Don’t forget to send your poetry in for Father’s Day.Please send them to:poetreecreations@yahoo.com

FATHERS DAY 16TH JUNE

SEND YOUR POETRY IN BEFORE THE 15TH JUNE

Our Brothers; Our Sisters ( Our Veteran’s Day )

–
While you were away
People continued to want
–
While you were away
People stressed over latte
–
While you were away
People blamed the one percent
–
While you were away
Wall Street didn’t miss a beat
–
While you were away
Families ignored one another
–
While you were away
Society forgot to mention
–
The risk involved
The loss endured
The humanity destroyed
–
We speak rarely of a certain reality
One the media voice won’t exploit
A truth that evades the common eye
–
While you were away
People do not understand
–
Haunted, windows might close
Shadows to follow your mind
Memory, nightmares designed
Tears remain your real lows
–
While you were away
Brother, sister, friend, foe
–
We were told about you
Searching the grain of your …
That sheltered your life in
Swathed cocoon like revues
–
While you were away
People wail their goodbyes
–
We soar with freedom, a Nation, a society
While eagle’s wings … restore our sanity!

Thom Amundsen
http://thinkingoutloudagain.wordpress.com

The Visitor

A pumpkin knocked at my door
I was shocked, I fell to the floor
The pumpkin had a toothless grin
In the end I asked him to come in
The pumpkin shook my hand
And said I knew you’d understand
I wanted to come to your party
I was all alone
With witches and ghosts
They frightened me
It’s you I’d rather see
Someone warm and bright
On this Halloween night
So what have we got for tea
Trick or treat
It will be a whisky for me
Gillian and Thomas Sims

Mother

 

A sweet enchanting smile

Warm and tender charms

The things I remember

While safe in mother’s arms

 

Protected from all troubles

Comforted when in pain

Kissed gently on the cheek

To make all better again

 

Guided through my infant life

Of things I should not do

Taught me right from wrong

And shown things old and new

 

I want to thank you mother

I cherished all the years

Even when I was punished

And cried so many tears

 

And now that I am older

My love for you is strong

Although you are no longer with me

To the Spirit world you have gone

 

I know you will always be near me

For your love will never die

At times when I need you

I will always feel you nigh

 

I should like to say thank you

For all that you have done

For I will always cherish you

From your grateful Son.

 

Malcolm Bradshaw

ANOTHER LITTLE DITTY

ANOTHER LITTLE DITTY
I’M TOLD IT SHOULD BE TRUE
TO STOP WOULD BE A PITY
THE THOUGHTS THEY MUST BE NEW

I’LL NEED A LITTLE TIME
TO FIND THE WORDS TO FIT
FIRST OF COURSE THERE IS THE RHYME
AND NEXT A LITTLE WIT

BUT MORE I THINK IS NEEDED HERE
THAN JUST A PHRASE OR TWO
A LITTLE FUN, A LITTLE CHEER
TODAY THAT’S ALL TOO FEW

SO THAT’S THE WAY I’LL WRITE THIS ONE
I’LL DO THE BEST I CAN
WHEN ALL IS SAID AND ALL IS DONE
THAT ALWAYS IS THE PLAN

WELL THEN I GAVE IT MY BEST SHOT
YOU CANNOT SAY I LIED
EVEN THOUGH I NEVER FOUGHT
AT LEAST THEY’LL SAY I TRIED.

NOW ANOTHER DITTY

NOW ANOTHER DITTY
IS FLOWING FROM MY PEN
I GUESS I’M JUST TOO WITTY
WITH THIS MY SECRET YEN

TO MAKE THE WORDS ALL RHYME
WITH SUCH A SILLY BEAT
THE LONGING MUST BE STRONG THIS TIME
JUST WATCH ME STAMP MY FEET

I KNOW NOT IF I COME OR GO
BUT I’LL NOT LOSE MY SMILE
LIFE’S TOO FUN FOR ANY WOE
AND I’LL NOT SUFFER VILE

SO INSTEAD I ACT THE FOOL
AND MAKE THE OTHERS LAUGH
HUMOUR USED IS JUST A TOOL
WITH WHICH TO MAKE A GAFF

AND NOW THE STORY’S TOLD TO YOU
I REALLY SHOULD BE GONE
I’LL LEAVE BEHIND THIS SILLY ZOO
BUT PLEASE I BEG DON’T YAWN.

