High the vanes of Shrewsbury gleam
Islanded in Severn stream;
The bridges from the steepled crest
Cross the water east and west.

The flag of morn in conqueror's state
Enters at the English gate:
The vanquished eve, as night prevails,
Bleeds upon the road to Wales.

Ages since the vanquished bled
Round my mother's marriage-bed;
There the ravens feasted far
About the open house of war:

When Severn down to Buildwas ran
Coloured with the death of man,
Couched upon her brother's grave
That Saxon got me on the slave.

The sound of fight is silent long
That began the ancient wrong;
Long the voice of tears is still
That wept of old the endless ill.

In my heart it has not died,
The war that sleeps on Severn side;
They cease not fighting, east and west,
On the marches of my breat.

Here the truceless armies yet
Trample, rolled in blood and sweat;
They **** and **** and never die;
And I think that each is I.

None will part us, none undo
The knot that makes one flesh of two,
Sick with hatred, sick with pain,
Strangling--When shall we be slain?

When shall I be dead and rid
Of the wrong my father did?
How long, how long, till ***** and hearse
Puts to sleep my mother's curse?

--To Elizabeth Robins Pennell


'O mes cheres Mille et Une Nuits!'--Fantasio.

Once on a time
There was a little boy:  a master-mage
By virtue of a Book
Of magic--O, so magical it filled
His life with visionary pomps
Processional!  And Powers
Passed with him where he passed.  And Thrones
And Dominations, glaived and plumed and mailed,
Thronged in the criss-cross streets,
The palaces pell-mell with playing-fields,
Domes, cloisters, dungeons, caverns, tents, arcades,
Of the unseen, silent City, in his soul
Pavilioned jealously, and hid
As in the dusk, profound,
Green stillnesses of some enchanted mere.--

I shut mine eyes . . . And lo!
A flickering ****** of memory that floats
Upon the face of a pool of darkness five
And thirty dead years deep,
Antic in girlish broideries
And skirts and silly shoes with straps
And a broad-ribanded leghorn, he walks
Plain in the shadow of a church
(St. Michael's:  in whose brazen call
To curfew his first wails of wrath were whelmed),
Sedate for all his haste
To be at home; and, nestled in his arm,
Inciting still to quiet and solitude,
Boarded in sober drab,
With small, square, agitating cuts
Let in a-top of the double-columned, close,
Quakerlike print, a Book! . . .
What but that blessed brief
Of what is gallantest and best
In all the full-shelved Libraries of Romance?
The Book of rocs,
Sandalwood, ivory, turbans, ambergris,
Cream-tarts, and lettered apes, and calendars,
And ghouls, and genies--O, so huge
They might have overed the tall Minster Tower
Hands down, as schoolboys take a post!
In truth, the Book of Camaralzaman,
Schemselnihar and Sindbad, Scheherezade
The peerless, Bedreddin, Badroulbadour,
Cairo and Serendib and Candahar,
And Caspian, and the dim, terrific bulk--
Ice-ribbed, fiend-visited, isled in spells and storms--
Of Kaf! . . . That centre of miracles,
The sole, unparalleled Arabian Nights!

Old friends I had a-many--kindly and grim
Familiars, cronies quaint
And goblin!  Never a Wood but housed
Some morrice of dainty dapperlings.  No Brook
But had his nunnery
Of green-haired, silvry-curving sprites,
To cabin in his grots, and pace
His lilied margents.  Every lone Hillside
Might open upon Elf-Land.  Every Stalk
That curled about a Bean-stick was of the breed
Of that live ladder by whose delicate rungs
You climbed beyond the clouds, and found
The Farm-House where the Ogre, gorged
And drowsy, from his great oak chair,
Among the flitches and pewters at the fire,
Called for his Faery Harp.  And in it flew,
And, perching on the kitchen table, sang
Jocund and jubilant, with a sound
Of those gay, golden-vowered madrigals
The shy thrush at mid-May
Flutes from wet orchards flushed with the triumphing dawn;
Or blackbirds rioting as they listened still,
In old-world woodlands rapt with an old-world spring,
For Pan's own whistle, savage and rich and lewd,
And mocked him call for call!

I could not pass
The half-door where the cobbler sat in view
Nor figure me the wizen Leprechaun,
In square-cut, faded reds and buckle-shoes,
Bent at his work in the hedge-side, and know
Just how he tapped his brogue, and twitched
His wax-end this and that way, both with wrists
And elbows.  In the rich June fields,
Where the ripe clover drew the bees,
And the tall quakers trembled, and the West Wind
Lolled his half-holiday away
Beside me lolling and lounging through my own,
'Twas good to follow the Miller's Youngest Son
On his white horse along the leafy lanes;
For at his stirrup linked and ran,
Not cynical and trapesing, as he loped
From wall to wall above the espaliers,
But in the bravest tops
That market-town, a town of tops, could show:
Bold, subtle, adventurous, his tail
A banner flaunted in disdain
Of human stratagems and shifts:
King over All the Catlands, present and past
And future, that moustached
Artificer of fortunes, ****-in-Boots!
Or Bluebeard's Closet, with its plenishing
Of meat-hooks, sawdust, blood,
And wives that hung like fresh-dressed carcases--
Odd-fangled, most a butcher's, part
A faery chamber hazily seen
And hazily figured--on dark afternoons
And windy nights was visiting of the best.
Then, too, the pelt of hoofs
Out in the roaring darkness told
Of Herne the Hunter in his antlered helm
Galloping, as with despatches from the Pit,
Between his hell-born Hounds.
And Rip Van Winkle . . . often I lurked to hear,
Outside the long, low timbered, tarry wall,
The mutter and rumble of the trolling bowls
Down the lean plank, before they fluttered the pins;
For, listening, I could help him play
His wonderful game,
In those blue, booming hills, with Mariners
Refreshed from kegs not coopered in this our world.

But what were these so near,
So neighbourly fancies to the spell that brought
The run of Ali Baba's Cave
Just for the saying 'Open Sesame,'
With gold to measure, peck by peck,
In round, brown wooden stoups
You borrowed at the chandler's? . . . Or one time
Made you Aladdin's friend at school,
Free of his Garden of Jewels, Ring and Lamp
In perfect trim? . . . Or Ladies, fair
For all the embrowning scars in their white *******
Went labouring under some dread ordinance,
Which made them whip, and bitterly cry the while,
Strange Curs that cried as they,
Till there was never a Black ***** of all
Your consorting but might have gone
Spell-driven miserably for crimes
Done in the pride of womanhood and desire . . .
Or at the ghostliest altitudes of night,
While you lay wondering and acold,
Your sense was fearfully purged; and soon
Queen Labe, abominable and dear,
Rose from your side, opened the Box of Doom,
Scattered the yellow powder (which I saw
Like sulphur at the Docks in bulk),
And muttered certain words you could not hear;
And there! a living stream,
The brook you bathed in, with its weeds and flags
And cresses, glittered and sang
Out of the hearthrug over the nakedness,
Fair-scrubbed and decent, of your bedroom floor! . . .

I was--how many a time!--
That Second Calendar, Son of a King,
On whom 'twas vehemently enjoined,
Pausing at one mysterious door,
To pry no closer, but content his soul
With his kind Forty.  Yet I could not rest
For idleness and ungovernable Fate.
And the Black Horse, which fed on sesame
(That wonder-working word!),
Vouchsafed his back to me, and spread his vans,
And soaring, soaring on
From air to air, came charging to the ground
Sheer, like a lark from the midsummer clouds,
And, shaking me out of the saddle, where I sprawled
Flicked at me with his tail,
And left me blinded, miserable, distraught
(Even as I was in deed,
When doctors came, and odious things were done
On my poor tortured eyes
With lancets; or some evil acid stung
And wrung them like hot sand,
And desperately from room to room
Fumble I must my dark, disconsolate way),
To get to Bagdad how I might.  But there
I met with Merry Ladies.  O you three--
Safie, Amine, Zobeide--when my heart
Forgets you all shall be forgot!
And so we supped, we and the rest,
On wine and roasted lamb, rose-water, dates,
Almonds, pistachios, citrons.  And Haroun
Laughed out of his lordly beard
On Giaffar and Mesrour (I knew the Three
For all their Mossoul habits).  And outside
The Tigris, flowing swift
Like Severn bend for bend, twinkled and gleamed
With broken and wavering shapes of stranger stars;
The vast, blue night
Was murmurous with peris' plumes
And the leathern wings of genies; words of power
Were whispering; and old fishermen,
Casting their nets with prayer, might draw to shore
Dead loveliness:  or a prodigy in scales
Worth in the Caliph's Kitchen pieces of gold:
Or copper vessels, stopped with lead,
Wherein some Squire of Eblis watched and railed,
In durance under potent charactry
Graven by the seal of Solomon the King . . .

