Remembering Valentines Day

I remember all my Valentines

They are deep within my heart

Every one was so special

Until the day we had to part

You see my loved one past away

After many years together

All the memories of Valentines Day

To me I will always treasure

Red roses were always given to me

And a candlelit meal for two

Every time Valentines comes around

My everlasting love I send to you

And on this special day

I place by your picture frame

A bunch of red roses in memory

To ease my heartache and pain

Malcolm Bradshaw

Mothers Day

I often think of my childhood days

And the love that my mother showered on me

Helping me to achieve my ambitions

I become a respected member of society

Memories of her often come into my mind

And I remember the things she used to say

That if I wish to be a success in life

That hard work and honesty would pave the way

These words made a great impression on me

And although it is a long time since you passed away

Her impression helped to form my character

And that is why I am thinking of you today

Ron Martin

Dear Mother

 

 

Mother, daughter, friend, or foe

I want you to always know,

You are forever my best friend

From past to present, until the end,

You help me using your guiding hand

All you did I now understand

 

All the good times all the bad

The days of laughter, the days we were sad,

We helped each other when we could

Just the way best friends should,

You’ve helped me through when times were rough

I tried to be there when times were tough,

 

No matter what you are here

You help me conquer every fear,

You listen and help day by day

Through my mistakes, you led the way,

When times are hard I think of you

I wonder what you would do

 

No matter what, you are here

You always were there to care,

Memories I hold close to my chest

For these memories are my best,

So I am thanking you for being a friend

My best friend until the end.

By Abbe Cutforth

CALLING ALL POETS – PROMOTE YOURSELF AND DANCE ON OUR STAGE

 

 

LET YOUR POEM MINGLE WITH OTHERS

LET YOUR POEM:

DANCE ON OUR STAGE

ANY LENGTH, ANY SUBJECT, ANY TIME

SEND YOUR WRITTEN WORK TO:gillianandthomas@yahoo.com

WE WILL GLADLY POST IT HERE FOR ALL TO SEE ON OUR POETRY PLATFORM!

Poems you sent to us about this picture, taken in our garden

Here is my submission for the current picture of the Bird and the Snow

Copyright image taken by  Poetree Creations

All for Her

“It was all for her” the swallow said
As it swelled its breast with pride
Watching the man with black umbrella
Walk from side to side

“It was all for her” The man softly spoke
As he considered all he had
And kept his feet to shuffle between
The snows pile up ahead.

“It was all for her” The snow declared
As it whittled down its stock
Becoming just another pile
Of water among the rocks
 
“It was all for her” the rocks declared
As they mark the borders by
And so the sun may glisten upon
Their bumped backs, soft and dry

“It was all for me” the sun affirmed
As she raised her gentle head
And watched the people praise her warmth
Wishing for Summers heat  instead.

 

I am Philisapherhttp://lisainger.com/

Here is my submission for the current picture of the Bird and the Snow

robin

…and if this

       little bird

                               could share of what it’s

                                               mind conceives, would I even

                                               understand how simple life

                                                can be …

 

 

thanks for the opportunity.   Lita

 

 

   EstreLita Pondoc

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours.

~ Wayne Dyer

I’ve composed a poem for your contest with the chickadee in the snow picture.  

And then there was one…And so, here I am, upon the winter of my joie de vivre,

where once were perched two friendly birds; now rests thus only one.

A wooden cage erected hence, that I can never leave,

the snow the only thing that will remember when I’m done.

 

I cannot see the outside world as I once knew I could —

I gaze through disconnected visage, staring at the cold.

The bitter chill assaults me, and I’m left from what is good;

My breath hangs in the air, and with each second, I grow old.

 

The greens are grey around me; all the flowers?  Gone to sleep.

A broken tree breaks through the white of everpresent ice;

all around the wooden husk, the ivy starts to creep

and strangle out its life and each last wisely sage advice.