SILLY DITTY

THE TIME HAS COME TO STOP THIS DITTY
THE WRITING IS SO SILLY
BUT YET AGAIN I’LL SHOW I’M WITTY
AND PEN ANOTHER DILLY

THEN EVERYONE WOULD KNOW
THE GENIUS THAT I AM
NOT FOR ME THE CASE OF WOE
I MEAN TO LEAVE THIS JAM

I’D WING ALOFT TO PLACES FAR
FOR FAMOUS I WOULD BE
NEVER FEAR I’D BE A STAR
THEN ALL THE WORLD WOULD SEE

BUT HERE PERHAPS I THINK I’LL STAY
A SILLY SCRIBE AT HEART
THE WORLD OF WEALTH I’LL KEEP AT BAY
AND FEAR A REAL GOOD START

NOT THE LAST THIS DITTY IS
I’M SURE I’LL POSE ANOTHER
SURE TO HOPE MY MIND WON’T FIZZ
I’LL STILL BE HERE FOR TOTHER.

 

SILLY LITTLE DITTY

THIS SILLY LITTLE DITTY
IS JUST TO MAKE A POINT
WORDS TO PROVE I’M WITTY
I REALLY MUST ANOINT

A PERSON AS MY SPEAKER
I’M SUCH A HUMBLE SOUL
THE FULLNESS OF MY BEAKER
I THINK I’VE HIT MY GOAL

IF THINGS WERE ANY BETTER
I COULDN’T STAND MYSELF
PERHAPS I NEED A FETTER
TO KEEP ME ON A SHELF

SO I END THIS LITTLE RAMBLE
THROUGH PHRASES SO DIVINE
NEVER ONE TO GAMBLE
GOODBYE JUST SUITS ME FINE.

WITTY DITTY

THIS DITTY WRITING REALLY
IS JUST TO PASS THE TIME
I KNOW IT IS QUITE SILLY
THAT EVERYTHING MUST RHYME

THAT’S THE WAY I AM I GUESS
I’VE HEARD IT SAID OF ME
I HAVE MY QUIRKS I MUST CONFESS
BUT THEY’RE WHAT MAKE ME, ME

I’VE BEEN TOLD THAT I AM DRIVEN
I HOPE IT ISN’T SO
I’M JUST A PERSON, THAT’S A GIVEN
WHO KNOWS IT’S TIME TO GO.

 

YET ANOTHER DITTY

YET ANOTHER DITTY
I CANNOT STOP IT SEEMS
TOO SOON I’LL LOSE MY WITTY
AND MUST RESORT TO TEAMS

PEOPLE ALL AROUND ME SURE
THAT I WILL FALL AT LAST
BUT TO MYSELF I’LL STILL BE PURE
AND GIVE A LITTLE BLAST

I’LL GET MY MOTORS GOING STRONG
AND THEN I’LL BE MORE BRIGHT
WHAT CAN I SAY I MAY BE WRONG
BUT WAIT I MAY BE RIGHT

THAT’S ENOUGH TODAY I THINK
IT REALLY WAS QUITE FUN
I DO NOT WISH TO SEEM A FINK
BUT NOW THIS DITTY’S DONE.

Pamela Read

Top 10 Poems

What are the world’s most popular poems?

Between May 15th 2007, and March 21st, 2008, Classic Poetry Aloud had some half a million downloads from across the globe. This shows the most downloaded poems, and so the world’s most popular poems, to be:

1. She Walks in Beauty by Lord Byron
2. Ode to Autumn by John Keats
3. If by Rudyard Kipling
4. Sonnet 18: Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer’s Day? by William Shakespeare
5. Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
6. How Do I Love Thee? by Elizabeth Barrett Browning
7. O Captain! My Captain! by Walt Whitman
8. Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley
9. Death by John Donne
10. Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats

Escape – Promote Yourself

She watched her oppressor
Every move he made was important to her
As she planned her escape, his demise
Freedom, finally, from the emptiness in her eyes.
Drunk on lust and whiskey, he attacked
She bore the pain and performed the unthinkable acts.
No longer afraid,
She attacked him as he stumbled away.
His anger erupted, the vicious swings came
Without fear, she picks up his gun – takes aim
Bullets pierced the night and his blood rained.
He was dead in an instant,
But she paused only to wipe off her fingerprints.
She walked away from that place
Renewed hope, and for the first time in years, a smile on her face.