Then, as the Book was glassed
In Life as in some olden mirror's quaint,
Bewildering angles, so would Life
Flash light on light back on the Book; and both
Were changed.  Once in a house decayed
From better days, harbouring an errant show
(For all its stories of dry-rot
Were filled with gruesome visitants in wax,
Inhuman, hushed, ghastly with Painted Eyes),
I wandered; and no living soul
Was nearer than the pay-box; and I stared
Upon them staring--staring.  Till at last,
Three sets of rafters from the streets,
I strayed upon a mildewed, rat-run room,
With the two Dancers, horrible and obscene,
Guarding the door:  and there, in a bedroom-set,
Behind a fence of faded crimson cords,
With an aspect of frills
And dimities and dishonoured privacy
That made you hanker and hesitate to look,
A Woman with her litter of Babes--all slain,
All in their nightgowns, all with Painted Eyes
Staring--still staring; so that I turned and ran
As for my neck, but in the street
Took breath.  The same, it seemed,
And yet not all the same, I was to find,
As I went up!  For afterwards,
Whenas I went my round alone--
All day alone--in long, stern, silent streets,
Where I might stretch my hand and take
Whatever I would:  still there were Shapes of Stone,
Motionless, lifelike, frightening--for the Wrath
Had smitten them; but they watched,
This by her melons and figs, that by his rings
And chains and watches, with the hideous gaze,
The Painted Eyes insufferable,
Now, of those grisly images; and I
Pursued my best-beloved quest,
Thrilled with a novel and delicious fear.
So the night fell--with never a lamplighter;
And through the Palace of the King
I groped among the echoes, and I felt
That they were there,
Dreadfully there, the Painted staring Eyes,
Hall after hall . . . Till lo! from far
A Voice!  And in a little while
Two tapers burning!  And the Voice,
Heard in the wondrous Word of God, was--whose?
Whose but Zobeide's,
The lady of my heart, like me
A True Believer, and like me
An outcast thousands of leagues beyond the pale! . . .

Or, sailing to the Isles
Of Khaledan, I spied one evenfall
A black blotch in the sunset; and it grew
Swiftly . . . and grew.  Tearing their beards,
The sailors wept and prayed; but the grave ship,
Deep laden with spiceries and pearls, went mad,
Wrenched the long tiller out of the steersman's hand,
And, turning broadside on,
As the most iron would, was haled and ******
Nearer, and nearer yet;
And, all awash, with horrible lurching leaps
Rushed at that Portent, casting a shadow now
That swallowed sea and sky; and then,
Anchors and nails and bolts
Flew screaming out of her, and with clang on clang,
A noise of fifty stithies, caught at the sides
Of the Magnetic Mountain; and she lay,
A broken bundle of firewood, strown piecemeal
About the waters; and her crew
Passed shrieking, one by one; and I was left
To drown.  All the long night I swam;
But in the morning, O, the smiling coast
Tufted with date-trees, meadowlike,
Skirted with shelving sands!  And a great wave
Cast me ashore; and I was saved alive.
So, giving thanks to God, I dried my clothes,
And, faring inland, in a desert place
I stumbled on an iron ring--
The fellow of fifty built into the Quays:
When, scenting a trap-door,
I dug, and dug; until my biggest blade
Stuck into wood.  And then,
The flight of smooth-hewn, easy-falling stairs,
Sunk in the naked rock!  The cool, clean vault,
So neat with niche on niche it might have been
Our beer-cellar but for the rows
Of brazen urns (like monstrous chemist's jars)
Full to the wide, squat throats
With gold-dust, but a-top
A layer of pickled-walnut-looking things
I knew for olives!  And far, O, far away,
The Princess of China languished!  Far away
Was marriage, with a Vizier and a Chief
Of Eunuchs and the privilege
Of going out at night
To play--unkenned, majestical, secure--
Where the old, brown, friendly river shaped
Like Tigris shore for shore!  Haply a Ghoul
Sat in the churchyard under a frightened moon,
A thighbone in his fist, and glared
At supper with a Lady:  she who took
Her rice with tweezers grain by grain.
Or you might stumble--there by the iron gates
Of the Pump Room--underneath the limes--
Upon Bedreddin in his shirt and drawers,
Just as the civil Genie laid him down.
Or those red-curtained panes,
Whence a tame cornet tenored it throatily
Of beer-pots and spittoons and new long pipes,
Might turn a caravansery's, wherein
You found Noureddin Ali, loftily drunk,
And that fair Persian, bathed in tears,
You'd not have given away
For all the diamonds in the Vale Perilous
You had that dark and disleaved afternoon
Escaped on a roc's claw,
Disguised like Sindbad--but in Christmas beef!
And all the blissful while
The schoolboy satchel at your hip
Was such a bulse of gems as should amaze
Grey-whiskered chapmen drawn
From over Caspian:  yea, the Chief Jewellers
Of Tartary and the bazaars,
Seething with traffic, of enormous Ind.--

Thus cried, thus called aloud, to the child heart
The magian East:  thus the child eyes
Spelled out the wizard message by the light
Of the sober, workaday hours
They saw, week in week out, pass, and still pass
In the sleepy Minster City, folded kind
In ancient Severn's arm,
Amongst her water-meadows and her docks,
Whose floating populace of ships--
Galliots and luggers, light-heeled brigantines,
Bluff barques and rake-hell fore-and-afters--brought
To her very doorsteps and geraniums
The scents of the World's End; the calls
That may not be gainsaid to rise and ride
Like fire on some high errand of the race;
The irresistible appeals
For comradeship that sound
Steadily from the irresistible sea.
Thus the East laughed and whispered, and the tale,
Telling itself anew
In terms of living, labouring life,
Took on the colours, busked it in the wear
Of life that lived and laboured; and Romance,
The Angel-Playmate, raining down
His golden influences
On all I saw, and all I dreamed and did,
Walked with me arm in arm,
Or left me, as one bediademed with straws
And bits of glass, to gladden at my heart
Who had the gift to seek and feel and find
His fiery-hearted presence everywhere.
Even so dear Hesper, bringer of all good things,
Sends the same silver dews
Of happiness down her dim, delighted skies
On some poor collier-hamlet--(mound on mound
Of sifted squalor; here a soot-throated stalk
Sullenly smoking over a row
Of flat-faced hovels; black in the gritty air
A web of rails and wheels and beams; with strings
Of hurtling, tipping trams)--
As on the amorous nightingales
And roses of Shiraz, or the walls and towers
Of Samarcand--the Ineffable--whence you espy
The splendour of Ginnistan's embattled spears,
Like listed lightnings.
Samarcand!
That name of names!  That star-vaned belvedere
Builded against the Chambers of the South!
That outpost on the Infinite!
And behold!
Questing therefrom, you knew not what wild tide
Might overtake you:  for one fringe,
One suburb, is stablished on firm earth; but one
Floats founded vague
In lubberlands delectable--isles of palm
And lotus, fortunate mains, far-shimmering seas,
The promise of wistful hills--
The shining, shifting Sovranties of Dream.

“Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!
Confusion on thy banners wait!
Tho’ fanned by Conquest’s crimson wing,
They mock the air with idle state.
Helm, nor hauberk’s twisted mail,
Nor e’en thy virtues, Tyrant, shall avail
To save thy secret soul from nightly fears,
From Cambria’s curse, from Cambria’s tears!”
Such were the sounds that o’er the crested pride
Of the first Edward scattered wild dismay,
As down the steep of Snowdon’s shaggy side
He wound with toilsome march his long array.
Stout Glo’ster stood aghast in speechless trance:
“To arms!” cried Mortimer, and couched his quiv’ring lance.

