less and more

As promised last weekend, it’s giveaway time again.

Today (July 2nd) until Wednesday (July 6th) two of my non-fiction books – A Poet’s Dozen and Writing in circles. A writers’ group handbook – are free to download from Amazon.

Tomorrow only – Sunday July 3rd – Poems from the pueblo. Haiku and assorted fragments – will also be available as a free download.
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endings and beginnings

About ten days ago I was running to catch a bus to get to a meeting when I passed a huge may tree in full bloom. I hadn’t time to do more than pause and then rush on, but I thought it’d be a good idea for the last blog post of this month: how we have two bank holidays in May, and yet neither of them are May Day; how the English say Ne’er cast a clout till May be out – whether that be the month of May or the blossom – while the Spanish with their far balmier climate say hasta el cuarenta de mayo no te quites el sayo – don’t take off your coat till the 40th of May; how taking may blossom into the house is supposed to bring bad luck…

Of course, I then forgot to go back and take the picture.

This morning I went across the park and there are plenty of trees and other plants in bloom, but I didn’t find any hawthorn.

The park was frothing at the hedges with cow parsley:

cow parsley
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survival

Pentaglottis sempervirens

Sometimes, there’s an idea that just never gels satisfactorily into a poem and the only thing to do is forget it and move on.
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a question of success

bubble in the sky
Fame, readership, sales, wealth… what constitutes success for a writer?
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pale fanfare

Yesterday’s poetry including the words

The silent fanfare of the moon
scatters the clouds.

so let’s start today with a pale fanfare of daffodil trumpets.

daffodils
I guess even such a pastel flourish should be heralding something, so I’ll use them to announce my latest book.
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