WGS84

Genuflect: Kneeling on a pew in worship.

Cicadian rhythm: Your body's natural 24 hour clock. Your wake-sleep cycle.

Proletariat: The workers of society/the working class.

Solipsism: Believing that only your mind or your views exist or are valid

"It's equal rights. I have the right to see fine in every colour" - (Mary Jackson, Hidden Figures).

"If you don't like how a sausage is made, eat it with your eyes closed" (John Shaft II).

"I'm an equal opportunities ass whooper" (John Shaft II).

"Apologising does not always mean you’re wrong and the other person is right. It just means you value your relationship more than your ego" 

- (Mike Matthews)

• "And so he told me his secret formula for happiness. Part one of the two-part plan was that I should just get on with ordinary life, living it day by day, like anyone else.

• 
  

• But then came part two of Dad's plan. He told me to live every day again almost exactly the same. The first time with all the tensions and worries that stop us noticing how sweet the world can be, but the second time noticing

• 
  

• And in the end I think I've learned the final lesson from my travels in time; and I've even gone one step further than my father did. The truth is I now don't travel back at all, not even for the day. I just try to live every day as if I've deliberately come back to this one day, to enjoy it, as if it was the full final day of my extraordinary, ordinary life."

- (Tim Lake, About Time)

Corinthians 13:7 

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Why go out for hamburger when you have steak at home? (Paul Newman)

The world is perfect. Appreciate the details. (Dean, The Dead Don't Die)

Contentment is the greatest wealth above all.

A monks true duty is to become a beacon of hope for others especially those who have made mistakes and have nowhere to turn.

The only thing that does not change in this world is change itself.

- (Monk Anek, Episode 'Buddha Data' from Tomorrow + I)

It wasn't a judgement. It was a comment of sincere praise.

(Yo-han, The Fiery Priest, S1:E5)

If the celestial bodies are the great universe, the world humans live in is the small universe. Each human is a star and I'm studying the stars everyday, one by one, while scanning barcodes.

(Yo-han, The Fiery Priest, S1:E7)

The bigger the star, the sooner it burns out. You're going to burn strong and long, just like a small star.

(Yo-han, The Fiery Priest, S1:E8)

A tiger that protects the King.

(Song-sak, The Fiery Priest, S1:E13)

With age, people should gain dignity, not visceral fat.

(Kim Hae-il/Father Michael, S1:E14)

You should think carefully, since you only have one canvas (when Prosecutor Park wondered if she should get a tattoo).

(Kim Hae-il/Father Michael, S1:E14)

I was just feeling the gravity.

(Yo-han, The Fiery Priest, S1:E20)

Kindness should never be against the rules.

(Father Brown, S12:E7)

My nerves are turned on. 

I hear them like musical instruments. 

Where there was silence the drums, the strings are incurably playing. 

You did this.
Pure genius at work. 

Darling, the composer has stepped into fire.

(Anne Sexton)

Watch out for love
(unless it is true,
and every part of you says yes including the toes)

(Anne Sexton)

Have nothing in your room that you do not believe to be beautiful or know to be useful.

(William Morris)

===

Love Letters of Great Men

Notable entries

I wake filled with thoughts of you. [...] the intoxicating evening which we spent yesterday have left my senses in turmoil. Sweet, incomparable Josephine, what a strange effect you have on my heart!

[...] I shall see you in three hours. Until then, mio dolce amor, a thousand kisses; but give me none in return, for they set my blood on fire.

Napoleon Bonaparte (December 1795).

===

[...] write me a four page letter instantly made up from those delightful words which full my heart with emotion and joy. 

I hope to hold you in my arms before long, when I shall lavish upon you a million kisses, burning as the equatorial sun.

Napoleon Bonaparte (1797).

===

Out of the depths of my happy heart wells a great tide of love and prayer for this priceless treasure that is confided to my life-long keeping.

You cannot see its intangible waves as they flow towards you, darling, but in these lines you will hear, as it were, the distant beating of the surf.

Mark Twain (May 1869)

===

Don't write too legibly or intelligibly as I have no occupation so pleasantvas pondering for hours over your hieroglyphics, and for hours more trying to interpret your dark sayings.

A clearly written simply expressed letter is too like the lightening.

