For anyone who enjoys poetry

Like poetry? If so then here is a blog you may want to check out... it is a one woman challenge to raise money for charity (EEC International)... Jen is a UK poet who is spending this weekend writing 100 poems off the cuff, based on themes that her followers have suggested... at this writing (Sunday morning) she is up to #70 of the 100

Its worth checking out... her works are very lovely.

Here is the first poem she wrote.... just as an enticement to get you over to the blog....

#1

In those days we'd sleepwalk.
It was easier for us to see the city that way.
The daytime gave us kitchen steam,
flour tilting like November snow. At night
we'd trudge through gardens
that our house had never seen.
We would run and cup non-existent light.

Mostly, we dressed up as birds. Mary's favourites
were the leather swans. Black feathers in her bedsheets
and a zip up to her neck. We'd walk
together and in lines -
our wings hooping every lamppost.
In the mornings we'd bathe our swollen feet. Inch
our claws along the frozen tiles -
make-believe that we could fly again.


[tag word: SNOW - from Patricia Campbell]

later note: ooh, she used my suggestion!... and I love it!

#81

She sold herself as an apple peeler. Unwrapped
green dresses in front of libraries. Bobbing.
In the winter months she carved giant squashes
in the middle of the streets. Climbed inside
their trusting mouths, and waved at passersby.


[tag word: PUMPKIN GIRL - @shoezimm]

Year of the Cat by Al Stewart

One of the most beautiful songs ever. Seriously, I would be thrilled to pieces if I could play this piece on the piano. I love the imagery, the music....the way this song takes me back to being a child in the 70's (yes I am old). There is something so wonderful about a song that actually spins out a story to you, rather than the bubblegum catchy hooks but empty phrases of so much of today's music. Stewart had several other hits including "Song on the Radio" and "Time Passages".



On a morning from a Bogart movie
In a country where they turn back time
You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre
Contemplating a crime

She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running
Like a watercolor in the rain
Don't bother asking for explanations
She'll just tell you that she came

In the year of the cat

She doesn't give you time for questions
As she locks up your arm in hers
And you follow till your sense of which direction
Completely disappears

By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls
There's a hidden door she leads you to
These days, she says, "I feel my life
Just like a river running through"

The year of the cat

Why she looks at you so coolly?
And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea
She comes in incense and patchouli
So you take her, to find what's waiting inside

The year of the cat

Well morning comes and you're still with her
And the bus and the tourists are gone
And you've thrown away your choice and lost your ticket
So you have to stay on

But the drumbeat strains of the night remain
In the rhythm of the new-born day
You know sometime you're bound to leave her
But for now you're going to stay

In the year of the cat
Year of the cat

This isn't the same as the Death Cab song I shared earlier (which not only told a story, but felt like poetry), however, it does kick my imagination into high gear. Bonus points if you recognized that this song was inspired by the movie "Casablanca".

"Play it again, Sam".

And depression sets in.... "Something More"

I want something more substantial than tears to keep me through the night; flowing freely from my heart twisting in pain. A seemingly never-ending river winding its salty path down my cheeks to stain my lips. Lips that will never again have someone taste them...or even want to try. Years of loneliness stretch before me like an open highway of torment: seeing what others possess, what I lack and would so desperately love to have. A life of one is the most wasted being in the world.