Thank you for this opportunity. For the last few years, all of my poems have been written, and put on my hard-drive, never to be seen by anyone but me. I realize now, that although protecting myself from critique, I was also violating the basics of being a writer – we write for ourselves, but we also write for others.

Sincerely,
Trysh L Thompson

“Top 10 Famous, Romantic Love Poems”

As long as there have been poets, there have been love poems. After all, if love cannot inspire, what can? Our minds turn to love on special anniversaries, Valentine’s Day and weddings, but how to express it? We are not all blessed with the gift of poetic words. The list below may include a romantic love poems for him or a love poem for her to serve the occasion but don’t pretend it’s yours. You will look very foolish when you are found out. But love tends to do that to us anyway.

10. ‘Wild Nights’ by Emily Dickinson

A leading American poet (1830 – 1836), she is one of the most accessible and popular poets. This selection is not typical of her output and is surprisingly passionate for a woman of those times. Dickinson led a secluded life and it’s not certain for whom these lines were intended, ‘might I but moor tonight with thee’. Biographers believe that she may have created a fantasy for herself. But this may also have been a love poem for a man.

Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

9. ‘We Are Made One with What We Touch and See’ by Oscar Wilde

Of course, it’s well known that Wilde’s romantic exploits got him into trouble, resulting in a two-year sentence for hard labour.  He’s better known for his comedic plays and witty quotes than for his poems. This poem has the joyful line; ‘we draw the spring into our hearts and feel that life is good’. Read the full poem.

We shall be notes in that great Symphony
Whose cadence circles through the rhythmic spheres,
And all the live World’s throbbing heart shall be
One with our heart, the stealthy creeping years
Have lost their terrors now, we shall not die,
The Universe itself shall be our Immortality!

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8. ‘Bright Star’ by John Keats

A leading figure amongst the English Romantic poets, many of Keats’ poems are melancholic. He was a doomed man, dying of TB at the age of 26 in a house in Rome where he had gone to improve his health. The house, next to the Spanish Steps, is now a museum dedicated to his life and the life of Shelley. He wrote his poetry in a brief five-year period. Sensual love is celebrated in the line, ‘pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast’.

Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art–
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors–
No–yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever–or else swoon to death.

7. ‘Another Valentine’ by Wendy Cope

This is from the point of view of a couple that have been together a long time. At first, Cope seems slightly resentful that she is being forced into making a romantic declaration just because a certain date in the calendar demands it, but she gets into the spirit of the occasion and her love for her man shines through. They are sure of each other, as shown by ‘you know I’m yours and I know you are mine’. It is more difficult to find love poems for him, but “Another Valentine” is just that.

Today we are obliged to be romantic
And think of yet another valentine.
We know the rules and we are both pedantic:
Today’s the day we have to be romantic.
Our love is old and sure, not new and frantic.
You know I’m yours and I know you are mine.
And saying that has made me feel romantic,
My dearest love, my darling valentine.

6. ‘A Drinking Song’ by W.B. Yeats

The title does not suggest a love poem and it’s debatable as to how much alcohol consumption is playing a part! Nevertheless, it is a romantic poem. The opening lines are ‘wine comes in at the mouth and love comes in at the eye’ Let’s hope they don’t regret it in the morning.

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.

 

5. ‘Valentine’ by John Fuller

Perhaps the least well known poet on the list, he is an English writer, born in 1937, and is the son of the feted poet, Roy Fuller. This is a sensual poem, which celebrates the physical features of his beloved; ‘I like it when you tilt your cheek up’.  It’s a gently teasing poem with fun lines such as ‘I’d like to find you in the shower and chase the soap for half an hour’. Read the full poem.

The things about you I appreciate may seem indelicate:
I’d like to find you in the shower
And chase the soap for half an hour.
I’d like to have you in my power and see your eyes dilate.
I’d like to have your back to scour
And other parts to lubricate.
Sometimes I feel it is my fate
To chase you screaming up a tower or make you cower
By asking you to differentiate Nietzsche from Schopenhauer.
I’d like to successfully guess your weight and win you at a féte.
I’d like to offer you a flower.

