That's the dunnock, Izz. Strange habits indeed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunnock

Comment is about Join fellow poets for a walk in Ted Hughes' stamping ground (article)

Heh heh - I'm so looking forward to it! Perhaps we could write something on route. I've never written a nature poem in my life - it would be a first. I keep meaning to write a poem about the mating habits of the dimmock (hedgesparrow) - a friend told me about them and challenged me to do something poetic with it.... It would make for a definite performance piece! See ya soon. xx

Comment is about Join fellow poets for a walk in Ted Hughes' stamping ground (article)

Hey John, Just to let you know I voted for
'The Ghosts of Bamiyam' in the Ghosts competition; the best poem for me.

My Best

Chris

Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)

Original item by John Coopey

He might have gone away for a while Harry. But I think he'd probably say the same thing as Arnie.
"I'll be back"
Very moving.
(Now I've got another ten worder for you.)

Comment is about PRECIPICE (blog)

Hi Laura - thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment on "The Patient". Actually, I started last year but left for awhile. I'm adding a few of what I've written in the meantime. Let me know what you think of my older work (some is dark also, some isn't dark at all - like life, I guess!) if you are so inclined and I am looking forward to returning the kindness and take a look at your work too!

I'm so glad that people picked up on the progression from whisper to scream because that was how it evolved and I wanted to somehow get that progression down on paper. I also very much appreciate that you agree with the sentiments of the piece - I hope that anyone going through this now will get some comfort out of knowing that someone understands.

Thanks again,
Lisa

Comment is about Laura Taylor (poet profile)

Original item by Laura Taylor

Thank you Dave, for your comments on "The Patient". Your comments are more than any writer can ask for. It's such an accomplishment when you can strike a chord with someone. I remember last year you left a heartfelt comment on "My Father's Arm". "Quotations" and "Sugar Spice and Everything Nice" are similar in a way. Let me know what you think if you feel like reading them. Please don't feel obligated though.

I, however, will be sure to take a look at your work and return the consideration. Thanks again - it's as if you "felt" what I wrote about vs. just reading it. Very much appreciated.

Lisa

Comment is about Dave Bradley (poet profile)

Original item by Dave Bradley

Thank you so much for your kind comments on "The Patient". It is hard for people to understand addiction, and unfortunately there is a stigma that goes along with it also. People don't realize it is a disease, like diabetes, and often hereditary.

I'm trying to catch up on the comments people left on "The Patient". It was encouraging to get some responses.

Thanks for listening over the last week or so. I appreciate you taking the time. I also need to catch up on reading and commenting on others' work and I promise to read yours too!

Comment is about Isobel (poet profile)

Original item by Isobel

Hi - many thanks Cyn (the king and I)

Comment is about Cynthia Buell Thomas (poet profile)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

This resonates with me as I just recently forgave someone. You've expressed it well.

It is not always easy to see it from the other's perspective when you feel you've been wronged... I always eventually do forgive because holding on to the pain and bitterness of anger erodes the soul.

Comment is about The Friend You Lost (blog)

Original item by Tom

You're right Isobel..I have no excuse I can muster thus far into proceedings so I'll find you and help you with both tasks,guiding and carrying booze, but I forsee at some point as the booze bag gets lighter that the guiding may be less helpful. I have walked halfway there this week, well ok quarter of the way but will have another go tomorrow.We could read limericks to the pigs who live in the wood partway along the track.I think they'd like that.See you Sunday : )

Comment is about Join fellow poets for a walk in Ted Hughes' stamping ground (article)

A super poem, Jeff, strong and fast-paced with great emotive imagery. The scene at the end is excellent, with its helpless 'prayer'.

Comment is about Ghosts of Rivington Moor (blog)

Original item by Jeffarama!

It's hard to know whether 'going out walking' is a marvellous metaphor, or a physical reality (perhaps an actual walk that ended in tragedy),or just imaginative thoughts motivated by the picture. Regardless, the mood and empathy of this poem is, again, heart-catching.

Comment is about by your leave (blog)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

I like this one, cheeky, funny and scans nicely. Good job.

Comment is about Pumps (blog)

Original item by Isobel

OMG - this is hilarious!
You are so funny! : D

Now imagine THAT in my kind of pumps... ; )

Comment is about Pumps (blog)

Original item by Isobel

Good job you jumped when they threw that big wooden box at you. Was it something you said?

Comment is about Pumps (blog)

Original item by Isobel

Hi Elaine, many thanks for the recent comments and for reading my poems. Very much appreciated. T.

