So the drinks are on you next time Cate? Love the light hearted, fun nature of this poem - and so different...

Comment is about Stock Market (blog)

Original item by Cate

I like the simple ideas behind this.

Comment is about born in '85 (blog)

I wonder if you watched the Mask of Zorro the other day, as I did with the kids? You just can't beat a good swash buckling family film. I love this glimpse of the past, linked so beautifully with the future Anthony. You were lucky to get to the cinema though - we were just pitched outside to play or we read and argued inside because the telly never worked. In some ways, I think we were rather lucky. Modern life seems to stunt the imagination so - or am I just getting old?
Isobel x

Comment is about Zorro's Children (blog)

Original item by Anthony Emmerson

Thanks for your lovely comment Anthony. I read it to my mum, who thought that your words sounded like poetry in themselves. I guess I felt a bit guilty about posting that poem cos it took no time to write and wasn't particularly sophisticated. Those feelings just had to come out of me there and then and I didn't have hours and hours to hone it. You and all who commented made me feel a lot better about the poem. Thank you.
Isobel x

Comment is about Anthony Emmerson (poet profile)

Original item by Anthony Emmerson

subtle but dead touching!

Comment is about For Isla (blog)

Original item by Cate

Mandelson a god! would call him many things but prob. not a god! lol

Comment is about Brown nosers (blog)

good stuff, janet as always.. nicely balanced!

Comment is about Daphne Demure (blog)

interesting piece, chuck.. gave me a idea or two too

Comment is about born in '85 (blog)

short but certainly not sweet! like it!

Comment is about gutter ball girlfriend (blog)

beauitful!

Comment is about For Isla (blog)

Original item by Cate

Hi Isobel,

I'm not sure why you chose to preface this poem with - (not a great poem - but heartfelt)

What is a great poem, if not heartfelt? Indeed, what is a poem? It's a question I struggle with daily. I don't believe there is a definitive answer to the question - there are probably as many answers as there are poems - and poets. All I know is that for me it has to move me in some way, shift my thinking, touch me so I can feel it. And after it has gone there is a little something left behind - like an echo in the heart. Yes, it is soft and far way, but I hear it.

Regards,
A.E.

Comment is about Lay It Down (blog)

Original item by Isobel

Yes I love this one too. Never judge a book by its cover - we all have our hidden depths - some are just more hidden than others...
Love the humour. Isobel x

Comment is about Daphne Demure (blog)

Hi Joan,
i read this earlier in the week and liked it then.
It says so much and yet is written with some humour which is why i like it.

Janet.

Comment is about Playground Games (blog)

Hi John,
so much toil for so little satisfaction!
Too few and far between are those who can truly say they enjoy their work.
Sad but true.
You just have to see the funny side. Love this.
Janet.x

Comment is about WORK (blog)

Decidedly odd and jaunty, Janet, and that, I think, is why I like it so much.

Comment is about Daphne Demure (blog)

thanks to you all for your comments on this poem folks - i still need to end the last line and am thinking about it - the poem took about 15 mins to write the first draft and as such, you can tell this from the reading

many regards as always for taking the time to read and consider my poem(s) it means a lot thanks

steve x

Comment is about Anthony Emmerson (poet profile)

Original item by Anthony Emmerson

Indeed... 'The circle of life revolves'

Comment is about growing up (blog)

Interesting...
Has a lighthearted feel to it : )

Comment is about the picture of David and Lynda (blog)

Hmmm... can no longer access?

Comment is about footballers wives (blog)

Loved this for many reasons...
You know how to affect the emotions to the very core...
These lines are heartwrenching and make me cry...

'Won't you listen to me?

The silent cries of the suicidal
And the needy
The samritatrian phone calls
Last only one hour
Even charity has it’s limit
And the pathetic weather underlines
The plight
With a hapless shower of sleet
when it's supposed to be springtime
I reached out'

Comment is about our own silence (blog)

Que tu sais t'exprimer : )


J'aime ces lignes - c'est la vérité...

'ran silent questions
into double measures
shared gin and brandy
cheers
and cherished treasures
veneers can shine
forever yours
forever mine
missing the ones
passed by'

Comment is about missing (blog)

Oh yes... absolutely love this...

'From the fifth floor Daphne Demure
stripped of her daily attire, slides down the bannister rail.
Brassy as the town hall clock, hops off the newel post.
Defiance rules O.K.'


