stuck on train

not a poem
more of a lament
I'm stuck on the train
problems on the lines
snow and chaos ahead
as we crawl from station
to station
to allow the
angry mobs to disperse
by bus.

hope against hope
that I will
be in my hotel
bed, warm and
content by
midnight.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Snow 2010

Each year the allure of snow
lessens for me
At first it was fun
A white powder covering
of my antipodean past

Snow silently falling
covering everything with light
and lack of colour
But shovelling feet of snow
to get the car unstuck
to collect the milk for tea
is a pain to me

So I'm all for a non white Xmas

Living other Lives

By reading your poems
Your words
seep into
Me

And attached to
the words
feelings nuanced
follow

Until I find myself
thinking like another
like you
savoring the
moment...

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

the valley

from time to time
a valley intervenes
twixt the peaks
of life

you may feel low
but the water flows
through valleys
and puts the heights
into perspective

So hang in there
and take a draught
of water clear and pure
before you ascend once more

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Powerless

Life can be a pain
when aggressive and
unpleasant people
trample over your
feelings
proclaiming
that it's all your fault...

Poetry calms the anger
and restores
a tranquil
mind

To read or write
poetry
hits the spot
everytime

Poem without a Name

not every poem
has a name
a moniker to call
it's own

some just
hang out here
alone
unnamed

but not for
that disdained
for poem is
what poem does

and rose is rose
whatever man may
say

so nameless poem
rock on
rock on
and comfort me.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

post Sangria blues

what started as a great idea
some tapas, nachos
sangria

the cup was red
inviting cool
it slipped down
o so easily

overdo it
and pay the price
of your
all too
frail humanity

blear of eye
and ache of head
it's Thursday
and I've got them
post sangria blues

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

The Dangling Pentameter

Somewhere
my friend
there is a sea
where the poems
live
pre-written but as of now
unpublished

And all we have to do
is dip in and draw
a poem out by it's
dangling pentameters

Don't believe them
when they say
that poetry is hard
or I had an ode this big
but it got away!

All you have to do
is find the place
lie down and fish
in pleasant idyll
for the next big poem

DK

Farne Paradise

On this wind swept rocky outcrop
Sts Cuthbert and Aidan
withdrew to
solitary contemplation
of that other world

Lindisfarne
that monkly island
was too racy and fast
for the contemplative
mind situated as it was
on a beach nestled against
the cold tit of the North Sea

A 16 acre island
home of many a
shipwrecked soul
became the portal
of heaven to
the retiring saints
of God.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

The Dieters Spiritual Dream

Inside I feel like
Death warmed up
as Satan, the fatties sage
tells me to eat myself
to destruction

But the bright soldiers
of India lead me to life
to self control
to the figure of
a swami, soulful
Wrapped in saffron
cotton robes.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

The Curious Poet

A poet needs to be curious, interested and engaged with life. it is our curiosity that leads us to the subject of our poems. I like the quote below:

One thing life has taught me: if you are interested, you never have to look for new interests. They come to you. When you are genuinely interested in one thing, it will always lead to something else. - Eleanor Roosevelt (1884 - 1962)

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Advice for Depressives

When you feel down
Stand in front of the
Mirror and fake a
Smile

Keep the false smile
and say
Happy
Sensational
Present
Treat
Cheerful
Laugh

The genuine
smile will
break
and the
clouds will
lift...

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Moodling Around

So you see, imagination needs moodling - long, inefficient, happy idling, dawdling and puttering. - Brenda Ueland [via IQuote for iPhone]

I think the same can be said of poetry.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

there is a Time

there is a time
and now is not
when the muse stirs
and doings forth
with new and
dazzling
poetic utterances

it's Spring
so maybe
the sap
will rise within
and poetry will
flow

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Holiday Cheer

Today
I love it
St Patricks Day
Start of the holidays
Three weeks of
No work
Much fun
And time to
Reflect and write
Some verse

A Dark Mothers day

Amidst the mists
of time and thyme
the scented dreams
of ages past

You arose a wraith
a fleeing
apparition from the light
a goddess
long dead, cloaked and
secretive

You left the living
unbidden, unloved
mysterious
mother of
the night

Where have all the poems gone?

For many months
They crowded me
Intruding on
My privacy

But now they
Seem to float away
Hiding until
Some other day

When unexpected
They will come
Surprising
Me with
Their fecundity

My lovely poems
Sigh

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

The Leaky Window

The wind is forcefeeding
The rain
Splattering it against
The pane
With a violent
Thrust, twist and turn

The rain seeks
Escape by dribbling
Around the edge
Of the window
And dripping onto the sill

Within it can
Relax wryly
Having escaped
The maelstrom
Without.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

influences

All around
In and out
Influences
Pervade

I, you. We,
They. all
Pump out ideas
Prejudices
Influences

Persuaders
Hidden
Open
Poisonous or
Benign

Why don't they
All shut up,
Go home
And leave me
In peace.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

ePoetry a new genre?

