HAPPY ST DAVID’S DAY

Top 3 flowers to say “I love you”

One of the most meaningful and classic ways of showing your love for someone is giving   flowers, but with all the options out there, it can be hard to choose the bloom that will mean the most to your loved one. However, in a sea of pink and red flowers, there are a few that will get across the best message.

Roses. The number one choice for someone you love is roses. This has always been the case, and there’s a reason for it. Red roses in particular represent love and passion, making them a classic and fitting choice for this holiday. 

Lilies. Hopkins Patch reports that sending lilies to someone you love is a perfect way to show someone that you admire them and value them as a friend. However, stargazer lilies are a good bloom to choose along with roses if you really want to impress your loved one

Tulips. According to Patch, pink tulips are a good flower choice for relationships when that aren’t quite at the passionate love stage yet. But Life123.com reports that a red tulip is a “declaration of love” and white ones signify “beautiful eyes.” Given these meanings, giving tulips for a loved one is never a bad idea, either. 

Spring is in the air

I feel a spring in my step

Are you feeling it yet?

The temperature is better

According to the weather

The brollies have gone

The blackbird is singing his song

I see more smiling faces

Amongst all the races

People have more energy

Or is this just positive me

The skies look very blue

Do you have a spring in your step too?

Gillian Sims

Garden Magic

This is the garden’s magic,
That through the sunny hours
The gardener who tends it,

Himself outgrows his flowers.

He grows by gift of patience,
Since he who sows must know
That only in the Lord’s good time
Does any seedling grow.

He learns from buds unfolding,
From each tight leaf unfurled,
That his own heart, expanding,
Is one with all the world.

He bares his head to sunshine,
His bending back a sign
Of grace, and ev’ry shower becomes
His sacramental wine.

And when at last his labors
Bring forth the very stuff
And substance of all beauty
This is reward enough.
-MARIE NETTLETON CARROLL

Please send your poetry to:gillianandthomas@yahoo.com

Wild Orchid – Promote Yourself

“The flower that walks”, the Indian; said, 
And walking spreads its crown-like roots 
Through forest glades and upland dales. 
Moccasin flower or Lady’s Slipper,
It matters not the name
Or if it be fair white or rose or tiny yellow kind
Tis ever rare and wondrous there 
This woodland beauty Bequeathed us from another age. 
A Heritage to guard with care
And cherish for posterity
That other eyes in future years
Mav see this Orchid walk the trails
As did our native Indian braves
And shy eyed maidens of the tribe.
-HELEN M. FLEET

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.

Bomber Command Poem

The nose section from Ex-RAAF Lancaster ‘Old Fred’ being discussed by modern suits at the Imperial War Museum, Lambeth. James Kightly.For me, the poem sums up some of the diversity of the contribution from within the UK and outside. Although titled ‘Lancasters’ it stands well, I think, for all of the Command and the crews of the less well remembered types. Found in Martin Bowman’s excellent ‘The Royal Air Force at War‘.

LancastersWhere are the bombers, the Lancs on the runways,
Snub-nosed and roaring and black-faced and dour,
Full up with aircrew and window and ammo
And dirty great cookies to drop on the Ruhr?

Where are the pilots, the navs and air-gunners,
WOP’s and bomb-aimers and flight engineers,
Lads who were bank clerks and milkmen and teachers,
Carpenters, lawyers, and grocers and peers?

Geordies and Cockneys and Wiltshire moon-rakers,
Little dark men from the valleys of Wales,
Manxmen, Devonians, Midlanders, Scouses,
Jocks from the Highlands and Tykes from the Dales?

Where are the Aussies, the sports and the cobbers,
Talking of cricket and sheilas and grog,
Flying their Lanes over Hamburg and Stettin
And back to the Lincolnshire wintertime bog?

Where are the flyers from Canada’s prairies,
From cities and forests, determined to win,
Thumbing their noses at Goering’s Luftwaffe
And busily dropping their bombs on Berlin?

A reenactor in the RAF’s airworthy Lancaster PA474 seen in 2003 at the Royal International Air Tattoo. James Kightly.Where are the Poles with their gaiety and sadness,
All with the most unpronounceable names,
Silently, ruthlessly flying in vengeance,
Remembering their homes and their country in flames?Where arc the Kiwis who left all the sunshine
For bleak windy airfields and fenland and dyke,
Playing wild Mess clinics like high cockalorum,
And knocking the Hell out of Hitler’s Third Reich?

