Monthly Archives: June 2016

Cage

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He said, “I have wrought
What I ought
Not to have wrought
And bought
What I ought
Not to have bought.
I have caught
the wild bird
Who’s song I heard
In the lonely night.
Once delight
Of a kind, semed sweet to you and me
And we believed ourselves to be free”.

She said, “There can be no mistaking
That I flew into a cage
Of my own making
And now I rage
Against my own stupidity
And cupidity.
Expensive bras
Make for sturdy bars.
The truth is, you a bird caught
But together we rought
This cage
In which we now both uselessly rage

A Nation of Shopkeepers

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Is it just sour grapes
When the lover of England exception takes
To the portrayal of his land
As a place where shoppers stand
In fractious line,
Oops, sorry I mean having a rare old time,
Getting and spending
In the never ending
Consumerist dance?

If by chance
One ponders on Elgar
Or Churchill with his cigar,
The lover of his country surely does think
How this ad would turn them both to drink.

Forget ancient oaks that russle,
In the fresh English air.
No one seems to care
And it is consumer muscle
I fear
That is celebrated here.

(http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/media/greater-manchester-shoppers-celebrated-new-11389061).

Overwrought

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I was feeling overwrought
And somewhat out of sorts,
When my heart was caught
By a little girl who sang.
Joy into my soul sprang
And her father gave me a strawberry juicy and red.

Few words where said,
Yet my heart was fed
By fruit and a child
Who did beguile
Me to smile
On a crowded train,
Soothing my racing brain.
—

Thank you to the man, his wife and their little girl who touched my heart on the way home from the office last week.

10 Classic W. H. Auden Poems Everyone Should Read

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I had originally commented on this post stating that “1st September 1939” can be found in “The New Oxford Book of English verse”. However, on checking I find that I am mistaken. While several of Auden’s poems do appear in “The New Oxford Book” “1st September 1939” does not. It can, however be found in “The Penguin Book of English Verse”, edited by John Hayward. Faber and Faber. 1956 edition.

InterestingLiterature's avatarInteresting Literature

The best Auden poems

W. H. Auden (1907-1973) wrote a great deal of poetry, with many of his best-loved poems being written in the 1930s. In this post, we’ve taken on the difficult task of finding the ten greatest Auden poems – difficult because, although certain poems naturally rise to the surface and proclaim their greatness, there are quite a few of those. Here’s our top ten. Are there any classic poems by Auden that we’ve left off the list? Click on the title of each poem to read it.

‘Stop all the clocks’. Also known as ‘Funeral Blues’, this poem, one of Auden’s ‘Twelve Songs’ originally published in 1936, needs no introduction, perhaps. Since it was recited in the funeral in the 1994 film Four Weddings and a Funeral, it achieved worldwide fame and brought Auden’s poetry to a whole new audience.

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Think You Couldn’t Possibly Lose Your Amazon Publishing Account? Think Again.

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A worrying post. My books are not enrolled in Kindle Unlimited and this article means that I wont be enrolling any of my titles. Kevin

Becca's avatarThe Active Voice

There’s this indie author I know a little bit from the Kboards.com forum. Her name is Pauline Creeden, and she’s an ordinary midlister, like so many of us. I remember PMing her some time ago and gushing about how particularly beautiful one of her book covers is — the one for Chronicles of Steele: Raven.collection Here, I’ll include an image. Gorgeous, eh?

Anyway, today I tuned in to Kboards and noticed that Pauline had started a thread. It contained what’s surely the worst news possible for an indie author: Amazon had closed her publishing account. All her ebooks had been taken off sale. Permanently. Here’s the email she got from Amazon:

We are reaching out to you because we have detected that borrows for your books are originating from systematically generated accounts. While we support the legitimate efforts of our publishers to promote their books, attempting to manipulate…

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“The Invigilator” by Jayne King

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Thank you to Jayne King for her poem, “The invigilator”. The below poem is copyright Jayne King and may not be reproduced without the explicit written permission of Jayne King.

—

Being an invigilator,
Is there anything more boring?
Scanning the hall.
Toing and froing.

Trying to be alert,
So I can respond quickly to a raised hand.
Wishing I could sit like the others.
But instead, having to stand.

How slowly the time passes,
Seemingly standing still.
There’s movement all around me,
But somehow the time stays still.

Seconds turn to minutes,
A minute lasts an hour.
Some students offer small, tired smiles,
Others just sit and glower.

An Englishman’s Home is his Castle

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“A man’s home is his castle, where freedom does reign.
I maintain
he may do as he will,
Provided of course
That he does no ill …

A gentleman may entertain
Whom he pleases
Though the Gorgon seizes
Every chance
To kill romance
And the stain
Of disipation
Shocks the nation
Who read of vicars capers
In papers.
Sometimes I swear
There is no real news out there …”.