3 year Anniversary– Celebrating Poets – Keats

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School days wrapped among your odes

Carefully crafted from your young mind

Taken far too soon, but you left us magic.

 

I was awakened to the imagery of words

Given insight into a glorious suspended past

Learnt to understand the desire for constancy.

 

Those moments frozen as visual images

The maiden’s flight, the young man’s pursuit

Forever caught in that one moment of wonder.

 

I recall our teacher asking a female student

Was the joy of a lover’s breast, its rise and fall

As wondrous as in the Bright Star?

 

I have carried your words with me all these years

I still marvel at the concise, brevity of language

Which captured your world for generations to come.

John Keats - Manuscript - Ode on a Grecian Urn - handwritten by George Keats - 02

Written for d’verse where today we are asked to write an ode to a poet dead or alive or to poetry in general.

: http://dversepoets.com/2014/07/15/3-year-anniversary-celebrating-poets/

 

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Prompt #17 “Mercury & Ashes” – Mask

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Is it mystery you convey?

A life repressed

Hidden

A mask you hide behind?

Are you concealing?

Shame?

Doubt?

A life?

I watch as you flitter from person to person

A social butterfly

The centre of attention.

Nature has blessed you

Compensated you for..?

I am attracted

Compelled to pay attention

Your allure overwhelms me.

Your eyes

Hold me enthralled

I feel them

Pierce deep into my soul.

I squirm under your gaze

Uncomfortable in your attention.

My power wrested from me

I am naked before you,

Every imperfection highlighted

As you evaluate,

A simple man

Who stares back

Aware his strength is sapped,

But waiting

Curious

Should you venture

A word or two.

 

Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/07/15/prompt-17-mercury-ashes/

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Poem 128 – Jealousy – Part 3

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It’s your eyes

I want

To scratch

Rip from your face

Anything,

To keep you from

The man I love.

How will he see me

In all my finery,

When you sloth about

In front of him.

Why oh why in all that’s right

Does he favour you?

A walking hasbeen

A nothing, a slag among women.

You pout,

You flaunt

Your tasteless shamefulness.

Where I am class you are arse

Where I am breeding you are needing,

And yet I see you on his arm

Here and there.

Though you may be

The talk of the town

Nothing said is quotable

Unless you are into

Derision and ridicule.

Society twitters

Of mutton dressed as lamb

Of punching above your weight

Of the uneducated

The inarticulate

‘She looks good, but you’ll shiver when she speaks.’

You are the mockery of society

Not fit to clean my shoes, let alone my house.

I shall watch with interest

As you stuff up

Fall flat

Disgrace yourself.

My chance will come

He’ll see you for who you are

When you disgrace him

Embroil him in an intolerable scandal.

He’ll dismiss you with a cursory wave

Whereupon, I will step forward

Take him in hand

Lift him back

To where he belongs.

 

Jealousy parts 1 and 2 can be found here:

https://summerstommy.com/2014/07/12/poem-126-jealousy

https://summerstommy.com/2014/07/13/poem-127-jealousy-part-2/

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Wordle #17 – Aunt Flo

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My Aunt Flo lived three doors up from me. She was an unsightly woman. She was unwashed so much so she was never invited to our house until mum had been to her house to supervise aunt’s bathing. Her house was a pigsty and that was being kind to the house.

Aunt Flo had lived there all her life and had a sentimental attachment to the place. It had been the home of her grandparents; my great grandparents and Flo had inherited it via her parents will.

That included the silver service my mother had coveted all these years and secretly wished to have should Aunt Flo pass away at any time.

My mother was a bit like that, she wore her heart on her sleeve and in matters of family she was loyal as loyal could be. Aunt Flo was one of us and she needed protecting and care and my mum was the one to see to it.

Every Tuesday mum would go up to Flo’s house change and wash all the linen, for Flo did possess the best of linen it could be said.

Aunt Flo maintained that we came from royalty. If Lord Whatisname, she’d say, hadn’t been beheaded in 1067, and if the King in 1645 hadn’t invaded France or somewhere in France then we might have been on the throne instead of the present lot she maintained.

Of course there was never a grain of truth in much of what she said.

