The dawn is smiling on the dew that covers
The tearful roses; lo, the little lovers
That kiss the buds, and all the flutterings
In jasmine bloom, and privet, of white wings,
That go and come, and fly, and peep and hide,
With muffled music, murmured far and wide.
Ah, the Spring time, when we think of all the lays
That dreamy lovers send to dreamy mays,
Of the fond hearts within a billet bound,
Of all the soft silk paper that pens wound,
The messages of love that mortals write
Filled with intoxication of delight,
Written in April and before the May time
Shredded and flown, playthings for the wind's playtime,
We dream that all white butterflies above,
Who seek through clouds or waters souls to love,
And leave their lady mistress in despair,
To flit to flowers, as kinder and more fair,
Are but torn love-letters, that through the skies
Flutter, and float, and change to butterflies

i

remember privet road down in winton

those days after the war

the second world war that is


though it feels like folk are at war

always somewhere

maybe we should look after things

and our people


anyway there is a privet plant in the corner of the garden

down by the water pumping station


they want it cut and i want it tidy

so we comprise as i love the smell

of the small white flower come annually


i shall rake the leaves and have made a sign ready

privet corner

it is not a hedge like my grandma had

just a privet plant

Against the perimeter of my childhood backyard
cluttered rows of privet hedges produced
tiny ruby berries, easily crushed if stepped on.
They always fell from the branches
in the slightest trail of wind.

Cougars prowled my playground.
My parents, hesitant to let me out alone,
planted the bushes
in the hopes the cougars would
eat the Ligustrum ovalifolium and never return.

I knew the berries were toxic
and could make me ***** more than what I consumed,
a time bomb in my stomach.
Mother said the poison could make
me shiver harder than a winter day.

When, once, I raised a berry to my lips
Mother plunged forward
and slapped it out of my fingers,
a strange mixture of anger and concern in her eyes.
I was never to pick one again.

I didn’t understand the problem
until I saw two cougars laying behind a privet—
a mama and her cub
no longer breathing in sync.

I come from innocence:
shared VHS tapes,
Disney movies rewound so many times
they got jammed,
late nights spent searching for a lost Elmo doll,
orange Tic Tacs,
bedtime stories by Dr. Seuss
and later, J. R. R. Tolkien,
when Saturday mornings meant
waking up at 6 to watch cartoons,
and sleepovers involved liters of Mountain Dew
and Godfathers pizza.

I come from a magical world
where number 4 Privet Drive is my second address,
Big Brother is always watching,
and sleeping with windows open are invitations for Peter Pan.
A place where Mr. Darcy is my soul mate,
I have two dogs named Old Dan and Little Ann,
to follow a white rabbit is encouraged behavior,
and if you asked me who my hero is
I’d answer with “Sydney Carton.”

I come from opposite sides of the map:
One half includes
Springfield raised grandparents
giving me 20 first cousins,
29 second cousins,
annual family reunions at the lake,
home grown tomatoes,
and alcoholics.
The other half is four thousand miles away and includes
only two cousins,
phone calls every Sunday before two,
and phrases like “Weltrusten” and “Ik hou van jou”
that sound as English as “Good night” and “I love you.”

I come from transformation:
dance recitals where wearing lipstick and hating it
turned into High School
when we all started wearing eyeliner
because it made us look older,
summers soaked in sunlight
are now dampened with summer jobs,
monsters no longer lived under our beds
but in our heads,
clumsy first kisses went further,
romances disappeared
and were replaced with heartbreak
so agonizing
even chocolate couldn’t help,
funerals became imminent,
trophies won at basketball camp- age 7
mean nothing
when you’re told you’re not good enough- age 17.

I come from friendship:**
stupid fights for no reason
always meant brownies the next day,
five dollar Photobooth pictures at the mall,
scary movies we never finished,
sneaking out at three in the morning to swim in the neighbors pool,
and surprise birthday parties
complete with Silly String.
Learning that it’s okay
to let someone see you cry sometimes.
Dumb ideas like wagon racing,
and glow stick fights
that left welts on our arms and legs.
Lord of the Rings movie marathons,
girls night out at Buffalo Wild Wings,
riding bikes down the middle of the highway,
mix CD’s,
Red Mango runs,
words of comfort,
advice,
love,
and seeing the beauty in each other
even when we can’t see it in our self.