Très bien Janet : )

Comment is about Daphne Demure (blog)

Love this sort of Black 'n White nostalgia...the colour, if any, is always in the smells of the period... if every one is ever detected you are able to go roaring back to that very place and moment ...in colour...
Great Stuff
Gus

Comment is about Sunday Afternoon (blog)

Original item by John Togher

Thanks Steve. Just a bit of light hearted fun..... . Im poking fun at myself really cos I love punting on the stock market, and even in these volatile times am managing to keep the wolf from the door!!!!

Comment is about Stock Market (blog)

Original item by Cate

Written in such perfect form...
You make several important points as well as observations...
Purity of anything is such a rarity...

So nice to see you post Simon!

Comment is about British, Not Pure (blog)

Original item by Simon Rennie

Hi steve, thanks for your comments on The Feminine Beauty. The way you have restructured the poem is something i have been trying to achieve. Thats exactly the way i like to structure the poems i often write, but, have had no training and forming the structure thus is something that i can now try to employ. Thank you for your help. Be well blue.

MIke
x

Comment is about garside (poet profile)

Original item by garside

Interesting Shane...
you've asked the questions and given the answers...
Does make you think...

'What is life without love and passion?'
Could not even imagine...

Comment is about WHAT IS LIFE?..(short poem) (blog)

Lots of great imagery in this...

Comment is about Sunday Afternoon (blog)

Original item by John Togher

Hi Cynthia,

Two simple words spring to mind when I read this - "sad" and "heartfelt." There are things that loss, loneliness and above all, love can do to us which are almost too painful to endure. But I guess the saving grace is that they stir our emotions, and, for those of us who choose to write, they are perhaps the most powerful catalyst of all. You may have guessed that for me it is important that poetry should make me feel something; this did, very effectively.
Regards,
A.E.

Comment is about The Parting (blog)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

Nice one Cate. The financial situation is a right pain in the arse, and dead worrying, but we are right also to poke fun at what's going on, as you've done in this.

Comment is about Stock Market (blog)

Original item by Cate

Poetry, music and stocks and shares are strange bed fellows, but I lov em all!!

Comment is about Stock Market (blog)

Original item by Cate

Hi Mike - i like this poem - it has internal energy that drives it on.

like this -

Tumble down a mountain!

Walk back up again if limbs can steal

The pull, and begin the dereliction.







Duty bound the loyalty forgives,

Yet fire persists the scalding

And balding, she passed away too

Quick for truths to be exposed.


I would perhaps consider looking at strengthening the lines by moving some of the end words onto the next line - a friend offered me this advice recently and I appreciate the shift that this can produce when scripting a poem eg -

In every child a light

Defying Keats shines, and every

Cradle hides the light, keeps away from those

Beholden by blind deceitful eyes, but

Deeper still,

The child beneath the baby blues.

i think each line is made stronger and thus more active if -

In every child a light

Defying Keats shines,

And every cradle

Hides the light;

Keeps away from those

Beholden by blind deceitful eyes,

But deeper still,

The child beneath the baby blues.

steve x

Comment is about The Feminine Beauty (blog)

Original item by Noetic-fret!

Hi Steve. thanks for reading and commenting on Oil and Cheese / Chalk and Water. Win

Comment is about garside (poet profile)

Original item by garside

Hi Armando,

I like this poem - it holds emotion in the spaces between the words -

i like the lines -

I sit again by your coffin, mother,
and talk wordless to what remains,
still evaporating from the body

robbing from gestures the carelessness of birds.

Words amongst us were never free,
they carried the weight of ancestral rules,

filling with passionate and angry words
the gaps between the bricks of my house.

and I see
that experience shaped my heart into a pump
that time and rust will eventually stop.

these lines for me form the core of the poem and i almost want to se you rework the poem and savage the text in order to increase the emotive content and transcend the sum total of words

shaped my heart into a pump
that time and rust will eventually stop.

think that this image is excellent and the word stop is both strong and emphatic

steve x

Comment is about Summoning the Dead (blog)

Original item by Armando Halpern

i enjoyed that shell....very shelley (pun intended)x

Comment is about Don’t Judge A Book By It’s Cover (blog)

Original item by michelle wright

Thank you Steve for your gracious and encouraging comments regarding My Grandfather... very much valued.