Now that poets can freely publish their work on the web are we looking at a new genre or approach to poetry?

Would Dickinson have been discovered if she had been able to publish herself on the Net? Or would she have been just as obscure, lost in the enormity of the web?

The great thing about the web is that there are no financial barriers to entry. I guess the purists would say that there is now no quality gateway but I suspect that view is elitist. It's not like there are legions of poets on the Net.

The immediacy of publication allows the raw edge of emotion to be explored. We can write and publish anywhere. I am on my teabreak writing this missive from my iPhone which I will publish shortly.

We can also explore multimedia and hypertextual poetry on the Net. This is an extension from the written page and allows for the development of what I would call visual poetry.

All in all I love cyberpoetry and the communities of poets that I collaborate with in the poetic e-Ther.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

The Healing Power of Poetry

Poetry heals the wounds inflicted by reason.

~Novalis

Reason and logic are very good to describe the physical world, but poetry helps us to map the reality of our human emotions, understanding and experience.

The Passion of Reading

The greatest gift is a passion for reading. It is cheap, it consoles, it distracts, it excites, it gives you knowledge of the world and experience of a wide kind. It is a moral illumination.

Elizabeth Hardwick

Amidst Friends

Quietly
I sit amidst
My books
Feeling great
Pleasure

The company
Of such great
Minds

Lifts my soul
And makes
Me think
Of other times
Peoples. Philosophies
Enjambed
Embedded
Within
My own very
Human
Experience

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

SIPOC

How readily flows
The mighty SIPOC
Mapping it's merry
Way from end to end

Suppliers we love them
Inputs we need them
Process rules all
Outputs come lately
Customers lastly
The end Amen

Explanatory Note
SIPOC is a business process mapping tool

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

A Juxtaposition of Words

Inviolable love
semantic neighbourhood
generation lap
rosy retrospection
keynote listener
silver tsunami
soup of words
juxtaposed

agony and ecstacy

The secret rites
writes
And
Rewrites
Of poetry
Are
Agony
And ecstacy
To me

The agony
The urge to write
But nothing comes
The desparation
That drives
The poet mad

But oh the
Ecstacy
Of delivering
A poem
New ro the world
Fresh and vibrant
As a living
Stream

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Sandburg on Poetry

Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away. ~Carl Sandburg, Poetry Considered

This is a very poetic quote and will resonate, no doubt, with the readers of this blog!!

boxes and arrows

Boxes and arrows
Outfoxed
My furrows
And admantine
Wrinkled
Brow

How simple
It was in 2000
To flow
and
To draw
But 2007
Flummoxed me
Bill I don't
Like your
New
Office suite

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

In my Dreams

In my dreams
On Mondays
I jump outta bed
Keen as mustard
To attack the new
Work week with vigor
Energy and insight

The Reality
Does not
Always match
The dream
But such is
The world
Of dreams
And of common
Life

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Hey You - Poetry?

Poetry - I hated you at school
Poetry - only sissies like you
So how come
you have entwined me
with your
far reaching
tentacles?

Poetry - you are my mistress
Poetry - you can be a real bitch
Poetry - you'd better
watch yourself
or I will
tell all
of your
secrets

The Poetics of Change

As in life
So in poetry
Change creeps
In
Or jumps out of
Hiding and yells
Surprise

Whether our
Changes be
lingering
Or mayfly life
Short

Stanza by stanza
Line by line
Word by word
Poetry
Reshapes and defines
Makes meaning of
The changes
Behind us
Weaving them
Into a wrought
beauty.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Saturday and its Cold Outside

Its Saturday
and its cold outside
baby

I need some warmth
and a little
bit of
loving

Its Saturday
and I should be
staunch
holding you

What is Poetry?

Poetry is the record of the best and happiest moments of the happiest and best minds

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Thats true but not all good poetry is happy...

DK

Books I gotta Have them

Book book book
Beside my bed
Book book book
Beside my chair
And by the window
On the floor
In old boxes
On the chair

Don't desert me
I will read thee
As you
Grow in number
More and more

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

I and You are We

Between I and You
A Powerful Team
Is made

The Royal We
My friend
Is Us

And if you
Want to stretch
A point
For that is what
I and you
And we may do

Then the awesome
Famous
Infamous
They
Is us as well
In other eyes

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

The Thaw

Full of complaints
thats me
Moan when the snow is here
Moan when it thaws

But like the cycle
of life
the snow comnes
the snow goes
and we
remain

The Gas Fire

Snow everywhere
Beautiful
but deathly cold

Inside the gas fire fails
For the second
time this
Winter

Gone the comforting
blanket of warmth
emanating
from
the fireplace

Whip out
the vacuum cleaner
Do a quick dismantal and clean
of the soot encrusted
pseudo coals
and Shazam
It works

And I am warm again

DK