by Nizar Qabbani
Light is more important than the lantern,
The poem more important than the notebook,
And the kiss more important than the lips.
My letters to you
Are greater and more important than the both of us
They are the only documents
Where the people will discover
Your beauty
And my madness.
by Dorothy Parker
I think that I shall never know
Why am I thus, and I am so.
Around me, other girls inspire
In men the roar and rush of fire,
The sweet transparency of glass,
The tenderness of April grass,
The durability of granite;
But me - I don't know how to plan it.
The lads I've met in Cupid's deadlock
Were - shall we say - born out of wedlock.
They broke my heart, they stilled my song
And said they had to run along,
Explaining, so to sop my tears,
First came their parents or careers.
But ever does experience
Deny me wisdom, calm and sense!
Though she's a fool who seeks to capture
The twenty-first fine, careless rapture,
I must go on, till ends my rope,
Who was from my birth was cursed with hope.
A heart in half is chaste, archaic;
But mine resembles a mosaic -
The thing's become ridiculous!
Why am I so? Why am I thus?
It’s been getting on for 30 years since I said my final farewell to my father, my last words to him were very simple, “I love you”.
I miss him every day.
No. That’s wrong.
I don’t miss him because he is with me every day.
This weekend I found he is with me more than I could have ever realised.
When I was a little boy family members who knew my father at that age used to say how much I looked like him. I couldn’t understand at the time how that was possible. He was twice as big as me and he had a moustache.
Over the years our appearances changed as we both grew older.
When his time came he was no longer the big boisterous father I had known throughout my childhood and teens. He wasn’t the somewhat older, but still boisterous father I had always been able to rely on for good advice and as helping hand when I needed it once I became a man.
Since he has gone I could still see him if I looked carefully in a mirror.
The older I got the more of his face and mannerisms I could see.
The point is that I could still see me there, I could also see my mother, just as when we three siblings meet again after long gaps I could see her in my sister and, in a strange way, in my brother.
Then the other day I was checking the memory card from my garden camera and running through the stills and images that had been taken from the previous day.
As I watched I suddenly saw my father in our garden.
Not a ghostly image, or a grainy evening, gloomy image.
This was mid-afternoon with plenty of light to show off the images.
He walked down the path and into the garage workshop, close to the wildlife feeding area. In the next video clip he came out of the garage and walked towards the camera, at which point the figure became me.
I must have gasped because Marion asked me what was wrong.
I told her as I showed her the video clip.
“That’s Dad,” I said.
“Everything about him, I mean me, in fact I’m not sure what I mean.”
“Of course it’s your Dad,” she said. “I’ve always seen him there.”
The point is I rarely see video of me. Ordinary family snaps yes but most of the time I have been the one taking them.
In this I was observing a figure in the background whose back bent slightly from waist to neck and whose head was slightly tilted forward. He leant slightly on a walking stick.
It was definitely my father.
I suppose just as Marion had always seen the two-in-one I had always seen him in my face, and felt his presence.
This does not mean I do not see my mother when I look in a mirror, or even at times my older brother. But at all times I am definitely my father’s son.
by Alice Oswald
I heard a cough
as if a thief was there
outside my sleep
a sharp intake of air
a fox in her fox-fur
stepping across
the grass in her black gloves
barked at my house
just so abrupt and odd
the way she went
hungrily asking
in the heart's thick accent
in such serious sleepless
trespass she came
a woman with a man's voice
but no name
as if to say: it's midnight
and my life
is laid beneath my children
like gold leaf
by Ogden Nash
Praise the spells and bless the charms,
I found April in my arms.
April golden, April cloudy,
Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
April soft in flowered langour,
April cold with sudden anger,
Ever changing, ever true -
I love April, I love you.
Getting a double dose of rugby this weekend – well a dose and a half really because I watched the second half of the France/Scotland match before settling down to see the dragons lay siege to Fortress Twickenham.
In fact the England/Wales match was not so much a siege in the first half as a drive across the drawbridge, through the portcullis and then figuring how to bring down the keep.
Hopefully that will not be too difficult, after all the Welsh are renowned as miners and in days of yore it was miners who got in under the keep to really undermine the opposition.
Meanwhile we will let that play its course while I try to fathom out what happened to Scotland when they played France. They had gone in at the half in a strong position but the second half was a scrappy game from both.
Despite most of the 40 minutes being spent kicking the ball from one half to the other France did manage to get in a try which Scotland attempted to expunge with a very late reply.
It looked as though they had succeeded with a last minute try but after the referee spent a long time mulling it over with the TMO the decision fell in France’s favour.
If they had spent less time kicking the ball into their opponents’ arms, for it just to be kicked back, and instead grasped the ball and run with it the result would have been very different.
I was brought up on rugby as an amateur sport, with men from all walks of life playing the game because they loved it and had their weekend fun before getting back to work on Monday as a doctor, or a consultant, or an insurance rep.
If they got injured they’d work it off to be back playing the next weekend. If it was more serious they’d miss a bit of training and playing time but it didn’t affect the income from their proper job.
The problems came when they started to put money into the game, paying the players until it reached a point when an injury could cost them real money. Well wouldn’t you be inclined not to take as many risks?
Back to Twickenham and despite our best efforts to blow the fortress’ keep to smithereens we ended up just one fuse short of the big blast.
At least Wales played well in both halves against an English team which played better than it had against the Italians.
This is a young Welsh team which still has lessons to learn.
I doubt they could now whip Ireland France and Italy and ending up champions this year but we could be enjoying a Grand Slam in 2025 as a great present for my 75th birthday.
by Marianne Moore
wade
through black jade.
Of the crow-blue mussel-shells, one keeps
adjusting ash heaps;
opening and shutting itself like
an
injured fan.
