tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24368943033540589672024-03-24T07:10:13.761+00:00Conjured Sunlight'These fragments I have shored against my ruins'Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.comBlogger185125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-35648788969221069512024-03-02T15:37:00.003+00:002024-03-02T15:44:41.805+00:00Today by Billy Collins<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2RZ0GtFNvlc" width="320" youtube-src-id="2RZ0GtFNvlc"></iframe></div><br /><p></p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /><br />If ever there were a spring day so perfect,<br />so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze</span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br />that it made you want to throw<br />open all the windows in the house<br /><br />and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,<br />indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,<br /><br />a day when the cool brick paths<br />and the garden bursting with peonies<br /><br />seemed so etched in sunlight<br />that you felt like taking<br /><br />a hammer to the glass paperweight<br />on the living room end table,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">releasing the inhabitants<br />from their snow-covered cottage<br /><br />so they could walk out,<br />holding hands and squinting<br /><br />into this larger dome of blue and white,<br />well, today is just that kind of day.</span></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-54563491026534951752024-03-02T15:18:00.001+00:002024-03-02T15:18:20.491+00:00 The Best Time Of The Day by Raymond Carver<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAwL5fl1hUoH2vam6uSaFicf4qxWndpYO-Rpb908kVDTIS6FHOy-rtrKkgjX571HieUTrRqPVKZno5_DQXYhWmZjJjCNvYeBrk48Y1YscFEsj5SBAJKwU0sYNkmlph4lbqZ8riSivd0VI5L5vFuQD932c6hl2Pe6KjSIwCbkdpDygxyYOUnwI9sfoE5To" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="733" data-original-width="1000" height="294" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgAwL5fl1hUoH2vam6uSaFicf4qxWndpYO-Rpb908kVDTIS6FHOy-rtrKkgjX571HieUTrRqPVKZno5_DQXYhWmZjJjCNvYeBrk48Y1YscFEsj5SBAJKwU0sYNkmlph4lbqZ8riSivd0VI5L5vFuQD932c6hl2Pe6KjSIwCbkdpDygxyYOUnwI9sfoE5To=w400-h294" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Raymond Carver</div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Cool summer nights.<br />
Windows open.<br />
Lamps burning.<br />
Fruit in the bowl.<br />
And your head on my shoulder.<br />
These the happiest moments in the day.<br />
<br />
Next to the early morning hours,<br />
of course. And the time<br />
just before lunch.<br />
And the afternoon, and<br />
early evening hours.<br />
But I do love<br />
<br />
these summer nights.<br />
Even more, I think,<br />
than those other times.<br />
The work finished for the day.<br />
And no one who can reach us now.<br />
Or ever.</span><o:p></o:p></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-63121407349691844062023-12-18T16:31:00.008+00:002023-12-20T08:43:41.709+00:00Fairytale of New York written by Jem Finer and Shane MacGowan<span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-style: italic; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1viIsLvKIM7Opc0mP46Vl65V1uf___CxeDEDPneW2--R5R3b8Kvrmuzzw28NZNuCmNecVwstrkE6JIt657kggnCl71zDRa-eI1xQ4FtDIWpyiUOvwhFTVVBO-d-HlsRldPO1mbk5v2-2II4MWvctcZaspv33QTnEsE3afTZCJjYGfObktYduQ4IiqGOw" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="360" data-original-width="640" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj1viIsLvKIM7Opc0mP46Vl65V1uf___CxeDEDPneW2--R5R3b8Kvrmuzzw28NZNuCmNecVwstrkE6JIt657kggnCl71zDRa-eI1xQ4FtDIWpyiUOvwhFTVVBO-d-HlsRldPO1mbk5v2-2II4MWvctcZaspv33QTnEsE3afTZCJjYGfObktYduQ4IiqGOw=w400-h225" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Shane MacGowan</div><br /><br /><i>Verse 1: Shane MacGowan]</i><br /><br />It was Christmas Eve, babe, in the drunk tank<br />An old man said to me, "Won't see another one"<br />And then he sang a song, 'The Rare Old Mountain Dew'<br />I turned my face away and dreamed about you<br /><br />[<i>Verse 2: Shane MacGowan]</i><br /><br />Got on a lucky one, came in eighteen-to-one<br />I've got a feeling this year's for me and you<br />So, Happy Christmas, I love you, baby<br />I can see a better time when all our dreams come true<br /><br /><i>[Verse 3: Kirsty MacColl]</i><br /><br />They've got cars big as bars, they've got rivers of gold<br />But the wind goes right through you, it's no place for the old<br />When you first took my hand on a cold Christmas Eve<br />You promised me Broadway was waiting for me</span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /><i>[Verse 4: Kirsty MacColl & Shane MacGowan & Together]</i><br /><br />You were handsome, you were pretty, queen of New York City<br />When the band finished playing, they howled out for more<br />Sinatra was swinging, all the drunks, they were singing<br />We kissed on a corner, then danced through the night<br /><br /><i>[Chorus: Shane Macgowan & Kirsty MacColl]</i><br /><br />The boys of the NYPD choir<br />Were singing, "Galway Bay"<br />And the bells were ringing out<br />For Christmas Day<br /><br /><i>[Verse 5: Kirsty MacColl & Shane MacGowan]</i><br /><br />You're a bum, you're a punk, you're an old slut on junk<br />Lying there almost dead on a drip in that bed<br />You scumbag, you maggot, you cheap, lousy faggot<br />Happy Christmas, your arse, I pray God it's our last<br /><br /><i>[Chorus: Shane Macgowan & Kirsty MacColl]</i><br /><br />The boys of the NYPD choir<br />Still singing, "Galway Bay"<br />And the bells are ringing out<br />For Christmas Day<br /><br /><i>[Verse 6: Kirsty MacColl & Shane MacGowan]</i><br /><br />"I could have been someone" Well, so could anyone<br />You took my dreams from me when I first found you<br />I kept them with me, babe, I put them with my own<br />Can't make it all alone, I've built my dreams around you<br /><br /><i>[Outro: Shane Macgowan & Kirsty MacColl]</i><br /><br />The boys of the NYPD choir<br />Still singing, "Galway Bay"<br />And the bells are ringing out<br />For Christmas Day <br /><br /><a href="https://genius.com/The-pogues-fairytale-of-new-york-lyrics" target="_blank">Click here</a> for a detailed analysis of the lyrics</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">And <a href="https://conjuringsunlight.blogspot.com/2023/12/fairytale-of-new-york-with-shane.html" target="_blank">click here</a> for my tribute to Shane MacGowan<br /><br /></span></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-53232221199797780142023-05-24T17:26:00.011+01:002023-09-21T07:12:34.373+01:00Bedtime Story by Jeffrey Whitmore<p><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhx35DQWWtrwBFEE3U6lTzm9NcfnLZKCmfBNdwxmybMbZQ-zuBB96iW1weSzAwOtAsm2sg5PtTTRFJCCwKkeDBSIh7Op6-BOpXkpQXVC3zT58VHSkZYPkmPfcg2Lu_ilWwnF16nnn2hXF4SOPMbbmw6vvB9jF0RwSeShEAQZZrWuORQYKNWP9lM-xH2" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="741" data-original-width="1400" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhx35DQWWtrwBFEE3U6lTzm9NcfnLZKCmfBNdwxmybMbZQ-zuBB96iW1weSzAwOtAsm2sg5PtTTRFJCCwKkeDBSIh7Op6-BOpXkpQXVC3zT58VHSkZYPkmPfcg2Lu_ilWwnF16nnn2hXF4SOPMbbmw6vvB9jF0RwSeShEAQZZrWuORQYKNWP9lM-xH2=w400-h211" width="400" /></a><br /><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>“Careful, honey, it’s loaded,”</i> he said, re-entering the bedroom.<br /><br /><br />Her back rested against the headboard. <i>“This for your wife?”</i><br /><br /><br /><i>“No, too chancy. I’m hiring a professional.”</i><br /><br /><br /><i>“How about me?”<br /></i><br /><br />He smirked. <i>“Cute. But who’d be dumb enough to hire a lady hit man?”</i><br /><br /><br />She wet her lips, sighting along the barrel.<br /><br /><br /><i>“Your wife.”</i><br /><br /></span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">I read this 55 word short story so long ago. Occasionally I go looking for it on the internet.</span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">Today I was doing some work with students doing 55 word stories. Again I went searching for it. And eventually I found it.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-size: medium;">At last.</span></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Open Sans", sans-serif" style="color: #212121;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span><br /></span><o:p></o:p></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-33438066583356537602023-08-11T00:37:00.000+01:002023-08-11T00:37:00.527+01:00The Way Through the Woods by Rudyard Kipling<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHifC-2sURkVs3tDNMFfe199SfjVvATtY-NubhBU4G1NmxMD-4MlgT1MA5qSOnRCl6YK5ctrydMSXGMa-pODHddnYEMNJ2_9b95RsvMywZu3jEazDs5Yu_wDvsfHZgYD2NfUcDH1vhZ09TB4JHJaKymwYfjvrf0vyg45Lqq9yq7K5ZHnN4vvSwULyPBAc" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="220" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjHifC-2sURkVs3tDNMFfe199SfjVvATtY-NubhBU4G1NmxMD-4MlgT1MA5qSOnRCl6YK5ctrydMSXGMa-pODHddnYEMNJ2_9b95RsvMywZu3jEazDs5Yu_wDvsfHZgYD2NfUcDH1vhZ09TB4JHJaKymwYfjvrf0vyg45Lqq9yq7K5ZHnN4vvSwULyPBAc=w240-h320" width="240" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Rudyard Kipling</div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b>The Way through the Woods</b> by Rudyard Kipling<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">They shut the road through the woods<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Seventy years ago.<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Weather and rain have undone it again,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> And now you would never know<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">There was once a road through the woods<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Before they planted the trees.<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">It is underneath the coppice and heath,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> And the thin anemones.<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Only the keeper sees<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">That, where the ring-dove broods,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> And the badgers roll at ease,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">There was once a road through the woods.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Yet, if you enter the woods<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Of a summer evening late,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Where the otter whistles his mate,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">(They fear not men in the woods,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Because they see so few.)<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">You will hear the beat of a horse’s feet,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> And the swish of a skirt in the dew,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Steadily cantering through<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">The misty solitudes,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> As though they perfectly knew<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> The old lost road through the woods.<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">But there is no road through the woods.</span></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-52873080367668432762023-07-27T17:38:00.003+01:002023-07-27T17:43:51.463+01:00'Not Adlestrop' by Dannie Abse<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjyv5zKCWrotWEoiQjX119EfgQ2Dp7ewbGO1e8HwYVZpZTsyW3dVkSFM9VGIYWeTD0gqOs10gaaicUQjB3r17S2iBgKK8lz0i0Rn7gHI5ZD2q4bSI10svb3s3f3ili9TN2l-ZTGZG4yG0_KXvDL3tlKDt05wZUyicIwtagNjmoPpjU-rqLBfGNpB8Bik88" style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="200" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjyv5zKCWrotWEoiQjX119EfgQ2Dp7ewbGO1e8HwYVZpZTsyW3dVkSFM9VGIYWeTD0gqOs10gaaicUQjB3r17S2iBgKK8lz0i0Rn7gHI5ZD2q4bSI10svb3s3f3ili9TN2l-ZTGZG4yG0_KXvDL3tlKDt05wZUyicIwtagNjmoPpjU-rqLBfGNpB8Bik88=w320-h320" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: left;">Dannie Abse</span></span></div><br /><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Not Adlestrop, no - besides the name<br />hardly matters. Nor did I languish in June heat.<br />Simply, I stood, too early, on the empty platform,<br />and the wrong train came in slowly, surprised, stopped.<br />Directly facing me, from a window,<br />a very, very pretty girl leaned out.