Today's poet

[Hes]

what's it al aboot Mr Patridge?...i don't know but i like it, especially the spanish version (see tonight's music...)...back to poetry soon, honest....

Hotel California

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
�this could be heaven or this could be hell�
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...

Welcome to the hotel california
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the hotel california
Any time of year, you can find it here

Her mind is tiffany-twisted, she got the mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

So I called up the captain,
�please bring me my wine�
He said, �we haven�t had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine�
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...

Welcome to the hotel california
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They livin� it up at the hotel california
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis

Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said �we are all just prisoners here, of our own device�
And in the master�s chambers,
They gathered for the feast
The stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can�t kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
�relax,� said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
But you can never leave!

This has a special meaning for me...I have heard it in every single country that I have ever been to including played on the panpipes in Peru. I have a superstition that it is not my time to leave a country until I have heard it somewhere...could be why I got stuck in Mexico for three months!

Just another insight into the strange and disturbed world of Hes! God knows what it is about though...just think he was drinking too much absinthe or something.

[Hes]

Sailing in the snow

This time last night,
your hands, your beautiful hands,
held mine.

They cast their nets
and my hands cast theirs
then as we stepped out into the cold

we found ourselves,
unexpectedly,
sailing in the snow.

Gorgeous...I am enjoying the fishing and sea metaphors.

[freckle]

This has a special meaning for me...I have heard it in every single country that I have ever been to including played on the panpipes in Peru. I have a superstition that it is not my time to leave a country until I have heard it somewhere...could be why I got stuck in Mexico for three months!

Just another insight into the strange and disturbed world of Hes! God knows what it is about though...just think he was drinking too much absinthe or something.

Thats such a funny and brilliant story!...i can only connclude that I have developed some kind of weird saturday night telepathy which has accessed your unconscious mind and deduced the aforementioned travelling ritual!!!!!.................Hes I think you may be following in a long line of loveable British eccentrics, love it!........there's got to be a poem in that little story, surely!!!!!

[Hes]

Thats such a funny and brilliant story!...i can only connclude that I have developed some kind of weird saturday night telepathy which has accessed your unconscious mind and deduced the aforementioned travelling ritual!!!!!.................Hes I think you may be following in a long line of loveable British eccentrics, love it!........there's got to be a poem in that little story, surely!!!!!

I'm all for some saturday night telepathy! I have concluded myself that I am perhaps slightly eccentric...or fruity as a nutcake as my loveable friend once told me, but that is a great British tradition and I am all for a bit of tradition. I was getting worried in India because it was the third week and no Hotel California to be had anywhere then along comes a sitar player on New Year's Eve and hey presto...a rather twangy and hippified version. I was relieved that I would be able to catch my flight in Delhi.

ps my unwritten rule is that it has to be stumbled upon...you can't request it off of a busker or anything just because the border officials are getting restless.

[Chubbs]

Thanks for that Chubbs.

I like bits of it and am glad that you found it touching but I am also slightly disappointed that on rereading it it isn't quite how I intended. In my mind it was going to be profound and I had high hopes for the idea but, on rereading, it seems a bit twee and I wonder if the rhyming ruined it. The problem is that I haven't totally got my head round how to explain the idea so to actually write a poem about it was probably a bit ambitious. Still, you have to start somewhere don't you? I liked your poem very much and you use rhyme so maybe it isn't that.

Very nice of you Hes, thanks. Funny, I didn't find your poem disappointing one bit. As a reader you read it without any preconceptions, not knowing the umming and ahhing that goes on behind the scenes. I think when writing you can ponder too much on how something might read. I found myself changing things far too much then going back to what I had in the first place, and believe me I only used rhyme as that is probably my limit I certainly won't pretend to understand enough about poetry not too.

[Chubbs]

I really like it, lovely use of language to draw comparison between the sea and surfing and fell running, including the references to "ripping fast through bracken breaks" and "wisps of grass lap at the knee"...funnily enough last night i was talking about your metaphor to a dear friend and i was wondering if like surfing there are similar unwritten rules /an etiquette that has to be followed...what came to mind was when surfers make sure they don't "drop in" on someone else's wave...this is particularly important where i hail from when such folk have been waiting around in the icy waters of the north sea waiting to catch a wave...Mmmm, wonder if there is a paralell for fell runners?

anyway I found this (your first??????) poem quite lovely, keep it up

Thank you freckle for your kind words, yes it is my first , only really sat down and thought about it because you put it to me. Glad you got the subtle references, done any surfing yourself? As for fell running etiquette I'm hoping jump over the bloke lying flat on his face is up there . Funny reading your responses to something that normally would never have seen the light of day. Thanks again for the challenge, enjoyed it and certainly makes a change to the norm.

[Nathaniel Lee]

Snow.

Silent white assassin,
Creeps in overnight,
Murdered spring infants,
Suffocated by frozen blanket.

Horizon disappears into the earth,
Government shortfall lets elderly die,
Drivers irresponsible crash and burn,
Repeat over and again when will we change.

By Herakles

[N-dubya]

Hello all

Like the pork pie poem Herakles( i'm now considering a poem that will consider the ills of pork pie consumption)

like the SAIling in snow frecks your best one yet, a good economy of words

[Mossdog]

Life, is a bit like
snow really, we lay around
and then fade away.

[Mossdog]

Life, is a bit like
Spring really, thrusting upwards
and ebullient.