I wake and the light of this fine day edges round the curtain.
The birds have chorused and my left foot lies cold outside the sheets.
Standing in my nightgown I draw the curtains and look out at my garden.

Let me pad downstairs, open the front door and walk brief steps
to the arbour of ferns and shells. From a cane chair
I shall view my private corner with its tiny pool and privet hedge:

whilst there is still a little dew; whilst the cobwebs still glisten;
whilst there is no wind, just a grumble of the surf at Porth Neigwl,
the sound my father makes dozing over his paper.

Miniature, enclosed, protected I will place my thoughts
in this dolls’ house garden, amongst the dank, dark shadows
of its many rooms, its parterred spaces.

You don’t walk in this garden; you take a step . . .
and you are elsewhere. Take three steps and you are quite lost.

I hear the kitchen door bang in the manor house,
Meriel is taking breakfast to my sisters.
I think I shall stay here a moment longer.

Beloved, let us once more praise the rain.
Let us discover some new alphabet,
For this, the often praised; and be ourselves,
The rain, the chickweed, and the burdock leaf,
The green-white privet flower, the spotted stone,
And all that welcomes the rain; the sparrow too,-
Who watches with a hard eye from seclusion,
Beneath the elm-tree bough, till rain is done.
There is an oriole who, upside down,
Hangs at his nest, and flicks an orange wing,-
Under a tree as dead and still as lead;
There is a single leaf, in all this heaven
Of leaves, which rain has loosened from its twig:
The stem breaks, and it falls, but it is caught
Upon a sister leaf, and thus she hangs;
There is an acorn cup, beside a mushroom
Which catches three drops from the stooping cloud.
The timid bee goes back to the hive; the fly
Under the broad leaf of the hollyhock
Perpends stupid with cold; the raindark snail
Surveys the wet world from a watery stone...
And still the syllables of water whisper:
The wheel of cloud whirs slowly: while we wait
In the dark room; and in your heart I find
One silver raindrop,-on a hawthorn leaf,-
Orion in a cobweb, and the World.

A privet hedge..a broken gate the House with a roof tiled with Welsh slate,
a broken half open window from which the light throws shadows on the lawn..G'awn be off with you a Cockney voice shouts out.
The Camera pans.

A street,quite neat and real rare around these parts..two lovers on the corner sharing hearts..as if they could beat as one..
Move on there movie man the cop shouts from the black and tan.
The camera pans.

Traffic light that's stuck on green..a crowd gathers." I've never seen the like "..An old girls cry.."Someone will get hurt or even die,call the police "..as if they would bother their fat *** cans..
The camera pans.

It spins and spins upon its pins and captures you and me..and writes in Avatars of cars and flouting clouds of blues and whites,which balance out the unfilmed nights when cameras close their cyclop eyes and digitals tell no more lies.

I rise early like a bird..I heard a camera crew is coming down to film some scenes in my home town.
An expectant hush
An excited rush and then
The camera pans.

The lily’s withered chalice falls
Around its rod of dusty gold,
And from the beech-trees on the wold
The last wood-pigeon coos and calls.

The gaudy leonine sunflower
Hangs black and barren on its stalk,
And down the windy garden walk
The dead leaves scatter,—hour by hour.

Pale privet-petals white as milk
Are blown into a snowy mass:
The roses lie upon the grass
Like little shreds of crimson silk.

