STOP PRESS – a little recognition!

One of my poems, “Was That The Day“, was shortlisted in the Marriott Love Poems competition, which was run in March 2011. It wasn’t among the winners, alas, but encouraging all the same: a little tiny piece of recognition (for five minutes) :-).

It is interesting and challenging that “Was That The Day” is in the poetic form, Rondeau Redouble, in which the first stanza contains the refrain lines of the following four stanzas; the last verse doesn’t, but the whole set of six quatrains carries the rhyming pattern ABAB alternating with BABA all the way through. So to compose a poem in this form you need preferably twelve different words with the ‘A’ rhyme and another twelve with the ‘B’ rhyme! Strangely, this poetic form finishes with half of the first line, which, in this case, I made the same as the poem’s title.

Another poem I entered in this love poem fest was “Devotion” (aka “The Lamb”), a haiku triplet, which was the first to be published on the Marriott Love Poems weblog, under ‘Poems Galore‘. I really liked this one, probably because of its brevity, but hey-ho, who am I. That is not to say I didn’t like the one about my daughter’s wedding; it was probably because it was more directly a wedding poem.

(Read “The Lamb“, aka “Devotion”)

Posted in children, Love, melancholy, poem, poetry | 1 Comment

Message from Mother Earth

I woke to feel no breath, as if at birth,
so I could hear the breath of mother earth.
She heaves with sighs of lives foregone,
reminding us we need to change our song,
review the wiles of new invented ways,
trying to persuade us of the days
that technological control had won.
At peril, ignore the words of those who’ve gone.

If you reinvent the wheel each day,
immunise yourself to change, betray
the days when unencumbered views were so
much clearer, simpler, more humane than now.
Actions of our past have brought us here
so, whilst the need for redesign is clear,
let’s not allow the ego arrogant
beguile us with its human hubris cant.

© 2011 John Anstie

(View the author’s commentary on this poem)

Posted in conservation, environment, experience, green, Hope, nostalgia, poem, poetry, political, technology, wisdom | Leave a comment

Limerick Three

I have to come clean about me
I’m really a charlatan, you see,
full of intention
with some good invention
but nowt that’ll pay for my tea.

© 2011 John Anstie

Posted in fun, limerick, poem | Leave a comment

Real Heroes

(the plastic coated deceit of 20th/21st century life)

Who are the real heroes and people of true courage? Find out in this blog post

… and in this poem.

Posted in courage, experience, Heroes, Prose, story, War | 1 Comment

Goons at The Graves

It’s eight o’clock and all is well
for Peter, Spike and Harry.
If they were at The Graves to tell
the time, how long we’d tarry.

© 2010 John Anstie

(View the author’s commentary on this poem)

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Enthusiasm, Optimism and Entropy

Get your brains round this

Posted in cosmos, Hope, Prose | Leave a comment

Twitter Anniversary and World Poetry Day Twaiku

Tweet spring inception
it is not going away
but coming of age

© 2011 John Anstie

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Ninety Two

(First Draft)

There is one I know (though there are some,
when they are ninety-two, are good as done),
but she is good for another ninety-two,
refusing the acknowledgement of age;
denying understandable excuses;
rejecting even a hint so to eschew
yielding toes to daisies
or the mind to numb.

So much to say, of this special one.
Somehow, she has been almost everywhere;
seen all, done all, but still with much to do
for life’s great jigsaw puzzle’s looking large,
larger and, in fact, more colourful;
with more know-how-do than me or you,
carpe diem! disports
herself to warmer sun;

to paint a picture of a favourite view:
yellow tinted dusty outback hut;
a portal vista bathed in flesh warm light;
the portrait of a pet by photograph.
Then there is that haunt, familiar,
wants to remind us and, thus viewed, it might
imbue us with a vision
that only came from you;

and yet, who can match your swing, the fullest
ever seen at any age, but how
the lightest touch belies a steely strength,
province of the best the world has seen,
to grace the game for more than eighty years,
addressing ball, its flight to joy and length,
moves competing youth
to cry on fallen crest.

And once they realise their pointless task
is folly in the face of such sagacity,
especially when rewarded with a cake
produced with fine ingredients, so
fruitful in the end, to help forget
lost points to Stableford, a big mistake,
will make them think next time,
before they dare to ask

and challenge you to any kind of game,
’cause they will bite off more than they can chew;
more in fact than anyone would bet
more than pride itself would dare release
to chance, without first bargaining the odds.
There’s no-one been this way before, and yet
less chance there’ll be again;
they’d never be the same.

© 2011 John Anstie

(View the author’s commentary for this poem)

Posted in age, experience, poem, poetry, wisdom | 2 Comments

In The Garden

If I don’t answer
I may be in the garden
But then I might not

© 2011 John Anstie

Posted in Haiku, poem, poetry, recreation, wisdom | Leave a comment

Limerick Two

A dashing romantic young student
was advised that it would be quite prudent
to avoid the infection
by wearing protection
that looks rather odd when you’re nudent.

© 2011 John Anstie

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