Poetry Thursday 53 - Ower

 A villanelle about flowers or rhyming ours, towers and showers; or hour and flour; or four and pour. Confusing or what?

Ower

 

Enjoy the natural blooming flowers,

decorating this special place,

benefitting from earth’s frequent showers.

 

Placed to best enhance their growing powers,

so to maintain that particular race,

enjoy the natural blooming flowers.

 

Cutting or training to enhance bowers,

a short lived usage, unnatural case,

benefitting from earth’s frequent showers.

 

Surely better in familiar towers,

rather than translated to a new space,

enjoy the natural blooming flowers.

 

They are not placed to benefit ours,

but to work in tandem with insect race,

benefitting from earth’s frequent showers.

 

Leave them glow in their natural towers,

don’t cut them for aesthetic selfish place,

enjoy the natural blooming flowers,

benefitting from earth’s frequent showers.

©David L Atkinson August 2024

In a simpler style a description illustrating that the tongue can be mightier than the sword. 

 

Older funnier

 

I looked in two mirrors at the back of my head,

not hair did I see but bright, shiny skin instead,

no doubt another source of manic public mirth,

at least when young, fewer assaults on one’s self-worth.

 

Harder when young to use damage limitation,

defending the deep emotional incision,

about height, or weight, or colour, or creed, or team,

about everything different or so it seems.

 

But when older, available targets increase

daily or so it seems, to disturb normal peace,

apparently there’s a human desire to scoff,

what else do we do but grimace and laugh it off.

©David L Atkinson August 2024 

God Bless 

Writing - Your own words

 It seems that politicians tell lies, but in all fairness what the actually do is hide facts in a snowstorm of white noise to obscure their failures and their real plans. When we create a story, fiction, we can be like George Orwell and produce our own versions of the truth and even language. 

I was inspired to tackle this topic when I re-read 1984 and came across the explanation of double think. 

 The act of doublethink occurs in more subtle details throughout the novel. 

Doublethink is the act of holding, simultaneously, two opposite, individually exclusive ideas or opinions and believing in both simultaneously and absolutely. Doublethink requires using logic against logic or suspending disbelief in the contradiction.

This sounds rather like our politicians, all parties, attempting to cling on to or gain power in Westminster. The fact that the job is to run the country for the benefit of the citizens, not the billionaires, weapons manufacturers or shareholders; seems to be secondary these days. 

Three examples of doublethink used throughout 1984 include the slogans: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength.

When we create our art we have the same freedom as Orwell did to produce the unique or fanciful. More recently than Orwell, J K Rowling introduced us to muggles, none magical folk, dementers and other mystical creatures. Phillip Pullman introduced us to the vagaries of dust. 

The only limits to what we produce is our own imaginations. 

God Bless 

Writing - Evolving language

 So in continuing to think about writing story writing in fact writing have anything at all it's important to remember that the vehicle that we use, language, is continuously evolving. Words that I considered slang and I was taught were slang by my parents are now socially acceptable and appear in the most prodigious dictionaries. As a result of changes the impacts and effect on what we write has also changed and is also dynamic. 

It's not just the physical representation on the page of what we want to say but also the subtle meanings of the sentences that we write. I collected together a number of old sayings from a variety of sources which are mildly entertaining but also quite informative as to where language was a number of years ago.

These sayings/insults are incredible gems from an era before the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words! I hope you delight in them as much as I have. 😅♥️

 

1. "He had delusions of  adequacy. ” Walter Kerr

 2. "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.”- Winston Churchill

3. "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure. - Clarence Darrow

4. "He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.”-William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)

5. "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"- Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)

6. "Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it.” - Moses Hadas

7. "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” - Mark Twain

8. "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” - Oscar Wilde

 9. "I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one.”   - George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

10. "Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one.” - Winston Churchill, in response

11. "I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here” - Stephen Bishop

12. "He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” - John Bright

God Bless 

Poetry Thursday 16 - What's the Message

 As a member of a generation several times removed from the present day I am coming closer to the realisation that the language I was taught is foreign in comparison to now. 

What’s the Message

 

I wonder what we’ve come to,

when a lion is a tiger,

the signal sent out is new,

but the meaning is unclear.

 

It used to be easier,

when receptors didn’t need to woke,

when the statement was clear,

and the words were as they were  spoke.

 

But now lion or tiger could be tabby,

historic positions are not kosher,

decade of free love shabby,

how do oldies become adapter?

  

Aren’t we all simply humans,

including preferences and faults,

communicating with other humans,

faced with unexpected jolts.

 

Society’s impositions not needed,

fashionable attitudes keep out,

leave us to relate unheeded,

we can manage without your shout.

© David L Atkinson November 2023 

God Bless