On The Edge now at Torre Abbey, Torquay, Devon TQ2 5JE until August 31st. http://www.torre-abbey.org.uk

Fantastic medieval setting totally different to the National Waterfront Museum

If you are in Devon go and look, its the most fabulous glass. See photos here http://denisehayes.wordpress.com/2009/04/30/on-the-edge-exhibition/ and herehttp://denisehayes.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/on-the-edge-exhibition-part-2/ if the links don’t take you to the post they were posted in April and May click on the post to see photos. WordPress is so clunky!

I have at last managed to get wordpress and my Mac to work together so the images of America have started to go on line. I have started with Frank Lloyd Wright because this was already in its own folder but I’ll post more as the days go by.  Liz took the photo on the right as I’d left my camera at the hotel but I thought it would make you laugh.  The people in Oak Park have a problem with site-seers parking outside their houses.

Passion by Sue May

What does passion know?

Passion knows nothing

It is red and blind

And plays the congas

With the accuracy of a brain

surgeon.

Passion lives in the heat

It is Irish and confused

It wears a sodden shirt

And plays the double bass

With the fingers of an angel.

Passion speaks in gibberish

It is lost an lonely

It wears broken shoes

And plays the saxophone

With water streaming down its face.

Passion is clever

It is full up and hearty

It wears a leather belt

And sings like a face full of Sun

Passion knows everything.

Taken from ‘Dancing the Tightrope’.

On the other hand it may just describe the menopause.

www.BarackObama.com

The Light of Life

Put out that Light,

Put out that bright Light,

Let darkness fall.

Put out that Day,

It is the time for nightfall.

Stevie Smith

In a flash of summer lightening

Blue Mountain lake

through trees of the forest

I glimpsed water.

Shiki

The photo is one I took at Blue Mountain lake in the Adirondacks, we saw lots of lightening & rain here.  I have just managed to download my photos from Kodak so I’ll post them soon D

PS. When I looked at the photos again I realised Kodak decided not to download any photos taken in the Adirondacks, so this is a photo of the lake after the rain and was taken by Liz.

Warning

by Jenny Joseph

WHEN I AM AN OLD WOMAN I SHALL WEAR PURPLE

With a red hat which doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

And satin sandals, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I’m tired

And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

And run my stick along the public railings

And make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens

And learn to spit You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

And eat three pounds of sausages at a go

Or only bread and pickle for a week

And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry

And pay our rent and not swear in the street

And set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

I think I’ll wear orange, I’m not so keen on purple, it has mourning connotations which is the last thing I need.

I wasn’t around last week so didn’t post a poem, so this week I’ll post 2!! the first of which you should have got last week is by Walt Whitman and called Song of Myself, this is the first verse, its a celebration of being an American, but could be applied to anyone. I should post it on 4th of July but I’ll be in Indianapolis celebrating with Americans.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, 
And what I assume you shall assume, 
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. 

I loafe and invite my soul, 
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. 

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air, 
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their 
parents the same, 
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin, 
Hoping to cease not till death. 

Creeds and schools in abeyance, 
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten, 
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard, 
Nature without check with original energy. 

Waltman age 37 when he wrote the poem. Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman

the 2nd poem is by John Dunne, you can hear Richard Burton read it here.

http://town.hall.org/radio/HarperAudio/013194_harp_01_ITH.au
The Relic
When my grave is broke up again

Some second guest to entertain,

(For graves have learn’d that woman head,

To be to more than one a bed)

And he that digs it, spies

A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,

Will he not let’us alone,

And think that there a loving couple lies,

Who thought that this device might be some way

To make their souls, at the last busy day,

Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?

If this fall in a time, or land,

Where mis-devotion doth command,

Then he, that digs us up, will bring

Us to the bishop, and the king,

To make us relics; then

Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I

A something else thereby;

All women shall adore us, and some men;

And since at such time miracles are sought,

I would have that age by this paper taught

What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

First, we lov’d well and faithfully,

Yet knew not what we lov’d, nor why;

Difference of sex no more we knew

Than our guardian angels do;

Coming and going, we

Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals;

Our hands ne’er touch’d the seals

Which nature, injur’d by late law, sets free;

These miracles we did, but now alas,

All measure, and all language, I should pass,

Should I tell what a miracle she was.

This reminds me of of Side by Side by Philip Larkin. Are they both about enduring/undying love?