4. ‘Love Is’ by Adrian Henri

The late Henri, along with his fellow Liverpool poets, Roger McGough and Brian Patten, brought poetry to a new generation in their 1967 anthology, ‘The Mersey Sound’. It’s a poem about everyday love between everyday people but is strangely touching. ‘Love is a fan club with only two fans’ and ‘love is what happens when the music stops’.

Love is…
Love is feeling cold in the back of vans
Love is a fanclub with only two fans
Love is walking holding paintstained hands
Love is.
Love is fish and chips on winter nights
Love is blankets full of strange delights
Love is when you don’t put out the light
Love is
Love is the presents in Christmas shops
Love is when you’re feeling Top of the Pops
Love is what happens when the music stops
Love is
Love is white panties lying all forlorn
Love is pink nightdresses still slightly warm
Love is when you have to leave at dawn
Love is
Love is you and love is me
Love is prison and love is free
Love’s what’s there when you are away from me
Love is…

3. ‘How Do I Love Thee’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

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Browning had the advantage of a good education, not given to most Victorian women in England. She blossomed as a poet and found love with fellow writer, Robert Browning. They married against her father’s wishes and eloped to Italy. It doesn’t get any more romantic than that. The opening lines to this romantic love poem are often quoted; ‘how do I love thee, let me count the ways’.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday’s
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with a passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood’s faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, — I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! — and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

2. ‘A Red, Red Rose’ by Robert Burns

This is both a poem and a song, first published in 1794. Burns is one of the most famous Scotsmen in the world and the anniversary of his birth, January 25th, is celebrated around the world with recitations, whiskey and haggis (for those that can stomach it). Burns Night undoubtedly features this romantic poem and the lines, ‘O, my love is like a red, red, rose, that is newly sprung in June’.

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve’s like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ ’twere ten thousand mile!

1. ‘Love Sonnet 130’ by William Shakespeare

The most revered playwright in history also found time to compose 154 sonnets, published in 1609. The sonnets are a great source for quotations on the theme of romance, love and passion. He was constantly preoccupied with the relationships between men and women in his writing. Number 130 glories in lines, such as ‘and yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare as any she belied with false compare’.

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound;
I grant I never saw a goddess go;
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Hands – villanelle – Promote Yourself

 

Holding hands with someone special
Such electricity flowing between both
Creating memories that last much longer.

 

We hold hands with many as we grow
There comes a time when we have more
Holding hands with someone special.

 

Thoughts return to bring us even closer
Remember a touch or a smell that excites
Creating memories that last much longer.

 

Feelings grow and we just seem to know
When fingers lace together without thought
Holding hands with someone special.

 

For some it is might last only a day

Occasionally we find someone special
Creating memories that last much longer.

 

A lifetime can seem to be summed up
Looking back at all those moments shared
Holding hands with someone special
Creating memories that last much longer.

 

by Gray Poet

Charles Townsend

How Do We Read

When you look upon the written word
How do you read what thought was sent
It isn’t the type or print that can influence
It is our own emotion, times we spent.

 

For black and white, possibly color added
The pages cannot give us the intent of heart
So why do we feel the words deep within
Can we know the end, reading from the start.

 

As we read the words that another has shared
We feel with the thoughts that we put to word
Not like a recording where we feel their emotion
The words read give us any emotion that is stirred.

 

Each has a reason why we read someone’s word
And I’m thankful for those that return to read mine
If I could put my emotion clearly into each word I write
You’d understand the reason for each letter of a line.

