On the beach I sat on a rock, staring out to sea.
The day was sunny and warm, though blowing a gentle breeze.
There were only a few people there on the beach.
They were engrossed with having fun, and ignored me.
Further along the beach, in a striped top, was a girl.
She walked to the edge of the sea, and watched the incoming tide.

I idly watched the girl who was watching the incoming tide.
Her long hair, unbound, was teased by the gentle breeze.
She stood there motionless, just an ordinary girl,
Gazing at the relentless waves rolling in from the sea.
Although there were other people scattered on the beach,
None of them had any attraction in any way for me.

I was spending time alone, there on that beach,
Watching the slow encroachment of the incoming tide.
As the sun moved overhead, stronger became the breeze,
Making breaking white tops on the waves on the sea.
Reaching into her pocket, a camera was produced by the girl,
Who slowly started filming the scene, turning and facing me.

I watched the girl, standing there, with her back to the sea.
Was she secretly filming me while pretending to film the beach?
She was bare-foot, and as I watched, her feet were wettened by the tide.
The wind had moved round and from her to me now blew the breeze.
I thought I could detect a subtle scent wafting from the girl.
“Attar of Roses”, my favourite fragrance, drifted across to me.

Then, as I sat and watched, further turned the girl.
Having turned fully around, she stood again with her back to the beach.
Then, she seemed to realise, she was surrounded by sea,
And gradually she became aware of the incoming tide.
Once again, she slowly turned, hair blown in her face by the breeze,
And her face, framed by her hair, was now facing to me.

Then, camera swinging from a hand, she walked up the beach.
The panorama that I saw, had now lost some appeal for me.
The sun was slowly sinking down, and colder blew the breeze.
The waves were getting stronger, on the incoming tide.
I decided it was time that I ended my sojourn by the sea,
And I could still smell “Attar of Roses”, a memento of the ephemeral girl.

*Grahame Upham
9th May 2014

Sad or Mad
Poetry is poetry

Good or Bad
Poetry is poetry

Unhappy or glad
*Poetry is poetry

The sun it's rise ever creeping the sky
Morning the dew it stirs flowers do bloom
Sunlight it bathes the green in light soon fading
The cold will creep yet light remains victor
Cloudy the skies gloomy its tears do fall
Yet blooms do fight the gloom and light succeeds

The Poetry Barn wasn’t really a barn
It was merely an old farm house,
It sat on the acres of Eddington’s Farm,
Surrounded by sheep and by cows.
But Poets came over from Stuttersby Dell,
Drove over from Scatabout Wood,
To write in the air of the Poetry Barn
About things, when they ought and they should.

They came from Great Orton, they came from Rams Well,
They came from Glenn Wheatley and Grey,
The best and the worst of the poets you’d find
At the Poetry Barn, every day,
The rooms had been empty for many a year
So they all sat on bundles of straw,
And when they ran out they would send up a shout,
So some would go out and get more.

The mornings would see all the Elegies worked,
The Epics, the Odes and Quatrains,
The Poetry Barn would then grumble and groan
As the Dirges would enter the drains.
By noon the fair Sonnets came into their own
With just the odd wanton Lament,
When poets would seek out the culprit to find
One grinding his verse in a tent.

By evening they’d work on the Pastoral,
The Sestet, the Roundel as well,
And those at a loss after losing the toss
Would be stuck with the old Villanelle,
They’d all settle down when the Moon came up round,
And the stars twinkled boldly in rhyme,
When one asked the other, ‘pray, what rhymes with brother,’
And he’d say, ‘your Mom, all the time.’

The poems would stick to the inside walls,
Would tear at each other like knaves,
They’d fill up the aisles and lie flat on the tiles
And would damage the old architraves.
At night you could hear all the horses hooves
As they carried the good news to Aix,
And in came the wedding guest, him with the albatross
Counting his many mistakes.

I saw that they’d burned down the Poetry Barn
With one sad, incendiary rhyme,
A poet called Glover who wrote to his lover
‘My candle, you light all the time.’
The straw caught alight in his lover’s delight
And they fled from that bastion of verse,
I just penned this missal for someone to whistle,
The one that he’d written was worse.