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">When I, all instinct, <br />stared at her, she, all instinct, inclined her head away<br />as if she'd divined the much married life in me,<br />or as if she might spot, up platform,<br />some unlikely familiar.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">For my part, under the clock, I continued<br />my scrutiny with unmitigated pleasure.<br />And she knew it, she certainly knew it, and would<br />not glance at me in the silence of not Adlestrop.<br /><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Only when the train heaved noisily, only<br />when it jolted, when it slid away, only then,<br />daring and secure, she smiled back at my smile,<br />and I, daring and secure, waved back at her waving.<br />And so it was, all the way down the hurrying platform<br />as the train gathered atrocious speed<br />towards Oxfordshire or Gloucestshire.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.swansea.ac.uk/media/Dannie-Abse---'Not-Adlestrop'.pdf" target="_blank">Click here</a> for a line by line analysis of the poem</span></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-14002207920519132032023-07-14T15:44:00.004+01:002023-07-15T12:27:51.657+01:00Adlestrop by Edward Thomas<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZxjmB579hix6RAU3SoQ9gKCs_pUK-KmBlA2Km30fUDSMXlyaM78WINpvAEWJtaPPx46we8VlERUNzZqB7EfTc7zAk5MOSXbrXTPomUFoih_laR6QZMjNzDDZjx1IRV_ZgIHxd4Tb968CBqetf4Pp5ZnA0ImJcZL0KrH8MjdPagwhNEXoho7qVi1V2j_c" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiZxjmB579hix6RAU3SoQ9gKCs_pUK-KmBlA2Km30fUDSMXlyaM78WINpvAEWJtaPPx46we8VlERUNzZqB7EfTc7zAk5MOSXbrXTPomUFoih_laR6QZMjNzDDZjx1IRV_ZgIHxd4Tb968CBqetf4Pp5ZnA0ImJcZL0KrH8MjdPagwhNEXoho7qVi1V2j_c=w400-h266" width="400" /></a></div><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Yes. I remember Adlestrop—<br />The name, because one afternoon<br />Of heat the express-train drew up there<br />Unwontedly. It was late June.<br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.<br />No one left and no one came<br />On the bare platform. What I saw<br />Was Adlestrop—only the name<br /><br />And willows, willow-herb, and grass,<br />And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,<br />No whit less still and lonely fair<br />Than the high cloudlets in the sky.<br /><br />And for that minute a blackbird sang<br />Close by, and round him, mistier,<br />Farther and farther, all the birds<br />Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0J1Ze5QXG8" target="_blank">Click here</a> for a link to Richard Burton reading the poem. I love his reading. It's brilliance is all held in that first word, 'Yes.'<br />It's all there in the casual and off hand way he says 'yes'. He says 'yes' as if it's unimportant, almost as if he's half paying attention to the unknown speaker of his unknown question. And of course that completely goes to the very core of this poem. <br /><br /></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEil5TVBgQE_Pj1_JSO3zTmT_OAI4V0zLMEYtU4uZSJjB1DhqIFr4RilJRjgCEtBz7gd4kqFL0izQ1A4pI8x7H8OfaY2nraWprO5E5poHp_5ohpT-gwBfzL-3XbzT2zwd6A6SHaeW11QJ50Um144n9xtAc-IohYG3g2xWtMbWr4DuCzEU21RlQtI5vGYHiU" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="448" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEil5TVBgQE_Pj1_JSO3zTmT_OAI4V0zLMEYtU4uZSJjB1DhqIFr4RilJRjgCEtBz7gd4kqFL0izQ1A4pI8x7H8OfaY2nraWprO5E5poHp_5ohpT-gwBfzL-3XbzT2zwd6A6SHaeW11QJ50Um144n9xtAc-IohYG3g2xWtMbWr4DuCzEU21RlQtI5vGYHiU=w400-h261" width="400" /></a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Edward Thomas</span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-71323519542541196612023-04-06T15:09:00.006+01:002023-05-06T14:40:49.053+01:00 He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven by W B Yeats<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0iKs6tNPdsCC0cWkgDtRMq_B0xVRdko684_TaTvAjkxCnHiTQixdPfOsIQS03LcnQNCumxPj5QnxtBboa4uJEUwILhe_GfIs_9pcKvILtsTSHfc_LltlE8Do9y4LXbc7XfpqjJKpAsRj0G1A59cM0bCxleWYcmZu_eS5nUNDndE4Jyl4OGgAOrf5T" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0iKs6tNPdsCC0cWkgDtRMq_B0xVRdko684_TaTvAjkxCnHiTQixdPfOsIQS03LcnQNCumxPj5QnxtBboa4uJEUwILhe_GfIs_9pcKvILtsTSHfc_LltlE8Do9y4LXbc7XfpqjJKpAsRj0G1A59cM0bCxleWYcmZu_eS5nUNDndE4Jyl4OGgAOrf5T" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhn1dg1-O-6Ns15mmIzPAo9O0FC6QMdJqWaBui41LfOtZIUYBerFSSFeHXTbeFk8TtY4xhnrKwdYQWN3I4-nbnlfF3TDUXhMKn4bimNviU2IWWZnXhKjQh2ZqVE_Zw6zoX6x7Nu5TYOakG8iXvy8hjDJbgcbgo8i7TSvJD2ZmfDefWR4y_CHBn4UJrp" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="675" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhn1dg1-O-6Ns15mmIzPAo9O0FC6QMdJqWaBui41LfOtZIUYBerFSSFeHXTbeFk8TtY4xhnrKwdYQWN3I4-nbnlfF3TDUXhMKn4bimNviU2IWWZnXhKjQh2ZqVE_Zw6zoX6x7Nu5TYOakG8iXvy8hjDJbgcbgo8i7TSvJD2ZmfDefWR4y_CHBn4UJrp=w300-h400" width="300" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Enwrought with golden and silver light,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">The blue and the dim and the dark cloths<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Of night and light and the half-light,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">I would spread the cloths under your feet:<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">But I, being poor, have only my dreams;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">I have spread my dreams under your feet;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.<br /><br /></span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0iKs6tNPdsCC0cWkgDtRMq_B0xVRdko684_TaTvAjkxCnHiTQixdPfOsIQS03LcnQNCumxPj5QnxtBboa4uJEUwILhe_GfIs_9pcKvILtsTSHfc_LltlE8Do9y4LXbc7XfpqjJKpAsRj0G1A59cM0bCxleWYcmZu_eS5nUNDndE4Jyl4OGgAOrf5T" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="4015" data-original-width="5736" height="280" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi0iKs6tNPdsCC0cWkgDtRMq_B0xVRdko684_TaTvAjkxCnHiTQixdPfOsIQS03LcnQNCumxPj5QnxtBboa4uJEUwILhe_GfIs_9pcKvILtsTSHfc_LltlE8Do9y4LXbc7XfpqjJKpAsRj0G1A59cM0bCxleWYcmZu_eS5nUNDndE4Jyl4OGgAOrf5T=w400-h280" width="400" /></a><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.rte.ie/radio/radio1/clips/22228503/" target="_blank">Click here</a> for a 17 minute programme about The Bedford Park Artwork Project. It concludes with a reading of the poem, 'He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven' by W. B. Yeats, read by Ciaran Hinds.</span><br /></span><br /><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.wbyeatsbedfordpark.com/bedford-park/" target="_blank">Click here</a> for a link to the W B Yeats Bedford Park Artwork Project</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBv7VhSACb6UbnrveR7bNOoWT9vEHOo5A2eN-p-ucIbj5NJxSc056KxnWUS07MPngs8f1EExRYf4zUvf7CSwRxGHyZHNpPcD7VdndO6-UdU5dgvDVBg8jeiQp1dYXVOeg-xMqN0_WEURPrjzU6n1glwGJTvfD0t0xOE8g_qbuOkus21QyD73ezgyLz" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="400" height="595" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgBv7VhSACb6UbnrveR7bNOoWT9vEHOo5A2eN-p-ucIbj5NJxSc056KxnWUS07MPngs8f1EExRYf4zUvf7CSwRxGHyZHNpPcD7VdndO6-UdU5dgvDVBg8jeiQp1dYXVOeg-xMqN0_WEURPrjzU6n1glwGJTvfD0t0xOE8g_qbuOkus21QyD73ezgyLz=w447-h595" width="447" /></a></span></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span><br /><br /></span><p></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-85866419289965686662023-04-08T11:22:00.001+01:002023-04-28T15:38:57.122+01:00W B Yeats and Bedford Park, London. A Short Introduction<div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgwKH1jKpi_YQN0KCoBMgw2BKHRuaBUvt7Y6wkzETRDfflgPDhgrTqgit15G8jaBV4sCUPbRXP3Gy_nyaRrRCXrO51o7rP6T5JivLB9mZqde-ILI99iCK6922h2SxSHGPvMAY-C9hF_fvHIA1n0_qBDxc25w3XoyLtnaS23MxWAMLteLm_4e1PpHXh0" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="428" data-original-width="300" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgwKH1jKpi_YQN0KCoBMgw2BKHRuaBUvt7Y6wkzETRDfflgPDhgrTqgit15G8jaBV4sCUPbRXP3Gy_nyaRrRCXrO51o7rP6T5JivLB9mZqde-ILI99iCK6922h2SxSHGPvMAY-C9hF_fvHIA1n0_qBDxc25w3XoyLtnaS23MxWAMLteLm_4e1PpHXh0=w280-h400" width="280" /></a></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><div style="text-align: center;">W. B. Yeats</div></span><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div>Here's a short video introducing W B Yeats and Bedford Park where he lived</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> when he first came to London.</span><span face="Calibri, sans-serif"> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/n/?annemarie.fyfe%2Fvideos%2F3474186992853710%2F&aref=1680864119847486&medium=email&mid=5f8bc6331776cG2a08b022G5f8bcacc77a3eG316&bcode=2.1680864120.Aby_D6eors6n0nHNPbY&n_m=davidloffman%40yahoo.co.uk&lloc=new_view&rms=v2&irms=true"><b><span style="background: rgb(0, 132, 255); color: white; font-family: Roboto; text-decoration-line: none;"><span style="border-radius: 4px; display: inline-block;">View Video</span></span></b></a></span></span>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-42036311124818839132012-05-07T22:30:00.003+01:002023-04-06T15:58:31.171+01:00The Lake Isle of Innisfree by W B Yeats<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,<br /> And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:<br /> Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee,<br /> And live alone in the bee-loud glade.<br /> <br /> And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow, Dropping from the veils of the mourning to where the cricket sings;<br /> There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,<br /> And evening full of the linnet's wings.<br /> <br /> I will arise and go now, for always night and day<br /> I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;<br /> While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,<br /> I hear it in the deep heart's core.</span><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://soundcloud.com/user-115260978/19-the-lake-isle-of-innisfree-by-w-b-yeats" target="_blank">Click here</a> for a reading of the poem by Emma Fielding</span></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-57535167081706153712021-03-27T16:29:00.004+00:002021-03-27T16:29:50.678+00:00Ode on a Grayson Perry Urn by Tim Turnbull<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTljSEViokzB6IN_dNNHE_sGRhfrL8Z6ltLl-iV67ZSuE9ihqAaVRWCejsc6diNbM457PtvxedQqAuPoTcB17sYzthypspZDyyQ0UxG40X5WmlWvZO0oUKVWAtlJHqrKwFPPhKF4ocb6Y/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="225" data-original-width="225" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTljSEViokzB6IN_dNNHE_sGRhfrL8Z6ltLl-iV67ZSuE9ihqAaVRWCejsc6diNbM457PtvxedQqAuPoTcB17sYzthypspZDyyQ0UxG40X5WmlWvZO0oUKVWAtlJHqrKwFPPhKF4ocb6Y/w320-h320/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Tim Turnbull</span></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Hello! What's all this here? A kitschy vase<br />some Shirley Temple manqué has knocked out<br />delineating tales of kids in cars<br />on crap estates, the Burberry clad louts<br />who flail their motors through the smoky night<br />from Manchester to Motherwell or Slough,<br />creating bedlam on the Queen's highway.<br />Your gaudy evocation can, somehow,<br />conjure the scene without inducing fright,<br />as would a Daily Express exposé,<br /><br />can bring to mind the throaty turbo roar<br />of hatchbacks tuned almost to breaking point,<br />the joyful throb of UK garage or<br />of house imported from the continent<br />and yet educe a sense of peace, of calm -<br />the screech of tyres and the nervous squeals<br />of girls, too young to quite appreciate<br />the peril they are in, are heard, but these wheels<br />will not lose traction, skid and flip, no harm<br />befall these children. They will stay out late<br /><br />forever, pumped on youth and ecstasy,<br />on alloy, bass and arrogance, and speed<br />the back lanes, the urban gyratory,<br />the wide motorways, never having need<br />to race back home, for work next day, to bed.<br />Each girl is buff, each geezer toned and strong,<br />charged with pulsing juice which, even yet,<br />fills every pair of Calvin’s and each thong,<br />never to be deflated, given head<br />in crude games of chlamydia roulette.<br />Now see who comes to line the sparse grass verge,<br />to toast them in Buckfast and Diamond White:<br />rat-boys and corn-rowed cheerleaders who urge<br />them on to pull more burn-outs or to write<br />their donut Os, as signature, upon<br />the bleached tarmac of dead suburban streets.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">There dogs set up a row and curtains twitch<br />as pensioners and parents telephone<br />the cops to plead for quiet, sue for peace -<br />tranquility, though, is for the rich.