Charles Townsend

Ernest Hemingway – Your Favourite Poem

Born: July 21, 1899 // Died: July 2, 1961

Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, Illinois on July 21, 1899. Working in a newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of seventeen, Hemingway started his career as a writer. Before the United States had entered the World War I, he joined a volunteer ambulance unit in the Italian army. Hemingway was wounded while serving at the front, and later decorated by the Italian Government. After his return to the United States, he became a reporter for Canadian and American newspapers. Later he was sent back to Europe to cover such events as the Greek Revolution. During the 1920’s, Hemingway became a member of the group of expatriate Americans in Paris, which he described in his first important work, The Sun Also Rises(1926). A Farewell to Arms (1929), the study of an American ambulance officer’s disillusionment in the war and his role as a deserter, was equally successful. Hemingway used his experiences as a reporter during the civil war in Spain as the background for his most ambitious novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940). Among his later works, The Old Man and the Sea (1952), a short novel about an old fisherman’s journey, his long and lonely struggle with a fish and the sea, and his victory in defeat, was the most outstanding.  Hemingway’s straightforward prose, spare dialogue, and predilection for understatement are particularly effective in his short stories. Some of his short stories are collected in Men Without Women (1927), The Fifth Column, and The First Forty-Nine Stories (1938). Ernest Miller Hemingway died in Idaho on July 2, 1961. * From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1901-1967.   Along with Youth A porcupine skin, Stiff with bad tanning, It must have ended somewhere. Stuffed horned owl Pompous Yellow eyed; Chuck-wills-widow on a biassed twig Sooted with dust. Piles of old magazines, Drawers of boy's letters And the line of love They must have ended somewhere. Yesterday's Tribune is gone Along with youth And the canoe that went to pieces on the beach The year of the big storm When the hotel burned down At Seney, Michigan.

A new poem from John Challis – Accident Hotspot

John Challis is a poet, producer and editor. He was born in London in 1984 and is currently working on a first collection of poetry. In 2010 he was gained an award to study for an MA in Creative Writing at Newcastle University. Since then John has started a PhD in Creative Writing at Newcastle University on contemporary poetry and Film Noir, and now works as a teaching associate. He was awarded a Northern Promise Award from New Writing North in 2012 to help develop his first collection.

I recently saw John read at Blackwells bookshop in Sheffield and was struck by the clarity and concision of his poetry. John kindly agreed to send some poems
and generously sent ‘Accident Hotspot’ which is  previously unpublished.

John’s poems have appeared in The Rialto, Clinic II, Lung Jazz: Young British Poets For Oxfam (Cinnamon , 2012). John also edits NCLA’s online journal of Creative Writing, Friction Magazine, and is the director of the Newcastle based live literature, theatre and music events company, Trashed Organ

 

Accident Hotspot
Our bodies, central to this evening’s action,
are lit by streaks of rain.

The radio strains to hear its voice
under this guttural chorus.

We brave the road the dark has taken,
whittle a lane with our headlights.

We yawn past sleepers on the shoulder,
having met their mile quotas,

and when the headlights appear
behind us, and use our mirrors

to blind us, the impatient will pass,
stretching the fabric of the dark;

the dark speaks back with sirens.
Everything slows to a curve of brake-

lights glowing beneath the flood.
In the window the phosphorus smudge

of a fluorescent accident worker
is mining a car from the water.by

 roymarshall

George Mackay Brown – Famous Scotish Poet

• 
  George Mackay Brown

Born: 1921 in Stromness, Orkney Islands
Died: 1996 in Stromness
First Book: The Storm (Orkney Press, 1954)
Awards: Short-listed for the 1994 Booker Prize for Beside the Ocean of TimeGeorge Mackay Brown is considered to be one of the greatest Scottish poets and authors of the twentieth century. His technical mastery and control of both prose and verse attracted a world-wide readership. Although never reaching bestseller status, his books were published in more than a dozen countries around the world, drawing hundreds of avid fans to his house in Orkney each year.

Born on 17 October 1921 into a poor family living in Stromness in the Orkney Islands, Mackay Brown attended the local Stromness Academy. It was here he discovered a talent for writing, excelling in the weekly compositions set by hisEnglish teacher.

His time at school was brought to a premature end when he contracted tuberculosis and was sent to a sanatorium in Kirkwall. He was troubled by the disease throughout his life and never completely returned to full health. His illness excluded him from service during the Second World War, and made him essentially unemployable on a long-term basis.

However, the extended periods of rest which the disease enforced upon him meant that he was able to read and write extensively, thereby developing his literary talent. By the early 1940s his prolific writings were beginning to emerge publicly with news stories, reviews and a regular column in the Orkney weekly newspaper. This column was a constant feature throughout the rest of his life, with his final piece appearing just two days before his death on 13 April 1996.

