Hi Shirley,

Thanks for your words.

I hope you can learn to live with your anxiety and that it doesn't overcome you. I too have suffered and suffer from anxiety. I try to be aware of it and learn to accept it is a part of me, and try to move on from there.

Take care of yourself,

Jon

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thank you Shirley - I most certainly will. Colin.

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Hi again Shirley - keep fighting the good fight when you
feel low. Gently setting aside any religious sentiments, I
always get a lift when listening to Always Look On The
Bright Side of Life (from the Monty Python film "Life of Brian"). Sometimes, the absurdities of living can help
deal with the reality! A smile or chuckle can often be a
wonderful addition to the feeling that you're not on your
own in times of personal stress. It may be something to
do with the endorphins but who cares when it can work?!
Laughter really can be the best medicine!
The American side of my family began when my eldest
sister June took the trip Stateside after WW2 to marry
Bill Blanchard (from Louisiana) who had preceded her on
his own return home, injured in the post D-Day ops.and
returned to the UK for medical attention, where they met. Both are now gone but their large family is now
spread as far as Washington in the east and California
in the West. June had her own share of family tragedy
- the hardest being the loss of her beloved son Mark in
an industrial accident after he had returned home - a
survivor of the horrors of war service in Vietnam.
Another child is a lifelong haemophiliac, whilst an elder
son collapsed and died while out jogging. Thankfully,
this last sadness happened after she had passed on.
Now the grandchildren are grown and time moves on,
bringing its joys and hardships to newer generations.
As someone once observed: "Life's a funny old game"!!
But it's all we have so we have to make the best of it,
I guess. Good luck to you and your daughter.
P.S. I've completed a tune which
I've called "Home Again Rag" to celebrate the return home of my
elder sister from hospital just prior
to her 84th birthday this month.
I'm thinking of uploading it to WOL
so keep an eye out for it. It will
help to get your feet tapping!

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Hello Shirley - delighted to see the new post.
Thanks for the message on my profile page.
Happy Easter!
MC

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Thanks for the open feedback, Shirley. You are much appreciated. I guess my onus for the poem was a query as to why we are raised on ideals of aiming for the unreachable and then shot down to a compliant existence. I guess I believe that there are possible dreams if we go about them the right way. Thanks again. Frederick

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Hi Shirley

On each Christmas
a card delivered
Mum and Dad
for every gift
you gave me
I would return
to have you
both with me.

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Hey Shirley, i'm glad you liked my poem 'Wise Sea'. I wrote it a few days ago when i was on holiday in Spain. There's a part of me that's a bit intimidated by the sea but i have a lot of respect for it. I appreciate your comment.

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Hi Shirley. Thank you for reading THE FOLLY OF YOUTH. Your comments are much appreciated. Ta!!

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Surrered = suffered?
MC

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Hello Shirley,
Glad you liked "The Rhymes They Are A-Changin'" and that it made you smile.

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My kind of poetry - - - send it soon

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Glad you enjoyed listening! Sorry, though, the voice you hear isn't mine. I know my limitations!! I put my stuff on tape for a guy who runs a recording studio. He and others do the honours on CD recordings.

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Hi Shirley - thanks for your interest in my song "You Smiled". You can easily find it under "audio sample" near the top of my home profile page. Just click on it and you should hear it play - no problem!

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Hello Sirley,
Many thanks for your comments on "One Wheel On My wagon". Yes, 'm afraid it did happen to us around 2 weeks ago, but luckily, no-one was hurt.
I suppose writing a silly song about it is my way of getting it out of my system!

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Thank you Shirley so pleased you liked it, and do you know its about a year old and so often people miss its very obvious meaning, you understood it perfectly.
No I cant paint for toffee so I didn't do the artwork but it is a great pic.
As a father who home-educated his son and was the house wife if you like, I have maybe a better understanding of motherhood than many men xx thanks

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Hello Shirley,
Many thanks for your kind comments on my parody of Abba "I Had A Bream". Glad you liked it.

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Hi again Shirley - thanks for taking the trouble to read "Dambuster" - and for the kind comment. It was a memorable experience sitting there listening to an actual participant from that legendary WW2 deed. Can you imagine how popular he and his pilot (the American Joe McCarthy) were with the other crew as they kept going around until satisfied that the bomb drop was accurate at that difficult to reach target? The other planes intended to attack that dam didn't do so for various reasons and the target, while damaged, stayed intact. "617" lost fifty three crew (nearly half their number) on that raid on three separate dams. Only recently have Bomber Command got their proper memorial here in Green Park, central London.

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Hi again Shirley and thank you so much for the wonderful news regarding little Isabella.

It has no doubt lifted your spirits as well.

An awful thing for the whole family to have to endure.Good luck and good health to you all.

Patricia and Stef.xx..XX for Isabella.

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Wow M.C.
That is eery. The perfect poem for Halloween.
It's poems like this that inspire me to write poems like my, "The Creepy Old House".
See you in the nightmares.