On a rock, whose haughty brow
Frowns o’er cold Conway’s foaming flood,
Robed in the sable garb of woe
With haggard eyes the Poet stood;
(Loose his beard and hoary hair
Streamed like a meteor to the troubled air)
And with a master’s hand, and prophet’s fire,
Struck the deep sorrows of his lyre.
“Hark, how each giant-oak and desert-cave
Sighs to the torrent’s awful voice beneath!
O’er thee, O King! their hundred arms they wave,
Revenge on thee in hoarser murmurs breathe;
Vocal no more, since Cambria’s fatal day,
To high-born Hoel’s harp, or soft Llewellyn’s lay.

“Cold is Cadwallo’s tongue,
That hushed the stormy main;
Brave Urien sleeps upon his craggy bed:
Mountains, ye mourn in vain
Modred, whose magic song
Made huge Plinlimmon bow his cloud-topt head.
On dreary Arvon’s shore they lie,
Smeared with gore, and ghastly pale:
Far, far aloof th’ affrighted ravens sail;
The famished eagle screams, and passes by.
Dear lost companions of my tuneful art,
Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes,
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart,
Ye died amidst your dying country’s cries—
No more I weep. They do not sleep.
On yonder cliffs, a grisly band,
I see them sit; they linger yet,
Avengers of their native land:
With me in dreadful harmony they join,
And weave with ****** hands the tissue of thy line.

“Weave, the warp! and weave, the woof!
The winding sheet of Edward’s race:
Give ample room and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year and mark the night
When Severn shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death, thro’ Berkley’s roof that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing king!
She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tear’st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
From thee be born, who o’er thy country hangs
The scourge of Heaven! What terrors round him wait!
Amazement in his van, with Flight combined,
And Sorrow’s faded form, and Solitude behind.

“Mighty victor, mighty lord!
Low on his funeral couch he lies!
No pitying heart, no eye, afford
A tear to grace his obsequies.
Is the sable warrior fled?
Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead.
The swarm that in thy noon-tide beam were born?
Gone to salute the rising morn.
Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o’er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes:
Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm:
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway,
That, hushed in grim repose, expects his ev’ning prey.

“Fill high the sparkling bowl,
The rich repast prepare;
Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast:
Close by the regal chair
Fell Thirst and Famine scowl
A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.
Heard ye the din of battle bray,
Lance to lance, and horse to horse?
Long years of havoc urge their destined course,
And thro’ the kindred squadrons mow their way.
Ye towers of Julius, London’s lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight ****** fed,
Revere his consort’s faith, his father’s fame,
And spare the meek usurper’s holy head.
Above, below, the rose of snow,
Twined with her blushing foe, we spread:
The bristled Boar in infant-gore
Wallows beneath the thorny shade.
Now, brothers, bending o’er the accursed loom,
Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.

“Edward, lo! to sudden fate
(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun.)
Half of thy heart we consecrate.
(The web is wove. The work is done.)
Stay, oh stay! nor thus forlorn
Leave me unblessed, unpitied, here to mourn:
In yon bright track that fires the western skies
They melt, they vanish from my eyes.
But oh! what solemn scenes on Snowdon’s height
Descending slow their glittering skirts unroll?
Visions of glory, spare my aching sight,
Ye unborn ages, crowd not on my soul!
No more our long-lost Arthur we bewail.
All hail, ye genuine kings! Britannia’s issue, hail!

“Girt with many a baron bold
Sublime their starry fronts they rear;
And gorgeous dames, and statesmen old
In bearded majesty, appear.
In the midst a form divine!
Her eye proclaims her of the Briton-line:
Her lion-port, her awe-commanding face,
Attempered sweet to ****** grace.
What strings symphonious tremble in the air,
What strains of vocal transport round her play!
Hear from the grave, great Taliessin, hear;
They breathe a soul to animate thy clay.
Bright Rapture calls, and soaring as she sings,
Waves in the eye of heav’n her many-coloured wings.

“The verse adorn again
Fierce War, and faithful Love,
And Truth severe, by fairy Fiction drest.
In buskined measures move
Pale Grief, and pleasing Pain,
With Horror, tyrant of the throbbing breast.
A voice, as of the cherub-choir,
Gales from blooming Eden bear;
And distant warblings lessen on my ear,
That lost in long futurity expire.
Fond impious man, think’st thou yon sanguine cloud,
Raised by thy breath, has quenched the orb of day?
Tomorrow he repairs the golden flood,
And warms the nations with redoubled ray.
Enough for me: with joy I see
The diff’rent doom our fates assign.
Be thine Despair and sceptred Care;
To triumph and to die are mine.”
He spoke, and headlong from the mountain’s height
Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night.

no matter what pronoun use is in place, there won’t be time
to decipher it as personal or impersonal, subjective or objective,
singular or plural... to write a book of philosophy pulsating
existentialism:
i miss the rugby world cup, i miss it,
the gay referee too,
i miss the hugging and blood mushroom sprouting
from the cartilage of smeared sneeze and sniff to a hark
of semolina saliva in the up-shoot...
i miss it in the scrum... away from
the balancing mary antoinette and ballerinas,
modern lawful facade: he anchored me! gone sail the titanic!
he anchored me! foul! see? precisely! a guillotine on the ready
for those insured legs of footballers...
i miss the rugby... i fancied playing it once in school...
we had p.e. (jerseys) on the reverse with a yellow stripe
going across all maroon... football was favoured...
even though i got the ball and walked 1/4 of the field in that sloth
of being fat... why do people always have such negative memories of youth,
esp. in school?! i don’t know... all i know...
when i walked for a bottle of brown whiskers tonight,
the streets of essex were filled with that fabled smog of 19th century london,
it wasn’t guy fawkes' night but the night bling bling was out...
the firework smog settled into the streets and i started gesticulating
‘trouble breathing! trouble breathing!’ using sign language...
i couldn't translate gasping into an onomatopoeia,
let alone sign-language... mime mime mime!
3 words: film... beginning with seismic shifts... severn!
it’s an american holiday for god’s sake
(the slavs are sombre remembering the day
with virgo mort of mexico... you’re out partying
******* and ******* on graves)... have some decency to be
remotely commonwealth in attitude... like australia!
i wished they won, 2nd half, 21 to 3 i thought they were whitewash flushed...
then they bounced back to 21 - 17... then the drop goal from carter...
ah it was a knockout...
never mind the mary antoinettes and ballerinas of football...
i said it once... i’ll say it again: ref! oink ref! police officer!
you missed a spot, this tile will not have anyone slipping!
it’s how you get a working man’s sport audience impassioned...
no middle-class sensibility in a sport...
make him give a wrong decision many a times...
and you’ll get the pub rumble...
not time-out... no: let’s see it on the BIG screen...
get the referee on the side of the masses and get them impassioned
through his bad decision / multitasking... i was imagining
a big mac / watching nickers being slingshot onto the pitch...
get the referee behind the crowd and orientate them
with william wallace at stirling crying - war war woad! tadpole ooh! tattoo! blue 28! blue... grr!
in rugby you’ll just get as much passion as a workable middle-class
english marriage... oops **** daisy loot the loo (with stressor r missing trill missing h):
bloom!
and your uncle was nicknamed ***** harry?
was he ginger and donned a beard?
must be royalty.
ah man, i miss the connectivity of rugby,
where everyone's making a sandwich... with football
you just get the replica of english sociological etiquette...
saying hello 5 metres apart...
so no french chequers kissing on the cheek
to feed intimacy? problem sorted...
let me just get my umbrella... seeing the teardrops
of feminism shower me under a roof salivating from the chandelier.

As through the wild green hills of Wyre
The train ran, changing sky and shire,
And far behind, a fading crest,
Low in the forsaken west
Sank the high-reared head of Clee,
My hand lay empty on my knee.
Aching on my knee it lay:
That morning half a shire away
So many an honest fellow's fist
Had well-nigh wrung it from the wrist.
Hand, said I, since now we part
From fields and men we know by heart,
For strangers' faces, strangers' lands,--
Hand, you have held true fellows' hands.
Be clean then; rot before you do
A thing they'll not believe of you.
You and I must keep from shame
In London streets the Shropshire name;
On banks of Thames they must not say
Severn breeds worse men than they;
And friends abroad must bear in mind
Friends at home they leave behind.
Oh, I shall be stiff and cold
When I forget you, hearts of gold;
The land where I shall mind you not
Is the land where all's forgot.
And if my foot returns no more
To Teme nor Corve nor Severn shore,
Luck, my lads, be with you still
By falling stream and standing hill,
By chiming tower and whispering tree,
Men that made a man of me.
About your work in town and farm
Still you'll keep my head from harm,
Still you'll help me, hands that gave
A grasp to friend me to the grave.

