These Foolish Things....

When you thought I wasn't looking

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you hang my first painting on the refrigerator, and I wanted to paint another one. When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you feed a stray cat, and I thought it was good to be kind to animals. When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw you make my favorite cake for me, and I knew that little things are special things. When you thought I wasn't looking, I heard you say a prayer, and I believed there is a God I could always talk to. When you thought I wasn't looking, I felt you kiss me goodnight, and I felt loved. When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw tears come from your eyes, and I learned that sometimes things hurt, but it's all right to cry. When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw that you cared and I wanted to be everything that I could be. When you thought I wasn't looking, I looked... and wanted to say thanks for all the things I saw when you thought I wasn't looking. ...Author Unknown

Timothy Winters......

Have you ever read or seen something and it immediately transported you back to your childhood? well that happened to me this week, I brought home a poetry book from the library, and browsing through it, I came across this poem, I had forgotten all about this one! we learned it at school, I guess I must have been around ten years old, I found it deeply moving then, and no surprise...I still do! and whilst I read it, just for a moment or two, I was ten years old again, sitting cross legged on the chilly parquet floor of the school hall, I could smell the art paper and poster paints awaiting me in the classroom, I remembered the tiny bottles of tepid milk, and the sun streaming through the coloured glass windows, but most of all, I remember glancing over the children seated around me, looking for Timothy winters......did you have a Timothy Winters at your school?

'Timothy Winters'

Timothy Winters comes to school 
With eyes as wide as a football-pool, 
Ears like bombs and teeth like splinters: 
A blitz of a boy is Timothy Winters. 

His belly is white, his neck is dark, 
And his hair is an exclamation-mark. 
His clothes are enough to scare a crow 
And through his britches the blue winds blow. 

When teacher talks he won't hear a word 
And he shoots down dead the arithmetic-bird, 
He licks the pattern off his plate 
And he's not even heard of the Welfare State. 

Timothy Winters has bloody feet 
And he lives in a house on Suez Street, 
He sleeps in a sack on the kithen floor 
And they say there aren't boys like him anymore. 

Old Man Winters likes his beer 
And his missus ran off with a bombardier, 
Grandma sits in the grate with a gin 
And Timothy's dosed with an aspirin. 

The welfare Worker lies awake 
But the law's as tricky as a ten-foot snake, 
So Timothy Winters drinks his cup 
And slowly goes on growing up. 

At Morning Prayers the Master helves 
for children less fortunate than ourselves, 
And the loudest response in the room is when 
Timothy Winters roars "Amen!" 

So come one angel, come on ten 
Timothy Winters says "Amen 
Amen amen amen amen." 
Timothy Winters, Lord. Amen 

Charles Causley

Insomniac

Insomniac

There are some nights when sleep plays coy, aloof and disdainful. And all the wiles that I employ to win its service to my side are useless as wounded pride, and much more painful. Maya Angelou

September

The breezes taste
          Of apple peel.
The air is full
                Of smells to feel-
                  Ripe fruit, old footballs,
              Burning brush,
              New books, erasers,
                 Chalk, and such.
        The bee, his hive,
                      Well-honeyed hum,
       And Mother cuts
                     Chrysanthemums.
                       Like plates washed clean
                        With suds, the days
        Are polished with
                   A morning haze.
                                   -   September, John Updike

Ms Parker....

Afternoon

When I am old, and comforted, And done with this desire, With Memory to share my bed And Peace to share my fire, I'll comb my hair in scalloped bands Beneath my laundered cap, And watch my cool and fragile hands Lie light upon my lap. And I will have a sprigged gown With lace to kiss my throat; I'll draw my curtain to the town, And hum a purring note. And I'll forget the way of tears, And rock, and stir my tea. But oh, I wish those blessed years Were further than they be! Dorothy Parker

Under Milk Wood (excerpt from)

It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the
cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courter's-and-rabbits' wood limping
invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing
sea. The houses are are blind as moles (though moles see fine tonight in the
snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by
the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows'
weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.

Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and
pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the
fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cocklewomen
and the tidy wives. Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with
rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glow-worms down the aisles of the
organplaying wood.   The boys are dreaming wicked of the bucking ranches of the
night and the jollyrodgered sea.  And the anthracite statues of the horses sleep
in the fields, and the cows in the byres, and the dogs in the wet-nosed yard;
and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sly, streaking and needling, on
the one cloud of the roofs.

You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing.

Dylan Thomas.

And this is the add that reminded me of this lovely piece of work!

Bed in summer.

Bed In Summer Poem

In winter I get up at night,
And dress by yellow candle light.
In summer quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day,

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree,
Or hear the grown up people's feet
Still going past me in the street,

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?

by Robert Louis Stevenson

Thought for the day.....

Dance Like there is nobody watching,

Love like you have never been hurt,

Sing like there is nobody listening,

And live like its Heaven on earth.

Mark Twain.

A subalterns Love song

Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
What strenuous singles we played after tea,
We in the tournament - you against me!

Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

Her father's euonymus shines as we walk,
And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
And westering, questioning settles the sun,
On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
And there on the landing's the light on your hair.

By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
Above us the intimate roof of the car,
And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.

And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
We sat in the car park till twenty to one
And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

• Sir John Betjeman.

Romance

Romance

I WILL make you brooches and toys for your delight
Of bird-song at morning and star-shine at night.
I will make a palace fit for you and me,
Of green days in forests and blue days at sea.

I will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room,
Where white flows the river and bright blows the broom,
And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white
In rainfall at morning and dewfall at night.

And this shall be for music when no one else is near,
The fine song for singing, the rare song to hear!
That only I remember, that only you admire,
Of the broad road that stretches and the roadside fire

Robert Louis Stevenson