Venice masks

Thursday 31 March 2011

Jungle danger - Bruce Levitan

The ermine softness of the leaves
Brushing against his arm.
The air, warm and moist
Like an inhaler full of balm.
Menace seems to lurk
In every shadow of apparent calm.

Monday 28 March 2011

Sunday 27 March 2011

Home From Abroad - Laurie Lee

Far-fetched with tales of other worlds and ways,
My skin well-oiled with wines of the Levant,
I set my face into a filial smile
To greet the pale, domestic kiss of Kent.

Saturday 26 March 2011

Friday 25 March 2011

In My Dreams - Stevie Smith

In my dreams I am always saying goodbye and riding away,

Thursday 24 March 2011

Sheep in Fog - Sylvia Plath

The hills step off into whiteness.
People or stars
Regard me sadly, I disappoint them.

Wednesday 23 March 2011

If - Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

Tuesday 22 March 2011

Martha - Walter de la Mare

"Once...Once upon a time..."
Over and over again,
Martha would tell us her stories,
In the hazel glen.

Monday 21 March 2011

Sunday 20 March 2011

The Telephone - Michel Quoist

I have just hung up;
why did he telephone?
I don’t know…
O! I get it…
I talked a lot and listened little.

Saturday 19 March 2011

Morning at the window - T.S. Eliot

They are rattling breakfast plates in basement kitchens,
And along the trampled edges of the street
I am aware of the damp souls of housemaids
Sprouting despondently at area gates.

Thursday 17 March 2011

My Dream - Ogden Nash

This is my dream,
It is my own dream,
I dreamt it.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Sonnet 113 - William Shakespeare

Since I left you, mine eye is in my mind,

Love and the Gentle Heart - Dante Alighieri

Love is but one thing with the gentle heart,
  As in the saying of the sage we find.
  Thus one from other cannot be apart,
  More than the reason from the reasoning mind.

Tuesday 15 March 2011

Five-Per-Cent - Robert William Service

Because I have ten thousand pounds I sit upon my stern,
And leave my living tranquilly for other folks to earn.
For in some procreative way that isn't very clear,
Ten thousand pounds will breed, they say, five hundred every year.
So as I have a healthy hate of economic strife,
I mean to stand aloof from it the balance of my life.
And yet with sympathy I see the grimy son of toil,
And heartly congratulate the tiller of the soil.
I like the miner in the mine, the sailor on the sea,
Because up to five hundred pounds they sail and mine for me.
For me their toil is taxed unto that annual extent,
According to the holy shibboleth of Five-per-Cent.

Monday 14 March 2011

The Lent Lily - Alfred Edward Housman

'Tis spring; come out to ramble
The hilly brakes around,
For under thorn and bramble
About the hollow ground
The primroses are found.

Sunday 13 March 2011

A Bird Came Down - Emily Dickinson

A bird came down the walk:
He did not know I saw;
He bit an angle-worm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw.

Saturday 12 March 2011

A Prayer in Spring - Robert Lee Frost

Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.

Friday 11 March 2011

Soil - Roger McGough

we've ignored eachother for a long time
and I'm strictly an indoor man
anytime to call would be the wrong time
I'll avoid you as long as I can

Thursday 10 March 2011

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night - Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wednesday 9 March 2011

Havisham - Carol Ann Duffy

Beloved sweetheart bastard. Not a day since then
I haven’t wished him dead. Prayed for it
so hard I’ve dark green pebbles for eyes,
ropes on the back of my hands I could strangle with.

Tuesday 8 March 2011

i carry your heart with me - Edward Estlin Cummings (ee cummings)

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)