<br /><br />And so, millennia hence, you garish crock,<br />when all context is lost, galleries razed<br />to level dust and we're long in the box,<br />will future poets look on you amazed,<br />speculate how children might have lived when<br />you were fired, lives so free and bountiful<br />and there, beneath a sun a little colder,<br />declare How happy were those creatures then,<br />who knew the truth was all negotiable<br />and beauty in the gift of the beholder.</span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiej_hViDD81eygZCMMaoqZ6mnxy6lXDph1Y0be-sfreD3q8S2RK4oohIGFwwaeQs6dAyJOgsRqMjnW5TKVDIMr-zqNlQB0xT0vjaJX90op1ohFILjrsZymSECC0DvlpoAMzzGtZB7MO7A/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="450" data-original-width="315" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiej_hViDD81eygZCMMaoqZ6mnxy6lXDph1Y0be-sfreD3q8S2RK4oohIGFwwaeQs6dAyJOgsRqMjnW5TKVDIMr-zqNlQB0xT0vjaJX90op1ohFILjrsZymSECC0DvlpoAMzzGtZB7MO7A/w224-h320/image.png" width="224" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">The Insider by Grayson Perry</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-family: trebuchet; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyQF0EubZIePtvNFmPNsRwsHiwOhaXpLqeXrETu8jdljrYojvT3IIc3-hv3cVU6OACc5zmz_6xCEvl8P5QwpSBNvoQIzjUaAtMHezcSCBxrhzLKh7z6kqlhmOP2aKmuN8Gb6npPnbKXfk/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="266" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiyQF0EubZIePtvNFmPNsRwsHiwOhaXpLqeXrETu8jdljrYojvT3IIc3-hv3cVU6OACc5zmz_6xCEvl8P5QwpSBNvoQIzjUaAtMHezcSCBxrhzLKh7z6kqlhmOP2aKmuN8Gb6npPnbKXfk/w400-h266/image.png" width="400" /></a></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;">Grayson Perry</span></div><br /><p></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-39431951519183911492021-03-10T09:42:00.000+00:002021-03-10T09:42:02.535+00:00Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij-3idmjjwK8YygR-gKsuyTM243Isjr_vE6kJQsKZSTxZ9HO9zlCg-EOFPvVxn-x4V4l4AwvMR2wSrQi9Gmo45dOa7NBApScPhawv7cqbGG39xOucLwEM4j2akS3BImNCM7k-0kbcMI9I/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="260" data-original-width="194" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEij-3idmjjwK8YygR-gKsuyTM243Isjr_vE6kJQsKZSTxZ9HO9zlCg-EOFPvVxn-x4V4l4AwvMR2wSrQi9Gmo45dOa7NBApScPhawv7cqbGG39xOucLwEM4j2akS3BImNCM7k-0kbcMI9I/w239-h320/image.png" width="239" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Sylvan historian, who canst thus express<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Of deities or mortals, or of both,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">And, happy melodist, unwearied,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> For ever piping songs for ever new;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">More happy love! more happy, happy love!<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> For ever panting, and for ever young;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">All breathing human passion far above,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Who are these coming to the sacrifice?<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> To what green altar, O mysterious priest,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">What little town by river or sea shore,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">And, little town, thy streets for evermore<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Will silent be; and not a soul to tell<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Of marble men and maidens overwrought,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">With forest branches and the trodden weed;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> When old age shall this generation waste,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> "Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_E6Y0EsNX3jep9njLOlCqiZztx5oY6k649nKZsSNnRvaAx2EFzIj_WCMKcJe2ah6OxTo_bB_Tf11APi681Glo0oFslVe9_KxFtoclu96mbPd5FxeUAUyTdhq_2N6l18hjo0mRGlxNkcM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_E6Y0EsNX3jep9njLOlCqiZztx5oY6k649nKZsSNnRvaAx2EFzIj_WCMKcJe2ah6OxTo_bB_Tf11APi681Glo0oFslVe9_KxFtoclu96mbPd5FxeUAUyTdhq_2N6l18hjo0mRGlxNkcM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_MHeE2gqqdfMqtwBRcxi9jt4WBdzXPZEM4TM3XHRzjWECdeeGs1MnymsrNwm9EMMbGSq5KegTYZHdAIA_UB3v-MU0PndIKcE_YPAzp-weA8i7KgAW2AJgVunfDVq-uSHGUTcteiL3Ebo/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1366" data-original-width="2048" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_MHeE2gqqdfMqtwBRcxi9jt4WBdzXPZEM4TM3XHRzjWECdeeGs1MnymsrNwm9EMMbGSq5KegTYZHdAIA_UB3v-MU0PndIKcE_YPAzp-weA8i7KgAW2AJgVunfDVq-uSHGUTcteiL3Ebo/w320-h213/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><img alt="" data-original-height="206" data-original-width="230" height="287" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_E6Y0EsNX3jep9njLOlCqiZztx5oY6k649nKZsSNnRvaAx2EFzIj_WCMKcJe2ah6OxTo_bB_Tf11APi681Glo0oFslVe9_KxFtoclu96mbPd5FxeUAUyTdhq_2N6l18hjo0mRGlxNkcM/w320-h287/image.png" width="320" /></div><br /><br /><p></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-79128149246896876182021-02-27T14:56:00.005+00:002021-02-28T13:42:59.895+00:00Psalm 46 [a]<p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><i> </i></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><i><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-yr62kELnHKlQexFNnS8hpVuW1upMt7O9gIl-wUrbUetVcFpKCSFHG0u-942fI33FLbw_TGyXWDhwWBc19hdHZk3IER9sskcWeI5zmut3Bp_JrJIV6KJ3I3C63nqVzM-cgjhE2r96hLw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="167" data-original-width="250" height="268" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-yr62kELnHKlQexFNnS8hpVuW1upMt7O9gIl-wUrbUetVcFpKCSFHG0u-942fI33FLbw_TGyXWDhwWBc19hdHZk3IER9sskcWeI5zmut3Bp_JrJIV6KJ3I3C63nqVzM-cgjhE2r96hLw/w400-h268/image.png" width="400" /></a></i></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><i>For the director of music. Of the Sons of Korah. According to alamoth.[b] A song.</i></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> God is our refuge and strength,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> an ever-present help in trouble.<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> though its waters roar and foam<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> and the mountains quake with their surging.[c]<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> the holy place where the Most High dwells.<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> God is within her, she will not fall;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> God will help her at break of day.<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> he lifts his voice, the earth melts.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> The Lord Almighty is with us;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> the God of Jacob is our fortress.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> Come and see what the Lord has done,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> the desolations he has brought on the earth.<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> He makes wars cease<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> to the ends of the earth.<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;">He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> he burns the shields[d] with fire.<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> He says, “Be still, and know that I am God;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> I will be exalted among the nations,<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> I will be exalted in the earth.”<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> The Lord Almighty is with us;<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> the God of Jacob is our fortress.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Footnotes</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">[a] Psalm 46:1 In Hebrew texts 46:1-11 is numbered 46:2-12.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">[b] Psalm 46:1 Title: Probably a musical term</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">[c] Psalm 46:3 The Hebrew has Selah (a word of uncertain meaning) here and at the end of verses 7 and 11.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">[d] Psalm 46:9 Or chariots</span></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-13199168629208891432021-02-24T09:56:00.000+00:002021-02-24T09:56:03.423+00:00Effects by Alan Jenkins<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBf62WsdRUHrq2WWZfGGm9af-9ty7taP0XrJDve0veoSTqWJ5rX4KGqa4dXl_EujgeJZvNHO500DlNLFm6bjtqtz8x8Nz4Bsk71fm7xUB3i4s0F7NJgQDa3WotIS6PGzTjMDQqzWHCzSI/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBf62WsdRUHrq2WWZfGGm9af-9ty7taP0XrJDve0veoSTqWJ5rX4KGqa4dXl_EujgeJZvNHO500DlNLFm6bjtqtz8x8Nz4Bsk71fm7xUB3i4s0F7NJgQDa3WotIS6PGzTjMDQqzWHCzSI/w320-h320/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Alan Jenkins</div><p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">I held her hand, that was always scarred<br />
From chopping, slicing, from the knives that lay in wait<br />
In bowls of washing-up, that was raw,<br />
The knuckles reddened, rough from scrubbing hard<br />
At saucepan, frying pan, cup and plate<br />
And giving love the only way she knew,<br />
In each cheap cut of meat, in roast and stew,<br />
Old-fashioned food she cooked and we ate;<br />
And I saw that they had taken off her rings,<br />
The rings she kept once in her dressing-table drawer<br />
With faded snapshots, long-forgotten things<br />
(scent-sprays, tortoise-shell combs, a snap or two<br />
From the time we took a holiday “abroad”)<br />
But lately had never been without, as if<br />
She wanted everyone to know she was his wife<br />
Only now that he was dead. And her watch? – <br />
Classic ladies’ model, gold strap – it was gone,<br />
And I’d never known her not have that on,<br />
Not in all the years they sat together<br />
Watching soaps and game shows I’d disdain<br />
And not when my turn came to cook for her,<br />
Chops or chicken portions, English, bland,<br />
Familiar flavours she said she preferred<br />
To whatever “funny foreign stuff”<br />
Young people seemed to eat these days, she’d heard;<br />
Not all the weeks I didn’t come, when she sat<br />
Night after night and stared unseeing at<br />
The television, at her inner weather,<br />
Heaved herself upright, blinked and poured<br />
Drink after drink, and gulped and stared – the scotch<br />
That, when he was alive, she wouldn’t touch,<br />
That was her way to be with him again;<br />
Not later in the psychiatric ward,<br />
Where she blinked unseeing at the wall, the nurses<br />
(Who would steal anything, she said), and dreamt<br />
Of when she was a girl, of the time before<br />
I was born, or grew up and learned contempt,<br />
While the TV in the corner blared<br />
To drown some “poor soul’s” moans and curses,<br />
And she took her pills and blinked and stared<br />
As the others shuffled around, and drooled, and swore…<br />
But now she lay here, a thick rubber band<br />
With her name on it in smudged black ink was all she wore<br />
On the hand I held, a blotched and crinkled hand<br />
Whose fingers couldn’t clasp at mine any more<br />
Or falteringly wave, or fumble at my sleeve –<br />
The last words she had said were<br />
Please don’t leave<br />
But of course I left; now I was back, though she<br />
Could not know that, or turn her face to see<br />
