Last night I dreamed a strange dream
About strawberries and lashings of fresh cream.
All the young women
Said no to sinning.
But gave in to strawberries and cream.
—
Last night I dreamed a strange dream
About strawberries and lashings of fresh cream.
All the young women
Said no to sinning.
And the vicar fell into the cream!
On 2nd September I wrote about the sad death of my guide dog Trigger, which can be found here: https://kmorrispoet.com/2020/09/02/trigger/
I have now recorded my poem ‘Dog Bed’, which was written in memory of Trigger.
DOG BED
The mark
Of your teeth is still there,
On your old dog bed.
I walk in the park,
Where
The dead
Leaves lie.
Shadows on the grass
Mistook for an old friend.
All things pass,
However much we pretend
Otherwise. You closed your eyes,
And left your mark
Upon my heart.
Below are some photographs:
If you would like to donate to the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, who receive no government funding you can do so here: https://www.guidedogs.org.uk/donate-now
Many thanks in advance to anyone who kindly donates.
K Morris reading his poem ‘I Heard Leaves Fall’.
A young lady whose name is Pat
Sent me a message using her WhatsApp.
She called me “sweet honey”,
And asked me for money.
And I’ve never seen a photograph like that!
As many readers of this blog will know, most Amazon Kindle titles have a facility known as Text to Speech enabled. Text to Speech enables the contents of Kindle titles to be read aloud to readers, and is particularly useful to people with certain disabilities, for example those who are registered blind and who are not able to read print. You can find details of how to enable Text to Speech here, https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201829850.
I am myself registered blind and unable to read print. Consequently I rely on the Text to Speech facility on my Kindle or Voiceover (Apple’s screen reader which works with the Kindle app on Apple devices) to read Kindle content.
A week or so ago I noticed that product pages in the Amazon Kindle store had messages saying “Text to Speech not enabled”. This concerned me and I visited my own pages on Amazon only to discover that they also indicated the unavailability of Text to Speech.
As someone who is themselves visually impaired, I wish to ensure that my poetry collections and other works are accessible to all readers. I therefore contacted Amazon.
Yesterday I received a message from Amazon’s Tech Support advising me that most Kindle content has Text to Speech enabled and advising as to how this could be turned on. They did not respond to my point that titles (previously shown as having Text to Speech enabled, now do not do so).
I have checked several of my titles, which continue to read aloud using Voiceover in combination with the Kindle app on my iphone. In addition I downloaded another title (not my own) which is shown as not having Text to Speech enabled. Again this works fine on my iphone.
In conclusion, the problem appears to be not that Text to Speech has been disabled. Rather the issue centres on the fact that accessible Kindle titles are being shown as inaccessible. This could cause those who rely on Text to Speech, not to purchase books in the belief that the content is inaccessible (when, in fact it can be read aloud).
Kevin
If girls could read the mind
Of the average guy, I
Think you would find
Many a poor guy
With a black eye!
I asked the devil, “wherein lies sin?”.
She answered me, “sir, sin, ’tis within
Both thee and me.
Now, my dear boy
Don’t be so coy.
And just tell me,
What would you like me to be!”.
There are no ghosts amidst these trees
Just an autumn breeze. and bittersweet memories.
I collected a conker
A few weeks back.
I have it still.
But will
Forever, lack
You who
Collected it with me.
I awoke,
With a start
To a bark.
But you spoke
Not. And now I pass
Your shadow, on the grass.
K Morris - Poet 