I walked among the seven woods of Coole:
Shan-walla, where a willow-hordered pond
Gathers the wild duck from the winter dawn;
Shady Kyle-dortha; sunnier Kyle-na-no,
Where many hundred squirrels are as happy
As though they had been hidden hy green houghs
Where old age cannot find them; Paire-na-lee,
Where hazel and ash and privet hlind the paths:
Dim Pairc-na-carraig, where the wild bees fling
Their sudden fragrances on the green air;
Dim Pairc-na-tarav, where enchanted eyes
Have seen immortal, mild, proud shadows walk;
Dim Inchy wood, that hides badger and fox
And marten-cat, and borders that old wood
Wise Buddy Early called the wicked wood:
Seven odours, seven murmurs, seven woods.
I had not eyes like those enchanted eyes,
Yet dreamed that beings happier than men
Moved round me in the shadows, and at night
My dreams were clown hy voices and by fires;
And the images I have woven in this story
Of Forgael and Dectora and the empty waters
Moved round me in the voices and the fires,
And more I may not write of, for they that cleave
The waters of sleep can make a chattering tongue
Heavy like stone, their wisdom being half silence.
How shall I name you, immortal, mild, proud shadows?
I only know that all we know comes from you,
And that you come from Eden on flying feet.
Is Eden far away, or do you hide
From human thought, as hares and mice and coneys
That run before the reaping-hook and lie
In the last ridge of the barley? Do our woods
And winds and ponds cover more quiet woods,
More shining winds, more star-glimmering ponds?
Is Eden out of time and out of space?
And do you gather about us when pale light
Shining on water and fallen among leaves,
And winds blowing from flowers, and whirr of feathers
And the green quiet, have uplifted the heart?
I have made this poem for you, that men may read it
Before they read of Forgael and Dectora,
As men in the old times, before the harps began,
Poured out wine for the high invisible ones.

fruit helps tone liver
fruit may be mildly toxic
birds love privet fruit

If by chance you should walk the field’s edge
Beyond the thorns and the balding privet hedge,
Walk for five minutes until you see,
A lonely birch copse and a sycamore tree,
And as the breeze inspires the clouds above,
To fluff and feather in the sky they love,
Then look to the copse and think of me,
Those clustered trunks in adversity,
For together they can break the howling winds
From plundering what lies within,
And then, my friend, you’ll understand,
The strength that comes from holding hands.

Warm torrents of rain utter best, eaves broken gutters
in hot summer with rumbling thunder asunder
naked but for cutoff jeans and purple Chinese houses
Let loose rally cry,  a primal voice of joy and freedom
summer has come to heart and bird call nous
slip and slides, running fearless of lightning strike news
Zeus, parts clouds to spy one eyed in appointed winds
aiming at those that would hesitate under Lindon trees
sensing a prodigal fragrance and mother crow's riot
open fields near dense privet hedges defy revelry
baked erratics by cold lakes and deep dives not taken
while a boat's buoyancy sends balance a mysterious cue
water's lumbering Leviathan body ripples to its caress
breezes take up names; sweet, cool, muggy mosquito
and in even' time porch light lowered voices loll

-cec

He walked on up to the cottage from
The cliff, the long way round,
He didn’t want to be seen or heard,
His footsteps made no sound,
He was wearing the same old overcoat
That he’d worn, those years before,
When he’d sauntered out of the cottage,
To take a walk on the shore.

The weather then had been brisk and cold
In the first few days of Spring,
The clouds had been light and fluffy then
He remembered everything,
The gulls were nested along the cliff
And the tide was on the turn,
A single fisherman cast his line
On the far side of the burn.

The pathway down by the cliff had been
Rock strewn and fairly steep,
His steps back then had been tentative,
He had time enough to keep,
He’d told his wife he’d be back by one
From his walk along the shore,
And she had blown him a kiss for fun
As she swept him out the door.

But now he looked at the garden that
Had been so nicely mown,
The privet hedge, the wisteria
Were all now overgrown,
The cottage needed a coat of paint
And the chimney pots were cracked,
He stopped and mused at the garden gate
For the love the cottage lacked.

Then a face appeared at the window that
Was pale, and sad, and drawn,
And he wished the earth would swallow him
From the day that he was born,
The door flew open and out she flew
Like a shrew, with little grace,
A look of scorn as he stood there, torn
And she slapped him round the face.

