National Poetry Day.

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Hello.

As it’s national Poetry Day, I thought I’d share this one. As a result of the Thalidomide drug used in the sixties, there are still many incredible people around today who’ve grown up with severe disability. Their’s is much more visible than ours. I always feel most pain for children. And all of these people have gone through childhood.

Best wishes, Steve.

Morning Break.

What makes a perfect time?

A quiet moment,

Sitting by the window

With tea on the table,

Watching the rain fall.

Nibbling the corners of a biscuit

Delicately removing the chocolate.

Then bravely holding the trimmed remains

Soaking in the sweet brown brew,

Before swiftly placing the soft mass

Into my waiting mouth.

But for now,

I wait.

I am not by the window

Where brother and sister sit

Happily disintegrating theirs

Into a chocolate mess.

I wait for Father

To lift the cup

Slowly to my lips.

With every tilt,

A sigh of disappointment

Disguised with a look elsewhere.

A frown,

Pained by guilt,

As each piece of biscuit is broken up

And fed between my dry lips.

In a fit of hope

I reach out.

The cup falls.

Father gives his smile

And wipes the little brown pond,

Spreading before me.

I’ve seen him,

Shaking his head

As I try to play

With stunted arms

And withered fingers

When will he see

Beyond this sentence of anguish?

I can forgive him

For my shackles of impairment

I can forgive him

For the times when I sit

And wait

What cannot be forgiven

Is the stigma of difference.

For I am just like the others

I am both strong and weak

When will he see?

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Hi Steve

Thalidomide was a dreadul drug, although given in good faith, not knowing the consequences, caused huge problems for many.

I remember watching a TV programme of a lady who had thalidomide and had recently given birth to a beautiful baby, and she was changing the nappy, she was fantastic, and really showed how she had overcome adversity remarkably. She truly truly had all my admiration, such an inspiration.

Thanks for the poem, some people can write such inspiring words, never had that gift, unfortunately.

Pam x

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Poetry is wonderful it can lift yor spirits or give you pangs of anguish and every emotion in between. I write rubbish as it comes but there is a saying about not being able to polish a t#rd and mine will never shine but to me it is a moment in time.

XXX Don

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Invitation to Eternity by John Clare

Say, wilt thou go with me, sweet maid,

Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me

Through the valley-depths of shade,

Of bright and dark obscurity;

Where the path has lost its way,

Where the sun forgets the day,

Where there’s nor light nor life to see,

Sweet maiden, wilt thou go with me?

Where stones will turn to flooding streams,

Where plains will rise like ocean’s waves,

Where life will fade like visioned dreams

And darkness darken into caves,

Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me

Through this sad non-identity

Where parents live and are forgot,

And sisters live and know us not?

Say, maiden, wilt thou go with me

In this strange death of life to be,

To live in death and be the same,

Without this life or home or name,

At once to be and not to be —

That was and is not — yet to see

Things pass like shadows, and the sky

Above, below, around us lie?

The land of shadows wilt thou trace,

Nor look nor know each other’s face;

The present marred with reason gone,

And past and present both as one?

Say, maiden, can thy life be led

To join the living and the dead?

Then trace thy footsteps on with me:

We are wed to one eternity

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Keep trying to reply directly under your poem Steve but it keeps posting at end of thread.

But what I want to say is that is beautiful. Did you write it?

It’s very moving. Thanks for sharing.

Pat xx

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Hello Pat,

It is one of mine. It’s something I feel strongly about.

Steve xx

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There was a young lady from Chester …

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My favourite poem

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!

By Rudyard Kipling

Michelle

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Before it was famous -

Invictus

William Ernest Henley, 1849 - 1903

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

I didn’t know this bit about the poet

We are the master of our destiny. We are responsible for our own happiness. This famous inspirational poem charges us to accept responsibility for our lives no matter our circumstances. Invictus in Latin means unconquered. William Ernest Henley (1849-1903), an English Poet, had one of his legs amputated at the age of 17. The poem which he wrote while healing from the amputation is a testimony to his refusal to let his handicap disrupt his life. Indeed, he led a meaningful life as a poet and editor until he passed away at age 53

be safe guys M

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Or, as my dad always used to put it …

"lF you can keep your wallet

Whilst all around you

Men are losing theirs

And blaming it on you" wink

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My favourite which I have on my wall. (This is about a real statue - of Rameses II - and reminds me of the time I went to Egypt, which has been an ambition since I was a child)

OZYMANDIAS

Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

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I must go down to the sea again,
to the lonely sea and the sky;
I left my shoes and socks there -
I wonder if they’re dry?

Spike Milligan

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When the tootsikana comes

Hide yourself behind your thumbs

Stay indoors and go to bed

Tie a dustbin to your your head.

When the tootsikana goes

Peel an apple with your toes

Buy a sausage paint it red

Tootsikana will fall dead.

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A small part of one of my favourites…Coleridge’s Kubla Khan

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise

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