Comment is about Elaine (poet profile)

Original item by Elaine

Re; Steam Railway Fans, thanks John, I knew that stanza needed a tweak and your comment spurred me into doing it. Much obliged.

As to ongoing railways yes I'm sure there are but can't cite them from the top of my head - some of the more backward African countries perhaps.

Comment is about John Coopey (poet profile)

Original item by John Coopey

I have little sleep too, but lots of it interspersed with poetry and beer...

Comment is about Sleep (blog)

I ought to add, following Ray's praise, that the "Caesar et erat.." part is entirely unoriginal - it's an old schoolboy jape a la
"Latin is a dead language
As dead as dead can be
First it killed the Romans
And now it's killing me!"

Comment is about Hic Haec Hoc Hunc Hanc Hoc (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Hi Neil re: 'Poet's Haunts' much obliged for the comments - appreciated.

Comment is about Neil Fawcett (poet profile)

Original item by Neil Fawcett

thanks Lynn.

have a nice goddamn day.
heres lookin' atchoo!
-get me a 'atishoo' goddamn quick-lol!
see ya later hun.

lotsa love Stef.xx

Comment is about Lynn Dye (poet profile)

Original item by Lynn Dye

good morning young lady.
hope all is well with thee and thine.

gonna bung 'that' poem on for you
as I say, no need to comment
tis just for a larf.

click on my name
under 'recent comments'

cheers Lyn.

Stef.xx

Comment is about Lynn Dye (poet profile)

Original item by Lynn Dye

Thanks Seamus. It's tempting to reply in the same humorous vein, but the punitive prison sentences make my blood boil. If an example has to be made of people who have wrecked the environment, why not get them out improving it and fixing things? People rot in prisons, and they're already overcrowded.

Anyway, we're all set for Sunday and the forecast is good. Still room for more. And I'll try not to talk politics.

Comment is about Join fellow poets for a walk in Ted Hughes' stamping ground (article)

Not official, not led, not organised - is there a risk that the non-organiser might face a charge of "incitement to hike by means of a poetry networking site"? and if so is the penalty 4 years?

Hope the walk goes well.

Comment is about Join fellow poets for a walk in Ted Hughes' stamping ground (article)

Caesar sic in omnibus, Pompeii sic intram”.

That is brilliant, John. You've rhymed just about everything with hoc but cock. Coitus reservatus.

Comment is about Hic Haec Hoc Hunc Hanc Hoc (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

mine was most definitely a compliment & I'd leave well alone (but that's just me). B

Comment is about If being obtuse was an art form it would be called poetry (blog)

Original item by Mark Mr T Thompson

Hi John, like Dave Bradley I too am an Evertonian.
Spurs broke my heart One Saturday afternoon in the sixties.
I was doing maintenance In an empty factory on an industrial estate devoid of human contact and without a radio to tell me what was happening to my beloved Everton. On the empty bus home the bus-driver answered my anxious query by saying that he heard someone say that Everton scored 4 that's all he knew. my joy only lasted until I entered my local and one of the miserable faces told me we got beat 10-4. I've been haunted ever since. Loved your poem though.

Comment is about The Ghost of White Hart Lane (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

I love the comment Jules made about your poem.

'That love never does say goodbye - that life just moves on.'

That comment really sums up the gentle mood your poem creates - the ghostly presence of something that never really dies. Beautiful. x

Comment is about by your leave (blog)

Original item by Ann Foxglove

It's hard going back to places you were young in. I try not to do it - it just stirs up too much. It does make for great poetry though - I enjoyed this John. x

Comment is about Back home (blog)

Original item by John Embley

This brings back vivid memories from one of my kids. We had bright yellow curtains with drummer boys and teddies all over them. She swore they moved in the night and became terrified of them. The sleep I lost over those curtains!

Comment is about ghosties (blog)

Original item by John Embley

I like the metre of this Hazel; it's faultless
and comprehensive.

Comment is about Hippy (blog)

Hi Steve - haven't seen or heard from you in a long time. Don't know if you are aware of the walk a few of us are going on at the week-end. Since it is over your way, I thought I'd give you a nudge - Dave Bradley, Julian, Deborah, Winston - to name but a few, will be going on it. All the details are on the homepage. It would be good to see you and hear some more of your black humour! x

Comment is about Stephen Pass (poet profile)

Original item by Stephen Pass

Dave. My influences are Lager, Red Wine, Althia and Donna and Viagra.I think that's the correct order.
Seriously, poetry should be a big tent/broad church.T.S.Eliot's Waste Land is my favourite poem but I've no time for the likes of Andrew Motion who decry the influence of rap.