The barnacles which encrust the side
of the wave, cannot hide
there for the submerged shafts of the
sun
split like spun
glass, move themselves with spotlight swiftness,
into the crevices -
in and out, illuminating
the
turquoise sea
of bodies. The water drives a wedge
of iron through the iron edge
of the cliff whereupon the stars
pink
rice grains, ink-
bespattered jelly-fish, crabs like green
lilies, and submarine
toadstools slide on each other.
All
external
marks of abuse are present on this
defiant edifice -
all the physical features of
accident - lack
of cornice, dynamite grooves, burns, and
hatchet strokes, these things stand
out on it, the chasm side is
dead.
Repeated
evidence has proved that it can live
on what can not revive
its youth. The sea grows old on it.
Life wasn’t meant to be easy and when I look back I can see many rocky patches on my path through life so far. Some are little potholes others are yawning chasms, yet somehow I passed them all.
Some of the big ones I have described elsewhere, or they may still be to come, but some of them are just annoying little things and I know I shouldn’t let them get to me.
The most recent is a political niggle, but not to do with Westminster, or the strained politics we see throughout the world at present.
No this was to do with more local government.
Not the really niggly, inconsequential actions of a parish council.
What niggled me was the way the local district council, in my case Rushmoor, made such a rigmarole about getting a change made in a registration for voting to allow a person a postal vote.
There are three people in our household and all have been registered to vote since we moved here 12 years ago.
At the time of Covid we all registered for a postal vote, and it was simple.
Every year since we have received a form checking that our details remain the same. If there is no change it goes to the fallback situation – if you don’t contact them the details remain the same for the next year.
All was fine, until last year.
The usual letter arrived but one member of the family was listed as voting at a polling station.
No problem, just go online fill in the details and all sorted.
Which I believed it had been until this week when the annual letter arrived and again showed two of us had a postal vote but the third person was registered to vote at a polling station.
This time I went back to basics and went to the appropriate area of the Rushmoor website and checked if the person not listed as having a postal vote was actually registered (I know that sounds silly if the person is shown as voting at a polling station then that person must be registered, but I don’t like accepting things at face value).
I went through all the hoops, first name, middle name, surname, date of birth, current address, email address etc. etc.
At the end of this procedure it was confirmed that the person identified was properly registered but for voting at a polling station not by postal vote.
All well and good – now register that person for a postal vote.
Not quite as simple as you might think. I had to go right back to the beginning and fill in all the details yet again, at which point I was directed to another area of the website which then required virtually the same information yet again plus National Insurance details as well.
Finally I was close to completion and the last thing needed was an image of the signature. This was duly signed, photographed and then uploaded to the site. One press of the button and it was winging its way to Rushmoor. A few minutes later an email noting receipt was received with a letter code to be used if any queries arose.
All done, time for a cuppa and lunch.
A few hours later, an email arrives stating that the application was in abeyance because the image of the signature was not appropriate – it was on a lined piece of paper and it should have been plain.
Find a piece of plain paper, (actually it was the back of the envelope the original letter arrived in) get it signed, photograph it, upload it and send it off, hoping this time it was enough.
That was at the beginning of the week.
Today I received an email from Rushmoor saying everything had gone through and all three occupants are now listed as having postal votes.
Do I believe them?
Do I hell.
I’ll believe it when all three postal votes arrive for the local elections.
by Henry Lawson
If you fancy that your people come from better stock than mine,
If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by sign,
If you're proud because of fortune or the clever things you do -
Then I'll play no second fiddle: I'm a better man than you!
If you think that your profession has the more gentility,
And that you are condescending to be seen along with me;
If you notice that I'm shabby while your clothes are spruce and new -
You have only got to hint it: I'm a prouder man than you!
If you have a swell companion when you see me on the street,
And you think that I'm too common for your toney friend to meet,
So that I, in passing closely, fail to come within your view,
Then be blind to me forever: I'm a prouder man than you!
If your character be blameless, if your outward past be clean,
While 'tis known my antecedents are not what they should have been,
Do not risk contamination, save your name what e'er you do -
'Birds o' feather fly together;' I'm a better bird than you!
Keep your patronage for others! Gold and station cannot hide
Friendship that can laugh at fortune, friendship that can conquer pride!
Offer this as to an equal - let me see that you are true,
And my wall of pride is shattered: I am not so proud as you!
by Anne Killigrew
Tell me thou safest end of all our woe,
Why wretched mortals do avoid thee so.
Thou gentle drier o'th' afflicted's tears
Thou noble ender of the coward's fears.
Thou sweet repose to lovers sad dispaire,
Thou calm t'ambitions rough tempestuous care.
If in regard of bliss thou wert a curse,
And then the joys of Paradise art worse,
Yet after Man from his first Station fell,
And God from Eden Adam did expel,
Thou wert no more an evil but relief,
The balm and cure to ev'ry human grief
Through thee (what man had forfeited before)
He now enjoys, and ne'er can loose it more.
No subtle serpents in the grave betray,
Worms on the body there, not soul do prey,
No vice there tempts, no terrors there afright,
No coze'ning affords a false delight.
No vain contentions do that peace annoy,
No fierce alarms break the lasting joy.
Ah since from thee so many blessings flow,
Such real good as life can never know,
Come when thou wilt, in they afrightning'st best
Thy shape shall never make thy welcome less,
Thou mayst to joy, but ne'er to fear give birth
Thou best, as well as certain'st on Earth
Fly thee? May travellers then fly their rest,
And hungry infants fly the prof'rd brest.
No, those that faint and tremble at thy Name,
Fly from their good on a mistaken fame.
Thus childish fear did Israel of old
From Plenty and the Promis'd Land with-hold
They fancy'd Giants, and refus'd to go'
When Canaan did with milk and honey flow.
Robin's Nest