poem – Page 47 – don't confuse the narrator

modern manners

I’ve been to several poetry readings in the last couple of weeks, including an anthology launch where I was among the readers, and one by the elderly New Zealand poet C.K. Stead.

The launch lunch for The Apple Anthology (published by Nine Arches Press) was a fairly casual event, with a number of readers, and a varied audience eager to sample the cider, sandwiches – and inevitable apples.

The other events, though, were more formal and I was disconcerted to see people in the audience tapping away at their smart phones and laptop keyboards when I thought they should be listening. (That’s why I chose the photo of the owl, an eminently educated bird, with those marvellously disapproving eyebrows I can never hope to match however much I frown on modern youth.)
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high days and holy days

I’m not a great one for remembering and celebrating the International-Day-of-This and the World-Day-of-That, but this week there were two such days I felt were worth noting: Monday was the feast of St Jerome, patron saint of translators, and Thursday was National Poetry Day in the UK.
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seasonal nostalgia

The tail end of summer always makes me slightly nostalgic.

Every time I see blackberries growing in the hedgerow, I remember that one of the few good things about going back to school after the long summer holidays was knowing that we would go blackberrying the next weekend.

iridescences

I’m back in the village and back to posting pictures of dead bugs. After all, when they’re this beautiful, how can I resist?

The bugs in the poem below aren’t dead. They are, however, as bright as jewels in the early morning sunshine.
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the sun and the stars

It seems wrong not to post to the blog with a poem for the Perseid meteor shower. Unfortunately, I don’t have any shooting-stars poems that haven’t been posted previously. Instead, the best I’ve come up with is a picture of this glorious miniature sun which is currently flowering in my back garden:

Those who want the poetry will find some if they click the link above. And I’ll go out and star-gaze later on and see if I can have something new written in time for next year.