Cuff Cooper (June 1914)

===

[...] You have set a crown of roses on my youth and fortified me against the disaster of our days.

Your courageous gaiety has inspired me with joy. Your tender faithfulness has been a rock of security and comfort. [...] You have intensified all colours, heightened all beauty, deepened all delight.

Cuff Cooper (August 1918)

===

ever thine

ever mine

ever ours 

Ludwig van Beethoven (July 1806)

===

* This anthology consisting of love letters written by great men throughout history was originally created as a prop for the film 'Sex and the City' *

Blades of Grass Have Scars

Blades of grass have scars

And so do flower petals

When I walk along the field path
We walked together

And sit on the field path

Overlooking the sunset

The scarred blades of grass

Will wave their hands at you

But it's the flowers that bear many scars

That are the most fragrant.

Poem written by Jeong Ho-seung

Slough

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!

It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

Written by John Betjeman in 1937

Yellow submarine

Creme tangerine 

montelimar

ginger sling 

pineapple heart

coffee dessert

Savoy truffle

cherry cream

apple tart

Coconut fudge 

Home sweet home

Desmond and Molly Jones

Ob-la-di ob-la-da...

Follow the sun

Some kind of happiness is measured out in miles

* A found poem inspired by various songs by The Beatles *

Leisure

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 or 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.



Written by William H. Davies

Winter in Egypt

Aswan to Wadi Halfa

Big scarlet Rolls Royce

Linnet Ridgeway 

Autocratic features

Malton-under-Wode

Wode Hall

Chez Ma Tante

An ecstasy of strange discordant noises

The fat woman in purple was looking radiant

Snow on the Desert's Face

Under the Fig Tree

Pearl-handled

J

* A found poem inspired by Death on the Nile written by Agatha Christie *

Carla Crale

Superficial smoothness

Crude contrasts

Canary-yellow shirt

Violent blue sea

Calumny

A very moral life

Big grey eyes - like dead lakes

Dante meeting Beatrice on a bridge

Blind girl sitting on an orange and called Hope

Hoydenish

Always the chivalrous pukka sahib

Rich but tiresome

Desultory 

* Found poem inspired by 'Five Little Pigs' written by Agatha Christie *

Littlegreen House, Market Basing

The Arundell family home

Period house of character consisting of:

• Four reception rooms
• Eight bedrooms and dressing
• Usual offices
• Commodious kitchen premises
• Ample outbuildings, stable etc. 
• Main water
• Old world gardens, inexpensive upkeep, amounting in all to three acres
• Two summerhouses

Price £2850 or near offer.

The morning room

Pleasant room with its long windows giving on the street.

Furnished with good solid, old fashioned furniture, mostly Victorian.

A Chippendale bookcase.

A set of Hepplewhite chairs.

The dining room

Victorian room with:

• a heavy mahogany dining table
• a massive sideboard of almost purple mahogany with great clusters of carved fruit
• solid leather-covered dining room chairs
• Family portraits hung on the wall

The drawing room

Chintzes patterned with garlandsnof roses.

Prints and watercolour drawings on the walls.

China shepherds and shepherdesses.

Cushions worked in crewel stitch.

Photographs in handsome silver frames.

Inlaid work boxes and tea caddies.

Tissue paper ladies under glass stands. One with a spinning wheel and one with a cat on her knee.

Elegant little table with two drawers in it.

Various cupboards

A downstairs cloakroom

A small pantry place

Bedrooms

* Information derived from 'Dumb Witness' written by Agatha Christie *

Miss Emily Arundell

Dr and Mrs Tanios in the Oak room

Theresa in the Blue room

Mr Charles in the Old Nursery

Epistle 

Market Basing

Dr Grainger
Valentines beef juice
Brands essence 
Teaspoonfuls of brandy

Spasmodic

Pince-nez

Easter Tuesday

Half a gooseberry pie

Dr Loughbarrow's Liverpool Capsules 

Size 50

Eight and six 

Stock Breeders Gazette

* Found poem inspired by the 'Dumb Witness' written by Agatha Christie *

Clara Is Snoring

Colour my wings like yours

And I’ll fly to you,

Soft as silk and lighter than air,

Teach me to glide,

If I can float at your side

There will be no-one as happy as I

Butterfly!

