Yeah - I know. It's not a poem. It's an banner ad. I put it here... This CD of kids songs is for sale in aid of Save the Children, and the words of the tracks are fun, and yes - poetry! Have a look at the site and listen to some of the track before you buy.

The water on your hands
sparkles
like the promise of paper plates
at an Easter party;
or the dancing feet
of welcome
somewhere between doorbell's chime
and open hallway;
like the heartug
of daffodils and pussy willow
wrapped in damp paper
and clutched close
in a toddler's fist.

Date:	2004-01-13 23:25
Subject:	Untitled - for a friend
Security:	Public
Mood:	sad

"This morning at 6:20 Dr Shipman was found dead in his cell at Wakefield Prison"


Do you know
That you have been dead
6 years, now?
Or
Do you still make the daily shop
For bread, for fruit?
I glimpse you sometimes
From the bus
Your back round against the wind;
Or turning a corner;
Passing through a crowd
On market day.


They bubble up
These memories
Struggling for voice
Gasping for breath


Do you still save new pennies
And old magazines
Wondering when I might call?


Somewhere deep,
Tangled in roots
Amongst rotten weeds
Something gathers
Hollow, black


An empty shriek
A loneliness
I had thought filled

Pain comes like an old friend,
with no by-your-leave,
without warning.
Weeks, months of silence
broken
by the telephone call,
the knock at the door,
The cry for help
in the middle of the night.
And always welcoming
I let her in,
make up a bed
let her stay
as long as she wants.

No need for questions,
explanations
or recriminations
For always her coming
reminds me
of life lived well.

I knew her as a child
when we learned together
to stand, to run,
to walk, climb trees.
She showed me my limits
and spurred me on.
</p>

And in youth she was there
though the churl I was then
ignored her,
thinking her no friend of mine
as she accompanied others
more often than me.

Yet she did not forget.

In age
We are much with each other.
She comes to me now
as good, old friend
will come and go
And reminds me glady, of life
still lived well.

(Copyright Paganini Jones, 23 June 03)

<td>

Renga -

a dance between poets

who see in haiku

(or if you want to get technical)


responding
with haiku-like form

to haiku-like form

(Or to be historical)


many poets write

first 3 lines of 17

then 2 of 14

(or to be realistic)


we take turns to play renga

loosely counting sylables

(copyright paganini jones 2003)

</td>

<td>


springtime rain
puddles under the cherry tree
reflect the sun


</td>

Date:	2003-04-22 18:42
Subject:
Security:	Public
Mood:	thoughtful
Music:	Enya

<td width="50%">

Wisdom and Solitude

</td> <td width="35%">
Wisdom

What Kanji word best suits you?
brought to you by Quizilla </td>

<td> They say that...
someone was telling me...
I was sitting on the bus and a man said...
Hugh was telling me...
a friend of my brother is there and he says
my friend's sister's son was...
Have you heard..?
Did you know that..?

our foreign correspondant met
a man with...
a man who had...
a man in Bombay...
in China or Pakistan...
in Iraq our reporter
These pictures are said
to the right
bottom left...
enhanced magnification...
digitally cleaned...
looks like...
if you look carefully...
could be...
it seems that.
And so they...
we...

22 March 03
</td>

<td> "In a poem these things have no place," He said. "These things have no place in a poem. Pink, cliche of love, belongs only in romantic and teenage tosh. We'll have no colour pink in our poems." "Sausages," he said, "Sausages, food of comedians and fools, have no place in a poem (though perhaps in a limerick or pedestrian dialect ode?) but sausages are no serious subject of poetry." "In a poem, let there be no blood. If you must write of war speak in clinical tones. But best to ignore war in these civilised time And it is best to avoid blood in a poem" "Free verse," he said "Free verse is NOT verse and has no place in this class. Stick to the classical forms of sonnet and rhyme. Iambic pentameter was good enough for likes of the bard and is best for us now to use in a poem." My mind drifts to Iraq and I watch a tired soldier lad, the age of my son with a blood sodden bandage and blood matted hair eat sausages straight from the pan He thinks of home and his mother. And the backdrop of grey smoke winds into the winter sky which is pink shot with gold. Can there be no poetry in this? 21 March 03 </td>

You,
who taught me how to hear the mermaids sing
and capture wishes in a night of falling stars,

You,
who rode ten thousand days and nights
to learn the knowledge of most secret things,

You,
who travelled back at last, so old wives say
much older, wiser and with hair turned white,

You
Who know the mystery of how things are,
can you teach me the way to travel back to yesterday?


This poem is really only a beginning though I am not entirely sure now where it was meant to be going! It is written in response to a poem by John Donne. Virtual cookies and milk to anyone who can say which one. (The mermaids bit is probably a good clue!)

Mist, like a wraith
Gathers form from the air
Slithers down hillsides
Hides in dark hollows.

He pauses at hedges,
Slips fingers through gates,
Glides his damp touch
Through the wind burnt grass
And frost bleached leaves.

He creeps toward fire-lit windows
And shadowed porches,
Probes hidden cracks,
Peeps through keyholes,
Trails wisps over stone clad floors.

At the wooden barn
He gathers in clouds,
In billowing vapours
To rest before dawn.

The farm dog barks once,
Lonesome and wild.
The farm cat,
All knowing, uncaring,
watches mid-step,
and is gone on his secretive way.

In the dawn, like a ghost,
Mist is gone.

19th March 2003

Like a deer
caught in brambles
on a hillside
She was drawn to you;
first by your sweetness,
the young fresh leaves;
later by porcelain flowers
that give way to lush berries
and the odors of autumn.

Rich purple
stains her hands.
Sticky sweetness
cloys her lips,

and
almost,
she doesn’t feel
your hooked thorns
pulling her in,
entangling her in branches
ensnaring her in thickets;
doesn’t notice
bleeding scratches
and infected sores
on her hands,
on her face
in her heart.

Like a deer
caught in brambles
on a hillside
She is drawn to you…

(For Sarah)
18 March, 2003

<td>



chattering words
dancing in my mind
- pen them down!





</td>

Date:	2003-03-11 23:14
Subject:	Er... Hello... Anyone out there?
Security:	Public
Mood:	exhausted
Music:	Silence

Mmmm... I seem to have been battling web sites all evening. I've sold some books on a well known book site, and for some reason I would quite like my money. But could I find the page where you input that all important bank information? Even the 'Help' files were useless. OK. In the end I managed. It took about half an hour and by the end the stress levels were sky high... Usability? You would expect a professional site to suss that people are more likely to come back if the site is easy to use? OK. Foolish of me. Just another assumption blown into the water...