A nurse bring the little bag of her effects to me.</span><o:p></o:p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shorter-Life-Alan-Jenkins/dp/0701178086/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=A+Shorter+Life+Alan+Jenkins&qid=1614159577&s=books&sr=1-1" target="_blank">Click here</a> to buy A Shorter Life by Alan Jenkins</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRIy2VvOQi9dr3AMQvJOCiiXl0lTo8-wduf8kaWV5Oze1Ft1IX1a8mVH8XPjv_LTx_8PhQLjBnibIE36oTgHoilAUMe-o2ZRj48b20B5xOYoRcaBx-8zDGDHvzkFkY3DP-HVdSI7F_fY/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="219" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPRIy2VvOQi9dr3AMQvJOCiiXl0lTo8-wduf8kaWV5Oze1Ft1IX1a8mVH8XPjv_LTx_8PhQLjBnibIE36oTgHoilAUMe-o2ZRj48b20B5xOYoRcaBx-8zDGDHvzkFkY3DP-HVdSI7F_fY/w197-h320/image.png" width="197" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span><p></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-46259873434237910162020-06-08T17:13:00.001+01:002021-02-13T16:48:49.034+00:00Search For My Tongue by Sujata Bhatt<div><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3eml4qWfwEuP0nhfOXW1W_s1leqjY3rBPQyOJ04t2K0Ww8Va4yyxe1NejigNhYaNAN5YoBd4_Mm-fm2iov-y9D_seAn-1nOUg5tc_zL32LnDhmrDupx8kS1lIDVVfFACniWQ07YPToTo/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1527" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3eml4qWfwEuP0nhfOXW1W_s1leqjY3rBPQyOJ04t2K0Ww8Va4yyxe1NejigNhYaNAN5YoBd4_Mm-fm2iov-y9D_seAn-1nOUg5tc_zL32LnDhmrDupx8kS1lIDVVfFACniWQ07YPToTo/w305-h320/image.png" width="305" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Sujata Bhatt</div><br /></span></div><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><div><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">You ask me what I mean</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">by saying I have lost my tongue.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I ask you, what would you do</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">if you had two tongues in your mouth,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">and lost the first one, the mother tongue,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">and could not really know the other,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">the foreign tongue.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">You could not use them both together</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">even if you thought that way.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">And if you lived in a place you had to</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">speak a foreign tongue,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">your mother tongue would rot,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">rot and die in your mouth</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">until you had to spit it out.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I thought I spit it out</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">but overnight while I dream,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">munay hutoo kay aakhee jeebh aakhee bhasha</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">may thoonky nakhi chay</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">parantoo rattray svupnama mari bhasha pachi aavay chay</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">foolnee jaim mari bhasha nmari jeebh</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">modhama kheelay chay</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">fullnee jaim mari bhasha mari jeebh</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">modhama pakay chay</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">it grows back, a stump of a shoot</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">grows longer, grows moist, grows strong veins,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">it ties the other tongue in knots,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">the bud opens, the bud opens in my mouth,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">it pushes the other tongue aside.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Everytime I think I've forgotten,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I think I've lost the mother tongue,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">it blossoms out of my mouth.</span></span><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Sujata-Bhatt/Collected-Poems-Sujata-Bhatt/15104820" target="_blank">Click here</a> to buy</span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbfV95DLDCU6RfUN07hyphenhyphenq_xdla2nWLdXeHJUlFNWv-3bI8OYmll-B7RyPFcRoswgp2h0qCMqurV_t8IQkAVrJP8MxbkXNBmqrVXBesmkPf_RC63dqnA8zipL7fnyN26qROfBc_AwBrwWU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="398" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbfV95DLDCU6RfUN07hyphenhyphenq_xdla2nWLdXeHJUlFNWv-3bI8OYmll-B7RyPFcRoswgp2h0qCMqurV_t8IQkAVrJP8MxbkXNBmqrVXBesmkPf_RC63dqnA8zipL7fnyN26qROfBc_AwBrwWU/w199-h320/image.png" width="199" /></a></div><br /><br />
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</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-63801746936243873072020-06-08T17:09:00.001+01:002021-02-13T16:06:18.868+00:00Prayer Before Birth by Edwin Muir<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7uBJbv0PUCrKZq5MCLuw2d-ZUOiYDIWOPH2-HMz36fIHash6L7_r84e5GBherCq7Iw1ODMrlVkONgP7XBmGNlX6U7SYuDbzA3nOs40UZsS2BHNL4jG2E3HTC080fr3_CPJYjLYsF5vCY/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="362" data-original-width="288" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7uBJbv0PUCrKZq5MCLuw2d-ZUOiYDIWOPH2-HMz36fIHash6L7_r84e5GBherCq7Iw1ODMrlVkONgP7XBmGNlX6U7SYuDbzA3nOs40UZsS2BHNL4jG2E3HTC080fr3_CPJYjLYsF5vCY/w255-h320/image.png" width="255" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Edwin Muir</div></span></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><b>Prayer Before Birth</b> by Edwin Muir</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I am not yet born; O hear me.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">club-footed ghoul come near me.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I am not yet born, console me.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I am not yet born; provide me</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">in the back of my mind to guide me.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I am not yet born; forgive me</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">when they speak to me, my thoughts when they think me,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">my life when they murder by means of my</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">hands, my death when they live me.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I am not yet born; rehearse me</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">waves call me to folly and the desert calls</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">me to doom and the beggar refuses</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">my gift and my children curse me.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I am not yet born; O hear me,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">come near me.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I am not yet born; O fill me</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">With strength against those who would freeze my</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">one face, a thing, and against all those</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">who would dissipate my entirety, would</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">blow me like thistledown hither and</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">thither or hither and thither</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">like water held in the</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">hands would spill me.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Otherwise kill me.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><a href="https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Edwin-Muir/Edwin-Muir-Selected-Poems/1517279" target="_blank">Click here</a> to buy a copy of the Selected Poems of Edwin Muir </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7awyPffubrnn89OQDyfIvD0WGwKIKZZmB4DsDpUnhbLVCjAG8YUy_G2hzYH7KojWgFUdoljW-Gy1j4inun3A8bIEv5kEJHCiQ9hbKGJ56VJCdXh2QO9A8uYjdrXUTRV7Osou2FaLYwXA/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="352" data-original-width="220" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7awyPffubrnn89OQDyfIvD0WGwKIKZZmB4DsDpUnhbLVCjAG8YUy_G2hzYH7KojWgFUdoljW-Gy1j4inun3A8bIEv5kEJHCiQ9hbKGJ56VJCdXh2QO9A8uYjdrXUTRV7Osou2FaLYwXA/w200-h320/image.png" width="200" /></a></div><br /><br /></span></span></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-132860957027991532020-06-08T17:16:00.001+01:002021-02-13T15:52:17.984+00:00Half-past Two by U. A. Fanthorpe<div><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzD1HzMAMkP2o66Axox_xMpgBdwW6-fOdR2OZ_4Rvkggzt-rZGfwvr5BiaJ68dkMSvSQNQctSCFR7xhPpRHnOyal5oduraFib1fWl9dLQqipdkkyrNcYmlALDeo0E8PItEL4tRAsTUqKc/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="768" data-original-width="768" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzD1HzMAMkP2o66Axox_xMpgBdwW6-fOdR2OZ_4Rvkggzt-rZGfwvr5BiaJ68dkMSvSQNQctSCFR7xhPpRHnOyal5oduraFib1fWl9dLQqipdkkyrNcYmlALDeo0E8PItEL4tRAsTUqKc/w320-h320/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: left;">U. A. Fanthorpe</span></div><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif">Once upon a schooltime</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">He did Something Very Wrong</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">(I forget what it was).</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">And She said he’d done</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Something Very Wrong, and must</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Stay in the school-room till half-past two.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">(Being cross, she’d forgotten</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">She hadn’t taught him Time.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">He was too scared at being wicked to remind her.)</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">He knew a lot of time: he knew</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Gettinguptime, timeyouwereofftime,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Timetogohomenowtime, TVtime,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Timeformykisstime (that was Grantime).</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">All the important times he knew,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">But not half-past two.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">He knew the clockface, the little eyes</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">And two long legs for walking,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">But he couldn’t click its language,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">So he waited, beyond onceupona,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Out of reach of all the timefors,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">And knew he’d escaped for ever</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Into the smell of old chrysanthemums on Her desk,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Into the silent noise his hangnail made,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Into the air outside the window, into ever.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">And then, My goodness, she said,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Scuttling in, I forgot all about you.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Run along or you’ll be late.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">So she slotted him back into schooltime,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">And he got home in time for teatime,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Nexttime, notimeforthatnowtime,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">But he never forgot how once by not knowing time,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">He escaped into the clockless land for ever,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Where time hides tick-less waiting to be born.