Where are the Poles with their gaiety and sadness,
All with the most unpronounceable names,
Silently, ruthlessly flying in vengeance,
Remembering their homes and their country in flames?

Where arc the Kiwis who left all the sunshine
For bleak windy airfields and fenland and dyke,
Playing wild Mess clinics like high cockalorum,
And knocking the Hell out of Hitler’s Third Reich?

Where are they now, those young men of all nations,
Who flew though they knew not what might lie ahead,
And those who returned with their mission accomplished
And next night would beat up the Saracen’s Head?

The Lancs are no more, they are part of legend,
But memory stays bright in the hearts of the men
Who loved them and flew them through flak and through hellfire
And, managed to land them in England, again.

The men who were lucky to live to see victory,
The men who went home to their jobs and their wives,
The men who can tell their grandchildren with pride
Of the bomber which helped to save millions of lives.

Audrey Grealy

Lancaster G for George at the Australian War Memorial. James Kightly.

Audrey is the widow of an RAF pilot, and while the poem may not achieve greatness as a poem for some, the reason for its creation is more than good enough for me

The River Leen

 

I sometimes walk down by the side of the river,

Which meanders through the town where I was born,

It is a river with a very proud history,

But nowadays it looks forgotten and forlorn.

 

The river originates in the grounds of the Newstead Abbey,

At the lake where the poet Lord Byron often went,

From there it flows through several villages and townships,

Until it finally empties itself into the River Trent.

 

The river is part of our great heritage,

In past days it has served our township well,

In its journey it must have seen so many changes,

 If it could speak it would have so much to tell.

 

It provided the power to drive several mills,

In which many local people were employed,

But all this has now been confined to history,

And most of the mills have been destroyed.

 

At most times the river flows by unnoticed,

But sometimes it puts on a bit of a show,

At times when the snow falls have been heavy,

The melting snows have caused it to overflow.

 

Some of the nearby land has been flooded,

Streets and houses in some places have been submerged,

The water on the Main Street was too deep to traverse,

That’s when the rowing boats suddenly emerged.

 

The serious flooding took place in the winter of  ’47,

The engineers from the Council were instructed

 That any further flooding should be prevented,

So the flood prevention scheme was constructed.

 

The river was also a place of entertainment,

Where children would fish or paddle for an hour or two,

Children are rarely seen down there today,

Perhaps they have got more interesting things to do.

 

The River Leen still flows through the town centre,

But few people seem to know that it is there,

Maybe it’s because they are too busy to remember,

Or, perhaps it’s because they don’t really care.

 

As I walk down by the riverside,

Many things of interest catch my eye,

But my mind goes back to contemplate its history,

As I watch the waters of the river flowing by.

 

Ron Martin

I Am The Shadow – Promote Yourself

 

 

 

I am the shadow,

I exist in a world of light,

Blending into the darkness of night.

 

My face you cannot see,

My expressions, sometimes misleading.

 

If you hear a whisper in the wind,

It may be me.

 

I am the shadow,

I exist in a world of sounds, good and bad.

Of laughter,

Crying,

Shouting,

Singing.

 

You think that I feel nothing,

No love,

No hate,

No anger,

No fear,

No pain.

But you are wrong.

 

You think that I do not cry,

But I weep silently.

You cannot see the tears that slide down my cheeks,

But they are there.

 

I am the shadow, you cannot touch,

Always within sight but never within reach.

 

I am the shadow, afraid to trust the light for it distorts me.

Please forgive me if I trick you,

I cannot control it.

 

I long to live in the light,

To be held and loved,

But I am only a silent shadow,

Watching but unable to take part in it all,

What others do, I can only dream of.

 

So I lurk in corners,

Ignored,

Misunderstood.

Always waiting for the night to come,

Always dying but never dead.

 

I am the shadow, I have no friends,

Even in a crowd, I’m all alone.

Existing in somber shades of gray,

A lonely shadow,

I’m doomed to stay.

 

 

By Joyce Savage, 1990.

Have I got the January blues?

Have I got the January blues?

