Marmalade and Olive:

Marmalade and Olive

Olive:

If I was a cat and looked like that I’d hide my head in shame.

Blue eyes so blind that cannot find a mouse or even cheese.

Since then my life has changed to please a little one called Hazel.

Her eyes so blue, her cuddles true, my heart is full to bursting.

She loves me with all my faults, with pride and joy we both exalt.

6am is time for fun, even before the rising sun.

 

Marmalade:

A marmalade cat was meant to be                                                                                                       Asunder a merry Christmas tree                                                                                                                   To be given to a small, wee friend                                                                                                                 On whose arm I shall append.

Marmalade

 

The Golden Hour: The Daily Post by Michelle W.

6:00 AM: the best hour of the day, or too close to your 3:00 AM bedtime?

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/the-golden-hour/

 

 

Rudyard Kipling: ‘IF’

Dorothea Mackellar Poetry Awards.

To celebrate the 30th poetry competition, politicians were asked for their favourite poems.        I think our Prime Minister’s choice is quite an interesting and fitting one:                                                                    The Hon Tony Abbott MP
Prime Minister

Favourite poem: “If” by Rudyard Kipling, “Kipling’s poem is dated in some ways and a bit antiquated in others but it has inspired generations of boys including the teenaged Tony Abbott”.

If

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too:

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated don’t give way to hating,

And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;

If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two impostors just the same:.

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings,

And never breathe a word about your loss:

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much:

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

 

I wonder if you have a favourite poem?

Love: Cupid’s Bow

Write an ode to someone or something you love. Bonus points for poetry! Daily post by Michelle W.

Trust is a given,

Boosting one to be striven.

Life full to the brim,

Joy no longer a whim.

Love beyond measure,

Finding your treasure.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/cupids-arrow/

 

Poetry alive and well:

In Melbourne this week poets have been getting up early to take their poetry to the people. At the end of each railway line, they’ve taken helium balloons and released them in the carriages for people to find. Within each balloon is a poem about that particular line. Ours is the Frankston line, so I guess they would have written about Frankston. No, I didn’t get up early to scramble to get one.

Instead I went to the Internet, but couldn’t find anything about this exciting idea.

Chris heard that it is something that happens in London UK. What a splendid idea, I do hope it spreads to other places! Have any of you first hand experience of this happening? I’d love to hear if you have, and to read the poem.

To a friend– freedom: Howl at the moon

Howl at the Moon. ‘Follow your inner moonlight; don’t hide the madness.’ Allen Ginsgerg

Do you follow Ginsberg’s advice– in your writing and/ or in your everyday life? Ben Huberman 

Tony Bowring, art school days in the 1960s.

To a friend — freedom

Tony left, mercy be.

His worn body, set free,

A slow departure, body rent,

Breathing fraught, with discontent.

 

Finally he’s risen high,

Where he’s welcomed in the sky.

Rejoicing and much merriment,

Is now where he can be content.

 

My thoughts go to those left behind,

who miss his cheeky, creative mind.

His smile lighting up a room,

will for a time be left in gloom.

 

Thankfulness that he no longer lingers,

in that half world where disease fingers.

His joy at being free at last,

from stress and illness is a blast.

 

Time heals, is something to be learned,

for close ones of the unreturned.

Tony’s life will forever bring,

a smile to those where memories spring.

 

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/howl-at-the-moon/

Perfection:

 

Gone is my youth,

uncouth, sweet tooth.

lemon gelati
photo from Internet

When yummy was creamy,

sweet scrummy and dreamy.

 

Ice cream’s no longer okay,

I down play my decay.

My spirit disputes,

while my tummy imputes.

 

Passion fruit cream,

an absolute dream.

Lemon gelati concise,

perfection ice will suffice.

 

Flavor

A local ice cream parlor invites you to create a new wacky flavor. It needs to channel the very essence of your personality. What’s in it?

Ben Huberman

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/flavor-32/

 

A taste of: ‘The Stony Thursday Book’, A collection of Contemporary Irish Poetry

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/groundhog-week/

Groundhog Week   If you could relive the past week, would you?                                               Would you change anything?

(Thank you kah1982, for suggesting this prompt) Ben Huberman

 

The answer to each question is ‘NO’. Planning the next week is quite sufficient. Procrastination is the thing I most want to avoid. It is so easy to get caught up in books and not write myself.

Recently an Irish friend, Catriona O’Connor, sent me a book of poems. I’d like to share two of those poems with you. We met in our youth, when we were living in Urbino, Italy in 1970. Catriona is an artist who not only painted but also organized an exhibition of her work in Urbino that year. I admired her tenacity then, as I do now.

