Featured Poet

24th May 2020

The day I was the featured poet for A Poem A Day in April. There were hundreds of participants. It was 3/4/2015 and it had 661 visits and twenty one comments. Not at all bad.
Just thought I'd share it again

Day 3:

 3rd April 3rd poem.

Was inspired today by a walk along the coast . We took a path from the beach up a pretty winding staircase. Each turn gave a different, yet  interesting view which  made me reflect the path our lives take. Not sure I've done justice to it in this poem.

Go This Way

Go this way, tread these winding steps,

                                    Up this steep slope.

                                                     Stop here, rest,

                                                              Take in the view,

                                                                              The castle - almost ruins

                                                                                            Glory days over.

                                                                    Carry on up, round that blind  bend,

                                                         See the lake- veiled in mist,  

                                             Joys hidden in shrouded past

                        Struggle further,up  towards the peak,

                                   Breathless,

                                               The path narrows, stones underfoot slow progress
                                                                                  
                                                                    Turn, see the valley

                                                                                      Deep, dark,

                                                                     Holding lost moments of gloom.

                                                                                     But now, for you, up, up, 

                                                                                    Crawl on to the summit,

                                                                 Lift yourself up,

                                          Stand, breathe deep

                           Look around,

                                      All before you takes shape

                                                             Holds together.

Day 10 Touch

10th Oct 2019

We come to day 10 in the poetry writing month.
Nothing amazes me more than being still here. We are a third of the way there and with a bit of luck I will get to the end of October with 31 poems written and shared. 
The prompt for today is Touch and my poem is in song form with a chorus. Hope you like it.
I welcome any feedback or comments to all of my blogposts. 



Enjoying the Dance                                    

Embracing, gliding, likes swans on a lake,

We took to the floor, a couple to make.

Quick stepping through galaxies, up with the stars,

Fox trotting on  Jupiter, Saturn and Mars.

And they said we could never be

Happy together, you and me.

But we’re still here, proving them wrong,

Enjoying the dance and singing our song,

Enjoying the dance and singing our song.

At times we twirled and swayed too fast,

 Feet barely touching the ground, time passed.

Our toes would be bleeding our bodies sore,

But we carried on across the dance floor.

And they said we could never be

Happy together, you and me.

But we’re still here proving them wrong,

Enjoying the dance and singing our song,

Enjoying the dance and singing our song.

Our dance has slowed but we still glide,

Gently moving, side by side,

Our adventure will come to an end one day,

But we’ll twirl on, we know the way.

Chorus

Tokaido Road

26th May 2020


Five Years Ago. 

26th May 2015

Hello all my lovely followers.
Just taking a rest from all the packing and cleaning and sorting and dumping and worrying that I've been manically steeped in this last week or so. Soon we are to move, days now.
In the meantime,  let me tell you about a wonderful evening we had last Saturday at the Gulbenkian Theatre in Canterbury.
We went along with friends to a modern day opera, yes, you read that right, an opera. Not normally my thing - all those soprano voices singing in a language I don't understand.
But this was nothing like that. We were prepared for it by having a presentation evening at Beach Creative to tell us about this unique performance. The inspiration for the production was The Tokaido Road in Japan, or rather a set of prints by Hiroshige, an artist who did fifty three wood block paintings of the stations on the road.
Nancy Gaffield, a poet became inspired by the prints she discovered when on a visit to Japan and wrote poems in response to the pictures. ( Tokaido Road by Nancy Gaffield, in case you're interested.)
Putting these two elements together and joining with musicians and other creative people an opera was written.
What a wonderful experience it was, especially as we knew some of the history.
Add to that the meeting of friends and a glass of wine .... well you get the idea...
This is my response to it:

 Tokaido Road

We step into the picture,
From Nihonbashi we accompany Hiro,
Along Tokaido Road.
A road from our dreams.
We cross the bridge.,
Slowly, serenely, absorbed in the scene.
Enchanted, enraptured, we listen to music,
as it  resonates, reverberates,
In our subconscious  recesses,
a reeling rhythm of life.
Music brings joy and pain
Freedom and confinement,
Throwing us onto the way of the road.
Images present themselves,
Without being asked,
A waterfall, windy roads,
Animals  scurrying, birds in flight.
Kites held by anonymous hands,
Escape.
Trees sway gently over the banks of,
The river.
The river that divides,
With fingers that spread across the plain,
That takes to itself,
That has it's story to tell.

We,  in monotonous pilgrimage,
Put one foot in front of another,
Encounter steep slopes,
And mountain pines.
At the summit,
cherry blossom fills aching lungs,
In the heat of the day.
As travelers we continue
On the way,
With Hiro,
But long for release.
The path , at times impossible,
Against us,
Wind , rain, umbrellas taking on new form.
We continue with Hiro,
To the end.
And in the end the mystery,
We are not the same,
We, like Hiro,
Are changed.

Go This Way

Day 3:

 3rd April 3rd poem.

Was inspired today by a walk along the coast . We took a path from the beach up a pretty winding staircase. Each turn gave a different, yet  interesting view which  made me reflect the path our lives take. Not sure I've done justice to it in this poem.

Go This Way

Go this way, tread these winding steps,

                                    Up this steep slope.

                                                     Stop here, rest,

                                                                      Take in the view,

                                                                                     The castle - almost ruins

                                                                                                     Glory days over.

                                                                                     Carry on up, round that blind  bend,

                                                              See the lake- veiled in mist,  

                                                Joys hidden in shrouded past

            Struggle further,up  towards the peak,

                                                   Breathless,

                                                               The path narrows, stones underfoot slow progress
                                                                                  
                                                                           Turn, see the valley

                                                                                            Deep, dark,

                                                                                 Holding lost moments of gloom.

                                                                                                 But now, for you, up, up, 

                                                                               Crawl on to the summit,

                                                       Lift yourself up,

                        Stand, breathe deep

     Look around,

                                      All before you takes shape

                                                             Holds together.