An awareness of the past colliding with the present and an anticipated future are a heady mix Greg and let's face it- you will!
I've no doubt you'll still be going here there and everywhere so all the very best to you all from Darn Sarf.
Ray
Comment is about The way forward (blog)
Original item by Greg Freeman
I will take you to task over this one - to my great annoyance you have ruined my pleasure in my ' cuppa' an' a scone' that I was looking forward.
My scone is not M&S, it is a slightly dry one from the local farm shop, nor is it smothered in butter but a scrape of margerine - strawberry jam? no! jelly jam.
You should take more care about upsetting other poets😁 😁
I am just going to nip into town to get my M&S teacake.
Comment is about Ode to an M&S toasted teacake (blog)
Original item by JD Russell
Bryony, you have my awe and admiration 😃 Thanks for reading.
Thanks John too.
And MC, we should all give thanks and praise to Terry for his services to the dawn. 😃
Thanks for reading all.
Comment is about Morning People (blog)
Original item by Tom
Hi Flyntland, thanks so much for your comment on 'Young Family In The Sunshine'. I think I imagined a certain naivety/rose-tinted outlook to the narrator of that one - the more cynical part of me knows nothing is as perfect as it seems from the outside and that everything moves in cycles and shifts with time. Thanks for reading. P.S. I have been thoroughly enjoying your work!
Comment is about Flyntland (poet profile)
Original item by Flyntland
Hi John, thanks for taking a tour of my recent writing yesterday and thanks for all the comments. I particularly enjoyed the Bukowski quote 😃 Thanks a lot.
Comment is about John E Marks (poet profile)
Original item by John E Marks
Enjoyed this Tom, as one of those self-confessed morning people myself 🙃
Comment is about Morning People (blog)
Original item by Tom
Really enjoyed this. It’s like a painting - the repetition is like brush strokes over the same bit of a picture, that all comes together evocatively. Great rhythm and emotion too.
Comment is about I saw you standing there (blog)
Original item by Tommy Carroll
Always nice to see a poet get published
Best wishes
Steve
Comment is about My book is published!! (blog)
Original item by Coralynn Roller
Thanks for your lovely comment, Holden. I really appreciate it.
Comment is about Generations (blog)
Original item by Stephen Gospage
Thanks, Uilleam. Yes, the link worked and it is brilliant, if rather unnerving!
Flyntland - yes, in spite of COP 26, 27 etc, no one can admit that uncontrolled growth is not sustainable.
Thanks, John. I wanted to write something on the environment theme for National Poetry Day. I realise it is has a feeling of despair and I usually like to leave a bit of hope in my verse. But sometimes......
And thanks to Frederick, Holden, Tom, Nigel, Uilleam, Julie, Jock and Purplemoon for reading and liking this one.
Comment is about Sympathetic Stars (blog)
Original item by Stephen Gospage
Succinct and Brilliant, Stephen. Spot on! 😎
Comment is about Sympathetic Stars (blog)
Original item by Stephen Gospage
Coitus Interruptus by another name - I love the rhyme .
Ray
Comment is about Anthony Rowley's Roly Poly (blog)
Original item by Uilleam Ó Ceallaigh
Like you Tom, there's something of the night about me. As a boy, I used to envy my dad's ability to rise at 5am come rain or come shine. It was only much later that I realised this was a 'habit' forced on him in the orphanage where he was dragged up and, later, by him 10 years in the navy.
Comment is about Morning People (blog)
Original item by Tom
Charlie 2007-2020
Yesterday, after 13 years of unconditional love,
Charlie allowed death to overtake him
He'd been slowing down anyway
The old ticker on the blink
Arthritis in his legs and more.
The old trooper staggered on.
Out with me on his final night,
Plodding through the spring grass:
Making our time last.
Comment is about Trust (blog)
Original item by Tom
Ha Ha those were the days , and all the youngsters are moaning they’re cold !
Comment is about Then (blog)
Original item by Edbreathe
Thanks Flyntland, Frederick, Holden, Stephen & Tom.
“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.”
J.M.Barrie
Comment is about De Profundis (blog)
Original item by John E Marks
Thankyou, MC and Holden. I confess it is a bit of a stretch to call them carp. I believe it took place on Lake Erie.
And thanks for the Likes, Frederick and Jock Strap.
Comment is about YOUR CHEATIN' CARP (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Thu 6th Oct 2022 17:50
A beautifully profound poem, Stephen! I loved the lines:
"A child, turning its twitchy gaze,
Is certain, in its innocence,
That its life will mine some marvels." 🌷
Comment is about Generations (blog)
Original item by Stephen Gospage
Stephen Thank you for reading and for your kind comment,
Comment is about STORM COCK (blog)
Original item by Flyntland
Thu 6th Oct 2022 17:25
Excellent and entertaining, John! 😎
Comment is about YOUR CHEATIN' CARP (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Another cracker JC. No need to fish for compliments with this
Hank Williams "spin-off". You've got me hook, line and sinker!😋
Comment is about YOUR CHEATIN' CARP (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
I mentioned this poem in my recent review of David's collection 'The Metal Exchange' https://www.writeoutloud.net/public/blogentry.php?blogentryid=124889
Comment is about Cogs (blog)
Original item by David Cooke
Thanks for the comment on this one John! I missed it back in 2020 and just spotted it now 😃
Comment is about There Will Be Birds In The Morning (blog)
Original item by Tom
"Will weep at our demise
And curse our leaders' lies"
Most of us do our little bit but we are helpless when it comes to influencing politicians- Why Oh Why! do they only pretend to be
responding?
Comment is about Sympathetic Stars (blog)
Original item by Stephen Gospage
This is a brilliant poem Tom and deserves a wide audience. My favourite line: "just empty eyes and vague replies."
