Some Photographs from the Poetry reading earlier in the year at Waddington…….

New Poetry by Susan Wallace: Drawing the Shade.

English: Ripples in the sand. The beach at Newborough at low tide. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Drawing the shade

This beach is never blank.

In spite of the wind’s whip and the swipe of the waves

It lies under sky like an open page,

Its ridged lines written by the tide

As though the moon has pressed her frowning forehead to the sand.

Here bladderwrack spells out darkly

In gothic script the water-logged names of the sea;

And the dot-dash of cockle and razor shell

Encodes a secret, deep and salty.

The pattern of runes printed by sea-birds’ feet is untranslatable.

We and our shadows walk the shore.

Yours is short and never still. Mine,

A measure of my days, stretches long to the West.

Seabirds, circling, freckle the sand with shade.

I throw my arms wide, hair a halo in the east wind

And you begin to draw 

With your spade around the shape my shadow makes. 

The plastic blade slices wet sand. Your small hand

Cannot hold the line, swerving out of true.

You make a botch of me. We laugh, and race towards the sea.

And this is what the years will do.

Some time distant you will half-recall the day,

The beach whose mysteries we pondered; and Grandma -  

Outline wavering, face no longer clear – 

Sketched in sand between one tide and the next.

Copyright : Susan Wallace 2014

Next Meeting of Pimento Poets: 8th December, 2014…..

Lincoln.2 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Our next time together will be on 8th December at the Pimento Tearooms, Lincoln.

Please bring some new work with you.

We'll start at 10.30 am and finish around lunchtime.

Refreshments will be available to purchase at the Tearooms.

A warm welcome is extended to everyone interested in listening to good poetry. if you have some yourself please bring to read out and share……..

Poet Laureate for Lincolnshire

Hi All,

Gerry gave us some information about the prospect of a Poet Laureat in Lincolnshire.

This is repeated below:

Poet Laureat of Lincolnshire
Thousand Pound Award Competition
Launched on 2nd October by the Mayor of Lincoln

The competition for the most original piece of poetry. Rules of the competition are few and simple. No poetry longer than 30 lines and the topic has to be some aspect of life in Lincolnshire.Must not have been published previously.

CLOSING DATE IS APRIL 5th 2015.

All queries should be directed to the Poetry Society: 67 Doddington Road, Lincoln, LN6 7EY

Tel: 01522 695110

Please keep an eye out for updates.

Regards,

Vernon

A new poem by Maureen Sutton: Ad infinitun.

 AD INFINITUN

The moat at the Tower of London
has become like a river of poppy-red blood.
Look again, closer, because
the blood of beheaded queens runs deep.                                 +
A king, two young princes, traitors
the innocent, nonconformists all slaughtered.
Blood never dries on the hands of a king.

It drips from the hands of leaders
who send us to war, then lay wreaths.
Those not born before World Wars                  
commemorate the hundredth year of the
Great War by planting ceramic poppies.

Spilt blood has seeped into foreign fields
on home ground, on no-man’s land
on desert sands, on frozen waste.
It has splattered across skies, coloured seas.

As flowers keep growing
blood shed from the fallen flows on;
A tidal bore on the Thames.



Maureen Sutton
09 11 20
             

COPYRIGHT   MAUREEN SUTTON 09 11 20

Famous World War 1 poem by Wilfred Owen ~ Dulce et Decorum Est "It is sw...

Pimento Poets: A new poem from Paul Mein.

A hero, on the beach, with his granddaughter.



My granddaughter roams, barefoot,
on pooled and seaweed-slippy rocks,
gathering mussels, cockles,
razor clams and small crabs
in a hessian sack, ready for the meal
I promised her.

The pot already boils
on the driftwood fire I made earlier,
hunkered between boulders,
the sea quieted,
the wind calmed,
the voices in my head fogged.

I watch child and tide, one for
carelessness, the other for craftiness.

Catching on the salt air, smoke from the cooking fires,
                       the hum-busy of mothers at the washing place.

I look out distant
to the pounding sea,
grey relentless energy,
shifting presence
breaking rainbowed
on tireless hidden reefs...

...see, through light's bendings,
shades of my long-ago crew
sailing guideless, dark-blind
through sheet-tearing tempest
or rowing backbroken on
oily, becalmed waters,
cracking out 'land ho'
through parched lips,
gapped and scurvied gums,
pale against weather-struck faces,
hard-pulling with saltcracked hands
against an outgoing tide...

my eyes fill, spill from the corners,
trickle to salt-lie on my lips.