The Danube to the Severn gave
  The darken'd heart that beat no more;
  They laid him by the pleasant shore,
And in the hearing of the wave.

There twice a day the Severn fills;
  That salt sea-water passes by,
  And hushes half the babbling Wye,
And makes a silence in the hills.

The Wye is hush'd nor moved along,
  And hush'd my deepest grief of all,
  When fill'd with tears that cannot fall,
I brim with sorrow drowning song.

The tide flows down, the wave again
  Is vocal in its wooded walls;
  My deeper anguish also falls,
And I can speak a little then.

"Farewell to barn and stack and tree,
Farewell to Severn shore.
Terence, look your last at me,
For I come home no more.

"The sun burns on the half-mown hill,
By now the blood is dried;
And Maurice amongst the hay lies still
And my knife is in his side.

"My mother thinks us long away;
'Tis time the field were mown.
She had two sons at rising day,
To-night she'll be alone.

"And here's a ****** hand to shake,
And oh, man, here's good-bye;
We'll sweat no more on scythe and rake,
My ****** hands and I.

"I wish you strength to bring you pride,
And a love to keep you clean,
And I wish you luck, come Lammastide,
At racing on the green.

"Long for me the rick will wait,
And long will wait the fold,
And long will stand the empty plate,
And dinner will be cold."

Weave the warp, and weave the woof,
The winding-sheet of Edward’s race.
  Give ample room, and verge enough
The characters of hell to trace.
Mark the year, and mark the night,
When Severn shall re-echo with affright
The shrieks of death, thro’ Berkley’s roofs that ring,
Shrieks of an agonizing King!
  She-wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
That tear’st the bowels of thy mangled mate,
  From thee be born, who o’er thy country hangs
The scourge of Heav’n. What terrors round him wait!
Amazement in his van, with Flight combined,
And Sorrow’s faded form, and Solitude behind.

  Mighty Victor, mighty Lord!
Low on his funeral couch he lies!
  No pitying heart, no eye, afford
A tear to grace his obsequies.
Is the sable warrior fled?
Thy son is gone. He rests among the dead.
The swarm that in thy noon tide beam were born?
Gone to salute the rising morn.
Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o’er the azure realm
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes;
  Youth on the prow, and Pleasure at the helm;
Regardless of the sweeping whirlwind’s sway,
That, hush’d in grim repose, expects his evening prey.

  Fill high the sparkling bowl,
The rich repast prepare;
  Reft of a crown, he yet may share the feast:
Close by the regal chair
  Fell Thirst and Famine scowl
  A baleful smile upon their baffled guest.
Heard ye the din of battle bray,
  Lance to lance, and horse to horse?
  Long years of havoc urge their destined course,
And thro’ the kindred squadrons mow their way.
  Ye Towers of Julius, London’s lasting shame,
With many a foul and midnight ****** fed,
  Revere his consort’s faith, his father’s fame,
And spare the meek usurper’s holy head.
Above, below, the rose of snow,
  Twined with her blushing foe, we spread:
The bristled boar in infant-gore
  Wallows beneath the thorny shade.
Now, brothers, bending o’er th’ accursèd loom
Stamp we our vengeance deep, and ratify his doom.

  Edward, lo! to sudden fate
(Weave we the woof. The thread is spun)
  Half of thy heart we consecrate.
(The web is wove. The work is done.)

What a shame
When someone loses fame
For doing nothing
Because of a shortcoming

For days, he was liked
Taken care of and prized
But once he had to be away
Got forgotten and castaway

He was called a liar
To be put on fire
He was blamed
Accused and defamed

For, frankly speaking, no reason
Yet he was charged with treason
Days ago was a family member
Now he's put at stake of timber

Indeed, very odd is man
When he is subject to ban
When jealousy driven
And heart-striken

Lucky is a freeman
Who refuses to live in a can
Lucky is the man
Who is not fried on a pan.

Sam Burton(C)







Today is Friday, Oct. 11, the 284 day of 2014 with 81 to follow.

The moon is waning. Morning stars are Jupiter and Venus. Evening stars are Mars, Mercury, Neptune, Uranus and Saturn.
In 1845, the U.S. Naval Academy was formally opened at Fort Severn, Annapolis, Md., with 50 midshipmen in the first class.

In 1886, Griswold Lorillard of Tuxedo Park, N.Y., fashioned the first tuxedo for men.

A thought for the day:

We all should rise above the clouds of ignorance, narrowness and selfishness. -- Booker T. Washington


Quotes for the day:

A good traveller is one who does not know where he is going to, and a perfect traveller does not know where he came from.

------------------------

All women's dresses are merely variations on the eternal struggle between admitted desire to dress and the unadmitted desire to undress.

Lin Yutang

"What seems to us as bitter trials are often blessings in disguise."

Oscar Wilde

"It takes but one positive thought when given a chance to survive and thrive to overpower an entire army of negative thoughts."

Robert H. Schuller

My boyfriend and I broke up. He wanted to get married and I didn't want him to.

Rita Rudner

It is only by following your deepest instinct that you can lead a rich life, and if you let your fear of consequence prevent you from following your deepest instinct, then your life will be safe, expedient and thin.

Katharine Butler Hathaway


TIVIA


What made Lucky Lindy so special?

Charles Lindbergh was not the first man to fly the Atlantic. He was the sixty-seventh. The first sixty-six made the crossing in dirigibles and twin-engine mail planes. Lindbergh was the first to make the dangerous flight alone.

Can your brain hurt?

Only figuratively -- Pain from any injury or illness is always registered by the brain. Yet, curiously, the brain tissue itself is immune to pain; it contains none of the specialized receptor cells that sense pain in other parts of the body. The pain associated with brain tumors does not arise from brain cells but from the pressure created by a growing tumor or tissues outside the brain.


Where can you see a lot of magnets?

More than 7,000 magnets are on display at the Guinness World of Records Museum and Gift Shop, located on the Las Vegas Strip. The exhibit is a portion of the more than 26,000-magnet collection of Louise J. Greenfarb, dubbed "The Magnet Lady," whose accumulation was designated by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world's "Largest Refrigerator Magnet" collection.



Poetry

Evening Star

Edgar Allan Poe

'Twas noontide of summer,
And mid-time of night;
And stars, in their orbits,
Shone pale, thro' the light
Of the brighter, cold moon,
'Mid planets her slaves,
Herself in the Heavens,
Her beam on the waves.
I gazed awhile
On her cold smile;
Too cold- too cold for me-
There pass'd, as a shroud,
A fleecy cloud,
And I turned away to thee,
Proud Evening Star,
In thy glory afar,
And dearer thy beam shall be;
For joy to my heart
Is the proud part
Thou bearest in Heaven at night,
And more I admire
Thy distant fire,
Than that colder, lowly light.


Vocabulary

Strudel

noun

: a pastry made from a thin sheet of dough rolled up with filling and baked

Example:

Strudels are usually made with high-gluten flour to increase the malleability of the dough.

"The Supremes belted out a song on the radio, their voices as smooth and flawless as the ribbon of cream Kirsten poured from the pitcher onto her father's strudel, and the whole house smelled cheerfully of pork and spiced apples, laced with a note of butter. — From Rebecca Coleman’s 2011 novel The Kingdom of Childhood



Health and Beauty Tip

Mineral Water for greasy hair

If you have oily hair, use a shampoo that contains zinc. It's okay to condition if you feel you need it -- just don't use it on your roots and scalp.


JOKES

Funny News

From the Churchdown Parish Magazine:
"Would the Congregation please note that the bowl at the back of the Church, labelled 'For The Sick,' is for monetary donations only."

