Category: poetry

When giving is all we have

Joey Jones9 Comments

Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.

One river gives its journey to the next

We give because someone gave to us.
We give because nobody gave to us.

We give because giving has changed us.
We give because giving could have changed us.

We have been better for it,
We have been wounded by it—

Giving has many faces: It is loud and quiet,
Big, though small, diamond in wood-nails.

Its story is old, the plot worn and the pages too,
But we read this book, anyway, over and again:

Giving is, first and every time, hand to hand,
Mine to yours, yours to mine.

You gave me blue and I gave you yellow.
Together we are simple green. You gave me

What you did not have, and I gave you
What I had to give—together, we made

Something greater from the difference.

Alberto Rios (1952 ~ )

Words by W.H.Davies

Joey Jones3 Comments

You get some great, amazingly fantastic news. What’s the first thing you do?

Great, amazingly fantastic news? I imagine I would cry.

And now, with the DP answered and a lovely empty page below, I will put Nature’s Friend a poem by one of my favourite peeps, W.H. Davies.

Say what you like,
All things love me!
I pick no flowers –
That wins the Bee.

The Summer’s Moths
Think my hand one –
To touch their wings –
With Wind and Sun.

The garden Mouse
Comes near to play;
Indeed, he turns
His eyes away.

The Wren knows well
I rob no nest;
When I look in.
She still will rest.

The hedge stops Cows,
Or they would come
After my voice
Right to my home.

The Horse can tell,
Straight from my lip.
My hand could not
Hold any whip.

Say what you like,
All things love me!
Horse, Cow, and Mouse,
Bird, Moth and Bee.


by William Henry Davies (1871 ~ 1940)

Words by William Ernest Henley

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What are your favourite sports to watch and play? WP, I’ve got no words of my own for today’s DP. As ever I give this space to another

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

By William Ernest Henley  (1849~193)

Words by Christina Rossetti

Joey Jones4 Comments

Remember me when I am gone away,
         Gone far away into the silent land;
         When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
         You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
         Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
         And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
         For if the darkness and corruption leave
         A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
         Than that you should remember and be sad.

Remember Me by Christina Rossetti 1830~1894

With words by Edgar A. Guest

Joey Jones4 Comments

Come up with a crazy business idea.

Oh dear WP!..I just can’t get my ahead around this DP today. There is zero in the tank, so forgive me whilst I go off-piste.

Back in time, there were discrepancies about the original author of this poem Today, historians and librarians give credit to British born American Edgar A. Guest ( 1881-1959)

Keep Going

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all up hill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must—but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up, though the pace seems slow—
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late, when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out—
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit—
It’s when things seem worst that you mustn’t quit.

Words by William Yeats

Joey Jones3 Comments

What are your thoughts on the concept of living a very long life?

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

By William Butler Yeats (1865~1939)

Aston Villa FC and Emily Dickinson

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If you started a sports team, what would the colours and mascot be?

If it’s OK with you WP, I’ll simply stick with my original home team. Aston Villa FC. Claret & Blue. Hercules, the lion is the mascot.

..and guess what ? There is space on this page for the words of another. I know some of you are getting to love this poem as much as I already do.

Hope is a Thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson ( 1830~1886)

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

AI says..The poem uses an extended metaphor comparing abstract hope to a resilient bird that lives in the soul, singing wordlessly but powerfully, sustaining humans through life’s harshest “storms” (gales, chillest land) without ever asking for anything in return, emphasizing hope’s innate, selfless, and persistent nature as a constant, free companion that offers comfort and strength.

and words by W.H.Davies

Joey Jones5 Comments

How have your political views changed over time?

What hasn’t changed is that I find inequality a bitter pill to swallow.

‘World’s top 1% own more wealth than 95% of humanity’ (Oxfam,Sept 2024)

And now WP, with a space left on the page, allow me to fill it with the words of another.

No apologies for posting this again and again,and anyway, I know lots of you love this poem

Leisure, by W.H.Davies (1871~1940)

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—

No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:

No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

A few words from Mary Walker

Joey Jones1 Comment

Describe a man who has positively impacted your life.

This DP leads me to a sadness I have no wish to relive today.

So, as I love to do when there is an empty page below, I will fill it with words of others…

By Mary Walker, a contemporary poet from New Zealand

Freed

It was when the sun broke through
and danced through every raindrop,
turning gloom into something transcendent,
that I wondered
what if all that’s hard
just washed away?

What if the light came down
and freed us all
from guilt, regret and second-guessing?
What would there be
except light shining through water,
and each of us dancing?

Come rain or shine

Joey Jones11 Comments

What are your favorite physical activities or exercises?

Walking my dog three times a day 🐾🐾

Once again, WP, I find that I have an empty page now, so I can fill it with words of another. My favourite poets are mostly from a time gone by, but today something different.

FEATHERS


Each morning I walk the valley
treading the same worn path,
though no bird flies over the same way twice,
the bees attend different flowers,
cicadas sing where yesterday there were none,
and the hawk is scanning new trees.


A feather lies in wait for me,
having fallen from the sky.
No feather will fall in quite the same way;
not in this spot, from that height,
to be caught between two heads of rye.


The land looks the same each day
but is different in a thousand small ways.
We wake thinking one day is much like another,
that we are still who we were the day before,
or we can let ourselves be changed.


We are as new as the world we see;
what looks familiar is not.
Notice what is happening, be the response to your day.
Be delighted, be surprised,
expect feathers.

By Mary Walker, a contemporary poet from New Zealand