Comment is about The Faintest Farewell (blog)
Original item by Tom
My friend used to say that booze was an anaesthetic, I was never really convinced. “That's the problem with drinking, I thought, as I poured myself a drink. If something bad happens you drink in an attempt to forget; if something good happens you drink in order to celebrate; and if nothing happens you drink to make something happen.” Charles Bukowski
Comment is about Ship In A Bottle (blog)
Original item by Tom
Half-created half-perceived journeyings Tom.
Comment is about The Wonder (blog)
Original item by Tom
This is a beautiful, whistful poem, it paints a scene that I too would love to be apart of, but it has left me feeling so sad. My family was once like that - a long time ago -and now it isn't - that bond did not last into adulthood..
Comment is about Young Family In The Sunshine (blog)
Original item by Tom
'close the circuit' - we all strive to do that!
Comment is about One Last Affair (blog)
Original item by Tom
Too much to handle - too many firings in the brain - nothing stays the same.
Comment is about Greenland (blog)
Original item by Tom
Tom, funnily, or not, the first thing I thought was things are not always as they seem Reminded me of Charles Causley's bewitching 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.
Comment is about Young Family In The Sunshine (blog)
Original item by Tom
John, this is beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
Comment is about De Profundis (blog)
Original item by John E Marks
Congratulations Coralynn!
Comment is about My book is published!! (blog)
Original item by Coralynn Roller
The news story.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ga3Rj9oaMWA
Comment is about YOUR CHEATIN' CARP (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
"Putting greater strain on our struggling N.H.S. !!"
The people responsible for this state of affairs are already of course, attempting to blame the NHS's struggling on covid, and on people irresponsible enough to get old and sick.
Fact is the NHS was already quote "on its knees" when the Johnson came to power in 2019 - 2000 uk doctors wrote to him before the election and told him so.
Comment is about Thoughts of a pensioner plunged into poverty as she struggles to eat and heat (blog)
Original item by hugh
<Deleted User> (34003)
Thu 6th Oct 2022 13:02
I'm keen to see how long this thread can be sustained.
How is it such apparently innocuous articles such as the Balaclava can be associated with so many negative thoughts, for example.
1. Criminality
2. Sinister state agencies
3. Terrorism
4. The humiliation and discomfort of school children.
I suppose some objects are more plyable to the wicked ways and intentions of men. Although I am reliably informed you can kill someone with a phone directory...if anyone recalls what such a thing is.
Next please...
Comment is about THE BALACLAVA (blog)
Original item by ray pool
You are so right, Uilleam. You need a conscience in order to feel embarrassment or guilt.
And thanks for the Like, Julie.
Comment is about U-TURN (blog)
Original item by John Coopey
Bravo Tom Pickard et al!
The purpose of stopping bursaries and scholarships for teacher trainees in art and humanities subjects is frankly, to shut us up, through, as George Orwell put it, the "Prevention of Literature".
That will be achieved by destroying the windows through which we view society, hopefully changing it for the better.
Sneering attacks on the humanities by the likes of Dominic Cummings, and attacks on BBC 2, the Arts council, the OU and such as the South Bank Show by Rupert Murdoch and "client journalists", are responsible for such as London's Roehampton Uni and the Universities of Sunderland and Hallam ditching history and language courses.
Enough is enough!
Comment is about Veteran radical poet Tom Pickard reads at Newcastle protest rally (article)
Original item by Greg Freeman
"Frost on the inside"
Born in 48, I remember that on the bedroom windows - it was our double glazing - and outside toilets - marked by two little squares in our back ginnel 😀on the old ordnance survey maps!
Comment is about Then (blog)
Original item by Edbreathe
Good for you Uilleam ! I think the wool ones were itchy but i'm sure you'll check for that. I wondered if your name is pronounced William - i'm interested in gaelic names . Thanks.
Comment is about THE BALACLAVA (blog)
Original item by ray pool
I've bought a bloody big balaclava, the type motocyclists wear, and I'm going to wear it this winter.
Comment is about THE BALACLAVA (blog)
Original item by ray pool
The government's "moneytree" policy is:
money grows on trees but only for the rich and powerful.
"Them uz 'ave will 'ave" as they say round these parts.
Comment is about Growing Pies (blog)
Original item by Steve White
I think there is still such a thing as the slow food movement?
I've sacked fast food - those kebabs I used to scoff at drunk o'clock in the morning, yeugh!
I've taken to baking, Christmas cakes, sausage rolls, and I'm going to have a go at making baguettes - I love those french ones. GARLIC BREAD!😄
Comment is about Hey Jude, why do you eat snails ? (blog)
Original item by hugh
You use the word spiritual a lot. I like that.
It's often confused with religion. For some, the accumulation of money for its own sake is a religion,
Comment is about Key to knowledge (blog)
Original item by N.B
Very well put.
I think this youtube video by Steve Cutts tells some harsh truths.
Don't know if this url will work?
https://youtu.be/WfGMYdalClU
Comment is about Sympathetic Stars (blog)
Original item by Stephen Gospage
raypool
Fri 7th Oct 2022 11:39
A collision of perception and deception seem to be on the agenda with this - in my case a simple one of embarrassment albeit with a good intention. I have found that the balaclava was named after the battle of 1854, so its continuance has a military inspiration. Further than that I suppose one would be in the same territory as masked balls beloved of the upper classes in a less sinister context. Is there a parallel? Perhaps there is also a need for recognition of a massed kind rather than of individuals. What counts of course ultimately is the individual, often thus confined and suppressed in the very act of accomplishing that. Mmmm.....
Tom and Frederick thanks for your additional likes.
Ray
Comment is about THE BALACLAVA (blog)
Original item by ray pool