-o-

From The Guardian concerning a sign seen in a Police canteen in Christchurch, New Zealand:
'Will the person who took a slice of cake from the Commissioner's Office return it immediately. It is needed as evidence in a poisoning case."

-o-

From The Times:

A young girl, who was blown out to sea on a set of inflatable teeth, was rescued by a man on an inflatable lobster. A coast-guard spokesman commented: 'This sort of thing is all too common these days.'

-o-

From The Gloucester Citizen:

A *** line caller complained to Trading Standards. After dialling an 0891 number from an advertisement entitled 'Hear Me Moan' the caller was played a tape of a woman nagging her husband for failing to do jobs around the house! . Consumer Watchdogs in Dorset refused to look into the complaint, saying, 'He got what he deserved.'

-o-

From The Barnsley Chronicle:

Police arrived quickly, to find Mr Melchett hanging by his fingertips from the back wall. He had run out of the house when the owner, Paul Finch, returned home unexpectedly, and, spotting an intruder in the garden, had visiting Mrs Finch and, hearing the front door open, had climbed out of the rear window. But the back wall was 8 feet high and Mr Melchett had been unable to get his leg over.

-o-

From The Scottish Big Issue:

In Sydney, 120 men named Henry attacked each other during a 'My Name is Henry' convention. Henry ****** of Canberra accused Henry Pap of Sydney of not being a Henry at all, but in fact an Angus. 'It was a lie', explained Mr Pap, 'I'm a Henry and always will be,' whereupon Henry Pap attacked Henry ******, whilst two other Henrys - Jones and Dyer - attempted ! to pull them apart. Several more Henrys - Smith, Calderwood an! d Andrew s - became involved and soon the entire convention descended into a giant fist fight. The brawl was eventually broken up by riot police, led by a man named Shane.

-o-

From The Daily Telegraph:

In a piece headed "Brussels Pays 200,000 Pounds to Save Prostitutes": "[T]he money will not be going directly into the prostitutes' pocket, but will be used to encourage them to lead a better life. We will be training them for new positions in hotels."

-o-

From The Derby Abbey Community News:

We apologise for the error in the last edition, in which we stated that 'Mr Fred Nicolme is a defective in the police force.' This was a typographical error. We meant of course that Mr Nicolme is a detective in the police farce.

-o-
From The Guardian:

After being charged 20 pounds for a 10 pounds overdraft, 30 year old Michael Howard of Leeds changed his name by deed poll to 'Yorkshire Bank Plc are Fascist! *s.' The Bank has now asked him to close his account, and Mr *s has asked them to repay the 69p balance by cheque, made out in his new name.

-o-

From The Manchester Evening News:

Police called to arrest a naked man on the platform at Piccadilly Station released their suspect after he produced a valid rail ticket.

-o-

An Austrian circus dwarf died recently when he bounced sideways from a trampoline and was swallowed by a hippopotamus. Seven thousand people watched as little Franz Dasch popped into the mouth of Hilda the Hippo and the animal's gag reflex forced it to swallow. The crowd applauded wildly before other circus people realized what had happened.

-o-

An elderly woman at a unit for sufferers of senile dementia passed round a box of mothballs thinking that they were mints. Eleven people were taken to hospital for treatment.

Confessional Etiquette


The new priest is nervous about hearing confessions, so he asks an older priest to sit in on his sessions. The new priest hears a couple confessions, then the old priest asks him to step out of the confessional for a few suggestions.
The old priest says, "Cross your arms over your chest and rub your chin with one hand."

The new priest tries this. The old priest suggests, "Try saying things like, 'I see,' 'yes,' 'go on,' 'I understand,' and 'how did you feel about that?'"

The new priest says those things, trying them out. The old priest says, "Now, don't you think that's a little better than saying, 'Whoa... What happened next?'"

So Funny

A guy purchased Willie Nelson's hair for $37,000. ***** removed his braids and the guy bought them for $37,000. This is the kind of decision you make after spending the day on Willie's tour bus.

David Litterman

Did you hear what happened to Willie Nelson's hair? They sold it. There was an auction this week and a pair of Willie Nelson's braids sold for $37,000. It's a good deal because each braid has a street value of $80,000.

Jimmy Kimmel

Quick Blonde Jokes

Q: Why did the blonde keep putting quarters in the soda vending machine?

A: Because she thought she was winning.

Q: Why did the blonde take 16 friends to the movies?

A: Under 17 not admitted!

Q: Why did the blonde bake a chicken for 3 and a half days?

A: It said cook it for half an hour per pound, and she weighed 125.


Have a very nice Saturday!

On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger
When Uricon the city stood:
'Tis the old wind in the old anger,
But then it threshed another wood.

Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman
At yonder heaving hill would stare:
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.

There, like the wind through woods in riot,
Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.

The gale, it plies the saplings double,
It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:
To-day the Roman and his trouble
Are ashes under Uricon.

Hail native Language, that by sinews weak
Didst move my first endeavouring tongue to speak,
And mad’st imperfect words with childish tripps,
Half unpronounc’t, slide through my infant-lipps,
Driving dum silence from the portal dore,
Where he had mutely sate two years before:
Here I salute thee and thy pardon ask,
That now I use thee in my latter task:
Small loss it is that thence can come unto thee,
I know my tongue but little Grace can do thee:                      
Thou needst not be ambitious to be first,
Believe me I have thither packt the worst:
And, if it happen as I did forecast,
The daintest dishes shall be serv’d up last.
I pray thee then deny me not thy aide
For this same small neglect that I have made:
But haste thee strait to do me once a Pleasure,
And from thy wardrope bring thy chiefest treasure;
Not those new fangled toys, and triming slight
Which takes our late fantasticks with delight,                      
But cull those richest Robes, and gay’st attire
Which deepest Spirits, and choicest Wits desire:
I have some naked thoughts that rove about
And loudly knock to have their passage out;
And wearie of their place do only stay
Till thou hast deck’t them in thy best aray;
That so they may without suspect or fears
Fly swiftly to this fair Assembly’s ears;
Yet I had rather if I were to chuse,
Thy service in some graver subject use,                              
Such as may make thee search thy coffers round
Before thou cloath my fancy in fit sound:
Such where the deep transported mind may scare
Above the wheeling poles, and at Heav’ns dore
Look in, and see each blissful Deitie
How he before the thunderous throne doth lie,
Listening to what unshorn Apollo sings
To th’touch of golden wires, while **** brings
Immortal Nectar to her Kingly Sire:
Then passing through the Spherse of watchful fire,                  
And mistie Regions of wide air next under,
And hills of Snow and lofts of piled Thunder,
May tell at length how green-ey’d Neptune raves,
In Heav’ns defiance mustering all his waves;
Then sing of secret things that came to pass
When Beldam Nature in her cradle was;
And last of Kings and Queens and Hero’s old,
Such as the wise Demodocus once told
In solemn Songs at King Alcinous feast,
While sad Ulisses soul and all the rest                              
Are held with his melodious harmonie
In willing chains and sweet captivitie.
But fie my wandring Muse how thou dost stray!
Expectance calls thee now another way,
Thou know’st it must he now thy only bent
To keep in compass of thy Predicament:
Then quick about thy purpos’d business come,
That to the next I may resign my Roome

Then Ens is represented as Father of the Predicaments his ten
Sons, whereof the Eldest stood for Substance with his Canons,
which Ens thus speaking, explains.

Good luck befriend thee Son; for at thy birth
The Faiery Ladies daunc’t upon the hearth;                          
Thy drowsie Nurse hath sworn she did them spie
Come tripping to the Room where thou didst lie;
And sweetly singing round about thy Bed
Strew all their blessings on thy sleeping Head.
She heard them give thee this, that thou should’st still
From eyes of mortals walk invisible,
Yet there is something that doth force my fear,
For once it was my dismal hap to hear
A Sybil old, bow-bent with crooked age,
That far events full wisely could presage,
And in Times long and dark Prospective Glass
Fore-saw what future dayes should bring to pass,
Your Son, said she, (nor can you it prevent)
Shall subject be to many an Accident.
O’re all his Brethren he shall Reign as King,
Yet every one shall make him underling,
And those that cannot live from him asunder
Ungratefully shall strive to keep him under,
In worth and excellence he shall out-go them,
Yet being above them, he shall be below them;                        
From others he shall stand in need of nothing,
Yet on his Brothers shall depend for Cloathing.
To find a Foe it shall not be his hap,
And peace shall lull him in her flowry lap;
Yet shall he live in strife, and at his dore
Devouring war shall never cease to roare;
Yea it shall be his natural property
To harbour those that are at enmity.
What power, what force, what mighty spell, if not
Your learned hands, can loose this Gordian knot?                    