After his initial success in the early 1940s he began to drink heavily and only wrote occasional poems and his column for the local newspaper. This lifestyle continued for almost ten years before he received an invitation to become a mature student at an adult education college in Dalkeith in 1951. The college was run by Edwin Muir, a poet and fellow Orkadian whose work Mackay Brown greatly admired. Much of Muir’s work, and especially his 1940 The Story and the Fable (which Mackay Brown read when he went to the University of Edinburgh two years after graduating from the Dalkeith college), interweaved Orkadian life and history with myth and legend, and had a profound effect on the future style and subject-matter of Mackay Brown’s later achievements.

In the summer of 1970, he met – entirely by chance – the composer Peter Maxwell Davies in the remote valley of Rackwick in Orkney. In the subsequent years, the two men forged a fiercely strong friendship and went on to collaborate together to produce many of Maxwell Davies’ Orkney-inspired works.

Following the publication and success of Booker Prize short-listed Beside the Ocean of Time, Mackay Brown wrote two collections of short stories, the second of which was published posthumously. When he died on 13 April 1996, he left a legacy for both Scottish literature and the communities of the Orkney Islands. Able to transcend the common and often mundane perception of Orkadian life and history, Mackay Brown’s writing was ethereal and timeless, filled with strong universal truths that deeply touched his global readership.

A Calendar of Love, Beside the Ocean of Time, Greenvoe, Hawkfall, The Island of the Women, A Time to Keep, Vinland, and Winter Tales are all available from now Polygon. Selected pieces are also published by Polygon in Lament: Scottish Poems for Funerals and Consolation and Scottish War Stories, and an extensive interview with Mackay Brown is featured in Scottish Writers Talking.

DISTANCE

 

Sometimes, the obvious is in front of you! I used a poem in my book above that may be a good addition, please consider:

Her arms waiting, warm inviting water, a floating dream of promise.
Transformed with the years of endless cycles,
Tides in and out, changing surface and angry motion.
You spin and twist, struggling to free yourself from the emotional undertow,
And then you glimpse a tranquil sea.
Other arms reach for you to tame the raging eddy.
Yet her cold tendrils still cling; her acrid, salty taste still coats your heart.
You live entangled.

(Excerpt from character, Lili’s, paranormal book)
From Chapter Twenty-Nine, SHADOWWATER by Wendy Shreve, Copyright March 2013

It is time

It is time to give

To the less fortunate than ourselves

It is time to pray

For all the hungry people in the world

It is time for peace

To unleash

All of the anger we hold within

It is time

To forget our needs

Let the poor breathe

Good  health

Let their faces sparkle

From wealth

It is time

When the world

Should be sowing a seed

To dismiss all the greed

To concentrate on peace

It is time to sow a seed of hope

To let all the bad things go

It is time to bring happiness

It is time I know

 Gillian Sims

The Snowman

There’s a strange man

In my garden

With top hat and tails

He is looking rather pale

He’s been standing there

For some time now

Just standing and staring

And looking all around

He very often smiles

But doesn’t often frown

The squirrels and the fox’s

All adore him

As they pass by

He lifts his hand

To wave at them

And smiles to say goodnight

Thomas and Gillian Sims

Exclusive: poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy’s poems for children

 

These eight pieces, which explore schooldays and the mysteries of childhood, will be included in Carol Ann’s latest collection of children’s poems, to be published this coming autumn by Faber.

 

Carol Ann Duffy (pic: Getty)

Carol Ann Duffy has been acclaimed as the first poet laureate for the whole family with her brilliant poems for children.

New laureate Carol Ann – who edits our Poetry Corner column – has given us an exclusive preview of her latest work to share with Daily Mirror readers.

These eight pieces, which explore schooldays and the mysteries of childhood, will be included in Carol Ann’s latest collection of children’s poems, to be published this coming autumn by Faber.

THE MAIDEN NAMES

I got a shock

hearing the grown-ups talk

to find that my Grandmother’s name

wasn’t her name at all,

only her married name.

I listened hard

till I heard

that the same was true

of Grandmother Two,

who had nearly been left

on the shelf

long ago

when she was called something else.

The maiden names

were their real names.