‘What do you mean by coming here,
Did you hope to see my tears?
You walked away, not a word to say
And you don’t come back for years.’
She screamed and pounded his overcoat
As he took one pace, and stepped,
Folding his arms around her as
She clung to him, and wept.

‘I think I know how the others felt
But it’s all beyond recall,
I only talked to the fisherman,
And I was held in thrall,
He talked and talked of the things to come
It was most distinctly odd,
The world closed in around me till
I felt I was talking to God.’

‘He said so much, and it sounded wise
But I can’t recall a thing,
I wanted to get back home to you
For time was hastening,
But the sun went down and the Moon came up
Which was when he said it, then,
‘I’m not here looking for fish,’ he said,
‘For I’m a fisher of men.’

‘It’s been three years,’ said his tear-stained wife,
‘It has been three years or more,
Since ever you took your leave of me
To wander down on the shore.’
‘That was the time of his ministry,’
He said, ‘and I was to blame,
He  kept on calling me Judas, though
I said that wasn’t my name.’

‘He said that we needed forgiveness, like
I need forgiveness from you,
I honestly don’t know where I’ve been
But I know I’ve always been true.
He packed up his fishing tackle in
A bag he kept on the sand,
Took thirty pieces of silver
And placed them back in my hand.’

David Lewis Paget

Gored by the long tusks of tomorrow
lying hungover...
head throbbing
dehydrated and exhumed

Painful memories of the night before
protrude through thoughts
like a starving artists ribcage

I am dead inside...
like a privet hedge
a green shell
with a barren rotten core

Moments of clarity
dance like carrots on strings...

Terminal lucidity
an occasional epiphany
the definition of insanity

Trust me when I say it
There’s no other way to play it
You’re a purentee bigot
There’s no other place to lay it
You might as well admit it.
It’s your shoe and you fit it.
I believe in the point and hit it.
You are a **** ******* bigot.
Now this won’t hurt much, did it?

It was your own tongue and you bit it;
Showed the world and all in it
That you are nearly an idiot
And a race-bating creep along with it.
So, instead of swallowing, you spit it.
You are a callow and traitorous bigot
Who would deny to others in a minute
The rights of citizenship along with it.
The Liberty Bell? You’ll pit it
With the sticks and stones. You did it
Every time you parrot a Fox News tidbit
As there are little but lies within it.
So, there is the door, why not hit it?
Because your illness? No one can mend it.
It’s a blow to your brain, and within it
The lack of anything more than a divot
Where your compassion should be if it
Had even the tiniest solid rivet.
Instead you are a peanut butter widget,
Not much more than stuff found in a privet.
And not much smarter than a piglet.

When I met, and married my wife,
I opened a secret door,
I knew that her mother, Grace, was strange
But I didn’t know what for.
They spoke so low that I couldn’t hear
In a mother/daughter pact,
But Ellen, she was my holy grail
Til I found it was an act.

I’d been brought up in the English way
Of roast beef, fruit and veg,
The mint that grew and the rhubarb too
By our garden’s privet hedge,
I didn’t know there were other things
That were quite beyond my ken,
But she’d come up through a different school
Though I didn’t know it then.

They say you should check the mother out
If you want to save your tears,
For what the mother is like right now
Is your wife in thirty years,
And Grace was skinny and pastie-faced
With a rock-hard, gimlet eye,
While Ellen was soft and curvy then
And just a trifle shy.

Grace was running a cuisine club
For the village ladies all,
Every Wednesday they’d go en masse
Down to the village hall,
Ellen said there were treats in store
But I didn’t really see,
Not til she brought it home with her
That she’d try it out on me.

The first of the treats she brought on home
Almost knocked me through a loop,
I said, ‘What’s that in the steaming bowl,’
And she answered ‘Batwing soup.
You might need a knife and fork for it,
The wings have a leathery feel,
It won’t take long to get used to it
It tastes a little like eel.’

After I’d gagged and choked a bit
I managed to keep some down,
I said, ‘I’d rather have beef, my love,’
But she stood awhile, and frowned,
‘I’ve made you a special omelette,
Of turtle legs and bees,
Bound together by turkey eggs
And just a little cheese.’

