Thursday

New Year

Several days have passed since my last post and I apologise for that. I have taken a decision that I will no longer try to post everyday. This was becoming a strain on me and over Christmas it really showed. So I still intend to regularly blog, just not every day.
Since the start of the year I have taken control of the library poetry group, which I really don't have time for but will do as best I can. The theme of our next meeting in February is love, as we are meeting close to Valentines day, which in the UK is a celebration of such things. I am already working on a love poem and would like to think that I could do several, time will tell. This one is a really mushy love you till I die type poem and is intended to be short. At the moment it is three stanzas long and I have no plans to lengthen it.
Our parish priest left as planned and was pleased to receive his poems. I had a very nice thank you card back from him which I will stash away and keep. My thinking at the moment is very much on the theme of love, the types and expressions of love. Any ideas please comment I always appreciate inspiration.

Friday

Day Out

Today is the last day of my wife's Christmas break and also my day off. So we abandoned life and went out. We went to the historic city of Bath and enjoyed a day of mooching around the shops looking for bargains. Didn't find many but did enjoy the distraction. I'm not a shopping person and do so only rarely.
I received some invitations to enter a poetry competition for the poetry group which is good news. They obviously want interaction and so do we. The winner gets a collection made into a book which can't be bad.
Communication has also been had with my Welsh priest friend who is away with friends. Hopefully he will try his luck with the Manchester poetry competition.
The bottom line is that it has been really good to get out and forget my worries for a while in the company of the one I love most.

Peace Dave.

Thursday

Begin As

As I am often reminded by the elderly, you are not dead until you are dead. It's easy to give up, to throw your hands up in the air and stop trying. What surprises me are the number of feisty, and powerful older people doing things that many people younger than I would be scared to try. I believe that God blesses our efforts and that for this reason alone we should give our all in all the things we do. I also believe that God never pushes us harder than we can take. As testament to this, since Tuesday a person has contacted me to join the poetry group. Great news and a real boost for me. My confidence restored I look forward to a good new year of poetry and Christian fellowship, join us.

Peace Dave.

Wednesday

Let Down

Things did not go well for the poetry group yesterday as no one turned up. The Librarians (the group meets in the local library) were very kind, as they always are but I still felt a lot less than comfortable. O.K. I tell myself there may well be a hundred reasons for their absence not least the fact it is so close to New Year. I have to admit That I felt a little let down.
The time was not lost though and I am not the kind of person that gives up easily. The library was quiet so I took the time to read, in peace, which is a rarity for me. That was good. I also found time to rite a small advert for the group and list all the meeting dates for the forthcoming year. I set a topic too so that anyone who wants to can produce a piece on the topic. As we are meeting a week before Valentines day I picked love. Essentially job done I accepted a cup of tea from the librarians and went home in a melancholy mood. Better luck next time.

Peace Dave.

Tuesday

Poetry Group

Slightly worried today. This is the first meeting of the local poetry group since the departure of the librarian leading it. I am essentially landed with running it or letting it fail. I don't really feel I can do either and certainly don't want to do both. To be fair the library staff who have been thinned out recently have been very supportive and friendly. But they will not run the group. So today, like it or lump it I am in charge. I have prepared a few things and have a few leaflets to hand out but will largely be winging it as I have had almost zero time to prepare. My chief worry is that the time needed to lead the group will eat into the precious time that I have for creating poetry. No matter how good or bad my poetry is I still want to create it and want the time to do that in. So my position is this, I am a stand in until a proper leader can be found with time to run things properly.
Being new year we will, I hope be looking at beginnings and thinking about how to make fresh starts, resolutions e.t.c. But to be honest I will not kerb a free flowing discussion and would rather have a mystery tour that's fun than a set journey that no one wants. Any advice on running poetry groups would be welcomed.

Peace Dave

Monday

New Start

Made it !

Another fresh new year and another chance to pick up the reins, so's to speak. Lots of challenges and problems too I'm sure. No matter, we are still here and so long as we are we can carry on. But with one change, lets carry on better. What ever we do, when ever we do it, who ever we do it to or for, lets try to do it better. Iv'e added a poem called The Future which is for all the people who can't believe it's 2007 or never thought they'd live this long or see so much.

Happy New Year !

The Future.

Well here we are,
Where we all wanted to be.
Far from the life we knew,
In the time we all thought we’d never live to see.

All our old friends behind us,
Laid in the folds of life.
Echoes from our journey,
Sometimes crying joy, sometimes screaming strife.

Luxuries all around us,
Pastel shades and shining chrome.
Central locking, ninety channels,
Credit histories chipped and pinned on every home.

A communication satellite flies,
Where we expected Dan Dare.
Leisure time is loaded with stress,
Fast food single parent families dashing every where.

The future has arrived,
It brought wrinkles and old age.
Muddied the dreams we cherished,
Fudged the present and made itself harder to gauge.

Peace Dave