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><a href="https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/U-A-Fanthorpe/Selected-Poems/14850548" target="_blank">Click here</a> to buy the Selected Poems of U. A. Fanthorpe</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUS8iHi990F1CAxey3HNDt5cTJGqiuMNR5fzkhHYfQ2sUeaQ9ccsB75CxwRGEri7Td7EJyoC__KjsTbih_UAEleq2SfkfnKlM6kt6rOK1T-5EnLIIqhBKYHCMhadLOlcIG9mExr959ZIg/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="339" data-original-width="220" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUS8iHi990F1CAxey3HNDt5cTJGqiuMNR5fzkhHYfQ2sUeaQ9ccsB75CxwRGEri7Td7EJyoC__KjsTbih_UAEleq2SfkfnKlM6kt6rOK1T-5EnLIIqhBKYHCMhadLOlcIG9mExr959ZIg/w208-h320/image.png" width="208" /></a></div><br /><br /></span></span></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-15300571005992567972020-06-08T17:17:00.019+01:002021-02-13T15:42:13.526+00:00Piano by D. H. Lawrence<span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRHCm7v2MlmC8qJJnyy4QXdEmj4xHS93P4SxL2VWawTzBUWSY-27t5El8tO1MFe8ZrPo0iTVNPDf2Wpe3As2ALqYKDVP02SO6WJZvD0a7X65e2MwrS4JwJRBNJ2dfPr3x9kbd31fNKWtE/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRHCm7v2MlmC8qJJnyy4QXdEmj4xHS93P4SxL2VWawTzBUWSY-27t5El8tO1MFe8ZrPo0iTVNPDf2Wpe3As2ALqYKDVP02SO6WJZvD0a7X65e2MwrS4JwJRBNJ2dfPr3x9kbd31fNKWtE/w320-h320/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">D. H. Lawrence</div><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif" style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Softly, in the dusk, a woman is singing to me;</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Taking me back down the vista of years, till I see</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">A child sitting under the piano, in the boom of the tingling strings</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">And pressing the small, poised feet of a mother who smiles as she sings</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">In spite of myself, the insidious mastery of song</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Betrays me back, till the heart of me weeps to belong</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">To the old Sunday evenings at home, with winter outside</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">And hymns in the cosy parlour, the tinkling piano our guide</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">So now it is vain for the singer to burst into clamour</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">With the great black piano appassionato. The glamour</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Of childish days is upon me, my manhood is cast</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Down in the flood of remembrance, I weep like a child for the past.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><a href="https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/D-H-Lawrence/Selected-Poems/350487" target="_blank">Click here</a> to buy the Selected Poems of D. H. Lawrence</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9TZ-qAUDPR1dCiIfGC-hwHOwbmEXZUTalvVapv21dmCtTk18nJujUt_Bf90QNMKKEALXv0U3tg6QsG5ATOX66oud2d928fFcsG5vlFDCIEUc8oant2dZjAIDf8ijO-uIrNjn9sX7m1B0/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="417" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9TZ-qAUDPR1dCiIfGC-hwHOwbmEXZUTalvVapv21dmCtTk18nJujUt_Bf90QNMKKEALXv0U3tg6QsG5ATOX66oud2d928fFcsG5vlFDCIEUc8oant2dZjAIDf8ijO-uIrNjn9sX7m1B0/w208-h320/image.png" width="208" /></a></div><br /><br /></span></span></div></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-4227032367275081392020-06-08T17:19:00.024+01:002021-02-13T15:36:21.067+00:00Hide and Seek by Vernon Scannell<div><span style="font-family: trebuchet;"><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: large; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGXc_ttVqkjsWOXB-A8s5VWpZvNukwH0VK_gcYIQfUbf3JUkuSzP0pK7uFgTORF7I5-bOffE3omMHOq5aq_u9eXnHVE4Ci5KVNWZTVXnqcUdoXHFDCXdPlwNRyTOWRLSw9FARCx4pcVo/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="293" data-original-width="448" height="261" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdGXc_ttVqkjsWOXB-A8s5VWpZvNukwH0VK_gcYIQfUbf3JUkuSzP0pK7uFgTORF7I5-bOffE3omMHOq5aq_u9eXnHVE4Ci5KVNWZTVXnqcUdoXHFDCXdPlwNRyTOWRLSw9FARCx4pcVo/w400-h261/image.png" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Vernon Scannell</div><br /></span></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div>Call out. Call loud: ‘I’m ready! Come and find me!’</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The sacks in the toolshed smell like the seaside.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">They’ll never find you in this salty dark,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">But be careful that your feet aren’t sticking out.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Wiser not to risk another shout.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The floor is cold. They’ll probably be searching</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The bushes near the swing. Whatever happens</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">You mustn’t sneeze when they come prowling in.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">And here they are, whispering at the door;</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">You’ve never heard them sound so hushed before.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Don’t breathe. Don’t move. Stay dumb. Hide in your blindness.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">They’re moving closer, someone stumbles, mutters;</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Their words and laughter scuffle, and they’re gone.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">But don’t come out just yet; they’ll try the lane</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">And then the greenhouse and back here again.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">They must be thinking that you’re very clever,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Getting more puzzled as they search all over.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">It seems a long time since they went away.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Your legs are stiff, the cold bites through your coat;</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The dark damp smell of sand moves in your throat.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">It’s time to let them know that you’re the winner.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Push off the sacks. Uncurl and stretch. That’s better!</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Out of the shed and call to them: ‘I’ve won!</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Here I am! Come and own up I’ve caught you!’</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The darkening garden watches. Nothing stirs.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The bushes hold their breath; the sun is gone.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Yes, here you are. But where are they who sought you?</span></span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><a href="https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Vernon-Scannell/Collected-Poems-1950-1993/15170277" target="_blank">Click here</a> to buy the Collected Poems of Vernon Scannell 1950-1953 in e book</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcfSOTJWLyaiDy-D7XV_S2og1SOmU2rYGkwfLiF4Uzw406293j03gAYvDwk1hmftk9qIFW93m7eh0DTzLiv3kuhp6EOFWsOYmi_DdjuKBrjeQNopRUooMh6sp_Qn8P8ypDXhA9xo0fzwM/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="219" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcfSOTJWLyaiDy-D7XV_S2og1SOmU2rYGkwfLiF4Uzw406293j03gAYvDwk1hmftk9qIFW93m7eh0DTzLiv3kuhp6EOFWsOYmi_DdjuKBrjeQNopRUooMh6sp_Qn8P8ypDXhA9xo0fzwM/w197-h320/image.png" width="197" /></a></div><br /><br /></span></span></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-61700210741307896252021-02-12T16:03:00.004+00:002021-02-12T16:50:56.864+00:00from How to Wash a Heart by Bhanu Kapil<p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDuD0ad4FZqW2KTc_aZphIJ2DVEr9vJLYd-NYpzCnZ-6LI46EepoToG_UPqLmsBEQcjkW3lyr0lSWUxxYpqcbMuFt6rCKx6-0ivYC0sZOFkuJXkc_hbOfacrOocZ_2B3OwwyH0xz7DLfw/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="210" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDuD0ad4FZqW2KTc_aZphIJ2DVEr9vJLYd-NYpzCnZ-6LI46EepoToG_UPqLmsBEQcjkW3lyr0lSWUxxYpqcbMuFt6rCKx6-0ivYC0sZOFkuJXkc_hbOfacrOocZ_2B3OwwyH0xz7DLfw/w300-h320/image.png" width="300" /></a></p><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Don’t forget me, I whisper to my<br />Father.<br />Give me something to eat, I’m<br />So hungry, I call out to my<br />Mother.<br />The conditional care<br />Of even these<br />Imaginary parents<br />Excretes a hormonal load.<br />Am I safe with you?<br />Or like a baby crawling on the bumpy<br />Carpet, am I my own<br />Mother, actually?<br />Imagine a baby developing so rapidly<br />That by nightfall<br />It has ripped through the pale blue<br />Smock to evolve<br />Beyond the limits of the human.<br />I remember<br />How my mother woke me up<br />So early<br />To look at the bloody stars.<br /><br /><br />My grandfather fermented the yoghurt<br />With rose petals<br />And sugar then buried it<br />In the roots of a mango tree.<br />Come here, he said, extending<br />The sweetest fruit I have ever tasted<br />Come June.<br />On the far side of the orchard<br />He grew saffron and the mangoes there<br />Were red and pink.<br />In the dry well<br />He planted a pomegranate tree.<br />This is where they threw<br />The bodies<br />Come August<br />Noon.<br />Can you find your way home<br />By smell?<br />Metallic, the air tilts along a diagonal line.<br />I smell the pollen of the flowers of the mango tree<br />Which once concealed<br />A kill.<br /><br /><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">For lunch, my mother made okra<br />With caramelized onions,<br />A feat! The wet caps<br />She stuck to my forehead, cheeks<br />And nose.<br />Grimacing as the gates of the school<br />Swung open, I was<br />A joke.<br />The children who were children<br />Like me<br />Fled.<br />I was alone with the slime<br />Dripping down the neck<br />Of my red and white dress,<br />Nettle bites lucid on my shins.<br />Because I ran through the alleyways<br />And not the streets<br />To get here:<br />A hot yard.<br />Shame invites the sun<br />To live in the anus, the creases<br />Of the throat.<br /><br /><br />The priest brought my mother home.<br />My father fell over in the snow<br />After drinking his guts out.<br />The world<br />Was falling down around my ears.<br />When our neighbours<br />Said go, we fled,<br />Our hearts beating<br />Like a fish.<br />Hello, sang Lionel Richie, on the taxi’s orange<br />Radio.<br />My grandfather burned his notebooks<br />Then scraped the ash<br />Into a hole<br />He could button up.<br />Don’t ask me to remember<br />The word for zip.<br />My secret is this:<br />Though we lost all our possessions,<br />I felt<br />A strange relief<br />To see my home explode in the rearview mirror.<br /><br /><br />Monoracial, we fetched up<br />In a place without<br />Discrete racial categories.<br />Our hair<br />No longer felt like our hair<br />No matter how long<br />We combed it<br />With milk.<br />The messages we received<br />Were as follows:<br />You are a sexual object, I have a right<br />To sexualize you.<br />You are not an individual.<br />You are here<br />For my entertainment.<br />You complain too much.<br />Your sexual identity is not<br />Important.<br />The way you talk about what happened to you<br />Is a catastrophic representation.<br />Merry Christmas,<br />Little pig.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Bhanu-Kapil/How-To-Wash-A-Heart/25474661" target="_blank">Click here</a> to buy How to Wash a Heart</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGSMBkZ3_ohWlqvVOcE7v7fnjAF-kbniuhzRlDDOdRh4zPJoq0tkdZJn7PhGnIcKsg74rM7aLOBU-_pxti27wUp8x8W6mNb0cBYaWme05aSY7vDosAxuc0xMTSdY52bNMMyvp6xQd1y-0/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="354" data-original-width="220" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGSMBkZ3_ohWlqvVOcE7v7fnjAF-kbniuhzRlDDOdRh4zPJoq0tkdZJn7PhGnIcKsg74rM7aLOBU-_pxti27wUp8x8W6mNb0cBYaWme05aSY7vDosAxuc0xMTSdY52bNMMyvp6xQd1y-0/w199-h320/image.png" width="199" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BONE_Q4rdQY&t=26s" target="_blank">Click here</a> to watch Bhanu Kapil reading from her collection How to Wash a Heart. It comes with a three-minute introduction.</span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Or click the link below</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BONE_Q4rdQY" width="320" youtube-src-id="BONE_Q4rdQY"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span><p></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-83113148315379911782020-06-08T17:25:00.006+01:002021-02-12T16:43:51.545+00:00Poem at Thirty-Nine by Alice Walker<div><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmX44eROlmBOG-N0T9_WILkwFOlcbTOK5xn7gkv-ywQU3KgwYI1KwJ9DIM3bBIu8bJjw3IrJVPGNbgx67Vb6OvrIcx8yOZpiKYa48dm3ZZcCTooJ6Dtp_fzKQg08okkYDXvzFlyiGGi2M/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1764" data-original-width="1174" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmX44eROlmBOG-N0T9_WILkwFOlcbTOK5xn7gkv-ywQU3KgwYI1KwJ9DIM3bBIu8bJjw3IrJVPGNbgx67Vb6OvrIcx8yOZpiKYa48dm3ZZcCTooJ6Dtp_fzKQg08okkYDXvzFlyiGGi2M/w213-h320/image.png" width="213" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">Alice Walker</div></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div>How i miss my father.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I wish he had not been</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">so tired</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">when i was</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">born</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Writing deposit slips and checks</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">i think of him.