Swallowtail, Tortoise Shell, Grayling too

Painted Lady, Skipper, large and small

Meadow Brown, Red Admiral and Holly Blue

Camberwell Beauty and all

Winter lights, shimmer bright

And shine upon the peaceful scene below.

Winter lights on this winter night

Illuminate and set the world a-glow.

Christmas come now and fill us with love

Bring your spirit of grace from above

Christmas come let your hope be restored

A la nanita nana, nanita ella, nanita ella

Mi Jesus tiene sueño, bendito sea, bendito sea

Shine, advent candle shine,

Advent candle, candle shine.

Choir practise autumn 2023

Venom

 Translucent glass, like unpolished diamond 

Hiding its contents

Shaped like a snake

A scent as old as the insides of pyramids

A scent as old as dark and unforgiving as the death of Kings

Eau de Athletes Foot

* A found poem composed by the Domestic Goblin in May 2023. Inspired by The Perfume written by Caroline B. Cooney *

Forever Summer

Ideal world inhabited by the chef

Lyrical insistence

Summer, a hopeful projection

Extending that purring sense of sunny expansiveness

Summer food

Ideas hungrily mooted

Slut Red Raspberries in Chardonnay Jelly

* A found poem composed by the Domestic Goblin in August 2023 - inspired by Nigella Lawson *

Ode To Autumn by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For Summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

~

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

 Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

~

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

 Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

~

* Information and images from Wikipedia *

Are You Asleep?

Early era 'texting' in the Joseon Dynasty

"In the sleepless night, I stepped outside,

and only one thing shines in the dark night sky.

I thought it was the moon, 

but it turns out to be my mate."

"Sometimes I am distracted,

I can drown by sinking into the thoughts of you.

So please come rowing to me,

I have never sent you away."

"I might die from calling your name!

I might think of you, because I can't forget you!"

"There's no way to forgive estranged hearts.

Is there a path for us to walk together?

I hope that we can walk on the same path next time, though it is a path in our dreams."

* Information taken from episode 11 of Mr Queen / 철인왕후 *

Their Majesties

 "...And wherever you may live in the United Kingdom, or in the Realms and territories across the world, and whatever may be your background or beliefs, I shall endeavour to serve you with loyalty, respect and love, as I have throughout my life." (King Charles III)

An Unexpected Guest

featuring Samuel Pepys

She’s treated herself to new shoes, a window seat

on the fast train, a hotel for a night.

She’s been to the capital twice before,

once to see Tutankhamun when she was nine

and once when it rained. Crossing The Mall

she’s just a person like everyone else

but her hand keeps checking the invitation,

her thumb strumming the gilded edge of the card,

her finger tracing the thread of embossed leaves.

In sight of the great porch she can’t believe

the police just step aside, that doors shaped

for God and giants should open to let her in.

She’s taken her place with ambulance drivers

and nurses and carers and charity workers,

a man who alchemised hand sanitiser

from gin, a woman who walked for sponsored miles,

the boy in the tent. The heads of heads of state

float down the aisle, she knows the names

of seven or eight. But the music’s the thing:

a choir transmuting psalms into sonorous light,

the cavernous sleepwalking dreams

of the organ making the air vibrate,

chords coming up through the soles of her feet.

Somewhere further along and deeper in

there are golden and sacred things going on:

glimpses of crimson, flashes of jewels

like flames, high priests in their best bling,

the solemn wording of incantations and spells,

till the part where promise and prayer become fused:

the moment is struck, a pact is sworn.

And got to the abby . . . raised in the middle . . .

Bishops in cloth-of-gold Copes . . .

nobility all in their parliament-robes . . .

The Crowne being put on his head

a great shout begun. And he came forth . . .

taking the oath . . . And Bishops . . . kneeled

. . . and proclaimed . . . if any could show

any reason why Ch. . . . should not be the King . . .

that now he should come and speak . . .

The ground covered with blue cloth . . .

And the King came in with his Crowne . . .

and mond . . . and his sceptre in hand . . .

She’ll watch it again on the ten o’clock news

from the armchair throne in her living room:

did the cameras notice her coral pink hat

or her best coat pinned with the hero’s medal she got

for being herself? The invitation is propped

on the mantelpiece by the carriage clock.

She adorned the day with ordinariness;

she is blessed to have brought the extraordinary home.