Catriona illustrated the cover of ‘The Stony Thursday Book, A Collection of Contemporary Poetry’. I was delighted to receive it. ‘The Stony Thursday Book’, published by The Arts Office of Limerick City and County Council, (Autumn 2014).

Ice-Cold Christmas

Granny, in her fireside chair

sips form her delicate glass,

Granddad attempts to free

his nicotined airways,

interrupting the chorus

of Oh Holy Night, on the radio.

You sit, white-knuckled,

on the sofa’s edge.

Snugly sheltered in your womb,

I feel your broken heartbeats.

Together we absorb

the icy silence of rejection.

Eileen F. Connolly

 

As it is winter here, I’d like to share the following:

Winter Sun

 When grey days split and rain slaps against the glass

will I remember the Isla, where under a brochure-blue

sky, our bodies packed in last year’s togs, we dismiss

the press of new flesh, ease sagging bellies,

marbled thighs, onto canvas loungers, guiltlessly.

 

Thirsty as stranded crabs we gulp down the sun

in long draughts while the sea vacillates

between turquoise and magenta, the waves

trundle out, and the tide’s scalloped petticoat

sweeps the shoreline like an old queen’s ball- gown.

Marian O’Rourke

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/groundhog-week/

Daily life:

The day begins with sleeping in,

unless of course, there’s something on.

Snuggled up beneath feathers warm,

the winter’s day looks all forlorn.

Till fragments flit of last nights dream,

I rush to capture it on screen.

Memories scarper down the drain,

Temptation lurks, though from bed refrain.

Showering is a time of bliss,

Fruit, toast, prepared with coffee hiss.

 

Feed the fish and walk the dog,

Begin to think about my blog.

Write and read till hunger calls,

A sugo swift and pasta boils.

Again we start our meal with fruit,

keeps us primed and well to boot.

Weather fine, the garden calls.

Millie the dog brings her balls.

 

Weed and trim and plant some seeds

Epsom salts satiate citrus trees.

This belated autumn chore

brings fruit a plenty we adore.

Time has become an illusive thing,

as memory fades, fancies bring,

The mind plays tricks, that can be fun,

the day is gone before it’s begun.

 

Rare Medium: Describe a typical day in your life but do it in a medium you rarely use… Ben Huberman

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/rare-medium/

 

 

 

Postage Stamp: Poem by William Hart-Smith

On Canberra buses in the 90s they had poems displayed, maybe they still do. It really made the journey so enjoyable. One poem I remember was called ‘Postage Stamp’, written by William Hart-Smith. This poem is such good advice for someone going through a separation.

If you should ever have to part from someone dear,
tear yourself away.
Be sure the tear is where the perforations are.
Please, please do not ever recklessly sever,
shear yourself from some one other
so that their stamp is torn
and you have part of their living,
bleeding flesh at your side worn.

From Selected Poems 1936-84 Angus and Robertson

A work in progress:

Staying with Grandma and Grandpa ( to be a picture book with poetry)

Grandma has eyes with drooping lids,

but she can see any naughty kids.

Her hair is fading with the sun,

all tied up in a plaited bun.

She likes to garden as we play,

kneeling beside a fuchsia spray.

The garden is our great delight,

where blue tongue lizards hide in fright.

Grandpa’s chin is a prickly one,

we walk each day so he’s not glum.

His glasses fog when rain pours down,

he doesn’t mind a shiny crown.

When we stay at our grandparent’s place,

Grandpa takes us to a playground space.

We walk and talk till Millie the dog,

barks for her tea, then home we jog.

Playing ‘Hats’ is a game we like,

if Grandma loses she hates her plight.

Grandpa teaches us many odd words

learning new things we’re undeterred.

We like hitting the tennis ball,

though Millie tries to stop it fall.

She chases it and does not tire,

we just give up and we retire.

Hide and seek is another game,

creepings up is a bit more tame.

Finding Grandma beneath the stair,

we always know she hides in there.

Grandma cooks our favourite food,

off to bed in such a good mood.

Showered, cleaned and stories read,

ready for sleep, tucked up in bed.

Possums fighting and crickets shriek,

Millie barks ‘till she falls asleep.

Imagine oceans, oh so breezy,

drifting off is easy peasy.

Next morning we discuss our dreams,

nightmares sometimes have made us scream.

In the morning they’re not so bad,

our Grandparents’ dreams are never sad.

‘Remember to control your dreams,

face your demon, he’ll stop midstream.

Your dreams become a place for friends

you’re in charge and your thoughts transcend.’

Grandma and Grandpa both agree,

their advice is for you and me.

Remember good things as you play,

and give thanks for them every day.