 

The earth’s adorned in frosted dew just as a christening gown.

There’s empty footprints in the snow aside my freezing feet,

At last I feel the slumber, and I lay my body down,

at the winter of my life, so maybe now, I’ll feel complete.—

Brad Bricktower

Lupines’ – Promote Yourself

They have multiplied,
these Italians.
Last year orphans
and this a cold legion
colonising the border
with their spearmint-coloured array.

Early May and half-bloomed,
green from the top down
to a burst of botoxed pink:
ballast for the thin green spires.

Leaves, broad as hands.
And all those flower-bells,
compact as a hive.

Something small could ring them.
Something small could live inside, or hide.

A thought?
It could tremble them a while.
Become as mad as they,
as inevitable,
and otherworldly,
like moon-flowers.

Jaki

DRUM BEAT – Promote Yourself

A lovers heart beat ‘ can only beat once ‘ for the power of love ❤ ‘ will live on forever ‘ than a day .

I only saw her once ‘ and she stole my heart ‘ for I shall never love another ‘ as I do her ‘ for i shall marry her this night .🌃

Tis she is my angel ‘ she us my shining star 🌟 of my existence ‘ she is my love ‘ for my heart beat ‘ is for her alone ‘ as lovers at first sight .💏💘.

Patricia Bourne WordPress 2014.

The Garden Colours Tend To Fade – Promote Yourself

 

This garden grows in a bed of shade

As the light is dim where the seeds were laid,

In places where the sun can only half invade…

So the flowers’ colors tend to fade.

From the rise of dawn till the start of night

There are  more shadows than there is of light,

Yet this garden wills itself in spite

In the speckled patches where the shade is bright.

“How odd,” they said, “that you planted there

You could have planted anywhere.”

And even though that space was bare,

“What a waste,” they said, of time and care.”

But how many other things of matter

Whose initial worth were left in tatters,

Surpassed the first from beyond the latter;

Are now fertile grounds for furnished flatter?

No, this garden grows just where it should

Its roots took hold because they could.

Through droughts and storms it still withstood

To quiver light through trembling wood.

So by and by from time to time

That garden lingers in my mind,

On what else remains and poised to find…

Or what was lost when I was blind.

Still, I have a garden that lives in shade.

And it’s something pretty that I made

And though its colors tend to fade

Not for a 1000 other gardens would I trade.

John Snowden

What do you know of Spring – Promote Yourself

What Do You Know of Spring?

for Julia

For what do you know of seasons,

child? of long awaited flowers? You

pluck them without thinking, without knowing

an old woman’s joy of looking out

of winter’s monochromatic gloom

each morning to find that, yes! the flowers are

in bloom! How could you know

that daffodils and tulips peeking

through green ribbons nod assurance that spring

is here and will stay until the blossoms

fade, dry to brown, and crumble

to dust? But you, in your unbridled lust

for the present, in the wastefulness of youth,

have thoughtlessly, and thoughtfully,

ripped every flower from its stem

and now, with triumphant smile, offer

them—already in the stages of death—

to me as if they were a secret only you

had discovered, but wanted

to share. I turn to hide my tears. Forcing

all of spring into a single vase for a single

day, I feign delight, then you, having done

your good deed, bounce

away. The next morning I hear you call, “Granny!”

I drag my weary bones up, and look out

at the gray yard. Only barren stems and leaves

remain. But then I see your beautiful face, precious

child, smiling at me as if to say . . . I

am Spring.

Published in From the Depths of Red Bluff, A Collection of Poems by Wynne Huddleston

—————————————————————————————————–

Before Breakfast

 

Day rips off night’s blanket, leaving

a chill in the air. Before sky awakens

to fire up the gas oven and cook his egg,

easy-over for breakfast, I race

to the garden then tiptoe through grass

taking its dewy bath. Blue morning

glory yawns open and reaches out

to shake my hand, while bees pronounce

apple trees “husband and wife,”

then set out on a trip for the honey. I pick

the pink-eyed purple-hull peas and proceed

to the corn, twist off the mature

that have lost their soft, golden hair,

and are pleasantly plump. The big boy

tomatoes wearing green crowns

are about to jump off; I take them before

they split, and roll down the hill like Jack.