Aunt Flo was a font of information about the family. For example if you wanted to know the origins of the great family grudge Flo could speak for hours on the subject. In 1878 Great Great Uncle Alf had upset Great Great Aunt Maud by marrying Esme O’Dwyer a catholic girl from Frog Hollow.

In those days our family didn’t marry anyone who was catholic. Papists were treated like the plague. Identified and driven out of any respectable society. Not only that but Alf was given land by his father and the family didn’t think he deserved it for breaking with tradition like he did. The grudge lasted for years before it became like so much within families a part of the numinous history built around the romantic stories that families like to maintain as part of their rich tapestry.

I spent a lot of my youth sitting with Aunt Flo listening to her many stories. One was about the locket she wore. She claimed it was from royalty, passed down through the generations, and she’d finger it as she spoke as if taking from it the numinous qualities she thought it possessed. She said it brought her luck in life that she’d been loved once, a love she called true love cut short by a malady that ended her lovers life years before it should have.

I don’t think Flo ever recovered from that blow. As the years went by and her health deteriorated I watched as this once feisty woman slowly wilted from age, her get up and go brought to its knees as the years took their toll.

She carried that love which never died to her grave. More than once she told me of the man she had loved, describing him, remembering him as the young man who won her heart and whose death stole her life from her.

It was partly the reason for her untidiness. She stopped caring and lived in a place that once held such promise that never eventuated. In Flo’s world love was alive, just never happened, she waited all those years for death to take her, believing she would be reunited with her one great love.

Aunt Flo was eighteen when her lover died, she had to wait eighty years before her reunion occurred.

 

Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/07/14/wordle-17/

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Poem 127 – Jealousy – Part 2

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I watch you

Cross the room

I want what you have

The looks

The walk

The charisma.

I watch others look,

Whisper

Their looks of admiration

You are stopped

Conversation ensues

I watch as you engage

Laughter erupts

Handshakes

Kisses

Acknowledgement.

When I cross the room

I am invisible

Never stopped

Ignored

Why?

I dress as you

I copy your conversation

I try and think as you.

You wont stop me

I covet all that you are

My idol?

I think not.

More like my nemesis.

 

This is the second of my three poems exploring Jealousy.

To read the first see this link:

https://summerstommy.com/2014/07/12/poem-126-jealousy/

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Prompt #63 “Natsukashi”

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Natsukashi is a sudden euphoric nostalgia , triggered by experiencing something for the first time in years.

It took me several weeks

A friendly banter

Not much more

Colleagues engaged in a common task.

I wasn’t looking

I wasn’t seeking

Anything other

Than a companion

A like-minded person

To collaborate with.

We did so

Successfully

Over several weeks,

But when it finished

We couldn’t let go.

Inside me both a voice cried out

Hang on.

Then it hit me

I couldn’t live a day without you.

Your words thrilled me

Your humour warmed me

Those initial hugs

Tentative good nights

Blossomed

Evolved into what I have missed so long.

I’d forgotten the joy

The want

The need

The contact

Person to person.

My past had ripped intimacy from me

Made me impotent

Long now resigned to loneliness.

Now I have hope

A life

A future.

I am a teenager again

Floating, carefree as I once did,

But this time

With purpose,

Longing

Desire.

Where once I lived in a void

I am now enthralled

Exhilarated

Expectant,

As tomorrow draws ever closer.

 

Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/07/13/prompt-63-natsukashi/

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Poem 126 – Jealousy

green-eyes-of-jealousy

I want what you have

He has

She has

Why?

 

Why not?

Why should I be left out?

You look so good in that

I wish I had one too.

 

Hang the expense

We’ll be like everyone else

Socially acceptable

Known.

I know I would look better than her

She’s so frumpy

Just because he’s doing well

Why should we look any less?

 

Have you seen the diamond?

Hideously big, on her of course,

She flouts it everywhere she goes

Roger is getting me a bigger one.

 

We have everything you know

Comfortable is how we describe it

Everything that opens and shuts

I desire noth.…would you look at that….

 

This poem is part one of a trilogy of poems dealing with the concept of jealousy.