Neil/Laura. I've got a pet scorpion called Gavin.We don't always see eye to eye. My nickname for him is Sting, 'cos it's like he's in The Police, The Poetry Police, I mean. All stanzas, stropes and juxtapositional - typical scorpion.Doesn't like being called Sting. No like me talk like dat, man. Well, he can stick his villanelles up his caesura for all I care.

Tom. You sound like a Spaghetti West Indian.

Comment is about Scorpion (blog)

Thanks for you comment, and sorry for the very late reply, only done poetry on here so its kinda new for me, was just trying something different on this one x

Comment is about 9 months and counting. (blog)

It was an option at one point, means life, and how the lessons you learn makes you strong.
P.s thanks

Comment is about Discovery (blog)

De docter sez I izz impotent dats why I dress impotent.
Brilliant Ray.

Comment is about Scorpion (blog)

You're the Boss, CRM. Keep posting.
(Have you thought of putting them to audio? The site needs them in mp3 format. I think this would be even better performed than read.)

Comment is about Heptonstall Chapel (blog)

Original item by C Richard Miles

Very good - I like the phrase strength scoooling. Does that mean counselling. I have had lots of that...

Comment is about Discovery (blog)

Thanks folks :) Yes indeedy, friends are hugely important, for so many reasons. As Harper Lee once wrote, you can choose your friends but you sure can't choose your family...

Friends ARE kin, to me

Comment is about For a Friend (blog)

Original item by Laura Taylor

Reminds me of Benjamin Zephaniah's stuff. Is this connected to the 'debates' over the use of patois by white kids?

Did you SEE David Starkey on Newsnight?! I've given myself a permanent look of stunned disbelief watching that!!

Dunno who Gav is? Gavin McInnes?

Comment is about Scorpion (blog)

Interesting. Like the colloquial, although difficult to get a handle on it. Is it about the downtrodden lashing out little stings frightening Minotaurs? Maybe an unusual take on the recent disturbances? Very accomplished, is da stuff of da proper poet, innit.

Comment is about Scorpion (blog)

Extraordinary. Can't recall anything on WOL anything like it. Amazing. If it isn't too pedestrian a question, Ray - what are your influences?

Comment is about Scorpion (blog)

A lovely, lovely poem Laura - full of love and binding loyalty.

Your love, for you,
will rise
and walk
with ours.

Beautiful words to finish with. Value of self combined with the value of others - what more could you wish for a friend. x

Comment is about For a Friend (blog)

Original item by Laura Taylor

Hi Andy, great poem, kissing chaos line is great way to end it.

It needs bit of tidying to strengthen it up like the others have said, I think I mentioned 'onto' rather than 'over' hats and 'leaves' rather than 'leafs' would be better.

Also not sure what 'the rain show down at them' means, should it be showered? In any case I love the first 3 lines of that stanza

You loved the black clouds
That hovered by the airport
Like portals of doom

Great poem mate deservedly getting comments, could work through it when I see you if you want and should be on we do as A Means to an End, cheers Jeff

Comment is about My hometown (blog)

Original item by Andy N

Ok I love the poetry, great conceit and great fun. I will come back a read more.

Cheers.

Comment is about PHILIP BURTON (poet profile)

Original item by PHILIP BURTON

Nice one

Comment is about Babe in woods (blog)

I`ll tell you the sad, sad, truth about siver tongues in a later poem John.

(I can hardly see he keyboard for tears)

Comment is about (blog)

Hi Lynn.

did you mean the Mel Brooks poem?
I will put it on again
when I see you have logged on.

no probs at all about commenting
as long as it gives you a laugh.

thanks.

Stef.xx

Comment is about Lynn Dye (poet profile)

Original item by Lynn Dye

Thank you for kind words, Francine.

I've just added another verse on the end...

Comment is about The Aftermath (blog)

Original item by Lynn Dye

Thanks Ray. No haven;t done any for a long time, not since I graduated from graduate school. just been writing and reading mostly. I took a quick look at your poems and I like them. I need to spend more time with them. I think a great name for a prize would be the Glittery Unicorn Anemone Poetry Prize...what do you think?

Cheers from across the pond,
C.

Comment is about Banvard's Folly (blog)

Original item by Christopher Anthony Leibow