I pick up the baby squash, lying nearby

in its bed of straw, underneath

a canopy of enormous green hearts.

Published in The Green Silk Journal, Spring 2011

Wynne Huddleston

Mississippi Poetry Society 2014 Poet of the Year

Author of From the Depths of Red Bluff 

available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble

Dear Gillian and Thomas,

I enjoy reading your posts and poems. Here are two poems about gardens/flowers. I hope you can use one or both. They were both previously published. Although I am not what I consider “old,” “What Do You Know of Spring?” is from an old woman’s point of view. The poem is based on a true incident in which my granddaughter picked all the blooms off my hydrangea. But I realized that she was more important than the flowers, and I can never read the poem without tears. The second poem, “Before Breakfast” was inspired one summer when I was working in my parents’ garden. They would get to the garden so early (and I, not an early riser) had to struggle to get there in time to help them!

Bio: Wynne Huddleston is a poet, musician, teacher, and author of From the Depths of Red Bluff (Mississippi Poetry Society, Inc., 2014). Her poetry has appeared in numerous publications including Birmingham Arts Journal, Four and Twenty, Orange Room Review, Halfway Down the Stairs, and The Mom Egg. Ms. Huddleston was workshop leader for the 2011 Mid-South Poetry Festival in Memphis, TN, and has served as board member for both the Mississippi Writers Guild and the Mississippi Poetry Society. More info at http://wynnehuddleston.wordpress.com/. 

Thank you,

THE GARDEN OF THE LORD

When the Lord takes a walk in his garden,

He surveys all the beauty around,

There are so many beautiful flowers,

Colours that carpet the ground.

In one corner of the garden,

Protected from wind and storm,

Are Gods little Children?

Just waiting to be born.

He decides when they are ready,

To be born upon this earth,

He will choose their parents,

The mother to give birth.

He then will pick that flower,

Then send it on its way,

To experience the material world,

On which that child will stay.

So remember when you see a new born child,

It came from the Lord with love,

For its parents to love and cherish,

Sent from the Lords garden above.

Malcolm G Bradshaw     

Four Poems by Philip Larkin

DOCKERY AND SON

“Dockery was junior to you,
Wasn’t he?” said the Dean. “His son’s here now.”
Death-suited, visitant, I nod. “And do

You keep in touch with—” Or remember how
Black-gowned, unbreakfasted, and still half-tight
We used to stand before that desk, to give
“Our version” of “these incidents last night”?
I try the door of where I used to live:

Locked. The lawn spreads dazzlingly wide.
A known bell chimes. I catch my train, ignored.
Canal and clouds and college subside
Slowly from view. But Dockery, good Lord,
Anyone up today must have been born
In ‘43, when I was twenty-one
If he was younger, did he get this son
At nineteen, twenty? Was he that withdrawn

High-collared public-schoolboy, sharing rooms
With Cartwright who was killed? Well, it just shows
How much…How little…Yawning, I suppose
I fell asleep, waking at the fumes
And furnace-glares of Sheffield, where I changed,
And ate an awful pie, and walked along
The platform to its end to see the ranged
Joining and parting lines reflect a strong

Unhindered moon. To have no son, no wife,
No house or land still seemed quite natural.
Only a numbness registered the shock
Of finding out how much had gone of life,
How widely from the others. Dockery, now:
Only nineteen, he must have taken stock
Of what he wanted, and been capable
Of…No, that’s not the difference: rather, how

Convinced he was he should be added to!
Why did he think adding meant increase?
To me it was dilution. Where do these
Innate assumptions come from? Not from what
We think truest, or most want to do:
Those warp tight-shut, like doors. They’re more a style
Our lives bring with them: habit for a while,
Suddenly they harden into all we’ve got.

