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Nina Jun 2014
Do you remember our adventures, little sister?
Do you remember our adventures?
Down the Amazon in a inflatable boat
All on a cold wooden floor.
Clutching you in my arms, little sister,
As our brother steered us through the rapids.

Do you remember our adventures, little sister?
Do you remember our adventures?
When the rainy season arrived
And we stood wobbling in the sinking boat,
Throwing buckets of imaginary water
Out onto the cold wooden floor.

Do you remember our adventures, little sister?
Do you remember our adventures?
We navigated fierce waters,
Fought of wild crocodiles,
Only to be called to lunch
And three pairs of socked feet shuffled down the hall.

Nevermore, little sister,
Nevermore shall we brave the waters of the Amazon,
As we have homework to do
Our rooms to clean
And besides, the three of us could no more fit in an inflatable boat
On a cold wooden floor.
From quiet homes and first beginning, Out to the undiscovered ends, There's nothing worth the wear of winning, But laughter and the love of friends.
Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), British author. "Dedicatory Ode," Verses (1910).

Dear Parents

Thank you for deciding after two years of marriage to have a child, me.
Sorry I wasn't the boy that so many of my family desired, sorry I was late, sorry that you missed the "Rumble in the Jungle", if it's any consolation I know who won.
How I came to be is quite beyond me. Father's family disliked mothers and vice versa. Dad a steelworker, Mam a trainee chef, dad flipped a coin with a mate, my mother was the stake.
Four years later sister came along, then another four years the son, that so many yearned for made an appearance.
I saved my sister's life from my grandparent's dog, lost an ear in that battle, a bit like Van Gogh. Plastic surgery at seven, still hate Cocker Spaniels to this day. I tell everyone I saved her from a rabid Doberman (I know parents, there's no Rabies in Great Britain) what did I get for my trouble? A stuffed white cat and a sister that I made sit in a cow pat.
Thank you parents for sending me to a school that made other kids suspicious of me. A welsh medium school, might as well have been Hogwarts, but they taught me well, (I can swear in five languages) and read and spell.
Dad taught me how to head ****, mam you taught me how to make cake.
My sister taught me how to share, my brother taught me how really not to care. Live each day as if it may be your last, I told my brother that often.
Dad, one of 13 kids, mam one of 3, like me. Dad, I hate your sisters that are alive they remind me of the Moirai, or the three witches from Macbeth, I've tried to like them but I'm terrible at lying, and to be honest they are in their late 70's so they must be close to dying.
Mam, your sister is a lesbian, I think her army days gave that away. Your brother like mine a source of consternation a Navy man that never went to sea????
Now, my grandparents are all dead. Apparently, I have inherited my father's mother's temper. She disappeared for 3 days when she thought she'd killed my grandad!
I'm married now, no rug rats thank God, I'm aunty material, selfish and wicked.
Now, this sounds I know a little quaint and odd, but I know we've had our share of bad luck, but, 42 years wed, still in the family home, surrounded by trees, neighbours we've known for years and people we'd like to poison. But,we've laughed so hard mam you have a hernia, dad you are the male equivalent of a ****, you'll be flirting in the OAP home **** yes, sorry parents as one of your three I get to pick the residential home! And, as they say,that is a good life.
Jo **
P.s I didn't mention our family mental illnesses, early 20th century communism, possible adultery, coveting the neighbours Ford Capri, or pet cemetery in the garden. I'll wait til all are dead then spill about the good secrets.
© JLB
17/09/2014
01:43 BST
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
For your enemies you are prepared
  for your friends the same could not be said
Joe Cole Dec 2014
Hilaire Beloc

The South Country

And the great hills of the South country
come back into my mind
For the great hills of the South country
are my hills where I grew up as a child
Where I wandered the fields and the forests
and studied life in the wild
My heart belongs in the South country
'tis here I can sit and take note
Share my thoughts with my friends
and show them the words that I wrote
You can bury me here in the south country
with a tree standing over my grave
I need no long drawn out service
just a place that nature has made
Hilaire Below was my godfather and his poem The South Country
has always been an inspiration because I to live in the Southern hills, and yes I did wander those hills as a child
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
Life is an unstable stage
dangerous for those of old age
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
Money talks for sure
it doesn't have to be pure!
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
The world is ruled not by the wise
  but by fools and idiots with blind eyes
Dr Peter Lim Dec 2018
Enough gibberish for the day
go to sleep---let every word go away!
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
Some types of reading are to be avoided
beware lest you find your mind being exploited
Dr Peter Lim Dec 2018
It's better to be happy
     than popular
     to yourself you belong
     content and sober
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
My best friend
is a fool
we have much in common-
never went to school.
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
I am successful because of my past failures
from the wilderness of life I stepped into lush pastures
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
A thief has more merit
than a corrupt politician--to wit
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
The rich we should pity
their hearts live in poverty
Dr Peter Lim Dec 2018
Adventure
  (ad in Latin is 'towards')
   you add stature
  when your venture
Dr Peter Lim Dec 2018
Yes, I write
     don't assume it's right!
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
Life gives less trouble
  than people
Dr Peter Lim Dec 2018
Learn to pause
  it's benediction
  those who can't stop
  court their own perdition.
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
If of the second chance you did think
    consider a leaking boat about to sink
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
Just because everyone said
  that the forest was tiger-free
  didn't really make it safe:
  today's headline: ' A tiger killed John Henry'
Dr Peter Lim Dec 2018
Keep the last coin
  your life it could save
  it should give your hope
  another chance you would have
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
It doesn't catch the worm-verily-
the early bird
rising while still sleepy
is ornithologically absurd!
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
No one is wise--completely
neither is there a fool in entirety.
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
My guest did me wrong
   he stayed much too long
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
One, two....
   nine, then ten
   all *****
   just one hen!
Dr Peter Lim Nov 2018
I have spoken
my promise shall not be broken
Lawrence Hall Jun 2018
Shall I Compute 1 Thee to a Summer’s Day?

                              A Lament for the Unlettered

They launch no voyages of discovery
To sail beyond the sunset 1 of their dreams
No pages open to them; no books, no boots,
No paths lead them to Constantinople or Rome 3

For the horns of Elfland 4 they listen not
Nor for the unheard pipes on a Grecian urn 5
The Red Book of Westmarch 6 is forever closed
And lines of lyric verse sing not to them

They cling to their precious palantiri 7
And launch no voyages of discovery


1 As Shakespeare did not say

2 From Tennyson’s “Ulysses.” Heinlein used the phrase as the title for his final novel.

3 Patrick Leigh Fermor and Hilaire Belloc

4 C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy

5 Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

6 Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings

7 Tolkien again
Reactionarydrivel.blogspot.com – it’s not really reactionary, tho’ it might be drivel.
Lawrence Hall Dec 2022
Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim’s Journal of Life, Literature and Love
Fellowship & Fairydust (fellowshipandfairydust.com)
https://hellopoetry.com/lawrence-hall/
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

                          The Decline of the British Empire

Whatever happens
We have got
Shakespeare and Milton
And they have not

But this is what
They have got:
A strong economy
And we have not

(Based on a bit of 19th century triumphalist doggerel, attributed to Hilaire Belloc and others, about the Maxim gun. And let The People shout, “Decolonize these lines!”)
Dr Peter Lim Jun 2018
Many epigrams did write Hilaire Belloc
spicy and pungent but they didn't really shock
After Hilaire Belloc

— The End —