I spoke them aloud-

Mary Wallace, Agatha Hart,

Mary Wallace, Agatha Hart

and saw them as maidens, lassies, girls

in their lost young worlds

with their own names.

Language inside me flared, burned,

then to my Mother I turned.

HIS NINE SYMPATHIES

were for the mothers,

listening to flute scales stop and start;

and for the fathers,

whistling their tired ways home in the dark;

for younger brothers,

sent with the jingling cows to market;

or for eldest daughters,

hymned up the aisles till death did them part;

for orphans,

led by a piper out of a pretty park;

and for paupers,

scraping their fiddles for small change in a hat;

for old ones,

tapping their sticks on the twisting path;

for soldiers,

stamping their boots on a victory march;

and for the lovers,

the broken chords of their hearts.

YOUR SCHOOL

Your school knows the names of places-

Dhaka, Rajshahi, Sylket, Khulna, Chittagong

and where they are.

Your school knows where rivers rise-

the Ganges, Brahmaputra, Thames-

and knows which seas they join.

Your school knows the height of mountains

disappearing into cloud.

Your school knows important dates,

the days when history turned around

to stare the human race

straight in the face.

Your school knows the poets’ names, long dead-

John Keats, Rabindranath Tagore, Sylvia Plath –

and what they said.

It knows the paintings hanging in the old gold frames

in huge museums

and how the artists lived and loved

who dipped their brushes in the vivid paint.

Your school knows the language of the world-

hello, namaskar, sat sri akal, as-salaam-o-aleykum, salut-

it knows the homes of faith,

the certainties of science,

the living art of sport.

Your school knows what Isaac Newton thought,

what William Shakespeare wrote

and what Mohammed taught.

Your school knows your name-

Shirin, Abdul, Aysha, Rayhan, Lauren, Jack-

and who you are.

Your school knows the most important thing to knowy

ou are a star,

a star.

PEGGY GUGGENHEIM

Peggy, Peggy Guggenheim,

favourite drink Italian wine.

Peggy, Peggy Guggenheim,

favourite smell is turpentine.

Peggy, Peggy Guggenheim,

favourite jeans by Calvin Klein.

Peggy, Peggy Guggenheim,

favourite herb is lemon thyme.

Peggy, Peggy Guggenheim,

favourite fruit a Tuscan lime.

Peggy, Peggy Guggenheim,

favourite art Venetian mime.

Peggy, Peggy Guggenheim,

favourite tree a creeping vine.

Peggy, Peggy Guggenheim,

favourite statue free of grime.

Peggy, Peggy Guggenheim,

favourite poem has to rhyme

with Peggy, Peggy Guggenheim.

SAFE SOUNDS

You like safe sounds:

the dogs lapping at their bowls;

the pop of a cork on a bottle of plonk

as your mother cooks;

the Match of the Day theme tune

and Doctor Who-oo-oo.

Safe sounds:

your name called, two happy syllables

from the bottom to the top of the house;

your daft ringtone; the low gargle

of hot water in bubbles. Half asleep

in the drifting boat of your bed,

you like to hear the big trees

sound like the sea instead.

NIGHT WRITING

Only a neat margin of moonlight

there at the curtain’s edge.

The room like a dark page.

I lie in bed.

Silence is ink.

The sound of my breath dips in

and out. So I begin

night writing. The stars type themselves

far out in space.

Who would guess,

to look at my sleeping face,

the rhymes and tall tales I invent?

Here be dragons; children lost

in the wood; three wishes; the wicked

and the good.

Read my lips.

The small hours are poems.

Dawn is a rubber.

GLAD

Glad we don’t have to bark.

Glad we don’t have to cock

one leg and wee on a lampost.

Glad we don’t have to cluck

or lay an egg. Glad we don’t

have to moo, neigh, baa, eat grass

or hay, be milked, fleeced, ridden.

Glad we don’t have to hoot, hang

from the thread of a web, sting, slither.

Glad we don’t have to mew, eat mice,

peck, breathe through gills, dwell

in shells or form a chrysalis, hiss,

hum, hover. Glad we don’t

have to kip upside down in the dark, bark.

VENEZIA

Here today

Gondolier tomorrow.

Daffodils: A poem by William Wordsworth – Your favourite poem

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling leaves in glee;
A poet could not be but gay,
In such a jocund company!
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.