And how we got it; looked back on, they rear
Like sand-clouds, thick and close, embodying
For Dockery a son, for me nothing,
Nothing with all a son’s harsh patronage.
Life is first boredom, then fear.
Whether or not we use it, it goes,
And leaves what something hidden from us chose,
And age, and then the only end of age.

HOME IS SO SAD

Home is so sad. It stays as it was left,
Shaped to the comfort of the last to go
As if to win them back. Instead, bereft
Of anyone to please, it withers so,
Having no heart to put aside the theft

And turn again to what it started as,
A joyous shot at how things ought to be,
Long fallen wide. You can see how it was:
Look at the pictures and the cutlery
The music in the piano stool. That vase.

REFERENCE BACK

That was a pretty one, I heard you call
From the unsatisfactory hall
To the unsatisfactory room where I
Played record after record, idly,
Wasting my time at home, that you
Looked so much forward to.

Oliver’s Riverside Blues, it was. And now
I shall, I suppose, always remember how
The flock of notes those antique negroes blew
Out of Chicago air into
A huge remembering pre-electric horn
The year after I was born
Three decades later made this sudden bridge
From your unsatisfactory age
To my unsatisfactory prime.

Truly, though our element is time,
We are not suited to the long perspectives
Open at each instant of our lives.
They link us to our losses: worse,
They show us what we have as it once was,
Blindingly undiminished, just as though
By acting differently, we could have kept it so.

MCMXIV

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;

And the countryside not caring:
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat’s restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word—the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

By

Philip Larkin

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE  POETS

Dementia I call thy name – Promote Yourself

I’m locked in a world ‘ where I am no longer accepted by those around me ‘ I have become a distance memory ‘ as my life travels backwards ‘ to the past ‘ and my past becomes what was   ‘ for me I am nowhere ‘ life has become a moment in time.

I am being stripped of who I am ‘ I have become a stranger to myself ‘ as I look into a mirror ‘ I do not recognise ‘ the face i see before me ‘ as Iquestion the image I see.

Life has turned full circle ‘ and i slowly my existence which i am disappearing from ‘ who will miss me when i am gone ‘ i say to my shadow ‘ for i am already returned to where i once came ‘ there is nothing left of me now ‘ i am a shadow of memories ‘ now and always .

Patricia bourne WordPress 2014.

Facebook / journey though life .

Lady in white – Promote Yourself

She walks across the room ‘ with her beauty so fair ‘ she glides along with the grace ‘ that’s beyond compare.

For she is a lady in white ‘ her heart is so pure ‘ that’s beyond delight ‘ for those who hold her most dear ‘ can not fight .

No other can match her ‘ with her style so refined ‘ she gas all the grace ‘ of a ballerina ‘ that’s gentle and kind .

For she is a lady in white ‘ that you must know ‘ she walk down the Isle ‘ with a gentle flow .

Its a man of her dreams ‘ that’s waits by her side ‘ for she us about to be married ‘ to be ones wife ‘ foe she is happy ‘ for all to see and waves at her friends ‘ quite happily.

Now she is married ‘ the task is done ‘ they are off on there honeymoon ‘ then two become one .

Patricia Bourne

The Ash Tree – Promote Yourself

            1

It was when the path became a road

That I went right for I was told,

The way itself was paved in gold,

Where youth remained “never old.”

            2

But left was right and right was wrong

I should have known that all along,

For the moment came then it was gone,

One final verse from one final song.

            3

There was no riddle to this maze

Her beauty held no average gaze,

Or could be dreamt from a careless daze,

And consumed me still in a frantic blaze.

            4

At first the seasons remained the same

But by and by they began to change,

And in me saw this something strange,

That my want for her began to age.