“Why are you crying, grandad?”
the child asks. Unnoticed,
she has beaten the tide in
its race to meet me.
I tell her I'm not really;
this is something which happens
sometimes to men who are old and tired.
“But you're not old, grandad,”
her faith in my immortality unshakeable.
“So why are you crying?”

...and I tell her that
their spring is not ours,
their winter dying not the same,
their motion in our space and time
suspended...

But she is busy
showing me the contents
of her forage sack,
asking, “Is the fire on?
Can we cook these now?”
We hold hands on the way back -

I sense her more careful of me,
as if  something settled in her world
has moved slightly, unexpectedly.

I'm pleased to get out of the wind,
away from the sight of open sea,
my vision limited to the fire,
the roil of water in the pot,
my granddaughter watching,
waiting her portion.



©  Paul Mein    20/10/14

Pimento Poets: A poem by Ron Booth.

Dance with me………..

Dance with death the voice says
Take the blade and dance with me,
I will end your misery;
Take this chance and dance with me,
My music can be so soothing
As we are slowly moving
To the tune I play.
Dance with me untill the end
I will calm your troubled mind,
So unwind and let me soothe you,
Let me move you
As we dance to emotion
you will have this notion
Of ending time,
So dance with me.
The blade is inviting,
Exciting me into dancing deaths tune.
I swoon and sway as I dance away,
In this hypnotic trance; I dance.
Dancing on into the night,
As death whispers in my ear
"your life will soon be ending."
Dance with me untill the end
I will calm your troubled mind,
So unwind and let me soothe you,
Let me move you
As we dance to emotion
You will have this notion
Of ending time,
So dance with me.
With blade in hand I say goodbye
As I'm invited to do deaths calling.
No more tormented by lifes undoing
Screwing me up inside my head.
Life has been so unkind,
So I unwind and prepare to be free.
Dance with me untill the end
I will calm your troubled mind,
So unwind and let me soothe you,
Let me move you
As we dance to emotion
You will have this notion
Of ending time,
So dance with me.
Dance with me no more!
The door has been opened
Step over and come on in,
Welcome to deaths glory
Oh how, they will tell your story;
Of someone with a troubled mind.

© Ron Booth
17.3.2014

Pimento Poets: Some new poetry by Gerry Miller.

Gerry read these two poems at our last meeting:

The Love Apple

- What holds you back,
my brave young man?
A path has opened in the woods:
enter if you can.

What holds you back
my brave young man?
The mists of moonlight beckon through the trees
Will you take my hand?

- I see a lady clad in scarlet
as her outstretched arms and fingers slim
entice me to a lover's tryst, and
beckon me in

to a hidden path between ghostly trees
which leaves me shaken:
a door into the dark, a way through the woods,
a road not taken.

- And there I go
with trembling fear following after
a dangerous belladonna,
captivated by her

piercing eyes
and penetrating pupils giving palpitations
as seduced, beguiled and helpless
I am on fire.                          
                                                                               
- The pathway seems
to close in darkness as I lapse
in to unknown territory where, helpless,
I collapse

dreaming only
of the bittersweet black and red berry,
love's apple, deadly nightshade,
the sorcerer's cherry.

Magic mushrooms
and fatal fungi, discovered in the main
in the dampest, deepest forests, foment
within my brain

- until I wake
as sunlight filters through the curtain
drying the perspiration on my helpless limbs
and I am myself again.

Gerry Miller          copyright 2014


The Mouse

We went on vacation for a week
to a caravan close to the sea.
We swam and played the amusements
and had mussels and chips for our tea.

When we came home we were full of high spirits
with our batteries charged up anew
and were singing and laughing aloud
as our village and house came in view.

Our laughter soon stopped as the door swung ajar.
It had been like that since we left
but at least no-one had taken our belongings
or had entered our little love nest

- except a family of field mice
which had started to run and to roam
all over the floors and the beds and the chairs
and we're refusing to leave our dear home.

One by one I caught the intruders.
Please don't ask what happened to them.
My family agreed to return to the house
and soon felt happy again.

Next morning I was brushing and sweeping
and cleared the ashes out of the fire,
taking them out on a shovel
to scatter down by the byre.

Then the embers moved on the shovel.
Tiny whiskers quivered and eyes peered out.
The last of the rodent family shook himself
and twitched his sensitive snout.