The next Quantity and Quality, spake in Prose, then Relation
was call’d by his Name.

Rivers arise; whether thou be the Son,
Of utmost Tweed, or Oose, or gulphie Dun,
Or Trent, who like some earth-born Giant spreads
His thirty Armes along the indented Meads,
Or sullen Mole that runneth underneath,
Or Severn swift, guilty of Maidens death,
Or Rockie Avon, or of Sedgie Lee,
Or Coaly Tine, or antient hallowed Dee,
Or Humber loud that keeps the Scythians Name,
Or Medway smooth, or Royal Towred Thame.

This poem was witten by my godfather Hilair Beloc 1870-1953

When I am living in the midlands
That are sodden and unkind
I light my lamp in the evening
My work is left behind
And the great hills of the South Country
Come back into my mind

The great hills of the South Country
They stand along the sea
And its there walking in the high woods
That I could wish to be
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Walking along with me

The men that live in North England
I saw them for a day
Their hearts are set upon the waste fells
Their skies are fast and grey
From their castle walls a man may see
The mountains far away

The men that live in West England
They see the Severn strong
A rolling on rough water brown
Light aspen leaves along
The have the secret of the rocks
And the oldest kind of song

But the men that live in the South Country
Are the kindest and most wise
They get their laughter from the loud surf
And the faith in their happy eyes
Comes surely from our sister the spring
When over the sea she flies
The violets suddenly bloom at her feet
She blesses us with surprise

I never get between the pines
But I smell the Sussex air
Nor I never come on a belt of sand
But my home is there
And along the skyline of the Downs
So noble and so bare

A lost thing I could never find
Nor a broken thing mend
And I fear I shall be all alone
When I get towards the end
Who will be there to comfort me
Or who will be my friend

I will gather and carefully make my friends
Of the men of the Sussex Weald
They watch the stars from the silent folds
They stiffly plough the fields
By them and the God of the South Country
My poor soul shall be healed

If ever I become a rich man
Or if ever I grow to be old
I will build a house with a deep thatch
To shelter me from the cold
And there shall the Sussex songs  be sung
And the story of Sussex told

I will hold my house in the high woods
Within a walk of the sea
And the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with me

Bubbles of talk and understanding laughter rise and fall -
A warmth of people in the orange light.
Some places lend themselves to parables,
As here - in Severn-circled Shrewsbury by night.

Present friends make links to older times;
The words that are your living to make live
Trace the sinews of their journeys to a
Younger name of where we live and love -

An Alder Hill- Place of meeting and of meaning
Under sheltering green where words and lives
Were shared. We inherit now in human glow
Of present conversation, a river's-depth of memories flowing here.

The Alder trees live on. Their ghostly roots
And branches now the passages and shuts
That tell the light-dark-light of life,
With newer voices echoing their questions, truths and fears.

And some to find a way together, whatever
Distances prevail, to meet upon a day – your day.
While still the opal swans glide silent, knowing,
On the night time shadows of the Severn.

Seeing, saying all, if only we could hear.

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,
The shires have seen it plain,
From north and south the sign returns
And beacons burn again.

Look left, look right, the hills are bright,
The dales are light between,
Because 'tis fifty years to-night
That God has saved the Queen.

Now, when the flame they watch not towers
About the soil they trod,
Lads, we'll remember friends of ours
Who shared the work with God.

To skies that knit their heartstrings right,
To fields that bred them brave,
The saviours come not home to-night:
Themselves they could not save.

It dawns in Asia, tombstones show
And Shropshire names are read;
And the Nile spills his overflow
Beside the Severn's dead.

We pledge in peace by farm and town
The Queen they served in war,
And fire the beacons up and down
The land they perished for.

"God save the Queen" we living sing,
From height to height 'tis heard;
And with the rest your voices ring,
Lads of the Fifty-third.

Oh, God will save her, fear you not:
Be you the men you've been,
Get you the sons your fathers got,
And God will save the Queen.

On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

'Twould blow like this through holt and hanger
When Uricon the city stood;
'Tis the old wind in the old anger,
But then it threshed another wood.

Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman
At yonder heaving hill would stare;
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
The thoughts that hurt him, they were there.

There, like the wind through woods in riot,
Through him the gale of life blew high;
The tree of man was never quiet:
Then 'twas the Roman, now 'tis I.

The gale, it plies the saplings double,
It blows so hard, 'twill soon be gone:
Today the Roman and his trouble
Are ashes under Uricon.

From Clee to heaven the beacon burns,
The shires have seen it plain,
From north and south the sign returns
And beacons burn again.

Look left, look right, the hills are bright,
The dales are light between,
Because 'tis fifty years to-night
That God has saved the Queen.

Now, when the flame they watch not towers
About the soil they trod,
Lads, we'll remember friends of ours
Who shared the work with God.

To skies that knit their heartstrings right,
To fields that bred them brave,
The saviours come not home to-night:
Themselves they could not save.

It dawns in Asia, tombstones show
And Shropshire names are read;
And the Nile spills his overflow
Beside the Severn's dead.

We pledge in peace by farm and town
The Queen they served in war,
And fire the beacons up and down
The land they perished for.

"God save the Queen" we living sing,
From height to height 'tis heard;
And with the rest your voices ring,
Lads of the Fifty-third.

Oh, God will save her, fear you not:
Be you the men you've been,
Get you the sons your fathers got,
And God will save the Queen.

lil taffy two tripshad been away beforea miners trip to barryalso nantyglovalley boy adventurereager to exploreworld before his feetmam crying on the doori've packed you tea and sandwichesweeping in her shawlher little boy's too young for thishe's only forty fourintrepid, brave and welshfocus clear as crystalsailed the severn seasended up in bristolbright lights, noise, and blackmenbut taffy knew the crackhe'd watched a film called zuluthe welsh are'nt scared of blackapproached a pretty ladylooking rather coldstockings and suspendershigh heels, posing boldbussle, crowds and trafficleft taffy feeling illneed to sort my head outwhere can i get  a pillshe introduced a hooded manwho offered him a jointi got no where to cook itbut thank you....there's no pointfive pounds for a tabletbut taffy had to risk itwhat added to confusionthe man called it a biscuitsat down on the pavementfeeling warm and funnytook his little cap offand people chucked in moneypioneer bold and bravesniggered thro his teeththey won't believe his storywhen he returns to neathno butchers or a chemista place beyond beliefblack man selling medicinealso joints of beefcraddling the flask of teaand sanwiches of spamtears down his knitted scarfwrapped lovingly by mam

Westward on the high-hilled plains
Where for me the world began,
Still, I think, in newer veins
Frets the changeless blood of man.

Now that other lads than I
Strip to bathe on Severn shore,
They, no help, for all they try,
Tread the mill I trod before.

There, when hueless is the west
And the darkness hushes wide,
Where the lad lies down to rest
Stands the troubled dream beside.

There, on thoughts that once were mine,
Day looks down the eastern steep,
And the youth at morning shine
Makes the vow he will not keep.

Somedays it is true.
That you can fill your glass to full.
But woman.
That does not mean.
I do not love you.
I am working from severn to severn.
Just to give us the money, so I can go on loving you.
But this night.
Woman, you make me dizzy.
And there you go on one again.

for my Sidcot Friends

Two poems on Encouragement

I

She rose to her feet,
and sitting a few rows behind
I could not see her tears
as they coloured every word she spoke.

‘I have been thinking,’ she said,
‘of my dear sister dead
this fortnight past.
Loved by all whose lives
she touched, home and abroad.’

With some courage this woman
then described the memorial service,
the church alive and packed to honour
her sister’s life, a life of encouragement
always given with the kindest words,
and her wonderful smile, always.