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">He taught me how.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">This is the form,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">he must have said:</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">the way it is done.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">I learned to see</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">bits of paper</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">as a way</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">to escape</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">the life he knew</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">and even in high school</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">had a savings</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">account.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">He taught me</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">that telling the truth</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">did not always mean</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">a beating;</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">though many of my truths</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">must have grieved him</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">before the end.</span><br /><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">How I miss my father!</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">He cooked like a person</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">dancing</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">in a yoga meditation</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">and craved the voluptuous</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">sharing</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">of good food.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Now I look and cook just like him:</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">my brain light;</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">tossing this and that</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">into the pot;</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">seasoning none of my life</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">the same way twice; happy to feed</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">whoever strays my way.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">He would have grown</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">to admire</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">the women I've become:</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">cooking, writing, chopping wood,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">staring into the fire.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">from the collection <b>Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful</b> by Alice Walker<br /></span><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVvU6lG3t9mw19niUZ3Kqvgq-HqMoXlXT2iPT6iheOkUeep-TSwPhUQpsl2xgOx-Wl6pV3lKMRtHEDp_pY7cBdFnOTW_4cIoY2A6ITLDdTnqX9XeFt96f2JXPQRp-a3xjeOvk0dcqRxLg/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="349" data-original-width="220" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVvU6lG3t9mw19niUZ3Kqvgq-HqMoXlXT2iPT6iheOkUeep-TSwPhUQpsl2xgOx-Wl6pV3lKMRtHEDp_pY7cBdFnOTW_4cIoY2A6ITLDdTnqX9XeFt96f2JXPQRp-a3xjeOvk0dcqRxLg/w201-h320/image.png" width="201" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><br /><br /></span></span></div></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-16057648875918015472021-02-11T14:24:00.004+00:002021-02-11T14:24:36.591+00:00A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson<p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm8z-Noeo2qQxJi_APxwOFQstb2V3_o-0vADOoyZ9XTiWdlnE0vy_IURXKBJKw_dM_1DkvmwiEXYoWXQMoRrgErOA5tvZ-pX-ci4n1qp2qouFSNJMRxWTlu8aDq6ny4lm5Uid2ez4gDwI/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm8z-Noeo2qQxJi_APxwOFQstb2V3_o-0vADOoyZ9XTiWdlnE0vy_IURXKBJKw_dM_1DkvmwiEXYoWXQMoRrgErOA5tvZ-pX-ci4n1qp2qouFSNJMRxWTlu8aDq6ny4lm5Uid2ez4gDwI/w320-h320/image.png" width="320" /></a></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">And if I speak of Paradise,<br />then I’m speaking of my grandmother<br />who told me to carry it always<br />on my person, concealed, so<br />no one else would know but me.<br />That way they can’t steal it, she’d say.<br />And if life puts you under pressure,<br />trace its ridges in your pocket,<br />smell its piney scent on your handkerchief,<br />hum its anthem under your breath.<br />And if your stresses are sustained and daily,<br />get yourself to an empty room – be it hotel,<br />hostel or hovel – find a lamp<br />and empty your paradise onto a desk:<br />your white sands, green hills and fresh fish.<br />Shine the lamp on it like the fresh hope<br />of morning, and keep staring at it till you sleep.</span></p><p><a href="https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/Roger-Robinson/Portable-Paradise/23301438" style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;" target="_blank">Click here</a><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> to buy A Portable Paradise by Roger Robinson </span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyKgGHgpPccGnLI1cNlNLP68-t5FT1xQM8uQdedrjihZTvFQG39118KYQCQuIfzPv_q494DWC9VZMQJQ4nAzStpU9ULx37wGBK1s5Urwcqag0HuKA-XtTCislwTAPQvUGZIg_8XWO1X40/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="419" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgyKgGHgpPccGnLI1cNlNLP68-t5FT1xQM8uQdedrjihZTvFQG39118KYQCQuIfzPv_q494DWC9VZMQJQ4nAzStpU9ULx37wGBK1s5Urwcqag0HuKA-XtTCislwTAPQvUGZIg_8XWO1X40/w209-h320/image.png" width="209" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0iaU5xDUcoQ&t=5s" target="_blank">Click here</a> to listen to Roger Robinson reading from his collection A Portable Paradise, including a reading of the poem A Portable Paradise. It's about 12 minutes long and begins with an introduction by Ian MacMillan. You'll find the poem A Portable Paradise at 8 minutes.</span><p></p><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">If you listen very carefully you can hear me applauding in the audience.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Or just click on the YouTube video below.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0iaU5xDUcoQ" width="320" youtube-src-id="0iaU5xDUcoQ"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-47467700251027657912020-06-08T17:27:00.002+01:002021-02-11T14:02:04.013+00:00War Photographer by Carol Ann Duffy<div><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPsamdDZx7QLwlv9BcWyb3LPeqiJCkgtsmIPYtEzDDQpQxTVeIAVy12hkv9SRaV-i3dQnWIy7nvOLBpd7lileA6EWLKTBdoSqQFRNr7Bi_R9cjhwyn7pE7UaPxDAAM1OCQUW-TxjsF8o/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="2048" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjgPsamdDZx7QLwlv9BcWyb3LPeqiJCkgtsmIPYtEzDDQpQxTVeIAVy12hkv9SRaV-i3dQnWIy7nvOLBpd7lileA6EWLKTBdoSqQFRNr7Bi_R9cjhwyn7pE7UaPxDAAM1OCQUW-TxjsF8o/w400-h250/image.png" width="400" /></a><br />Carol Ann Duffy</div><br /></span></div><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><div><span face=""Trebuchet MS", sans-serif"><br /></span></div><span style="font-size: medium;">In his darkroom he is finally alone</span></span><span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">with spools of suffering set out in ordered rows.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">The only light is red and softly glows,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">as though this were a church and he</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">a priest preparing to intone a Mass.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Belfast. Beirut. Phnom Penh. All flesh is grass.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">He has a job to do. Solutions slop in trays</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">beneath his hands which did not tremble then</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">though seem to now. Rural England. Home again</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">to ordinary pain which simple weather can dispel,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">to fields which don't explode beneath the feet</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">of running children in a nightmare heat.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">Something is happening. A stranger's features</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">faintly start to twist before his eyes,</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">a half-formed ghost. He remembers the cries</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">of this man's wife, how he sought approval</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">without words to do what someone must</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">and how the blood stained into foreign dust.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif"><br /></span>
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">A hundred agonies in black-and-white</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">from which his editor will pick out five or six</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">for Sunday's supplement. The reader's eyeballs prick</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">with tears between bath and pre-lunch beers.</span><br />
<span face="Trebuchet MS, sans-serif">From aeroplane he stares impassively at where</span><br />
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</div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-49387416192810631622008-09-15T21:49:00.009+01:002021-02-11T13:48:09.263+00:00The Waste Land by T S Eliot<div><div><i><b><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">I</span><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> The Burial of the Dead</span></b></i></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">April is the cruellest month, breeding</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Memory and desire, stirring</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Dull roots with spring rain.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Winter kept us warm, covering</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Earth in forgetful snow, feeding</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">A little life with dried tubers.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">And I was frightened. He said, Marie,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">In the mountains, there you feel free.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">You cannot say, or guess, for you know only</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">And the dry stone no sound of water. Only</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">There is shadow under this red rock,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">And I will show you something different from either</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Your shadow at morning striding behind you</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">I will show you fear in a handful of dust.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> Frisch weht der Wind</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> Der Heimat zu</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> Mein Irisch Kind,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> Wo weilest du?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“They called me the hyacinth girl.”</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Looking into the heart of light, the silence.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Oed’ und leer das Meer.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Had a bad cold, nevertheless</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The lady of situations.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">One must be so careful these days.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"> Unreal City,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">I had not thought death had undone so many.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”</span></div></div><strong><em><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><div><strong><em><br /></em></strong></div><div><strong><em><br /></em></strong></div>II A Game of Chess</span></em></strong><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b>
