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Spreading Health

a white paper tissue sticking out of a blue box of tissues with a bright yellow background
How much better it is to use a hanky or tissue
than to propel germs, bacteria, viruses.
How much better to keep that hanky
up your sleeve
then to wash it
in 30 degrees or to compost
that tissue for bugs
and worms to consume
making soil to grow food for health.

Sue Foster

Photo by Diana Polekhina via Unsplash

 

Currently Popular Poems:

Behind Your Smile

Behind your smile, Is a heart that's filled with pain, Behind every gesture There's a walk down memory lane. For yesterday's troubles, Are torments of the soul, It's so hard to be strong, When life takes its toll. With every step that's taken, There's compassion for another, A listening ear always there, Guiding sons, daughters, mothers. Always so much easier, To hold up for a friend, When to go with your feelings, Seems to lead to no end. The whispers locked inside your head, Remind you, you're alive, With pretending and avoiding, You can easily survive. Giving in's not an option, When there are others to care for, So easy to pretend, When there's no help at the door. Depression, like a broken leg , Needs nurturing and healing. Don't treat it any differently, It's normal to have feelings. Out there is the help you need, To help and cope and manage, The troubles burdening your mind, To unload all the baggage. So while right now it seems each ...

So Much Yellow

There’s gorse, of course and sometimes broom, the lichens yellow on the tomb and every churchyard has its fill of lovely yellow daffodils. There’s dandelions and celandine and yellow primrose, I suppose, and fluffy yellow chicks are born and yellow toads from slippery spawn. And green is seen on every lawn, at April’s end the woods turn blue and tulips bloom in pink and red with drooping leaves in every bed but yellow bellows all around: spring’s mating call, a joyful sound. Julia Duke

Twisted Love

Twisted trunk and milky stream, A glacial meltwater on serpent skin. Whirling optimistic messengers, Coherent and flowing, Yet random and broken Waiting to be spoken. Snake bark maple, And milky stream, Twisted love and shattered dreams. Anon .    

Feathers

It’s as if all the birds In every weather Had dropped every feather The weight sometimes Of all those why's A ton of lead Or a ton of words unsaid Down on a feathered bed The weight belies The width of squawks When the birds are dead And they sing remembering When a ton of song Weighed the same as Fly away Autumns Flu away fall Feather or not Bird at all. Stephen Kirin

Hawk Moth

Hawk moth Waiting alone Tenderness revealed, In the Shadow of the Friary. Cushioned wind Stifling air Song thrush Beckons the Spirit of the summer. Afloat with thoughts Memories of Parched earth and forgotten Spheres. Suzanne

Ravilious Rules

Yesterday’s heat evaporates taking with it the fierce glare of the sun. Yesterday, sunlight glanced off hills, danced on rivers, but I am used to this gentle Welsh spirit that now envelops the landscape, soft green mist that returns to the hills, softening edges, softening mood. Curvaceous, a line of grey green hills etched in waves of leafiness, dark green towering oaks, hedgerows draped with dog roses, flat, rounded clusters of elderflowers, the gracious sweep of the bronzed maple. Tutored by nature’s harmony, my eye picks out the tell-tale signs of human intervention, marks alien pylons astride hilltops. Tall, straight telegraph poles push their way up through trees, geometric road signs warn of hidden dangers, along straight, tarmacked roads. The sign for Maesmawr Farm shouts its rectilinear message, tempting me with luxury lodges. The arrow points straight to them. Even the forestry commission superimposes its orderly rows on nature’s wayward curves. But the rolling hills triumph,...

A Way of Life

It’s become a way of life this summer, the canvas bag slung over my shoulder hoping not to need it hoping the sky will stay blue long enough to get a walk by the sea. It’s become a way of life this summer, wearing my green jeans, wearing a matching sweatshirt to keep the wind out, wearing green wherever possible to match my green cagoule in case I need it. It’s becoming a way of life, it’s true, this life of uncertainty which nags at the back of your mind and keeps you constantly looking up the weather on your phone. It’s a way of life, this anxiety which sends me scurrying for help when it mushrooms out of control in the middle of the night. Julia

Reverse Switches

A faraway thought Eclipse of the Mind Offset against time. Random rotations Of Flickering predictions And reverse switches. An unknown being Offering stability of presence Estimation of existence. A prequel to sanity Essence of age And drifting forecasts. An overhang of tempers Stabilising the vitality And residence of mind. Spectre of sensation Accessing the bleak And uncertain future. Trudge of uncertainty Against unresolved Conflicts of schedule. A fathom of thoughts And sideway glances Broadening beyond reasoning. Iain   

Greyfriars

If ever there were dragons they left their passion here in garnet schist and granite,  crazy migmatite of marbled black and white: hot scramblings of the pluton. What's left of monks is bony, hard to see: a grassy field where horses crop and starlings pop and bubble natter-songs of seed and insect, feeding over buried walls. Cobble-flocks and boulders Cluster; mortared stone reliques tell crustal stories deeper than our poor humanity. Churches pass and minsters fall: the pagan flints remain. Tim

What is Yours is not Mine

Accepting as I am redressing. Each pause in our conversation is a minor reflection to shift the image we hold and faces we carry for a thousand eyes to see through. Placing a full stop in the mind. To end a thought with much courage and begin an opening line once more. A consequence of change is a weight lifted. But isn’t it so heavy to move? And what’s my perception is my expression. So that I hold no expectation of anybody to paint my mind with a bruise from their voice. Lauren.x