SMILE – Spike Milligan

[  # 100 of My Favourite Short Poems  ]

 

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This is a wonderfully positive poem, with a delightful premise, wittily expressed by that master of humour, SPIKE  MILLIGAN

SMILE

 

Smiling is infectious
You catch it like the flu

When someone smiled at me today
I started smiling too

I walked around the corner
And someone saw me grin

When he smiled I realised
I had passed it on to him

I thought about the smile
And then realised its worth

A single smile like mine
Could travel round the earth

So if you feel a smile begin
Don’t leave it undetected

Start an epidemic
And get the world infected.

 

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Once Upon an Autumn

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In the land that love forgot
lit by the light of an autumn moon
Memory stirred and held a thought
of those once upon a time days
When roses
rich with red
scented days with hope
Wind-strewn days with fallen apple
air fresh with suckled honey
When once You and I loved
smitten
immersed in this infinity
enamoured
Longing
in those autumn days
Regaining in their wistful hours
what summer once had brought us 
All now lost in time’s story
But always and forever 
written on memory’s scroll. 

 

Ralph Roister Doister

 

Ralph Roister Doister was a bit of a wenching lad
Lived in Tudor London with his dear old dad
Braggart soldier, doomed to fail, upstart braggart and a cad.

His story, our first comedy,
Nick Udall gave it birth;
Joyfully pleasing London folk
With merry quips and mirth.

Mumblecrust and Talkapace
Featured in this play
Raucous, Fun and fluffy –
‘Twas the sixteenth century way.

See the Wikipedia entry for more on  Ralph Roister Doister 

Ralph Roister Doister is a sixteenth-century play by Nicholas Udall, which was once regarded as the first comedy to be written in the English language.

Night Light

‘Liverpool from Wapping’ … John Atkinson Grimshaw

Reflections on the Nocturnal Paintings of John Atkinson Grimshaw

In the gloom of my world,

In the dark of my dreams,

I capture with rapture

Those nights of moonbeams.

In the glow of the gaslights

I wander a while.

There is joy in their promise

And warmth in their smile.

Twinkling with stardust

Lights dance and dive;

Raindrops add lustre,

The streets are alive.

Light catches and clutches

And I feel the glow

Of these dark starlit nights

On the paths that I know.

Bringing warmth to my soul

As we meet face to face;

It’s the world that I live in

And I savour its grace.

Lady in a garden at Moonlight’ … 1882 – John Atkinson Grimshaw

John Atkinson Grimshaw (6 September 1836 – 13 October 1893) was an English Victorian-era artist who has been called a “remarkable and imaginative painter” -best known for his nocturnal scenes of urban landscapes. He was born in Leeds, Yorkshire,  and lived most of his life in that county. Wikipedia

Night Murmurs

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Night Murmurs

 

A whimper came to me at night,
A murmur soft as a dream.
It crept into my consciousness,
As would a silk moonbeam.

This phantom sound,
This covert cry,
Caused my heart to still;
It seemed to me
It had to be
More than just a sigh.

A threat,
A promise,
A pleading voice,
A start or a cessation?
A signal meant for me alone –
Oblation or Damnation?

I held my heart in readiness,
Wept when no guidance came;
Waited too long,
The moment gone;
As ever I am to blame.

 

 

Please Note:  Over the next few weeks, whilst I am downsizing and moving house, I shall  hopefully be posting only two blogs each week, rather than my usual daily publication.  I hope to return to more frequent postings in a few weeks time.

 

Winter Haiku

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As darkness descends

Nature catches breath and sleeps

Awaiting rebirth

 

 

Autumn Haiku

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Autumn mists appear

Clutching and shrouding our fields

Prompting life to sleep

 

Pleasure in a WORD

THROB

 

As I woke
a word arrived in my consciousness
unasked
unaided

… THROB …

short word
tripped from my dreams
tumbled through my lips
to spill its delight into the morning air

Dug
pleasurably
from my waking consciousness
as my tongue savoured its existence
rolled itself around both lips
and my mouth accommodated itself
to its cadence

Measuring Its measure
against my throat’s resonance
thrusting the sound
up and out
into the waiting
wondering
world
pleased to be out in the morning air
a thrill to emit
listening as it cuts
sensuously
with a flautist ‘s thrust 
through the sensuous surrounding air

The poet’s morning chorus
a sound to be repeated
joyously
with fervour
pleasurably
savouring its cadence

Repeated
it resounds in the room
lingering as it ends 
lingering as I make 
that final occlusion
voicing its
bilabial stop
strong
sensuous
evocative 
voluptuous in its warmth
flirtatious in its coquettishness

Onomatopoeic pleasure
so soulfully satisfying
in its sound-print

Its exultant cry of existence

The Hills of my Childhood

On the N.Yorkshire Moors – Pen & Ink … WHB

The Hills of my Childhood

 

The hills of my childhood
Mountains to me
Remain in my memory
And still I can see

Their contours throbbing
Against the bright sky
Promising thrills
With every sigh.

I climbed, scrambled upwards
To grasp what they pledged
In heedless delight
My keenness knife-edged.

The summit had beckoned
Becoming my mission
My reason for living
My only ambition.

And as my heart pounded,
As upwards I raced,
It presaged my future,
The world that I faced.

To view from the summit
The expanse of my world
Was a glimpse of hereafter
Forever unfurled.

‘Death’ . . . W.B.Yeats

[  # 98 of My Favourite Short Poems  ]

This poem, ‘Death’, by W.B.Yeats (1865 – 1939} is one of his shortest.   It attempts to contrast the death of of animals, who do not possess such a concept, with the centrality, the significance and the certitude of what death means in the experience of all human beings.   Yeats wrote this poem in 1929 and published it in his 1933 collection, ‘The Winding Stair and Other Poems’. 

Death

Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Supersession of breath;
He knows death to the bone –
Man has created death.

 

Author: William Butler Yeats