II

His delivery was achingly slow
every word measured right
on the cusp between sense
and no sense, but ******* the memory.
Fitting somehow because his subject
was the movie ‘The King’s Speech’,
how he and friends had focused
during their Lenten study
on Bertie, the stammering monarch,
discouraged and made fun of
at every turn.

But,
befriended by a commoner
this future king was encouraged
to know that he might speak one day,
words of hope, of resolution, of courage;
encouragement no less - in a difficult time.

(to be read with aching slowness . . .)


At Meeting


‘For each and all
we need silence and stillness.’
So she had written . . .
and we were certainly
silent. Still is a harder
state when sitting
on those wooden forms,
benches well-bottomed
and the floor at our feet
creaking like planks
on a ship’s deck
in a stiff breeze.


Presence in the Midst


I hope for His presence.
It comforts me to know
He had been here before,
sitting close by, waiting.

But, lately, I am removed
from the Promise and the Gift,
and not fully awake, the silence
droops my shoulders,
bends my back so the daughter
of my friend (and partner)
wonders, ‘Is he asleep?’
No, I say when confronted
later. Not I.
Resting perhaps, and
just relieved from the sentry-go
of imagination’s so
persistent commands.



Heels Together


In spring sunshine
on a wooden bench
by the circular pond
I sit to listen
to water’s spray
and play from
the diver’s fountain.
Here a pair of sculptured feet,
body and limbs immersed,
and into the lilies disappeared.
But with the heels so neatly together:
to make a smaller splash.


Seven Hills


I’m surrounded here
by the Seven Hills –
Callow, Blackdown, Dolebury Warren,
Sandford, Banwell, Crook Peak
and Wavering Down and up
again and back to Callow.
These carboniferous limestone heights,
Mendips all, are home to the peregrine falcon,
geranium purpuleum, the long-eared owl,
and *dianthus gratianopoltanus.


Sunset


Sitting alone,
with only the sunset
for company,
I watch an orange globe
fall, fall behind a distant
hill hiding the Severn and the sea,
a spring evening and the birds
in song before the approaching dark,
the rising moon, the solitary stars.



Four Yurts in a Field


‘Speaking truth to power,’
The Guardian said,
‘Questioning authority,
Challenging the status quo’
and so  . . .

Four yurts in a field
make for a centre of
simplicity, truth, peace
and equanimity all
quite inescapable here.




Singing Easter Sunday


We sang as we do here
on Easter Day this joyful
noise together all and sundry
to bless the day with music’s
Concord and Time, rhythm
enlivened by the Sweetest Charity,
flipping the wings, tingling the feet.

When every empty bar did give me leave
I caught her singing smile, her sensible
shoe-standing stance, her grace,
her peerless beauty in that grey
frock falling just to stockinged knees.
She was all and more and ever
I could wish her ever to be. Amen.

This is a poem
made by her hand
a poem of marks
you can read
left to right

right to left
any which way
an ascemic script
it tells a tale
late in the day

beside a river still
sunlit clouds vast
in a Maytime sky
down on the mud
and shingled shore

these found things
arrived at her feet
as they do when
waiting for her
dear hand’s touch

upon their metalled
forms rusted and
rivered by the daily
tides the diurnal
wash and dry of

weather and watered
river mud-coloured
beside boats bedded
in the river bank each
plaqued to remember

thirty wooden boats in all
that plied a river’s journey
there and back once
to and fro now
charged up high

on Pulton shore
a motorized trow
a top-sail schooner
Edith and the
New Despatch

steel and concrete
barges Severn Collier
and Mighty Monarch
lying hard into the silt
a yard at rest

a grave of vessels

It was if I was transported back to my past
looking at the railway building.
You can sense the ghosts of a bygone age
when travelling was fun.
Clicking of wheels on the metal track
brings such happy memories back.

Through the Severn valley it chugged along
young and old enjoying the relaxing pace
Very romantic with the nostalgia of steam
passing stations as they use to be.
Signal boxes with all their manual levers
makes even sceptics believers.

Within thy minds eye nature engulfs you
on the train life is green not blue.

The Foureyed Poet

down the Dearne on a digestive,
up the Thames on a Bourbon,
down the Sheaf on a Garibaldi,
up the Don on a Flapjack.

down the Tyne on a Brandy Snap,
up the Wear on a Hobnob,
down the Severn on a Ginger Nut,
up the Lune on a Custard Creme.

down the Styx on a sunflower seed bun,
up the Lethe on a lemongrass stick,
down the Rhine on a Raisin Slice,
up the Seine on a Belgian Pancake.

The grieving wind led our solemn steps,
and screamed through the ranks of sodden planks,
each encrusted with numb, brass plaques,
fervently recalling local lives lost.

We trudged over those memorial boards,
sponsored grief borne by each grain,
as again salt dripped into the Mouth of the Severn.

At the pier head our tears contested
the callous grey waves
and lost
again.

A third of my angels are dead
But feek me Trinity Severn is kicking ***
I should of never asked her to march with me
If she survies I will have to marry her
for I never knew how she thought of me
she screams on the battlefield that she would die for me

Oh sweet is this battle
I am feeking cut to bits
wow I never knew
how many Angels loved me
the Dragon Black, shied blood red
I don't die Trinity.. will you be my wife

It's great to fight, unholy wars
my shield is white and burning
I am coming dear maiden
sweet trinity seven
lets battle on
in our sweet Angel wars


By Christos Andreas Kourtis aka NeonSolaris
By NeonSolaris
© 2012 NeonSolaris (All rights reserved)

stab push lift pour

stab push lift pour

a ghost of memories past

a small boy no older than 12

he had curly black hair just like mine

he had brown eyes just like mine

he looked just like me

but thats because he had a last name ... just like mine

this was no tragic accident

but a carefully crafted punishment of a young boys mind

and the piece by piece fragmentation of his soul

every hurtful word, every disgusted look, every should turned

slowly braided itself together to form a string of ideas

every moment of hurt, every memory of pain, every day of neglect

slowly looped itself around him and knotted everything together

as if it was a gift of a ticking time bomb, wrapped in images you wish to forget, topped off with a bow of stripped and flattened emotions , signed with a card that simply says ... **** yourself

they say no one is responsible for his death, and the kids who teased him said " I was just joking"

well here's the punch line, i wonder which one of you ran through his mind when he finally kicked the chair out from underneath him

he stepped up on that chair with his final words that should be as historical as "four scores and severn years ago" or as revolutionary as "I HAVE A DREAM"

and hearing his last cries would be like hearing a nuclear warning siren... a scream of an inevitable end

and walking in and seeing his body hanging there like a forgotten halloween decoration was as sickening and heart breaking as seeing a ******* painted in a synagogue

i still keep his noose and i keep it mounted on the front door like a wreath , as if to say

HANG YOUR PRIDE AND OFFER A HELPING HAND BECUASE IT COULD BE THE LIFE LINE SOMEONE NEEDS

please , from a father left incomplete because they are burying a part of me

stab push lift pour

stab push lift pour

I bowed before the grieving wind,
Screams streaming through the ranks of sodden planks,

Each encrusted with numb, brass plaques,
Fervently recalling every loved life lost.

I trudged over those memorial boards,
Guiltily treading on the grief borne by each grain.

Then I laid fresh brine into the insatiable mouth of the Severn,
While my loss and I contested every callous grey wave,

But we were beaten again.

I have tried to imagine my world without you:
summer swarming bees, distant Cotswold peaks
hidden in snow. The beauty of autumn mornings
along Blaisdon's remembered country roads;
a sunlit river Severn beyond Westbury, the
whirr of pheasants at spring midday and
the calling of owls towards midnight.

Now I know that none of it is the same
without you. But most of all I will never
forget your smile, your eyes your
gentleness and giving, your loyalty
and caring for old friends: *** Carter,
Frank and Elsie Hogg, in particular.
The memories we treasured, the
enjoyments we shared.

The love is forever there
despite time or distance -
clarified through tears.
So today I celebrate that
you existed; thanking
all of life for your life,
expressing my deepest
gratitude that out of
millions of people
and possibilities
our lives were destined
to be intermingled.

As in sorrow,  I mourn your passing,
I know clearly and forever my world
can never be the same: Without You.