The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,<br />
Glowed on the marble, where the glass<br />
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines<br />
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out<br />
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)<br />
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra<br />
Reflecting light upon the table as<br />
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,<br />
From satin cases poured in rich profusion.<br />
In vials of ivory and coloured glass<br />
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,<br />
Unguent, powdered, or liquid - troubled, confused<br />
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air<br />
That freshened from the window, these ascended<br />
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,<br />
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,<br />
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.<br />
Huge sea-wood fed with copper<br />
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,<br />
In which sad light a carvèd dolphin swam.<br />
Above the antique mantel was displayed<br />
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene<br />
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king<br />
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale<br />
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice<br />
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,<br />
'Jug Jug' to dirty ears.<br />
And other withered stumps of time<br />
Were told upon the walls; staring forms<br />
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.<br />
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.<br />
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair<br />
Spread out in fiery points<br />
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.<br />
'My nerves are bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.<br />
'Speak to me. Why do you never speak. Speak.<br />
'What are you thinking of? What thinking? What?<br />
'I never know what you are thinking. Think.'<br />
I think we are in rats' alley 115<br />
Where the dead men lost their bones.<br />
'What it that noise?'<br />
The wind under the door.<br />
'What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?'<br />
Nothing again nothing.<br />
'Do<br />
'You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember<br />
'Nothing?'<br />
I remember<br />
Those are pearls that were his eyes.<br />
'Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your head?'<br />
But<br />
O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag -<br />
It's so elegant<br />
So intelligent<br />
'What shall I do now? What shall I do?'<br />
'I shall rush out as I am, and walk the street<br />
'With my hair down, so. What shall we do tomorrow?<br />
'What shall we ever do?'<br />
The hot water at ten.<br />
And if it rains, a closed car at four.<br />
And we shall play a game of chess,<br />
Pressing lidless eyes and waiting for a knock upon the door.<br />
When Lil's husband got demobbed, I said -<br />
I didn't mince my words, I said to her myself,<br />
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME<br />
Now Albert's coming back, make yourself a bit smart.<br />
He'll want to know what you done with that money he gave you<br />
To get herself some teeth. He did, I was there.<br />
You have them all out, Lil, and get a nice set,<br />
He said, I swear, I can't bear to look at you.<br />
And no more can't I, I said, and think of poor Albert,<br />
He's been in the army for four years, he wants a good time,<br />
And if you don't give it him, there's others will, I said.<br />
Oh is there, she said. Something o' that, I said.<br />
Then I'll know who to thank, she said, and give me a straight look.<br />
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME<br />
If you don't like it you can get on with it, I said.<br />
Others can pick and choose if you can't.<br />
But if Albert makes off, it won't be for a lack of telling.<br />
You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique.<br />
(And her only thirty-one.)<br />
I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face,<br />
It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said.<br />
(She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)<br />
The chemist said it would be all right, but I've never been the same.<br />
You are a proper fool, I said.<br />
Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said,<br />
What you get married for if you don't want children?<br />
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME<br />
Well, that Sunday Albert was home, they had a hot gammon,<br />
And they asked me in to dinner, to get the beauty of it hot -<br />
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME<br />
HURRY UP PLEASE IT'S TIME<br />
Goonight Bill. Goonight Lou. Goonight May. Goonight.<br />
Ta ta. Goonight. Goonight.<br />
Good night, ladies, good night, sweet ladies, good night, good night. <br />
<br /><br />
<strong><em>III. The Fire Sermon</em></strong><br />
<br />
The river's tent is broken; the last fingers of leaf<br />
Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind<br />
Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed.<br />
Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song.<br />
The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers,<br />
Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends<br />
Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed.<br />
And their friends, the loitering heirs of City directors;<br />
Departed, have left no addresses.<br />
By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept ...<br />
Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song,<br />
Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long.<br />
But at my back in a cold blast I hear<br />
The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.<br />
A rat crept softly through the vegetation<br />
Dragging its slimy belly on the bank<br />
While I was fishing in the dull canal<br />
On a winter evening round behind the gashouse<br />
Musing upon the king my brother's wreck<br />
And on the king my father's death before him.<br />
White bodies naked on the low damp ground<br />
And bones cast in a little low dry garret,<br />
Rattled by the rat's foot only, year to year.<br />
But at my back from time to time I hear 196<br />
The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring<br />
Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring.<br />
O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter<br />
And on her daughter<br />
They wash their feet in soda water<br />
Et O ces voix d'enfants, chantant dans la coupole!<br />
Twit twit twit<br />
Jug jug jug jug jug jug<br />
So rudely forc'd.<br />
Tereu<br />
<br />
Unreal City<br />
Under the brown fog of a winter noon<br />
Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant<br />
Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants<br />
C.i.f. London: documents at sight,<br />
Asked me in demotic French<br />
To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel<br />
Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.<br />
At the violet hour, when the eyes and back<br />
Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits<br />
Like a taxi throbbing waiting,<br />
I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives,<br />
Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see<br />
At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives<br />
Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea,<br />
The typist home at teatime clears her breakfast, lights<br />
Her stove, and lays out food in tins.<br />
Out of the window perilously spread<br />
Her drying combinations touched by the sun's last rays,<br />
On the divan are piled (at night her bed)<br />
Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays.<br />
I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs<br />
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest -<br />
I too awaited the expected guest.<br />
He, the young man carbuncular, arrives,<br />
A small house agent's clerk, with one bold stare,<br />
One of the low on whom assurance sits<br />
As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire.<br />
The time is now propitious, as he guesses,<br />
The meal is ended, she is bored and tired,<br />
Endeavours to engage her in caresses<br />
Which are still unreproved, if undesired.<br />
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once;<br />
Exploring hands encounter no defence;<br />
His vanity requires no response,<br />
And makes a welcome of indifference.<br />
(And I Tiresias have foresuffered all<br />
Enacted on this same divan or bed;<br />
I who have sat by Thebes below the wall<br />
And walked among the lowest of the dead.)<br />
Bestows one final patronising kiss,<br />
And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit...<br />
<br />
She turns and looks a moment in the glass,<br />
Hardly aware of her departed lover;<br />
Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:<br />
'Well now that's done: and I'm glad it's over.'<br />
When lovely woman stoops to folly and<br />
Paces about her room again, alone,<br />
She smoothes her hair with automatic hand,<br />
And puts a record on the gramophone.<br />
<br />
'This music crept by me upon the waters'<br />
And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street.<br />
O City city, I can sometimes hear<br />
Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street,<br />
The pleasant whining of a mandoline<br />
And a clatter and a chatter from within<br />
Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls<br />
Of Magnus Martyr hold 264<br />
Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold.<br />
The river sweats<br />
Oil and tar<br />
The barges drift<br />
With the turning tide<br />
Red sails<br />
Wide<br />
To leeward, swing on the heavy spar.<br />
The barges wash<br />
Drifting logs<br />
Down Greenwich reach<br />
Past the Isle of Dogs.<br />
Weialala leia<br />
Wallala leialala<br />
Elizabeth and Leicester<br />
Beating oars<br />
The stern was formed<br />
A gilded shell<br />
Red and gold<br />
The brisk swell<br />
Rippled both shores<br />
Southwest wind<br />
Carried down stream<br />
The peal of bells<br />
White towers<br />
Weialala leia<br />
Wallala leialala<br />
'Trams and dusty trees.<br />
Highbury bore me. Richmond and Kew<br />
Undid me. By Richmond I raised my knees<br />
Supine on the floor of a narrow canoe.'<br />
'My feet are at Moorgate and my heart<br />
Under my feet. After the event<br />
He wept. He promised "a new start."<br />
I made no comment. What should I resent?'<br />
'On Margate Sands. <br />
I can connect<br />
Nothing with nothing.<br />
The broken fingernails of dirty hands.<br />
My people humble people who expect<br />
Nothing.'<br />
la la<br />
To Carthage then I came<br />
Burning burning burning burning<br />
O Lord Thou pluckest me out<br />
O Lord Thou pluckest<br />
