comment upon Shelley's Skylark or Hardy's Thrush. Pretty though birds may sound and be, what they do is for themselves and as pretty or as ugly as a lion tearing a zebra in half lol

Not sure of the ending :) but...

I like the rhythm throughout, it adds weight to the deliberate pomposity and mirth.

More than meets the eye ;)

Best of

Chris

Comment is about Omnipotence (blog)

Original item by fitzroy herbert

Hey there, wonderful piece of writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about THE GALMPTON ROBIN - New Music Setting (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

Hey there, wonderful piece of writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about Conceded Reality (blog)

Original item by Sunny Chopra

Hey there, wonderful piece of writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about A View to South (blog)

Original item by David Blake

Hey there, wonderful piece of writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about Omnipotence (blog)

Original item by fitzroy herbert

Hey there, wonderful piece of writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about Old Age Kicks (RLS) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Hey there, wonderful piece of writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about GLIMPSE OF OLD THINGS . (blog)

Original item by NICK ARMBRISTER

Hey there, wonderful piece of writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about sunset ... an elegy. (blog)

Original item by chris stevenson

Hey there, wonderful piece of writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about The wet touch (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

Hey there, wonderful piece of writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about If (blog)

Original item by Dave Bradley

Hey there, wonderful piece of writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about Staines just wanna have floods (blog)

Original item by Marnanel Thurman

Hey there, wonderful piece of writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about Yesteryearning (blog)

Hey there, wonderful writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about A Peoples Trust Replaced by Sorrow (blog)

Original item by Noetic-fret!

Hey there, wonderful writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about Poem: If I Were... (blog)

Original item by Joseph J. Breunig 3rd

Hey there, wonderful writing. You might want to check out www.highonpoems.com Keep writing!

Comment is about Laura Taylor (poet profile)

Original item by Laura Taylor

A quirky put-down but the farce is:
Robins and humans both have arses.
Granted both might fart and shite,
But it`s only us can read and write.

Comment is about Omnipotence (blog)

Original item by fitzroy herbert

Clever Tommy,

Good point Did you ever read Wittgenstein along with Austin` Speech act theory`?

intention versus reception.

Comment is about Philosophy made difficult (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

gorgeous!xx

Comment is about Love in the Cosmos (blog)

Original item by jane wilcock

Oh yeah man - let the good tides roll!!

The people who dwell down in Egham
Might lend you a dinghy if you beg 'em!

Comment is about Staines just wanna have floods (blog)

Original item by Marnanel Thurman

Thanks for your heart-warming feedback..will keep on unleashing. ;)

Comment is about Stonehearts (blog)

Original item by Karin

A very interesting article...with some
enjoyably frank views from magazine editors.
The great song lyricist Sammy Cahn - author of more "standards" than you can shake a stick at -
observed that you can't teach lyric writing:
ergo - you either "have it" or you don't.
I wonder if "creative writing" and other classes
that seek to instruct actually serve to block
individual creativity.
The mechanics of language that should have
been learnt at school - correct spelling and
grammar - supply the essential framework
upon which the imagination can build with
confidence, especially when seeking publication. It is depressing to consider the absence of
those basic essentials in poetry these days.
I wonder just how many poets possess a dictionary
and a thesaurus...or any other aids to a wider(and correct) vocabulary for use BEFORE submission.

Comment is about The art of choosing: magazine editors reveal how they sift and select (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

A spoof? Forsooth!
He speaks the truth!
That lonely robin
Was there a'bobbin
And singing high up in that tree...
For who was worth it more than me?!

Comment is about Omnipotence (blog)

Original item by fitzroy herbert

A contemporary poem yet it immediately relates
to the famous Elizabethan style in its subject
and its expertly chosen language.
In that sense alone...timeless.

Comment is about The wet touch (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

Punk passed me by, I'm delighted to say!
All that spitting and posturing, let alone the
absence of anything that was remotely better
than Rock n'Roll.
If there was any justice in music, "Johnny Rotten" would be a trademark for a dodgy contraceptive.
As for RLS - not easy to accommodate in search of
a restful night. Try wrapping a pillow around yr
lower legs - and spare the missus your nocturnal
exercise of an uninvited nature!

Comment is about Old Age Kicks (RLS) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

You know? That's funny, I got the strangest feeling some word was missing too...(Maybe I didn't want to get 'mediated'?)

But there is a spoof here. More than one... something very close to hand; something from C Rossetti or some other PRB member perhaps; and, of course, a Marmite jar...

Such is post-modernism I suppose.

Comment is about Omnipotence (blog)

Original item by fitzroy herbert

Lovely poem. Full of courage, passion, tenacity and the hope of human hearts.