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Fairytale #16 –The Ferns

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Today we have been asked to use the word ‘eutony’ – the pleasantness of a words sound – as the basis for a story.

The Ferns had long lived in the fernery beside my house. The fernery had been there for as long as I could remember. My grandmother had once told me that it was there when she lived in the house as small child.

I had researched my home for with modern technology it was easy to trace the origins of your house though council records. The house it said was built in 1899 by a Mr Richard Oswald a local haberdasher.

My grandmother had come to live in the house in 1919 and the fernery was well established by then.

She always looked at me with a twinkle in her eye when she spoke of the Ferns. She discovered them quite by accident as it turned out. Her father my great grandfather had designs on removing the fernery and extending the house but it all came to no avail once the Ferns learnt of his intentions.

My grandmother had loved coming into the fernery to sit and read. ‘It was the coolest place in summer,’ she used to say. ‘I could sit in there beside the bird’s nests and the tree ferns and while away the hours engrossed in the novel she loved, always Jane Eyre. I think she once told me she had read it twenty times in two years.

Grandmother’s and my favourite ferns were the maidenhairs. They possessed the most delicate of fronds and there were a variety of them growing in there. Wide leafed types to the exquisite fine fragile looking ones with the minute leaves that did little but caress your skin when you ran you fingers through them.

Grandmother sat me down one day to tell me about the Ferns. The day her father had arrived in the fernery with his shovel and mattock in hand was the last time he ever went into the fernery. He pretended after the Ferns had finished with him, to forget about that part of the yard, he stayed well clear leaving the Ferns to live as they had always done so.

As great grandfather swung his mattock the first time a blot of lightning flashed and he received the biggest electrical shock imaginable. He was flung back across the fernery. His hair stood on end and his clothes dishevelled. Standing not a foot in front of him was a small green man shaking his finger at him and then proceeded to deliver him a lecture on minding his own business and to leave the Ferns alone.

Great grandfather was not a man to take a backward step and picked up the mattock again only to find the handle was alive and another shock was delivered. That the wooden handle was delivering him electrical shocks was enough for great grandfather to retire his plans for the fernery and hence from that day onwards he never spoke of the incident.

But grandmother had seen the entire event. She knew what she had seen. There was one thing about grandmother that I remembered so clearly. She was a woman of integrity and character. She saw beauty in so many things, she taught me much about life and respect for nature.

‘Some things we don’t ever understand,’ she said to me ‘And some things we don’t want to understand for then we lose the magic that it is. Best to accept that not everything has an explanation, that some things, like the Ferns exist and that’s it.’

She was an old lady when she told me this tale. We were sitting in the fernery as we did most days, chatting about one thing or another. She said soon I will die and you need to know that this house I have left to you. I need for you to know about the Ferns.

Then she told me the story and me being me was sceptical until she said to me to part the maidenhairs and look below. I did so and I have to say, the beautiful sight of the Ferns going about their daily business took my breath away.

Beneath the maidenhairs was a city of its own. I stared down at the flurry of activity that was happening below. As I stood and watched one Fern turned and saw me and raised his finger to his lips as a sign of quiet.

We were eye to eye, his fascination at me and mine at him. My fingers held the delicate fronds apart so I could see below. He opened his hand and small a ball of light rolled off his fingers and flooded over my hand. Its warmth was all embracing, my body felt the energy go through me, my hand tingled not in any pain but in delight at what had just happened.

I looked back at him and he smiled, his teeth slightly jagged his hand now on mine.

‘We asked your grandmother to bequeath the house to you has you are the one we have chosen to carry on as protector of the Ferns. Like her you will be welcome amongst us, care for us and we too will care for you. Sadly she shall die soon but she has been a wonderful benefactor to us. You must carry on her legacy; we have proven we can all live here in peace and harmony.’

With that he disappeared down into the throng of life that was the Ferns.

The fernery I soon discovered was a place of unbelievable magic.

 

Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/07/11/fairytale-16/

 

 

 

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Poem 125 – Catch

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Can I play too?

No!

Why not?

You can’t catch.

Can so.

Can’t. You always drop the ball.

I don’t!

Do! You always spoil our game.

Please?

No! You can watch.