I couldn’t say what I thought of it,
She would be dismayed, my wife,
I knew the love she’d put into it
It would only cause us strife,
But every Wednesday she’d bring one home
A treat for me to try,
Her casserole was a lucky dip
And snake in her cottage pie.

I suffered it for a month or more
Then I put my case to her,
‘I draw the line at toadskin wine,
And a pie with rodent fur,
I love you, Ellen, I really do
But your mother gives me the creeps,
Her witches recipes just won’t do,
I hate ragwort and leeks.’

We came to a final arrangement,
She could do what she’d always done,
The whisk broom under the stairs, she said
Was her idea of fun,
I try to ignore the pointy hat
That she wears when the moon is high,
But she never feeds me toads and rats
Though her mother asks her, ‘Why?’

David Lewis Paget

I left a letter.
Slipped it under the door.
I did not knock,
and I was careful to slip away
as I moved across the floor.

I knew I should have stopped,
I knew I should have turned around.
But my thumping heart
Drown out all the other sounds.
I’d thought about it so many times before,
How I should not be here on this porch
But something pulled me on
Like bugs toward a torch.
Lured toward their death
By attraction that has been wired
Into their system.
Their life soon to retire.

Every tinge of reason, silenced.
Every speck of logic, purged.
Every ****** of vindication
Has been suppressed within my nerves.
The writer has warned that if the note is not passed,
A public copy will be released,
And our next breath will be our last.

They didn’t need the burden that I know brought
The strain of pain and worry that the letter wrought.
I hardly knew these people,
In fact, we’ve never met.
I’ve only heard about them
From the letter I just sent.
Passed on from hand to hand
A secret to disclose
From the privet thoughts
Of a dead girl’s private notes.

Each of us part of her story that we will be told
Each of us not knowing what role we play in the letter we unfold.
No return address or name,
Other than your own.
But once you read the letter,
The sender you will know.
She tells us how each of us has lead to her demise.
How we’ve tainted her reputation with our actions and our lies.

The news will pass from hand to hand in the order they were wrote
By the pen of the deceased who, with purpose, scrawled this note.
Who knew such a simple act could snowball into harm,
That would lead a girl to swallow pills and cut into her arm.

A silent silhouette.
He stands starkly in private corners behind his privet hedge.
The silhouette is that of a deceased poet,
recently passed.
Felix Dennis.
He was an amazing poet.
Filled with magical words,
I will miss our one sided conversations,
the ones that hundreds enter into,
maybe someone will keep his spirit alive.
Honoured Sir,
so honoured.
May your dreams not be as vivid as your words.
For as all poets seem to do.
The words flow in while resting,
and you may not get any rest.
(C) Livvi

If my love was the Sun we would bask forever in the
month of June , on an outdoor rocker for two with
aromatic Gardenias and Privet Hedge making our hearts sing ,
like the mirthful Robins at days beginning , just you and I* ...

Rose petals on the floor
Rose petals on the bed
Your piercing eye and skintight dress
Music playing
Mind racing as you pull me in
Falling deeper into lustful thoughts  

Push me off
Turn the music up
Play it slow

Your hips bent and your *** shook
Your body twists and turns to the rhythm of this ******* song
Got me sweating at this privet show

Witness to your beauty
Victim to my lust
Feel no pity in our hearts
Reality is morphing into fruition of our thoughts...

Bite your lip and lick your neck....
        
         Take our time and do it right...
    
Want us laughing through the night

Cause we both know that in the end we gonna break each other’s hearts.

there is this little corner

tidy now

a niche

which needs a thing to make a point

for it


the storm came yesterday and tired from the work before

browsed the online and found many things

yet know that with time it will sort itself out


just as most places are tidy

the tree came down

and

next door’s shed blew about


it feels quieter this morning

Silence was broken on the country lane
a screech of tyres and then a dull thud
she crawled from under the wheels
her fur all matted and covered in blood

To the side of the road she dragged her broken back legs
to safety and shade underneath a privet hedge
her singular desire is to get back to her cubs
she laps at her wounds tainted with drying mud

She knows her endeavours will be left to the wind
and the yelps of her pups will course the pain
all the shivers as she tries not to die
will leave her pups dying tragic, starved and alone

By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris

You know I was 14 when I joined this site. I am now about to be 20, I am expecting a child and life has been crazy. I couldn't ask for a better group of people as my support system. I love this site and talk about it to this day. You all are wonderful people and I hope you are ever changing but keep your poet heart. Thank you for your words and letting me look into your privet lives. You all are amazing. Never stop writing.

