Tag Archives: poems

Beauty is truth, and truth beauty

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From time to time, a line of poetry pops into my head. I can’t shake off the words of the poet and remain a little restless until the author of said lines has been discovered by me.

Recently the following lines kept running around in my mind

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

A quick Google search reveals that the above beautiful words where penned by John Keats and appear in his Ode on a Grecian Urn

The internet is often attacked for “dumbing down” literature in that it fosters a desire for instant gratification (the wish for easily digestable bite-sized entertainment in the form of stories, poems etc).

There is, in my opinion an element of truth in this criticism. However the internet does, at it’s best open up almost instantaneous access to the world of literature and, in the case of the lines sighted above, enabled me to quickly ascertain their origin.

Kevin

Anything Accept

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It is said that “every man has his price”.
We decry vice,
For the nice
Guy or gal
Shal
Not get caught
Doing what they ought
Not to do.
But who
Save the saint
In narratives quaint
Can with honesty say
There has never been a day
(An admission truly shocking),
When temptation came aknocking.

Some may not fall
Yet recall
The devil on their shoulder
Who whispered “you are getting older.
Only the fool
Adheres to the rule
That keeps him poor”.
That door
They may refuse to open,
Yet the devil’s words are spoken
And every word
is heard
By man and child.
Many, like Wilde,
Do persist
And resist
Anything accept temptation.

Reduction

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If we reduce
It to the bare bone,
Man stands alone,
His purpose to produce.
He is a mere factor of production.
What a reduction
Of you and me
To a robot who can not be free.

The dull
Texts that Marx and Bentham wrote
Are full
Of such stuff.
I have had enough
Of the dreary theory
Produced by long dead sages.
Weighty pages
Read
By those who live too much in their own head
And try to force the world to conform
By reform
Or worse!

My verse
Will not halt the curse
Of those who too much water drink
And in think
Tanks construe
Ideas of varying hue
Which, no doubt, they believe to be true,
Then foist them on me and you.

Of Rain and CDS

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This week has been an interesting one.

On Thursday I fell into conversation with a colleague and learned that he has downloaded my poem, “Raining” onto his phone. He will, he says read it when in reflective mood, especially while camping.

To read “Raining please visit, https://newauthoronline.com/2015/10/28/raining/.

Yesterday (Saturday 4 February), I was stopped on the way out of the block of flats in which I live by a gentleman who asked
“Are you the poet?”
“Yes” I replied.

I was a little surprised by the question. Then I remembered that the communal noticeboard has a poster advertising my collection of poetry, “Lost in the Labyrinth of My Mind”, which displays a photograph of yours truly, together with my guide dog Trigger.

The poster has been affixed to the noticeboard for several months and I was delighted that it had illicited an expression of interest from my new neighbour.

Never one to lose an opportunity to gain a new reader, I offered the gentleman a copy of my recently released CD, which he was pleased to accept.

The CD features me reading 13 of my poems.

If you would like to obtain a copy please email me at newauthoronline (at) gmail dot com.

You can find details of all my published works here, https://newauthoronline.com/about/.

The Tabloids Say

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The tabloids say
“They slunk away
As the grey
Dawn
Did warn
Of another dismal day
For old London Town”.
The clergyman does frown
And putting the newspaper down
Remarks “I see,
The papers have poets in their fee.
All I can say
Is there will be hell to pay
When she reads that, later today …