Many thanks

Gus

Comment is about Steve Regan (poet profile)

Original item by Steve Regan

Good one yosh, you seem to be diversifying. Which is good. This one provokes more thought from the reader. Top!

Comment is about WHAT IS LIFE?..(short poem) (blog)

You have a quirky sense of humour Emily. What would you buy in a seaside resort, I wonder, skis, crampons, ice picks - nothing like flying in the face of convention, I guess...

Comment is about surfing is good (blog)

I really like this poem - particularly on the heels of what has happened in the recent local elections. My children have a foreign name and I often wonder if they will receive a back lash from that at some point in the future.

Comment is about British, Not Pure (blog)

Original item by Simon Rennie

I like this one Yosh. There is a lot to think about it there and a lot I would agree with.

Comment is about WHAT IS LIFE?..(short poem) (blog)

Hi Cynthia, No it doesn't make you snotty lol. Every reader will get something different from a particular poem and it doesnt matter whether that was in the mind of the poet when he/she was writting. Glad you liked it. (When I see people with that scraped back hair it does make me wonder if they have a permanent headache). Winston

Comment is about Cynthia Buell Thomas (poet profile)

Original item by Cynthia Buell Thomas

Hi Dave
Liked your old texts piece. welcome to WOL keep posting and commenting. Winston

Comment is about Dave Bradley (poet profile)

Original item by Dave Bradley

Hi Anthony. thanks for commenting on Oil & Cheese / Chalk & Water. Observations lefton the blog entry. Thanks again Winston

Comment is about Anthony Emmerson (poet profile)

Original item by Anthony Emmerson

Hi Cate. Thanks for looking at Oil & Cheese / Chalk & Water. Left some answers under the blog entry. Winston

Comment is about Cate (poet profile)

Original item by Cate

Me too, proud to be mixed up. There's Irish blood in me, and some Spanish, I think, and a bit of Cornish.

As far as I'm concerned that makes me a True Brit, like most of us who live on these islands.

Well expressed poem, Simon, on an important theme.

Liked these lines particularly...

'And thus, although my skin is pale

When fascists rant I feel the shift'

They stirred my mongrel blood.

Comment is about British, Not Pure (blog)

Original item by Simon Rennie

Thank you both for your comments. Its hard to write about something so special without being overly sentimantal.

Comment is about For Isla (blog)

Original item by Cate

replied to ur qs in 'pyar'

Comment is about Winston Plowes (poet profile)

Original item by Winston Plowes

Forgot to add - title is fantastiic - so powerful

Comment is about British, Not Pure (blog)

Original item by Simon Rennie

I see a lot of poetry which incites hatred or prejudice, sadly and am very pleased to see this which does not deal with a myth but the truth or the unknown truth and an analysis of the 'self'.

Thank you.

I am writing a poem based on my experience from yesterday's class and you poem has enabled me to complete it. The connection can be seen linguistically - Every time I teach a new class (the teachers who come from the school are either Spanish , Italian or French) I am told each time that the words I am teaching are very close to European languages, which enriches my knowledge. The list is endless but one eg is ' narangi' in Urdu which is orange and almost identical to Spanish. The point being,to re-inforce your message, that when we listen to the words we speak,they are not merely words, they reflect who we are and the movement by people in history, who were our ancestors.

You have inspired me to write a poem and I am a difficult person to inspire as a lot of my work comes from within, not fom others' work, so another thank you :-)

Comment is about British, Not Pure (blog)

Original item by Simon Rennie

Hi Michelle, thanks for the interest. My background is in maths & the sciences, so I often plunder that world for inspiration. Or sometimes I merely pretend to, as here...

Science Lesson

I cast back my mind to school-bright days
My science teacher, Newton’s apostle
Handing down laws like a corduroy judge

The class’s reaction was equal and opposite
Collective inertia to theory and fact

He taught us that matter takes only three forms
A gas will expand to the space it is given
Liquids conform to the base of the vessel
While solids remain in the form they prefer

Look at us now
Getting physical
Feeling the chemistry
Clocked by biology

You touch that part of me, that
Liquid, filling the space given, renders solid

With friction, it shoots forth a liquid
That fills more space than given
Renders the vessel solid
Stretched beyond reason
Til a midwife cries
“Behold. Alchemy.”

Comment is about Norman Hadley (poet profile)

Original item by Norman Hadley