burning</span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><b><i><br /></i></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><div><b><i>IV Death by Water</i></b></div><div><br /></div><div>Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,</div><div>Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell</div><div>And the profit and loss.</div><div> A current under sea</div><div>Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell</div><div>He passed the stages of his age and youth</div><div>Entering the whirlpool.</div><div> Gentile or Jew</div><div>O you who turn the wheel and look to windward,</div><div>Consider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><i>V What the Thunder Said</i></b></div><div><br /></div><div><div>After the torchlight red on sweaty faces</div><div>After the frosty silence in the gardens</div><div>After the agony in stony places</div><div>The shouting and the crying</div><div>Prison and palace and reverberation</div><div>Of thunder of spring over distant mountains</div><div>He who was living is now dead</div><div>We who were living are now dying</div><div>With a little patience</div><div><br /></div><div>Here is no water but only rock</div><div>Rock and no water and the sandy road</div><div>The road winding above among the mountains</div><div>Which are mountains of rock without water</div><div>If there were water we should stop and drink</div><div>Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think</div><div>Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand</div><div>If there were only water amongst the rock</div><div>Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit</div><div>Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit</div><div>There is not even silence in the mountains</div><div>But dry sterile thunder without rain</div><div>There is not even solitude in the mountains</div><div>But red sullen faces sneer and snarl</div><div>From doors of mudcracked houses</div><div> If there were water</div><div> And no rock</div><div> If there were rock</div><div> And also water</div><div> And water</div><div> A spring</div><div> A pool among the rock</div><div> If there were the sound of water only</div><div> Not the cicada</div><div> And dry grass singing</div><div> But sound of water over a rock</div><div> Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees</div><div> Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop</div><div> But there is no water</div><div><br /></div><div>Who is the third who walks always beside you?</div><div>When I count, there are only you and I together</div><div>But when I look ahead up the white road</div><div>There is always another one walking beside you</div><div>Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded</div><div>I do not know whether a man or a woman</div><div>—But who is that on the other side of you?</div><div><br /></div><div>What is that sound high in the air</div><div>Murmur of maternal lamentation</div><div>Who are those hooded hordes swarming</div><div>Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth</div><div>Ringed by the flat horizon only</div><div>What is the city over the mountains</div><div>Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air</div><div>Falling towers</div><div>Jerusalem Athens Alexandria</div><div>Vienna London</div><div>Unreal</div><div><br /></div><div>A woman drew her long black hair out tight</div><div>And fiddled whisper music on those strings</div><div>And bats with baby faces in the violet light</div><div>Whistled, and beat their wings</div><div>And crawled head downward down a blackened wall</div><div>And upside down in air were towers</div><div>Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours</div><div>And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.</div><div><br /></div><div>In this decayed hole among the mountains</div><div>In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing</div><div>Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel</div><div>There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.</div><div>It has no windows, and the door swings,</div><div>Dry bones can harm no one.</div><div>Only a cock stood on the rooftree</div><div>Co co rico co co rico</div><div>In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust</div><div>Bringing rain</div><div><br /></div><div>Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves</div><div>Waited for rain, while the black clouds</div><div>Gathered far distant, over Himavant.</div><div>The jungle crouched, humped in silence.</div><div>Then spoke the thunder</div><div>DA</div><div>Datta: what have we given?</div><div>My friend, blood shaking my heart</div><div>The awful daring of a moment’s surrender</div><div>Which an age of prudence can never retract</div><div>By this, and this only, we have existed</div><div>Which is not to be found in our obituaries</div><div>Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider</div><div>Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor</div><div>In our empty rooms</div><div>DA</div><div>Dayadhvam: I have heard the key</div><div>Turn in the door once and turn once only</div><div>We think of the key, each in his prison</div><div>Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison</div><div>Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours</div><div>Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus</div><div>DA</div><div>Damyata: The boat responded</div><div>Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar</div><div>The sea was calm, your heart would have responded</div><div>Gaily, when invited, beating obedient</div><div>To controlling hands</div><div><br /></div><div> I sat upon the shore</div><div>Fishing, with the arid plain behind me</div><div>Shall I at least set my lands in order?</div><div>London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down</div><div>Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina</div><div>Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow</div><div>Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie</div><div>These fragments I have shored against my ruins</div><div>Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.</div><div>Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.</div><div> Shantih shantih shantih</div></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/T-S-Eliot/The-Waste-Land-and-Other-Poems/1512415" target="_blank">Click here</a> to buy The Waste Land and Other Poems by T. S. Eliot</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI5gRh8vqOPqVCIu0hRnJPS3f4G_RY6-xMZm0RbFxYTEtFGMrJBQzFhCmRsBMvOzHpCslF9tNIsNT-t61-hEAQogGRxyawmo4_Wjemf-klUnNM_TKcxKMH5biloEBfaSgxxTemNvFeexU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="417" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiI5gRh8vqOPqVCIu0hRnJPS3f4G_RY6-xMZm0RbFxYTEtFGMrJBQzFhCmRsBMvOzHpCslF9tNIsNT-t61-hEAQogGRxyawmo4_Wjemf-klUnNM_TKcxKMH5biloEBfaSgxxTemNvFeexU/w208-h320/image.png" width="208" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hcj4G45F9pw&t=613s" target="_blank">Click here</a> to listen to Alec Guinness reading The Waste Land</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hcj4G45F9pw" width="320" youtube-src-id="Hcj4G45F9pw"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0Ic4P93O2o" target="_blank">Click here</a> to watch Fiona Shaw give a performance reading of The Waste Land </div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/u0Ic4P93O2o" width="320" youtube-src-id="u0Ic4P93O2o"></iframe></div><br /><div><br /></div></span></div>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2436894303354058967.post-41494340279371345122021-02-10T16:45:00.003+00:002021-02-10T16:45:34.987+00:00What the Thunder Said by T. S. Eliot<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS_EImDhlAdI0NytOyp4293b2aDY09tvhyVIHAxeEPclFr9c0Dqnl0u6-fXR9enXUtDtf5wHlFHEbTt6rfxEbpkA6673XzoCCkGumD9swUrDTLlPYD7f9Pv8R8fbxbQXokbTIwLTZCzJU/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="744" data-original-width="496" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiS_EImDhlAdI0NytOyp4293b2aDY09tvhyVIHAxeEPclFr9c0Dqnl0u6-fXR9enXUtDtf5wHlFHEbTt6rfxEbpkA6673XzoCCkGumD9swUrDTLlPYD7f9Pv8R8fbxbQXokbTIwLTZCzJU/w213-h320/image.png" width="213" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">T. S. Eliot</div><br /><br /> <span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">After the torchlight red on sweaty faces<br />After the frosty silence in the gardens<br />After the agony in stony places<br />The shouting and the crying<br />Prison and palace and reverberation<br />Of thunder of spring over distant mountains<br />He who was living is now dead<br />We who were living are now dying<br />With a little patience<br /><br />Here is no water but only rock<br />Rock and no water and the sandy road<br />The road winding above among the mountains<br />Which are mountains of rock without water<br />If there were water we should stop and drink<br />Amongst the rock one cannot stop or think<br />Sweat is dry and feet are in the sand<br />If there were only water amongst the rock<br />Dead mountain mouth of carious teeth that cannot spit<br />Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit<br />There is not even silence in the mountains<br />But dry sterile thunder without rain<br />There is not even solitude in the mountains<br />But red sullen faces sneer and snarl<br />From doors of mudcracked houses<br /> If there were water<br /> And no rock<br /> If there were rock<br /> And also water<br /> And water<br /> A spring<br /> A pool among the rock<br /> If there were the sound of water only<br /> Not the cicada<br /> And dry grass singing<br /> But sound of water over a rock<br /> Where the hermit-thrush sings in the pine trees<br /> Drip drop drip drop drop drop drop<br /> But there is no water<br /><br />Who is the third who walks always beside you?<br />When I count, there are only you and I together<br />But when I look ahead up the white road<br />There is always another one walking beside you<br />Gliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hooded<br />I do not know whether a man or a woman<br />—But who is that on the other side of you?<br /><br />What is that sound high in the air<br />Murmur of maternal lamentation<br />Who are those hooded hordes swarming<br />Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth<br />Ringed by the flat horizon only<br />What is the city over the mountains<br />Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air<br />Falling towers<br />Jerusalem Athens Alexandria<br />Vienna London<br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;">Unreal<br /><br />A woman drew her long black hair out tight<br />And fiddled whisper music on those strings<br />And bats with baby faces in the violet light<br />Whistled, and beat their wings<br />And crawled head downward down a blackened wall<br />And upside down in air were towers<br />Tolling reminiscent bells, that kept the hours<br />And voices singing out of empty cisterns and exhausted wells.<br /><br />In this decayed hole among the mountains<br />In the faint moonlight, the grass is singing<br />Over the tumbled graves, about the chapel<br />There is the empty chapel, only the wind’s home.<br />It has no windows, and the door swings,<br />Dry bones can harm no one.<br />Only a cock stood on the rooftree<br />Co co rico co co rico<br />In a flash of lightning. Then a damp gust<br />Bringing rain<br /><br />Ganga was sunken, and the limp leaves<br />Waited for rain, while the black clouds<br />Gathered far distant, over Himavant.<br />The jungle crouched, humped in silence.<br />Then spoke the thunder<br />DA<br />Datta: what have we given?<br />My friend, blood shaking my heart<br />The awful daring of a moment’s surrender<br />Which an age of prudence can never retract<br />By this, and this only, we have existed<br />Which is not to be found in our obituaries<br />Or in memories draped by the beneficent spider<br />Or under seals broken by the lean solicitor<br />In our empty rooms<br />DA<br />Dayadhvam: I have heard the key<br />Turn in the door once and turn once only<br />We think of the key, each in his prison<br />Thinking of the key, each confirms a prison<br />Only at nightfall, aethereal rumours<br />Revive for a moment a broken Coriolanus<br />DA<br />Damyata: The boat responded<br />Gaily, to the hand expert with sail and oar<br />The sea was calm, your heart would have responded<br />Gaily, when invited, beating obedient<br />To controlling hands<br /><br /> I sat upon the shore<br />Fishing, with the arid plain behind me<br />Shall I at least set my lands in order?<br />London Bridge is falling down falling down falling down<br />Poi s’ascose nel foco che gli affina<br />Quando fiam uti chelidon—O swallow swallow<br />Le Prince d’Aquitaine à la tour abolie<br />These fragments I have shored against my ruins<br />Why then Ile fit you. Hieronymo’s mad againe.<br />Datta. Dayadhvam. Damyata.<br /> Shantih shantih shantih</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><p><a href="https://www.hive.co.uk/Product/T-S-Eliot/The-Waste-Land-and-Other-Poems/1512415" style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;" target="_blank">Click here</a><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: large;"> to buy The Waste Land and Other Poems by T. S. Eliot</span></p><p><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5mwY4BUsipJIglsYT8LMu_FgPDhtVhtgjSgzAJwlyg9DvSJdv2Gh9nwDLFu2221GULhyphenhyphenNcb-ThGbmHqv1RNahWgUJJ5UjOS3TN28ypSXQ32zeSMGAFJAqHyg9vZGEwzn44acAayIPjsg/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="417" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5mwY4BUsipJIglsYT8LMu_FgPDhtVhtgjSgzAJwlyg9DvSJdv2Gh9nwDLFu2221GULhyphenhyphenNcb-ThGbmHqv1RNahWgUJJ5UjOS3TN28ypSXQ32zeSMGAFJAqHyg9vZGEwzn44acAayIPjsg/w208-h320/image.png" width="208" /></a></span></div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: medium;"><br /><br /></span><p></p>Davidhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14343643387576533616noreply@blogger.com0