SONNETS:
Here are three sonnets I first posted, in 27/09/2013. But, I couldn't resist the opportunity to read them on Youtube.
They were written in the 1980's about 35 years ago when I decided to have a shot at writing sonnets (14 stanza's in iambic pentameters)of equal feet:
Monday, 27 July 2015
Sunday, 26 July 2015
Homespun Poetry
HELP!
I need to know how I can put the following YouTube tags into a post so that they can be accessed with a click by my viewer. When I click on them now, nothing happens! Can anybody help?
Thursday, 9 July 2015
My First Flight.
My First Flight.
I
have to cast my mind back to 1948~49, when I first found I could leap from tall
buildings and survive. Just before
splattering on the ground I would close my eyes and open them again, and I
would find myself laying snugly in my bed.
After the first time, I would regularly wake up from my dreams by
jumping off cliffs or tall buildings. It
all began when my friend Tony told me he'd heard that if you die in a dream you
will never wake up. Being a fearless/foolhardy
four-year-old I thought I'd like to disprove his assertion.
My
theory was "I'm the hero of this picture if anything happens to me the world will come to an end..."
A short time after that first jump I thought I would spread my arms and try to
fly, and I did. I jumped and instead of
falling I rose into the air and flew over lush countryside, following rivers,
diving down into towns and cities where I hovered and watched people and
animals; they didn't seem to notice me passing.
That was when I realised that in my dreams I was invisible and
invincible. I flew higher and higher
until I could see the curvature of the earth, and the sky became darker. I dove down until I was skimming the surface
of the sea at incredible speeds. I saw
ships on the sea and buzzed them, In my euphoria. Then I dove down into the sea and viewed boats
on the surface from below. Initially, I
held my breath underwater, then I realised I didn't have to breathe. I saw shoals of fishes and swam amongst them.
I sat on the conning tower of a
submarine, played tag with dolphins; they for some reason could see me
perfectly well and chatted excitedly in their high pitched voices. I flew up into the dark sky, towards the sun,
the heat didn't increase as I drew near.
So I dove, into a sunspot and witnessed a magical firework display I
emerged on the opposite side of the orb, and saw Jupiter in the distance. I crashed into Jupiter's misty smoke and liquid
gas, It tingled, but there was no aroma.
I wasn't aware of its constituents then: Hydrogen, Helium, Ammonia &
Methane (very pungent). I flew high above
the Solar system and looked down, I felt like a god, master of all I surveyed. I consciously grew larger, expanding until I
could view the Universe without moving my head; hundreds of thousands of
stars...
Mum
shook me gently. "Time to wake up
Lenny, breakfast is on the table, boiled eggs with toast soldiers."
Sadly, somewhere between 9 and 10 my best friend Tony was drowned while on holiday, and I lost my belief; I've not been able to dream fly since.
Sadly, somewhere between 9 and 10 my best friend Tony was drowned while on holiday, and I lost my belief; I've not been able to dream fly since.
My first flight in an aircraft was a boring affair in comparison. I was in the army, I'd been posted to The Middle Eastern State of Sharjah. We
travelled by VC10 to Bahrain . We took off from Brize Norton at 0800hrs Spent
15 hours in the air, continually buffeted by winds and air turbulence, which banished
any opportunity for sleep. There were plenty
of sick bags employed on that flight. We
were issued with Army packed lunches, and bottled water: tea and coffee were
also on offer in flight. At Bahrain, we were
transferred to a small RAF transport aircraft.
There were no seats, just hammocks.
Freight was secured at the rear and we were housed along the outer
walls. The aircraft was an ancient turboprop plane that crabbed through the sky, it found every bump and hit every thermal. We rolled out at Sharjah and were conveyed
to barracks for the night. We were
issued with salt and malaria tablets and given 48 hours to acclimatize. During those first two days in Sharjah the
average wet-bulb temperature, over the 24hr period, reached 136 degrees; the
highest temperature ever recorded in an inhabited area at that time.
Ah
the British Army such a wondrous place!
You can catch sunburn whilst training in the desert and be charged with
causing damage to government property, through 'self-inflicted wounds':
Yo! I think the sun had something to do
with it too, don't you?
Just a year earlier I had spent a month in Lillehammer (Norway ), undergoing winter warfare
training. The temperatures there dropped
as low as -40degrees; it wasn't a record but I doubt many have experienced a
temperature variation of 176 degrees within a 12 month period.
Ah! The memory is a wonderful thing, but
fallible. We drove to Norway in Land Rovers from Lippstadt West Germany . To get there I had to fly from Gatwick to Hannover . A
completely uneventful trip about which I have no memory. I don't even recall the return trip.
As
to having knowledge of astronomy at the age of four? I now view that with suspicion. I can confirm that everything that came later
was accurate.
In
the immortal words of Eric Morecombe: "I played all the right notes, but
not necessarily in the right order."
So, on balance I would suggest you take it
with a pinch of salt?
850 words
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