It WILL be unleashed :)

Comment is about Stonehearts (blog)

Original item by Karin

Aye - tis grim up North! Well observed, this. It reminds me of one I wrote about my own little part of the world. I actually took some photos of it too - it's not a pleasant experience bobbing down our shops:

WALK TO THE SHOPS


Slip into the sprinkle of a drizzle-filled day
Plastic bag crisp in hand, aiming for the shops
Feet to floor
Pavement pound
Carry on
Past the step
yellow tread
bearing Bulmers: lippy-stained
halfway drained
Pavement decorated in
a strange shade of sick

J’arrive at ‘The Parade’!
The Mean Street of Thatto Heath
Stench of piss and pizza
wraps itself around my mouth
as I kick along the papers
that cradled last night’s chips
Pit-shaved grinning princess,
billboarded, looks down
From within her perma-tan, she oozes
anonymity
Blinding me with bleachy teeth and peachy poreless face

I hope to fuck my DNA does not contain that kind of clean

Feet to floor
Pavement pound
Past the bus stop;
betting shop;
fag shop; tat shop;
takeaway; SALON;
takeaway; TANNING;
takeaway, takeaway;
CHIPPY.
Luckily:
‘health advice for minor conditions’ -
free inside the pharmacy

There’s no water in the fridges of the takeaway shops
And I didn’t want pop. They looked at me weird.
Social pariah, for wanting water.

Feet to floor
Pavement pound
Homeward bound
Past the salon
Chip fat alley
Tan tat fag bet bus
Ministering pharmacist
Past the step
yellow tread
Bulmers gone
Small red shoe there now instead
… wonder who..?
Tiny tatty lone red shoe
Torn too. Wonder if she’s..?
Nearly home
Nearly there
Rid my mouth of piss and murk
Home from hell on earth
a walk to the shops
and a musing or four
And then I recall
I forgot
what?
I went for

Comment is about Anytown (blog)

Original item by Ian Whiteley

Haha :D Belting! Is this a kind of spoof of another poem that I'm not aware of? It has an aged feel to it. Like a 'proper' poem, if you know what I mean, but with that very funny ending :D

Does feel like there's maybe a line or a word/s missing from that last bit though. Something about the 'to stick' line - dunno.

Comment is about Omnipotence (blog)

Original item by fitzroy herbert

A beautiful delicate sensual poem, tinged with poignancy, perfectly balanced, in that way you write so well.

Comment is about The wet touch (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

Haha - think I've read that book! ;)

Love this Tommy - takes a special skill to sift through all of that knowledge and pull something like this out of it. Well done - nice one! :)

Comment is about Philosophy made difficult (blog)

Original item by Tommy Carroll

Good to be able to read the words Dave,

Well constructed and moving - wonderfully read at the Tudor.

My Best

Chris

Comment is about The Freckleton Air Disaster (blog)

Original item by Dave Carr

Thank you x

Comment is about Winter Olympics (blog)

Original item by tina

I get a song thrush with its repetitive call in a morning as I walk out to the car:
"Start it up, start it up, start it up...
Pick reverse, pick reverse, pick reverse...
Watch the kerb, watch the kerb, watch the kerb..."
I bellock back at it, "Shut your face, shut your face, shut your face..."

Comment is about THE GALMPTON ROBIN - New Music Setting (blog)

Original item by M.C. Newberry

Thank you. It was a close call but much of my lost work I have managed to recover from various sites, due to my poetic promiscuity, and as a result I feel in the right kind of space to begin the progression towards my next collection

Comment is about slow shadows (blog)

Original item by Paul Sands

I have to confess, MC, punk is a bit to recent for me.
On an autobiographical level, I do suffer from (or rather, my wife suffers from my) RLS.

Comment is about Old Age Kicks (RLS) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

I'm beginning to worry whether Lloyd Price's huge hit of yesteryear - "Stagger Lee" - was a coded
old folks song!
Let's hear it for the "Golden Oldies"...even if it
means turning up the hearing aid.

Comment is about Old Age Kicks (RLS) (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

nothing less than stunning.Nice to see you back on board Paul.

Comment is about slow shadows (blog)

Original item by Paul Sands

suicide is NOT a cowards way out.Mike is spot on in saying it takes all ones strength to summon the courage to commit such a desperate act.

Best regards Steve.x

Comment is about On The Bridge (blog)

Original item by Steve Higgins

Hi Steve, a great poem. I have been on that bridge once or twice in my life. I suffer from PTSD among other things. Sometimes, it is a cry for help. Sometimes, the sorrow becomes you and you don't care to be brought down from such heights except by the mercy of gravity to end your life.

I have stood on that bridge, at times it has been a place to solve all issues. Other times just a place of deep contemplation.

It take all your strength to summon the courage to jump. It takes every ounce of bravery you can muster. Because at the end of the day, it is often a leap of faith not only to end a life, but also a discreet hope that there be more 'in' life than the struggle we have here.

My heart goes out to those that have felt the need to think of suicide. Alas, there is nothing more we could possibly do, except look for the warning signs from other's who struggle.

There is more i could say about this part of our living, but I know you already know.