I was about to quickly despatch him
just like the rest of his kin
when the ash got into his eyes
and irritated his delicate skin.

He rubbed his eyes with his miniscule paws
and on his haunches looked sadly at me.
I checked that no-one was watching
and let the wee fellow run free.

Gerry Miller          copyright 2014

Our last meeting at Pimento Tearooms: 10th November....

Everyone has commented on the superb meeting we had together last Monday. Here are just some of the comments received.

Hi Vernon and everyone

What a remarkable morning, so many excellent poems.  Many images are still with me: the colours of a morning walk, apple spots and liver spots, the shells on the beaches, the pain and fear of a troubled mind, the laughter and the sweet little mouse.  Certainly a morning to remember.  Many thanks to Nic, Sue and Vernon for all their hard work.  The photographs are a lovely keepsake of our readings.  What a fantastic group of poets we have.

Love and best wishes to all our members

Maureen    

Subject: This morning's meeting.....

What a wonderful session this morning. Some powerful words and images, leavened with humour. Great to see and hear new members; valuable assets to the group. 

I would like to thank Nic, Sue and Vernon for their work in producing the anthology and creating the website. I'm proud to be a member of Pimento Poets.

See you all at the next meeting.

Kind regards,

Paul.

Hi Everyone,

May I also add my agreement to Paul's words. Great meeting together this morning. Fantastic energy in the room. The quality of the poetry was sublime.

Thanks everyone,

Vernon

As Above....So below..........................................

Luke Wright: Five poems about the First World War……..

Luke Wright (poet) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Five poems about life in Essex during World War One. Never Forget. Never Again. http://www.lukewright.co.uk/now-the-last-poppy-has-fallen/

Pimento Poets: Next Meeting of Pimento Poets: 10th November, 2014...

Pimento Poets: Next Meeting of Pimento Poets: 10th November, 2014...

Monday at 10.30 am at the Pimento Tearooms on Steep hill......see you there.....

Poets liked by Pimento: Philip Larkin

English: Larkin plaque, Belfast This plaque, in Queen’s University, commemorates the poet Philip Larkin http://www.ulsterhistory.co.uk/larkin.htm. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Larkin toad, Hull (10) This is the LarKin (sic) Toad, painted to resemble the poet himself, in the Princes Quay shopping centre, Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire. .Part of the Larkin with Toads series (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bronze Statue of Phillip Larkin, by sculptor Martin Jennings, at Hull Paragon Interchange (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Philip Larkin in a library. Photograph by Fay Godwin. © The British Library Board (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Philip Larkin……..

Poets favoured by Pimento: John Betjeman.

English: John Betjeman and friends at St Pancras Station (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Wadebridge, The John Betjeman Centre Memorabilia Room. Here is the great man's desk and telephone from his home in Trebetherick. Also there to be seen is a superb collection of his books, medals, photographs and so on. While you are here, take the opportunity to have a cup of coffee to support the running of the centre as there is no charge to visit the memorabilia room. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

John Betjeman boards the train for his trip to Hunstanton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Statue of John Betjeman at St Pancras station in London (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

John Betjeman……..

Some of the poets favoured by Pimento: Dylan Thomas

English: Maritime Quarter: Swansea. A statue of Dylan Thomas, outside the Dylan Thomas Theatre at the Marina, Swansea. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Dylan Thomas's shed. This is where Dylan Thomas wrote some of his poetry and stories. It's an old shed that is near to the boathouse where he used to live. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Welsh poet and playwright Dylan Thomas, with his wife Caitlin (nee Macnamara) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dylan Thomas: Some photos……..

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas (Photo credit: WikipediaDylan Thomas

Meet the Poets: Susan Wallace.

                                                   Susan Wallace

Susan enjoyed poetry at school but then got distracted by other things for about fifty years.

During these decades she has taught and researched in the UK and overseas; published more than a dozen works of non-fiction; edited Oxford’s Dictionary of Education; and is currently Emeritus Professor of Education at Nottingham Trent University.

She admires particularly the work of Larkin, Betjeman and U.A. Fanthorpe. 

Her own poetry, which  has been published in a number of journals and anthologies, has been described as  ‘neatly faceted and rich in slant rhyme.’

St Mary Magdalene Church, Lincoln, UK.

English: St Mary Magdalene. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The event at St Mary Magdalene Church  by Pimento Poets accompanied by the Hungate Singers on Sunday 2nd November, was a considerable success.

A 'full house' were treated to some beautiful singing and poetry all commemorating the First World War.