I want to shop and buy some shoes

I’ll go down to the January sales

Somehow it never fails,

I can beat the January blues

I will buy my brand new shoes

Red, blue, black or white,

I know what I have in sight

The January sales here I come,

No January blues

I have my new shoes

You have not won

The January blues,

The tinsel and the sparkle has gone

But I can’t go wrong

In the January sales,

Somehow it never fails

I have beat the January blues

I have bought my brand new shoes

Gillian Sims

A Thousand Pictures

If I could paint a thousand pictures

Each one would be of you

I would place them all around my room

So I wouldn’t feel so blue

I know you would always be close

So close to my heart

If you were ever away

I know we’d never be apart

My eyes would follow you around my room

To admire my pictures of you

I would go to sleep well rested

Not feeling at all blue

I would dream of you looking at me

Whilst I silently sleep

I would breathe you in the morning

My pictures of you to keep

Gillian Sims

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.

Try As We May

~

We are one

In each opportunity

Life ahead

Is a situational release

A declaration of unique testament

Outside the lithograph

That medium’s design emotive

Of our responsibility

Glance across the room

Conversations continue casual

While sunlight piques in afterglow

Questions arise of

Karma – regret, delight – response

A new design of willing restoration

(resolutions)

~

We interact

As active participants

A freedom moment

Ordinary reactions

Howsoever the truth decides

Our plan forward; future

Fortune creates commentary

Now we will reflect past motives

While through this space

Our action is a constant happening

Life might reveal an eternal

Retribution

Prepare our positive peace

Upon our human soul

~

We recognize now that next year is on the floor

Proceed sweet with that love we made known before!

Thom Amundsen 2013

http://thinkingoutloudagain.wordpress.com

Watch out for our Christmas cracker theme coming soon!!!

Don’t miss out on the Christmas party at Poetree Creations

We want you to be there

To see this amazing theme

And all that it brings

Invite all of your friends ©2012

Constant Pain – Promote Yourself

 

 

 

 

 

 

which is always there with me

There is absolutely no gain

In pretending what others want you to be

May be the pain will fizzle out

but I will miss its presence

Among all these self doubts

Constant pain is my life’s essence

Gaurab   Country : India

Blog : http://processingthelife.com/about/

About : I like travelling and photography. I’m an avid reader, I also write,mostly about my experiences and journeys. 🙂

Sea Fever – Your Favourite Poem

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking,

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

BY JOHN MASEFIELD

Wrong – Promote Yourself

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Everything in this world is not color correspondent.
Like people.
Pink does not always mean female,
Blue does not always mean male.
Rainbows are not enslaved to queer folk.
This trinary only applies to things that are not complex enough for spectrums or intersectionalities.
Contrary to popular belief, gender is not pink or blue or vice versa.
Gender is a spectrum, mixed with complimentary colors.
Not a grey scale from light femininity to darkened masculinity.
New colors are made everyday by mixing, and extracting personal characteristics.
THE ARTIST IS THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN NAME THEIR COLOR.
Although too many people think they’ve discovered all of the colors, just because they’ve looked in their medicine cabinets.
Just because they’ve seen the outside world, they think they know the colors.

If I ever decided to have off-spring, their nursery will be painted in all custom colors:
To my queer child
Darling, do not allow your mind to dictate you.
Inside influences will tell you that you aren’t allow to exist.
Do not listen to them like I almost did.
Ignore the colors around you.
Instead of a gun, take a pen to your hand, and let your heart pour bullets to the page.
Write the synopia red-morbid things, write about the black olive world around you, write what goes through your minds.
Never conform to the point of dysphoria.
It only results in displaced self-loathing.
I feel that it’s only a matter of time before your Carolina-blue tears waterfall over your pillow.
Your rapids will sweep you away into a world of shades you’ve never seen before.
Don’t stop here, you will find your self stuck cycling somewhere that makes you feel like a stranger.
But just remember to find the colors that make you feel good.

______
Also, I have more poems at bucketsaurusrex.wordpress.com

Nature’s Clearing

~
We would then remember that summer day
When our lives wound serene along the trail
With all the world around love without fail
Would we understand how simple our way
~
Now recognize we each might contribute
New smiles that could lead quiet minds astray
Needless of concrete, cities while away
Note the autumn grain remains resolute
~
Our lives are one in the summer wind’s sail
Over hills nature’s melodic soft flute
Outside whispers the Earth; her desire’s root
Only in the sweet sounds of night’s prevail
~
See our passionate trio glance the path
Seeks elegance; smirking society’s wrath

Thom Amundsen 2013
thinkingoutloudagain.wordpress.com