Category Archives: Poetry

14
Dec
2009

What is success?

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Posted in Motivation, Poetry
We all want to be “successful”. But what does “success” mean? Here’s what Ralph Waldo Emerson thinks about it: To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, To find [...]

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03
Dec
2009

Feel the salt wind spitting in your face

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Posted in Poetry, Travel
Here’s an extract from Tony Hoagland’s poem Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet. I like it because it reminds me how vast our lifetime is, as opposed to the too-fleeting sands I normally see it as. And I’m always prone to enjoying verse that talks about “feel the salt wind spitting in your face”. Imagine being [...]

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18
Nov
2009

Warning! When I am an old woman I shall wear purple

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Posted in Poetry
Don’t wait until you are old to live a little. When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me. And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves and satin candles, and say we’ve no money for butter. I shall sit [...]

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15
Oct
2009

Go as a pilgrim and seek out danger

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Posted in Best Bits, Motivation, Poetry, Writing
A fantastic excerpt from a James Elroy Flecker poem that I stumbled across here. Go as a pilgrim and seek out danger far from the comfort and the well lit avenues of life. Pit your every soul against the unknown and seek stimulation in the comfort of the brave. Experience cold, hunger, heat and thirst [...]

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01
Oct
2009

Pass through Paradise in a Dream

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Posted in Poetry
“If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awoke – Aye, and what then?” S.T. Coleridge DON’T MISS A THING – FREE MONTHLY UPDATE BY [...]

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19
Aug
2009

Hiking in British districts, I picnic in virgin firths

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Posted in Poetry, Writing
An extract from Eunoia, one of my favourite books this year, about the delights of being out in nature in the summer. Can you spot what is unusual about this passage? Hiking in British districts, I picnic in virgin firths, grinning in mirth with misfit whims, smiling if I find birch twigs, smirking if I [...]

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14
Jul
2009

Hunger and Night and the Stars

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Posted in Our World, Poetry, Ramblings
“Were you ever out on the Great Alone, When the moon was awful clear, And the icy mountains hemmed you in With a silence you ‘most could hear With only the sound of a timber wolf And you camped there, in the cold, A half-dead thing in a stark, dead world, Clean mad for the [...]

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05
Jul
2009

Never retreat to the ‘glorious past’

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Posted in Poetry
I wrote a while ago about living in the moment and not trying to over-prolong it. One of the post’s comments came from Mike Barnes. He said that the post reminded him of a poem. I did not know the poem, but I enjoyed it and decided to share it here. ‘Never go Back’ by [...]

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18
Jun
2009

How much junk in my life do I really need?

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Posted in Poetry, Ramblings
Lyrics from Waterfall by James: Watching too much TV I’m an actor in a puppet show. There’s so much stuff in my life, no room for me to grow. One day I’m going to break from my life – due south down to Mexico, I’m going to burn down my house it’s the only way [...]

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08
Jun
2009

Thalassa

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Posted in Poetry, Travel, Writing
Run out the boat, my broken comrades; Let the old seaweed crack, the surge Burgeon oblivious of the last Embarkation of feckless men, Let every adverse force converge- Here we must needs embark again. Run up the sail, my heartsick comrades; Let each horizon tilt and lurch- You know the worst: your wills are fickle, [...]

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19
May
2009

The Unfolding Road

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Posted in Best Bits, Our World, Poetry, Ramblings, Travel
I was asked to read a poem at a friend’s wedding last week. The poem (Ben Okri’s ‘To An English Friend In Africa’) was one of my favourites, in fact it is the one that I have carried with me on all my journeys for a decade or so. Here’s a few snippets. Be grateful [...]

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20
Jan
2009

Only a Person who Risks is Free

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Posted in Motivation, Poetry
Last night Ben and I spoke at a school as part of a fundraising evening for Hope and Homes for Children. The charity’s founder, Colonel Mark Cook also spoke. Mark is a very impressive man, with an inspiring life story. At the end of his talk he read this poem, also found in Face Dancing: [...]

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17
Nov
2008

Antarctica, by Derek Mahon

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Posted in Poetry, South Pole
‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’ The others nod, pretending not to know. At the heart of the ridiculous, the sublime. He leaves them reading and begins to climb, Goading his ghost into the howling snow; He is just going outside and may be some time. The tent recedes beneath its [...]

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20
Oct
2008

A Portrait in the Interior

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Posted in Motivation, Poetry, South Pole, Writing
Where can you place him – among natural species? There are precisely none in the hinterland away from the qualified society of the littoral - the stink of guano, the litter of penguin feathers, whole colonies of raucous innocents massacred or protected at will, flapping their impotent rage at the skuas’ tricks and thievery. You [...]

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17
Oct
2008

The difficulties of writing

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Posted in Poetry, Writing
I spent a couple of hours yesterday helping a friend edit the book he is writing. It reminded me how exasperatingly difficult writing a book can be at times. Reading my friend’s latest chapter I had the sense that something was not quite right. However it was difficult to put my finger on exactly what [...]

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17
Oct
2008

The Call of the Wild: Robert Service

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Posted in Poetry
Have you gazed on naked grandeur where there’s nothing else to gaze on, Set pieces and drop-curtain scenes galore, Big mountains heaved to heaven, which the blinding sunsets blazon, Black canyons where the rapids rip and roar? Have you swept the visioned valley with the green stream streaking through it, Searched the Vastness for a [...]

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15
Sep
2008

Some day, if you are lucky, you’ll return from a thunderous Journey

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Posted in Poetry, Travel, Writing
Some day, if you are lucky, you’ll return from a thunderous journey trailing snake scales, wing fragments and the musk of Earth and moon. Eyes will examine you for signs of damage, or change and you, too, will wonder if your skin shows traces of fur, or leaves, if thrushes have built a nest of [...]

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31
Jul
2008

The Bright Field – RS Thomas

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Posted in Poetry, Writing
I have seen the sun break through to illuminate a small field for a while, and gone my way and forgotten it. But that was the pearl of great price, the one field that had treasure in it. I realize now that I must give all that I have to possess it. Life is not [...]

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15
May
2008

Jorge Luis Borges – The Instants

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Posted in Best Bits, Poetry
If I could I would live my life over. This time I would try to make more mistakes. I would try not to be so perfect, I would laugh more. I would be so much sillier than I have been 
that I would take few things seriously. I would be less hygienic. I would risk [...]

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20
Sep
2007

Ulysses

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Posted in Poetry, Writing
A poem to get the wanderlust boiling… And, a couple of factoids: Captain Scott’s epitaph is the final line of this poem. And - BREAKING NEWS - the title of my second book is now taken from this poem too. Any guesses…? It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these [...]

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