Venice masks

Saturday 30 April 2011

Refugee - Lindsay MacRae

He can't speak a word of English
But the picture he paints needs no words

Friday 29 April 2011

Buckingham Palace - AA Milne

They're changing guard at Buckingham Palace -
Christopher Robin went down with Alice.
Alice is marrying one of the guard.
"A soldier's life is terrible hard,"
Says Alice.

Thursday 28 April 2011

On Wenlock Edge - A.E. Housman

On Wenlock Edge the wood's in trouble;
His forest fleece the Wrekin heaves;
The gale, it plies the saplings double,
And thick on Severn snow the leaves.

Wednesday 27 April 2011

April - Hilaire Belloc

The stranger warmth of the young sun obeying,
Look! little beads of green begin to grow,
And hidden flowers have dated their tops to show
Where late such droughty dusts were rudely playing.
It's not the month, but all the world's a-maying!
Come then with me, I'll take you, for I know
Where the first hedgethorns and white windflowers blow:
We two alone,, that goes without the saying.

Tuesday 26 April 2011

Poem to Curry - William Makepeace Thackeray

Three pounds of veal my darling girl prepares,
And chops it nicely into little squares;
Five onions next prures the little minx
(The biggest are the best, her Samiwel thinks),
And Epping butter nearly half a pound,
And stews them in a pan until they’re brown’d.

Monday 25 April 2011

Sailing For Flanders - John Masefield

To need any more the skies or man to importune
For us departing to-day with spirits at peace,
Now that the inner warfares, that tire men, cease
For us the chosen of God's lot, the spoilt darlings of Fortune.

Sunday 24 April 2011

Easter wings – George Herbert

Lord, who createdst man in wealth and store,
Though foolishly he lost the same,
Decaying more and more,
Till he became
Most poor:
With thee
Oh let me rise
As larks, harmoniously,
And sing this day thy victories:
Then shall the fall further the flight in me.

Friday 22 April 2011

Black Stone on Top of a White Stone - Cesar Vallejo

I shall die in Paris, in a rainstorm,
On a day I already remember.
I shall die in Paris -- it does not bother me --
Doubtless on a Thursday, like today, in autumn.

Thursday 21 April 2011

Holy Thursday - William Blake

'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
The children walking two & two, in red & blue & green,
Grey-headed beadles walk'd before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames' waters flow.

Wednesday 20 April 2011

Tuesday 19 April 2011

Surprised by Joy - William Wordsworth

Surprised by joy — impatient as the Wind
I turned to share the transport

Monday 18 April 2011

Balade - Geoffrey Chaucer

Hyd, Absolon, thy gilte tresses clere;
Ester, ley thou thy meknesse al a-doun;
Hyd, Jonathas, al thy frendly manere;
Penalopee, and Marcia Catoun,
Mak of your wyfhod no comparisoun;
Hyde ye your beautes, Isoude and Eleyne;
My lady cometh, that al this may disteyne.

Sunday 17 April 2011

The Donkey - G.K. Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

Saturday 16 April 2011

The Lady of Shalott - Alfred Lord Tennyson

On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And through the field the road run by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.

Friday 15 April 2011

About The Sheltered Garden Ground - Robert Louis Stevenson

About the sheltered garden ground
The trees stand strangely still.
The vale ne'er seemed so deep before,
Nor yet so high the hill.

Tuesday 12 April 2011

Hunger - Kingmerut

Fear hung over me.
I dared not try
to hold out in my hut.

Monday 11 April 2011

May my love become an alder tree - Yi Chongbo

May my love become an alder tree
  of Kumsong in Hoeyang, and
  I an arrowroot vine in
  the third month or fourth:

Sunday 10 April 2011

The Artist Lives Dangerously - Otieno Amisi

The artist lives dangerously
Cursing, blasting, blaming, weeping
The artist lives dangerously
Hits the stone with his ass
Crosses swords with the censor
Critic and state

Saturday 9 April 2011

Community - John Donne

Good we must love, and must hate ill,
For ill is ill, and good good still;
   But there are things indifferent,
Which wee may neither hate, nor love,
But one, and then another prove,
   As we shall find our fancy bent.

Friday 8 April 2011

The Pobble Who Has No Toes - Edward Lear

The Pobble who has no toes
Had once as many as we;
When they said "Some day you may lose them all;"
He replied "Fish, fiddle-de-dee!"
And his Aunt Jobiska made him drink
Lavender water tinged with pink,
For she said "The World in general knows
There's nothing so good for a Pobble's toes!"

Thursday 7 April 2011

Beneath My Hands - Leonard Cohen

Beneath my hands
your small breasts
are the upturned bellies
of breathing fallen sparrows.

Wednesday 6 April 2011

But Not Forgotten - Dorothy Parker

I think, no matter where you stray,
That I shall go with you a way.

Tuesday 5 April 2011

Wind - Ted Hughes

This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet

Monday 4 April 2011

Heart And Mind - Edith Sitwell

SAID the Lion to the Lioness-'When you are amber dust,-
No more a raging fire like the heat of the Sun
(No liking but all lust)-
Remember still the flowering of the amber blood and bone,
The rippling of bright muscles like a sea,
Remember the rose-prickles of bright paws
Though the fire of that sun the heart and the moon-cold bone are one.'

Sunday 3 April 2011

(For Mother's day) Proverbs 23:22-26 - The Bible

Hearken unto thy father that begat thee,
and despise not thy mother when she is old.

Saturday 2 April 2011

Wind on the Hill - AA Milne

No one can tell me,
Nobody knows,
Where the wind comes from,
Where the wind goes.

Friday 1 April 2011

The Tyger - William Blake

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?