Ocean, river, pond or stream,
WATER is the central theme.
“Water, water, every where,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink.”
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Entries by midnightish on Thursday 23 May
Thank you.
…made glorious Summer by this son of York.
One of the best first lines ever written IMO.
I always thought the last Plantagenet had suffered from a bad press, although by heritage I had to support his nemesis Henry Tudr (it is so, how it is spelled, only the English need extra vowels).
Well, just to show I’m not totally prejudiced, I joined the Richard 111 society (American Branch) this year and now get access to all the latest goings-on around the car park.
Where was I? Yes, discontent, well there must be some as a result of the April Poetry Competition, which unlike modern playground games will only have one winner. A fine crop of entries from many of the usual suspects plus a few from some expert prevaricators. I liked them all, especially Soutie’s pairing of poem and picture, but most of all I liked this little gem from Bilby:
Sunshine
Harsh lover
are you warming someone else’s land
And sucking moisture from the sand?
with lizards gaping in the heat
and lifting legs to cool their feet.
Absent lover
There’s a Tequila sunrise when you set
and bodies sunsick, slick with sweat;
swaying, dancing, heat skin-deep,
dreaming sunlight when they sleep.
Fickle lover
leaving, teasing,
warming, disappearing, freezing.
constancy is not your style
but, oh, please linger for a while!
Well done Bilby! Now set us another one for May.
I thought I’d reassure the cherished non-Cambrians hereabouts that the wild and woolly practices of mountain-dwellers are frowned on by the Courts and it’s best not even to mention them!
As my cherished reader will recall, I once had the affrontery misfortune honour of lunching in the company of One’s sister Margaret at the Ritz, cos my then-employers in the ’70s sponsored one of ‘her’ charities. And a very nice lunch it was too. Except that she hardly touched it, but nipped out at every conceivable opportunity. So I was not surprised this morning to read that: “Princess Margaret prefers meals to be as simple as possible and not to last too long. Three or four courses (including cheese or fruit) for lunch, and five for dinner are quite sufficient….,” according an honourable flunky. I presume her sallies to the powder room were to satisfy the craving for nicotine, although she might possibly have been meeting her young stud, Welsh Roddy, who was occupying much of her time in between meals. Did he lurk in the loos, I wonder?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22303871
PS Roddy’s dad, Sir Harry, was an Olympic show-jumper
The old memory reacted to this portrait of Dylan Thomas by reminding me that when I joined the Kit Kat team at Rowntrees, his son, Llew was a copy-writer at JWT in Berkeley Square, W1. I chatted with him in the penthouse bar during my ‘induction’ visit in 1965 – a day-trip by Pullman from York which revealed some of the inner sancta of the agency and the luminaries who populated them.
Despite the weather, it is no longer March, and St George’s Day, the Bard’s day, looms large. Soon we will lie back and think of England again, surrendering to the Missus the Muses once more.
So might one respectfully suggest the Management might update the competition links to reflect our new mood?
Smileys and things.
Nice toon for the time of year:
It’s finally arrived here, sunshine that is. Leaped from the low 40’s (5C) to the high 80’s (30C) in the space of two days, no Spring, one day Winter, next day Summer. Actually it’s 91 (33C) as we speak.
So the theme for the April Poetry comp. must be SUNSHINE. Any form and length, what a blessing it is to have sunshine again , it’s been a long winter.
Closing date? Let’s say April 30, midnight somewhere.
Commissioning the boat so I’m off back to the bilges for a while.
If LW is out there somewhere, might one invite him to titillate one’s muse with a poetic challenge?
Well, our cherished poets certainly dreamed this time, just as they were invited to. So my eggy-toast repast served by a disorientated Backside (unable to deal with the summertime change) has been full of unlikely images. It must be the effects of the subarctic conditions, all recorded here: https://charioteers.org/2013/03/14/easter-poetry-competition/
FEEG’s ode from a bunny was short and sweet, as was Papag’s scientific Christianity; joined later by two ‘blank verses’, LW harking back to a dysfunctional family life and Soutie giving us a new slant on ‘be prepared’.
Then the two heavyweight entries from Araminta and LW. Could I hear our Cilla’s rendering of ‘What’s it all about?’ in Arrers’ poem? Or was it ‘Just imagine’ – life without the DT? And then LW’s tribute to old Eostre herself, whose very own eggs have a lot to answer for (allegedly).
Boadicea's Chariot 
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