TOBIAS

THE EMPEROR OF NOW

robin in church
hopping from pew
to pew

a miracle
made real
its sheer joy of being

I hum Haydn
to its every step
Menuetto: Allegro

my little emperor
dances on the altar
it has become the music

it gazes at itself
reflected in the gold
of the tabernacle

a host of sunbeams
chase each other
little fishes of light

now robin
balances on the head
of the Christ

this the secret
prayer
of the moment

leaving me
bereft when
it finds the open door

*

Haydn's Quartet No. 62 in C Major, Hob. 111:77( Op.76 No.3) - the 'Emperor.'  It's Menuetto: Allegro was the musical equivalent of its happy hopping through the sunny church....as if it was the manifestation of Haydn's notes. It was a little epiphany...a kindness given to me...this robin was my only religion.

When they were in Rome, Severn used to rent a piano and play Haydn for the dying Keats in the next room and Keats was delighted with it and said:  "This Haydn is like a child for you never know what he will do next."

It was also accidently the soundtrack to my daughter's first tentative tottering steps...as if the music was holding up her tiny frame and propelled her along.

At quarter past eight, I thought I would be late

Yet it was still early in the morning

Become what may, of the school holiday

My grandfather Joe was still yawning



At quarter past nine, I really took my time

My bowl of porridge was awaiting

At five past ten, I woke up from my den

My grandmother Sue was still debating



At half past eleven, we reached the River Severn

The ducks on the bank were astounding

At twenty to twelve, we saw a Mr Melve

He fell into the river, heart was pounding



At ten past one, my joy had nearly gone

My very tiny belly was to grumble

Yet five minutes later, we saw a kind waiter

The best meal ever, rendered humble



At twenty five to two, we visited the zoo

Gorillas were looking at me strangely

At five past three, birds surrounding me

They seemed to want to re-arrange thee



At quarter past four, we reached the zoo door

Grandmother left the shop so jolly

At half past five, her smile had come alive

She had bought me gifts and holly



At ten past six, my bike he had to fix

The shining glare was less appealing

At half past six, I was really in the mix

Dinner time coming was the feeling



At five to eight, they thought I couldn’t wait

Bedtime stories were commencing

Laughing in the night, a glorious sight

Grandfather talked about fencing



By quarter past eight, at a splendid rate

Grandfather saw me looking sleepy

Into the night, switching off the light

Twinkling stars will surely greet me



Written by Geraldine Taylor ©

Ruthie Plackett lost her jacket
On the Severn line,
And once misplaced, she never traced
The things she kept inside:

Her recipes for aft’noon teas,
For scones with clotted cream,
For warm tray-bakes and sandwich cakes,
Of which her reg’lars dream.

And in there too, a tube of glue
With which she would repair
The cracking plates and old milk crates:
Make do and mend with care.

Her keys: no loss; at negligible cost
She’d soon have them replaced,
And the Carmex tin with not much in
Had acquired a funny taste.

It was, in fact, the lining that
Concealed a paring knife,
And with its blade, Ruthie had made
A move against a life.

Decades passed, and no-one asked
About the shadowy fella
Briefly seen, and darkly keen,
Now buried in the cellar.

So Ruthie Plackett, in her lined fur jacket,
Rode the Severn line,
And through her plight, she held on tight
To the secret hid inside.

THE EMPEROR OF NOW

robin in church
hopping from pew
to pew

a miracle
made real
its sheer joy of being

I hum Haydn
to its every step
Menuetto: Allegro

my little emperor
dances on the altar
it has become the music

it gazes at itself
reflected in the gold
of the tabernacle

a host of sunbeams
chase each other
little fishes of light

now robin
balances on the head
of the Christ

this the secret
prayer
of the moment

leaving me
bereft when
it finds the open door



*

Haydn's Quartet No. 62 in C Major, Hob. 111:77( Op.76 No.3) - the 'Emperor.'  It's Menuetto: Allegro was the musical equivalent of its happy hopping through the sunny church....as if it was the manifestation of Haydn's notes. It was a little epiphany...a kindness given to me...this robin was my only religion.

When they were in Rome, Severn used to rent a piano and play Haydn for the dying Keats in the next room and Keats was delighted with it and said:  "This Haydn is like a child for you never know what he will do next."

It was also accidently the soundtrack to my daughter's first tentative tottering steps...as if the music was holding up her tiny frame and propelled her along.

THE EMPEROR OF NOW

robin in church
hopping from pew
to pew

a miracle
made real
its sheer joy of being

I hum Haydn
to its every step
Menuetto: Allegro

my little emperor
dances on the altar
it has become the music

it gazes at itself
reflected in the gold
of the tabernacle

a host of sunbeams
chase each other
little fishes of light

now robin
balances on the head
of the Christ

this the secret
prayer
of the moment

leaving me
bereft when
it finds the open door

*

Haydn's Quartet No. 62 in C Major, Hob. 111:77( Op.76 No.3) - the 'Emperor.'  It's Menuetto: Allegro was the musical equivalent of its happy hopping through the sunny church....as if it was the manifestation of Haydn's notes. It was a little epiphany...a kindness given to me...this robin was my only religion.

When they were in Rome, Severn used to rent a piano and play Haydn for the dying Keats in the next room and Keats was delighted with it and said:  "This Haydn is like a child for you never know what he will do next."

It was also accidentally the soundtrack to my daughter's first tentative tottering steps...as if the music was holding up her tiny frame and propelled her along.

I love robins and I used to have an extremely friendly little chap who would follow me as I turned over soil. I paused to wipe my brow with one foot still on the lug of the ***** and he came and perched on the other side of the lug so I stayed the way for a good five minutes and so did he. Both of us alive in the world in that self same moment and sharing this little scrap of time...both just mortal creatures enjoying being alive.

Our mother
Who does art at seven
Mallowed by thy game
Thy ring tone comes
Thy shall'st have fun
On earth, by the River Severn
Give us this day
Our daily words said
And forgive us our faux pas
As we forgive those
That faux pas against us
Lead us not into isolation
And deliver us some weevils
For thine is the string pompom
The flower, and short story
For ever, and never
Ah Bisto!
by Jemia

The bridge on the Severn
Stands still, hushed
Dutifully guarding
What tries to be a holiday.
Swans, congregating
Delicately preening
Unconcerned by the longboat
Making deliberate progress
It's passengers all wearing
A Captains hat,
Heads turned towards
The Cathedral
And just for them
Nine bells announce the hour.
Ladies, brightly dressed
Carrying large cake boxes
Lead a gentle procession
To the fete.
Bikes, two at a time
Unhurried pedalling,
Weaving their way
Around promenade trees
And grandparents with children
Always stopping to hurl
Stale bread at unsuspecting ducks.
But imperceptibly
Insidiously, remorslessly
The unholy din of traffic
Gathers strength
Drowning out all who dare
To shout out against it ...
And normality returns.

THE EMPEROR OF NOW

robin in church
hopping from pew
to pew

a miracle
made real
its sheer joy of being

I hum Haydn
to its every step
Menuetto: Allegro

my little emperor
dances on the altar
it has become the music

it gazes at itself
reflected in the gold
of the tabernacle

a host of sunbeams
chase each other
little fishes of light

now robin
balances on the head
of the Christ

this the secret
prayer
of the moment

leaving me
bereft when
it finds the open door

*

Haydn's Quartet No. 62 in C Major, Hob. 111:77( Op.76 No.3) - the 'Emperor.'  It's Menuetto: Allegro was the musical equivalent of its happy hopping through the sunny church....as if it was the manifestation of Haydn's notes. It was a little epiphany...a kindness given to me...this robin was my only religion.

When they were in Rome, Severn used to rent a piano and play Haydn for the dying Keats in the next room and Keats was delighted with it and said:  "This Haydn is like a child for you never know what he will do next."

It was also accidentally the soundtrack to my daughter's first tentative tottering steps...as if the music was holding up her tiny frame and propelled her along.

I love robins and I used to have an extremely friendly little chap who would follow me as I turned over soil. I paused to wipe my brow with one foot still on the lug of the ***** and he came and perched on the other side of the lug so I stayed the way for a good five minutes and so did he. Both of us alive in the world in that self same moment and sharing this little scrap of time...both just mortal creatures enjoying being alive.