I give you…
A Limerick on this very day
To keep my Covid Blues away …
A sweet lassie from far Tallahassee,
Whose demeanour was certainly classy;
When she walked up the aisle
Folks said with a smile,
“I do love that beautiful chassis.”
Of a tree
transmogrified
the resurrected dead
felled to humanity’s purpose
nature sampled
purposed flotsam
birthed by inspiration
gathered and garnished
tortured timber
carved and hewn
pared and whittled
twisted turned and polished
into burled jewels
ornamental gems
passed over life re-modelled
re-moulded into a new existence
allowed to live again
in resurrected splendour
through the craftsman’s art
Time best-spent
in re-creating beauty
from death’s discarded bones
Pen & Wash … WHB 2019
This poem
and its ill-connected words
do not
yet exist
These lines
part-formed and immature
struggle for release
from their birth pangs
strain to express themselves
in meaning
to say what they want to say
Seeking existence
from the seed of an idea
knowing what is needed
but fighting for form and feature
longing to tell its tale and sing
to live
to feel
to be vibrant
cool and yet tense
Always promising more than it can give
allowing its feelings to weep
its thoughts to shudder and provoke
to breathe a bitter breath
to both calm and to excite
Above all
striving to be worthy
in love with what it hears
bringing meaning to an idea
and from its birth
to bring into the world
an infant ode
wanting
hoping
demanding to grow into
a thing of understanding and beauty
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
I’m embroiled in an imbroglio,
And, Yes, I am confused.
Which way to turn I do not know,
Perplexed, baffled, bemused.
She’s says that she will live with me,
See to all my needs,
If I will gift my house to her,
The pool, the grounds, the deeds.
I think she’s asking far too much,
And yet she’s such a sweetie.
I’d like to give her what she wants,
Listen to her entreaty.
Perhaps I’m just an aged fool,
Smitten by her beauty,
But should I take a chance and swap
My world for Tooty Fruity?
A pastiche, created in PRISMA, of a painting of my own of Venice
PASTICHE POETRY
Following on from my opening outline of Pastiche Poetry (see my blog of two days ago titled ‘Pastiche Poetry’ ), and my blogs of yesterday ( ‘Pastiche Poetry #2 ) and the day before ( Pastiche Poetry #1 ), here are yet more of my own efforts (you may call them concoctions or confections if you’d rather) which I have based on the well-known opening lines of six different poets . . .
To his Coy Mistress, Andrew Marvell …
Had we but world enough and time,
This coyness, lady, were no crime.
But I must say, I’m getting bored
With my advances being ignored.
Tyger! Tyger!, William Blake …
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
Just be careful how you go
You’ll set the woodland all aglow.
Lines for a Christmas Card, Hilaire Belloc ...
May all my enemies go to hell,
Ah well, ah well, ah well, ah well.
I told them not to call my bluff
They wouldn’t listen, So that’s just tough.
She Walks in Beauty, Lord Byron …
She walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;
Would that she was as sharp and bright,
Instead she got the booby prize.
Mary Had a Little Lamb, Nursery Rhyme, Sarah Josepha Hale, …
Mary found a little lamb,
She really didn’t know
What on earth to do with it,
Perhaps she’d let it go.
The Owl and the Pussy Cat, Edward Lear …
The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea
In a beautiful pea-green boat,
It wasn’t new, and right on cue,
It ceased to want to float.
tall and slender
thin and lean
what do such racked
such skeletal
figures mean
imagination extended
perception broadened
brought to brush and canvas
stone and chisel
bronze and rasp
unique reality
given expression
in the artist’s eye
and distorted vision
el greco
modigliani
giacometti
parmagianino
artistic differences
paralleled
in paint and bronze
fashion’s fad
now continued
on the catwalk
do my eyes
deceive me
with beauty
in the eye of the bewildered
creating
or perhaps following
fashion
emaciated
underfed
and stretched out models
tapered
taut
and elongated
in the artist’s vision
paraded to their public
asked to accept
an interpretation
allowing retrieval
of a larger truth
thus to become
stricken and striated
darlings
of a new generation
fêted now
as great and good
but fated still
to be misunderstood
The images at the top are, from left to right . . .
El Greco: ‘St.John The Baptist’ – c.1600; Oil on Canvas
Giacometti: ‘Walking Man’ – 1960; Bronze
Modigliani: ‘Lunia Czechowska in Black’ – 1919; Oil on canvas
Parmagianino: ‘Madonna With Long Neck’
The bottom picture is of ‘Catwalk models’ – from Pinterest.
‘Solitude’: Rydal Water, Cumbria, The Lake District, UK … Pen & Ink – WHB 1991 ©
This stillness and the beauty all around me
Bring with them peace and grace for which I yearn;
For here among the lakes and mountains resting
I sense my hopes and dreams will now return.
For now I’ve reached a time when life has bitten,
Reminding me of pleasures once enjoyed;
Since lost in cares and daily obligations
How Nature can supplant and fill the void.
Its healing powers I know and cannot question;
They bring delights I cannot bear to miss.
They sing to me of other loves and places,
And speak to me of other times than this.
Photograph: ‘Double Rainbow near Stonehenge, Wiltshire, England’ – WHB – July 2009 ©
When the double rainbow comes
In all its lustrous splendour,
Then will I sing of my true love,
How sweet and kind and tender.
Her beauty sings the sky’s delight,
Gently she shows her grace;
I love the light within her soul
Which permeates her face.
For me fond Nature’s miracles
Cannot describe suffice
The beauty which I find in her,
My love from Paradise.
© Photograph … ‘Sunset’ – courtesy of Canadian artist, Alma Kerr
Sunset
and the soulful sound
of the sea
seduce my senses
in the calm
of this still summer’s eve
ripples roll gently towards me
from the red sun-kissed sea
silhouette sails
hug the horizon
purposeful gulls
tread the foreshore
forever watchful
while I
a silent spectator
scan the scene
evening’s tableau
serene
and yet wholly alive
entranced and awed
mesmerised
beyond beauty
by Nature’s evensong
its benediction
on a desperate world
‘The Depths Of The Sea’ (The Lure Of The Sirens’) … Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones (1881)
I carry a torch for the ocean,
In her relentless swell I am held;
My light will see me to the foreshore
Where vast wave and mild ripple meld.
For though my love’s unrequited,
As I walk on the shore by the sea,
The sight and the sound of her motion
Bring solace and hope back to me.
For when I watch her crescendo
Its beauty and force I admire;
The sigh and the roar of her surges
Are those of a celestial choir.
My heart is in thrall to her passion,
Her awesome breakers I ride;
White horses call me ever forward
To meet the turn of the tide.
And when she is still as a millpond
My senses respond in repose;
My life consummates in devotion,
All yearning brought to a close.
Yes, the lure of the Siren defeats me;
I am snared by her destructive song.
I have given my all to her beauty;
Now only to her I belong.
We're all human here, don't ever forget that. Human-Kind, be both.
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