David Lewis Paget

Who am I?
I'm a piece of work.
A block of marble,
A chip of rock.
A driftwood face,
Waiting near a dock.
A song without refrain,
You won't sing again.
A pattern, pinned for sewing,
A garment good for stowing.
A man in queue,
Looking back at you.
A canvas smeared in gesso,
Leaning near a frame.
A sonnet missing
A rhyming couplet,
An octave and a sestet.
I am
A work in progress

No, I don't want to write a sonnet;
to self-lock in an octave
only clasping a rusty key
-volta-
leading to another office cubicle
efficiently labelled sestet
for its six undone quotas
waiting coolly for my
calculating.

I want to untuck my shirt, Whitman;
to unleash words to gather at seams
then tear them open
like bursting blood cells crowding
out of a wound.
I do not want to fit
flesh into a 'perfect' Barbie membrane,
let me stretch the skin taut as sheets
so I can feel the redness
and gouge underneath.

Clarity glazed the Classical sonata
opaque; staves of controlled fantasy
so imaginable, like an illogically
round orange, sliced
in concaves fat
with pulp, each ripeness methodically
connected by thin breath threads.

This is why we have madness, need it;
bless the ****** of brilliance in Beethoven
symphonies, the metallic muscling
of Ginsberg verses, electronic with strange beauty, holy
and unholy, every ****** mess
in between

The heart can't suffice
by merely inhaling
glitter; I can't dare remember the sane
pretty sighing of a Petrarchan
uttering; canned love,
a predictable malaise packaged
neatly in a bland tome, most likely
beige, with the fashionable odor
of bookish age

And so, serif-writing sweetheart
please don't ask
me to write a sonnet.

too comfortable to tuck my shirt in,
I won't touch I won't touch I won't touch

By the by, her prompt was summer, with several provocative, evocative poems by other authors.  I began this one in meeting, cuz I'd finished that first one and people were not done scribbling, nor had she called time yet, but as the sestet proves, I finished it an hour later, outside.



(sonnet #MMMMMMCCCCIV)


Yes, summer.  Blue skies nary clouds 'non fence
While fragile boughs rock to rough winds' exhale,
Leaves whispring as these golden shafts detail
The colder silence we now scribble hence
Through, and it's not e'en eight, but nearly, whence
Ya, what?  A train's deep voice in passing'd hail,
And people shift within their seats t'avail:
It's...June, and Shakespeare said "hot," aye, that sense.
Tis early, but the fifth, and cooler fer
'Most nine, as gloaming culls a winking crew
Of robins and lo, who? to lilt in tour
While I wait on this bench, and fading blue
Skies yield to friends in passing, while tis your
Face, arms, I want sae badly, Adrian:  you.

05Jun17c

On the trial of writing a sonnet.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On the trial of writing a sonnet
Now as you all know.

The sonnet was pop  in the reign of Elizabeth 1
Hit sonnets topped the billboard charts 1590
Edmund Spenser penned some of the best

Those sonnets written in tribute to the Queen
Royalty in those days had their favourite Poets
I will try to explain the principal of the sonnet
Are you all listening? Well I will demonstrate
Little Story. Is the translation of The Sonnet.

Or it can be described as any short lyric Poem
For it is composed of 8 and 6 line stanzas

With stanza 1 (the octave) presents a situation
Run the stanza 2 ( the sestet) to show resolve
Iambic pentameter is the meter traditional
The rhyming pattern is octave a,b.a,b,b,c,b,c
I set the sestet pattern as c,c,d,c,d,e,e.
Now I suggest you first check our Spenser
Get reading his style Google it and read.

And get used to the rhythm and the rhyme

Spenser sent this tribute as I say to the Queen
Only in those days she had little to read
No nothing only in Latin and written by Monks.
Now he wrote a hundred sonnets as a story.
Edmund Spenser’s epic The Fairie Queen
To me the greatest poem ever written.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Written by Philip.
November 9th 2018.