And now she’ll remember the house sparrow

she thought she’d seen in the abbey roof

arcing from eave to eave, beyond and above.

Written by Poet Laureate Simon Armitage

Royally approved dishes for the Coronation Lunch

~ Coronation Quiche

A vegetarian quiche made with spinach, broad beans and tarrogan. Created by royal head chef Mark Flanagan. This combines two of the King's favourite ingredients: egg and cheese.

~ Coronation Aubergine

A spiced aubergine dish topped with a yoghurt dressing created by the 2015 Great British Bake Off winner Nadiya Hussain.

~ Coronation Roast Rack of Lamb 

 Marinated with sesame oil, mustard and soy sauce.  Created by Ken Hom CBE and showcasing the fusion of cultures and flavours that represents the hallmark of modern Great Britain. Served with roast potatoes and green salad.

~ Coronation Strawberry and Ginger Trifle

Created by Michelin-starred chef owner Adam Handling and showcasing some of Britain's best ingredients: ginger custard, parkin, strawberries and whipped cream.

God Save King Charles!

Roses are Red, Violets are Blue

A Brief History of Modern Art in Poetry by Brian Bilston

Impressionism

Roses sway in softened reds,

Violets swim in murky blues.

Sugar sparkles in the light,

Blurring into golden you.

Surrealism

Roses are melting.

Violets are too.

Ceci n'est pas le sucre.

Keith is a giant crab.

Social Realism

 Roses are dead.

Violence is rife.

Don't sugar coat 

This bitter life.

Abstract Expressionism

So you violets sweet.

Roses you are is

red are roses blue

Sugar?

Pop Art

Roses go BLAM!

Violets go POW!

Sugar is COOL!

You are so WOW!

Conceptual Art

Roses are red,

coated in blood.

A deer's severed head

drips from above.

* Read by various actors at the National Theatre *

Καλυψώ

tongue buried in mouth's hole

rejecting the poisons with a man's retching roar

Strawberries & snails sinking & rising in my cidercup

She gushes like piss

that seductive sunshine 

A ragged-arsed urchin

But the nagging persistence of the rain

you can touch & look but not possess or read

Spectacles are opaque with raindrops

the tawny fenlands

the aroma of crushed cloves

The paroxysm of an embrace

the priests of false holiness

the void is cancelled by our own assertion

Their faces shine from the effects of weather & soap

mild soft cheese & pickles in the rain

smile as though you ate the sun for breakfast

real sabbath trousers

how unestatic of them

little yellow cups of Prunelle Boyer

sniff the smoky November day

Years of spirit genius engineering

do not be too overawed by wide open spaces

love France by all means but love your own language first

a foul smelling perfume of decaying brilliance

like a diamond thinly coated in excrement 

& till the mouth opens we don't know what's going to come out

kind is a world/is a word lacking intention like a chip done in Frymax

like a cold shower of eels

when you're in love with a married woman 

you shouldn't wear mascara 

eating my breakfast in my honeysuckle arbour

flashing blue light

a strong smell of burning onions

don't knock fresh bread if you've always had plenty on the shelf 

going up the pike with only a teaspoon & a can of Corimist

in the kitchens with the avocados

a piece of chocolate sweating in the sun

in a velvet liaison with her boulevards

the strawberries were ripening

my ideas were turning blonde

the sky glazes over the purified volcanoes

it will soon be 2pm in the charcoal afternoon 

dusk will come before tea

a reply to the lobster or a Moon solo

"Is this the ambulance or the way to the hot dog stand?"

friendly academic barflies

the blue salmon

purple shoes are dancing on a whiff of fading sandalwood 

elemental my dear Hudson

the taste of copper pennies

Get me a drink more powerful than dreams

All this bacon is too much

like a bayleaf in the sky

is that a scar or a drop of Kölsch on the white rock maple

lair before home except after tea

fickle as corduroy clean as your hair

The salt & vinegar man 

Gritty sandwich on the beach and salt on the skin

At night they lie in bed & hold hands counting the stars

a crispy leaf torn away in air

old already born this year

the life of oysters and the life of Reilly are not to be compared

i am a doughnut

Schubert spoke to me in the bath

this cat is wearing a noisy coat

ah little pen it's deep midwinter

a patrician head

* This found poem was created using words borrowed from John James: a poet and one of DG's favourite university lecturers *