            5

Do not mistake this for a foolish dunce

It didn’t happen all at once,

But as the weeks passed by and turned to months,

I saw my freedom as some precious bunce.

6

On a reckless youth I’d love to blame

Or on what Nature made but couldn’t tame,

For I had a reason–but I lost its name,

Now my source of pride is my point of shame.

7

So when bottom fell and our time had passed

She became once more, more than I could ask,

But the space between had grown too vast,

We’d gone too far and far too fast.

            8

Oh what a wicked lesson learned

When once crossed there was no return,

Now each regret must await its turn,

And stoke this fire to an endless burn.

            9

So upon the edge of a great divide

In the hallowed corners of my mind,

I see now that I was blind,

It was me I found I couldn’t find.

            10

Now darkness hangs on sleepless nights

Where there are no colors, black or white,

And with her gone so went the light,

And what is left is far from right.

 
Copyright © 2016 by John Snowdon
 

Darkness of mothers. – Promote Yourself

We are the calm before the storms ‘ I am the leader of many ‘ I am the power behind the darkness ‘ I am the force behind what should be .

I am the person behind these words ‘ for I am the  mother of my children ‘ beware who ever harms my family.

Patricia bourne WordPress 2014.

Facebook /journey though life.

Let us all put aside for a while

And look what religion is doing

We need to question their actions

And these actions need pursuing

Every movement feel they are right

And that every other faith is wrong

Surely this cannot be the case

And why can’t we all get along

I am sure the creator of our universe

Through his wisdom and his grace

Feels disappointed what we are doing

To the world and the human race

Our creator will not interfere

Although his patients has been tested

For every one has been given free will

But in the situation he is very interested

There is only one energy in this universe

Who feels that the energy is love?

Enjoy your beliefs with no malice

From your wonderful creator above

Live your life in harmony with each other

In peace all walk hand in hand

For loving your fellow being

Is what our creator had planned?

  Malcolm Bradshaw

Good Manners

 

 

I held the door to allow a lady to enter a shop

And as a result I got a very pleasant surprise

For she stood, looked at me, and said “Thank You”

Her good manners brought a tear to my eyes

 

For good manners are very scarce today

I thought they had been consigned to history

Why this should be is hard to understand

In fact it has become quite a mystery

 

For when we were young we were taught to be polite

To stand up on a bus to let a lady sit down

But that does not appear to be the practice today

As I observe when I travel on the tram into town

 

Are good manners not being taught in our schools

Are the teachers too busy teaching dancing and singing?

We should never underestimate good manners

For they are a sign of a good upbringing

 

It has been said that good manners cost nothing

But their benefits are hard to evaluate

They can have a profound effect on our charisma

And can lift us from being average to first rate

 

Good manners help to improve relationships

And these are important as we travel on life’s way

For we all expect other people to respect us

And it is important that good manners are taught today 

By Ron Martin

EVERYTHING HAS A PURPOSE

 

Everything has a purpose,

Everything has its place,

Like the beauty of this planet,

As it revolves around in space.

 

We must thank our creator,

For this wonderful world of ours,

We must thank him for the food we eat,

And natures beautiful flowers.

 

We must thank him for the sun,

As it sends out warmth and light,

The moon for its wonderful moonbeams,

As they illuminate the night.

 

Spring is when nature awakes,

When everything is fresh and green,

When all the plants burst into bloom,

It is an occasion that must be seen.

 

Summer is a time,

To enjoy the warmth of the sun,

It is a busy time for the farmer,

A time for the harvest to be done.

 

Autumn is the season,

When everything slows down,

When trees shed their foliage,

As they gently fall to the ground.

 

Life is like the seasons,

Spring represents our start,

Summer is our prime of life,

Autumn is when we part.

 

For our spirit only leaves our body,

It will continue in another form,

For as we enter the spirit world,

A new life for all will dawn.

 

Malcolm G Bradshaw