Best wishes,

Mike

Comment is about On The Bridge (blog)

Original item by Steve Higgins

really clever!xx

Comment is about Winter Olympics (blog)

Original item by tina

lovely piece David.xx

Comment is about A View to South (blog)

Original item by David Blake

Nice one Ian, I know this town very well indeed.

Biggupz!

Comment is about Anytown (blog)

Original item by Ian Whiteley

Glad you like the language of the poem Ken - thx

In term of the theme wearing thin. Odd that, as that is the complete opposite of what the rest of the world thinks - as evidenced by statistical data;

a) The rise of organisations like Change & Avaaz and the number seen in associated campaigns

and

b) the increasing number and success of ethical products and services that simply didn't exist 10-20 years ago.

and

c)

The boycotting and adverse publicity of unethical goods and services, that again did not occur 10-20 years ago.

In terms of poems of this nature desensitising, I would say that rather depends upon your politics and who you are. I don't see Ian Whiteley, Dave Bradley, Julian Jordan, Laura Taylor, Bob Kettle, Vinny Spence, Allan Parry, Carl Allan, Dave Costello, Jeff Dawson, Tracy Bucknell, Dominic Simpson, Petrova Fairhurst, Isobel, John Darwin, David Mellor, Ged Thompson, David Subacchi, Jon Darby, Dave Morgan, Graham Robinson, Jim Pearson, Alan Johnson, Attilla the stockbroker, Joy France, Ian Dawson, Reece Goldstein, Aaron Murdoch, Gemma Lees, John Hulme, Brian Seamus Campbell Hart, Stella, Jennifer Smith, Stephen L Smith, Nicki Leighton, Mike Richardson, Pamela Moyle, Paul Nicholas Pyke, Stephen O'Neil, Natalie Wharton, Pete Slater, or many, many more displaying this desensitised viewpoint you speak of Ken.

Not saying all the above support or even like this poem, but they all display an attitude that contradicts your claim.

So locally, nationally and internationally - empirically, I would have to disagree with your claim, that things of this nature desensitise and result in some yea, yea attitude. The reverse is true in my experience.

And Ken, like MC you have possibly without realising it peddled the same old trope;

"This is just preachy and can't make a difference"

I'm not sure how much you have read, but I have detailed positive change over and over and over. It is hard to keep repeating myself. But to reiterate I made a small positive difference last week alone! People are doing the same in their hundreds of thousands/millions via the campaigns I have spoken of and via the use of their buying power. So Ken, you or MC or others can deny this reality, but it doesn't undo the reality.

Preachy - maybe, but only in so much as I have said WE are the problem, not him over there, or that group or politician - but we - us - me! Only preachy in saying we can make a positive difference and be part of the solution.

Both yourself and MC express a notion of "so it ever is" and "so it ever will be". I don't know if both of you have been living in caves in the Borra Borra or not, but the world is changing quite rapidly, it is changing all the time.

Social media and the campaigning that has grown up around it has to some extent democratised the internet - itself another relatively new invention. These campaigns have given us a new form of democracy, or at least a new arm of democracy. Its reach is both home and abroad. I could go on and mention wiki-leaks and much more. We have fair trade and local sourcing of products - neither existed in the past, both stem from public opinion and ethical buying power.

The world is changing, in good ways and bad. Part of the good is increased awareness of ethics in the western world when it comes to goods and services.

Comment is about Complicit (blog)

Original item by Chris Co

I hope the younger generation find the strength to leave alone x

Comment is about Neknomination (blog)

Original item by tina

Nice one Ian. Thankfully my old own home town tried to stay free of the chain-store malady, with a lot of nice small independent outlets that rode through the recession well. Sadly now though it looks like it's about to be swamped by supermarkets and travelodges.

Comment is about Anytown (blog)

Original item by Ian Whiteley

I really like this, a sad and beautiful reflection on human fate. Also, in this case I think that the fact that the lines have exactly the same length adds to the mood of the poem and almost gives it an "unearthly" touch.

Comment is about Conceded Reality (blog)

Original item by Sunny Chopra

Just saw that this phenomena has now come here to Sweden as well (through FB). You always learn something new about the younger generation´s creative internet habits.

Comment is about Neknomination (blog)

Original item by tina

COMPLICIT. excellent poem, well engineered, but the theme's wearing a bit thin. A subject done that often, ones reactions are a desensitized "Yeah Yeah"

Can't see the point in constantly highlighting
the inherent greed we all possess, a condition from which some poor wretches suffer more than others

I'm afraid it will always be thus until we evolve, or are genetically juggled (whichever comes first)
into nice chaps.


There! that's a thought provoking bit of negative refreshment.

Comment is about Complicit (blog)

Original item by Chris Co

Morning Steve!

Hey, thanks for your note on Space Debris... :)

Just a little musing on the galaxy :D (and Shirl, obv)

Comment is about Steve Higgins (poet profile)

Original item by Steve Higgins