I like hedges long, short, slim, wide
Curving round bends on ends
It has to be Privet, smells divine
Like a strange type of wine.

Outside mansions or on council estates
Scruffy and woody where leaves flake
Cut into chickens or kangaroo topiary
Covered in Christmas lights at night.

I just love Hedges.

Love Mary **

a family name with two parts,
yet what it has to do with
guns , heaven knows.

there is a hotel designed
around that shape, apparently.

looks out to sea.

some times one wonders about the fuss,
and worry, when.

it is only a privet hedge.

sbm.

it is a topic here and a memory

the privet

that is why it is labelled now

belonging to a social media group

with memories of where i lived

growing up

saw a photo of privet road, the corner

with a comma here

halfway up the hill was the coal and seed merchants and I used to go in with mum

cole and son

i guess she ordered coal not seed as there were five of us and not much time for gardening though gran’s mr palmer did next door

along the wall in tubs were the seeds to dip into , to feel

with permission and samples of the differing fuels

coal, coke, briquettes and nutty slack

i liked our visits there very much and had forgotten what was around the corner

saved the photo and sent it to my brother who replied and sent a current google view by return

he said he preferred the photograph which was nice as he does not always reply

i still like coal and seeds

some things don’t change

The garden leading to her Edwardian house
Came swiftly off the main road
The front path straight and lengthy
With bobble brick edging in grey stone.

Roses gathered irregularly along the borders
And a privet hedge lined the perimeter
Needing lots of attention in the Summer months
A few small trees and bushes broke up the space.

Every year I would visit my mother's sister ,Betty
Very different from my mother in outlook
As the front door opened the aroma of sweetness
Gathered from the year's cooking apple crop.

And so it would be a weekend of difference
Spread out as the art books lining the walls
A collection of shells, labelled with dates and places
Displayed on a trolley and covered with cellophane,
An old piano,  Boosey and Hawks, on a side wall
And record cabinets containing her favourite music
Everything had its place, still, motionless, peaceful.

Five powerful privet hedges formed
a fence in our front yard in New York.
My mother planted them for some
reason, known only to her.

The branches grew sparse and suffered.
Failure to thrive.  Knee high to my
twelve year old body, it never bloomed
in that yard of green weeds and dandelions.

It was meant to keep the
dogs away.  We had feral cats
in the yard.  My brother and I
were feral.  My mother bred us
into the wind of 1940's Chicago.

So that was that for her.  She
retreated into madness from
Chicago to New York to
South Bend.

Fences, like my mother's
addictions, are not always seen.
They crawl up your leg like
flakes of hate.  They keep growing
until your eyes are holes in the
twigs.

A fence so thick you think
only prayers will let you out.
Easter Sunday blooms in
the trailers and filaments.

No relief.  They scratch
on your so small soul.  White
privet petals crawl into crevice
and crease.  

I no longer itch but
tic with the rhythm
of the seasons.


Caroline Shank

Grapevines are the first songs of civilization
Their leaves, their tendrils, their late-summer grapes
As given in the Mass: fruit of the vine
And work of human hands, of human love

But when a vine neglects its ancient realm
And reaches out to grasp and colonize
Its peaceful neighbors, privet and rose and oak
It must be brought to heel with sweat and steel

And in its healing recover its purposes:
Grapevines are the first songs of civilization

Privet! You are that
puerile, puffy
no longer the outline
that they had cut of you

Bold like a spider
smaller than the white spot
on my nail
I slam the book shut
you are faster
you skitter about on the table
mocking as if
but I like to play too