Poetry In Motion

My thirteen year old daughter is attempting to teach herself British Sign Language.

I had to share with her a video I found when searching You Tube a few years ago to listen again to THAT song after watching Lord Of The Rings. Annie Lennox’s rendition of ‘Into The West’ is signed in its entirety here. Her voice, accompanied by the graceful hand gestures, is poetry in motion, a beautiful ballet. Enjoy.

 

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Paper Stage

In our fiction we have found another meaning,

Persona purified upon the page,

Feeding lines to lovers, deleting where we wish,

Camouflaged emotions, love to rage.

Subterfuge by any other standard,

Masks and costumes donned, let play commence,

Poetry, prose enacted, upon a paper stage,

Imagined intervals to build suspense.

Little drops of us from side to centre,

Courtesies in character full-blown,

Feed the words, imbue them, reality suspend,

Alter-egos populate, seeds sown

From a word or two, our person may be pleasing

Or one dastardly who mocks at every turn,

A subtle slice of sandwich’d, we and he combined,

Embodiment of bits of us, new formed. 

Where Angels Weep

Is it better to be absent when you lie upon a bed,

Presence close beside you, somewhere else inside your head,

Turning all the buttons in the channels of your brain,

Is it better to be all alone when absence causes pain.

Is it better to be silent when walking on the street,

Negating conversations with the lonely that you meet,

Turning face away from fears, frantic running fast,

Is it better to be silent when lonely people pass.

Is it better to be buoyant when spirit urges fall,

To try for more resilience when backed against life’s wall,

Pretending to the lonely heart that silent power wins,

Is it better to be buoyant while you flail to sink or swim.

Is it better to believe in dreams than curse the darkest clouds,

Surpassing all tempestuous with images around,

Fleeing to the hinterlands where dreamers send their prayers,

Is it better to believe in dreams than cry down oaths on never theres.

Is it better to be born a fool that never makes a plan,

Wisdom in the let it be’s instead of better than’s,

Painting pictures of their own while others purchase theirs,

Is it better to be born a fool and peddle varied wares.

Is it better to be born deaf, blind, all senses out of reach,

No touch, no taste, no scents, no sixth, distant from life, speech

Indifferent, heart of stone, oblivious to all,

Is it better to be born senseless than to feel the pain withal.

Is it better to suppress the self when angels beg their need

Though silent on a lonely cloud where usher’d tears fall, bleed,

Dripped upon the bed space where the absent hear, don’t fail,

Is it better to suppress the self when angels weep and wail.