 

I watch the kids play

They throw, catch, retrieve

I watch their fun

I wonder why can’t I?

My dad and I throw and catch

I fumble, I tumble

He says try again

Hold up your glove

See the ball all the way.

I watch, a picture of concentration

Willing my hand to catch

My eyes never leaving the ball.

We do this most afternoons.

 

You can’t play.

Why?

You can’t catch.

I’m playing for a different team.

Good. We don’t want you.

Wouldn’t play with you anyway.

Suits us. You’re a loser.

We’ll see.

You playing left right out?

Centre field.

 

I watch the game unfold

My team a bunch of triers

A bit like me,

We fall behind, poor fielding

Better batters, longer hits

We sneak back into the game

Loaded bases, Jessy hits out.

Game tied up.

Last innings, they need one home.

Two down last batter

Ball flies in my direction

I remember my dad’s words

Silence, I see the ball, it floats an eternity

Noise erupts, the ball in my glove.

 

You wanna play with us

You can play centre field.

Why?

It’s your best spot

You think?

Yes we saw what you did.

Oh and that’s why?

Yes, great catch, tied up the game.

Oh so now I can catch?

 

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Tale Weaver’s Prompt #16 – Shortfuse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in_Oyywwqa0

 

This weeks task was to listen to the attached piece of music and then ; from the first note  to the last beat – then stop.  Whatever came to mind –  harvest the words and edit your words in any form you like and there’s your creation!

It was the voices, which led me here.

It’s for your own good they said.

My good I queried or your good?

Then the lights went out and here I am stuck between this world and my reality.

What do you do when the world turns upside down, sound becomes overwhelming, people unbearable idiots who prattle on about normal behaviour when you know all you did was shift a few table and chairs. The trouble was I apparently did it with more conviction than was necessary and the heads that got caught in the way as I shifted were collateral damage as it turned out.

All that energy my counsellor said all that energy and for what?

I have asked myself the same question and received conflicting answers. Its what happens when I ask myself questions I seem to have no end of answers coming at me from unknown sources inside my head.

Sometimes its gets totally confusing and what happens happens.

How do I explain the conflicting notions I have at any one time. I want to scream one minute, cry the next, laugh, wonder why the fuss when I look up and see three orderlies holding me down, it’s a shame I cannot harness all this that is happening into some profitable worthwhile cause.

That boy’s got the demon my grandmother used to say. She’d look at me often terrified by some mindless act I had just committed and look at my mother and let fly with her theories on why I had become a wayward child.

My mother was the only one who believed in me. She’d pick me up from the police station, take me home, feed me, tell me to go to bed and we’d talk about it in the morning. But the morning never came because at some point in the night I’d be out the window and off roaming the streets looking for something, anything to entertain myself.

Of course it got me into a lot of trouble. Mindless acts of violence they said. Lock him up and throw away the key. Juvenile detention then mainstream detention where I mixed with some very nasty bastards who made me realise I wasn’t as bad as I thought.

But I couldn’t control it. The argument in my head was constant.

Do it, hit, smash, do it, crash ‘em, belt him, do it, who gives a…., hit, smash, crash, belt, kick, do it, who cares?

I lost track of who the real me was. There was this never-ending battle going on inside of me tearing at me, ripping at me. Despite my life long confusion and powerlessness to understand my behaviours I raged on out of control.

Now I’m here where there are moments of lucidity. When I think I remember who I once was. The drugs, the therapy, the sense that one part of me is over it but there are too many other bits jumping up and down demanding attention, banging on the bars of my mind, destroying me bit by bit. I wonder if I can get back or if there is even a back to get to.

My counsellor here is good to me.

I like it when they are good to me, means I have space, and space gives the plotters within me a chance to plan, plot their own path, play the game, watch and learn, gather and be informed before I……….oh my but did you hear that, read what I just said, who are you I ask, what do you want I ask?

When I ask that question which is not very often for it is easy to play along, let nature take its course, I get this collective sort of chorus going off in my head as the voices unite to let me know where I stand or rather sit in their scheme of my demise. As if I am my own living Greek drama they chorus as one:

YOU!

Written for: http://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/tale-weavers-prompt-16-shortfuse/

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