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Hi Texas...
have you ever fought yourself awake from a bad
dream? if so, you might identify with my poem
which was posted some while ago. Here it is for you.
NIGHTMARE DEPARTURE
As we come at last to death,
Short of time and short of breath,
Is going quietly what it seems?
Do we depart to nightmare dreams

From which in life we would awaken,
Shivering, sweating, badly shaken?
Could it be as we meet death
We dream of dying from want of breath?

And what is worse - that in the taking
How hard we try there's no awaking!
..........................................
Hope this doesn't give your sleepless nights!!
:-)

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.. hello Shirley Smothers.. just enjoyed listening to your audio pieces .. slightly surreal on a wet Manchester afternoon .. but very interesting.

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Shirley, many thanks for your kind comments on A Vendre. Graham

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Hello Shirley-across-the-miles.
Glad to see you're posting audio. I checked out your "Silly Poem...". Enjoyed it a lot.
Also, glad you liked Shandy Man. I think your description of my audio as "singing" is a bit flattering! It's certainly not something to be envious of!

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A small bud, withered
But just a few drops of rain
Beautiful flower

I was inspired to write
this after reading
Nigel's poem.

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I shall have to inspire you more - - - love it

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"Deep Inside" is amazing,such a lot of passion and meaning in a short poem ,love the way you rhythmiclly repeat "deep inside"as you progress-brilliant!!!

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Hi Shirley, thanks for your information about the newnfresh.com site I actually think your 'Mime Rhyme' is the best one but the site is not much cop overall is it? One of the little rhyming poems they have put up does not even rhyme!!

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And your comment made me laugh too! I understand now - didn't realise you were from America.

Accents really affect so many things, syllable counts being just one of them. Part of my job involves teaching phonics to primary school children, who are struggling with reading. The accent of our region can make it difficult at times - for example - 'air' as in hair is pronounced more like 'er' as in her. It's great fun trying to get them to give me correct examples. I think there can be no substitute for just sitting down and reading with kids. All the theory in the world can't replace the value of that.

I'm glad to hear that all your experiences of this site are positive :) x

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Perhaps it's one of those words that can be pronounced differently and affected by one's regional accent. Reet... glad to hear you are writing out your annoyance - it always helps.

I've found that poets are inspired by other poets' ideas. I've posted on a certain subject and then seen poems come up on the same theme soon after. Unless people are lifting chunks of my poem, I'm not too bothered - glad,in fact, that I may have been an inspiration. I think poets all have uniquely different styles and the same subject can be handled so differently.

I have been influenced to write a poem by reading the work of others on here. I would normally mention that somewhere in comments though. It all depends to what degree and how much has been borrowed. If I write something really good (which happens very very occasionally), I always have this fear that I might have seen it somewhere else and had it lurking in my subconscious. It must be a worry for most poets, I imagine.

Nice talking, anyway. Isobel x

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Hi SS,
as a long distance lorry driver (that came out as 'long distance river' not a bad idea to start from!!!) I'm not always near the old WWW but I'm 'ere now,
I see you take your written stuff seriously, beware! there are those with millions of qualifications that are a tad pendantic about spurious grammatical ... (what!) this is poetry not a classroom for conjugation of Latin verbs!
Haiku's tin is tight for syllabic affitionados but if you wish to dip your toes ... then be my guest but beware there lurks a chap called TT who is a master of , well! several variations of (proper) poetry and if he spots your stuff he may well be the voice to ask!! The only real voice is, of course, your own. Despite my rabblings - go for it - and it will do what it says on the tin!
Ta muchly, Nick.
ps sorry it's a bit wordy - even moreso now!

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Hi, Shirley I am pleased I was able to help you and happy that you were able to rescue your poem
XX

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thanks shirley, the illustration is great.

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thanks shirley,we all have our altars we all have our gods. idolitry is always in fashion :) look forward to more of your work.

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What ho, Shirley. Glad you liked "Charity Marathon Row". Hope you didn't mind too much the language.

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Hi Shirley, many thanks for your kind comments on 'Good Dreams, Bad Dreams' - you were very quick to read that, hehe. I've added the edited audio file now, that was probably missing when you first read the poem. Best wishes, Dave

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Hi Shirley, many thanks for your comments on my 'Santa' pic. :) At other times of the year I wear less conspicuous hats, but still get spotted quite a lot, hehe.

Merry Christmas to you and yours! Dave

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Thank you Shirley, I really appreciate your kind comments about 'Couldn't Care Less' (I do really of course). It encouraged me to share some of your work which I very much enjoyed. I agree with your sentiments in 'Homeless', it is much easier to want to do something than to actually do something. I have dug out a poem I wrote on a similar theme called 'Tough Love' and posted it as a blog entry if you get the chance to have a look. It was your poem 'He Didn't Care' that really caught my interest as it seems to parallel 'Couldn't Care Less' in some ways. I like your illustrations too, do you do them yourself? As a matter of interest I found 'Couldn't Care Less' scribbled on a scrap of paper tidying a cupboard where it had lain forgotten for I don't know how long.

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Thanks for kind comment. You keep on writing - and I do also like the illustrations

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Hi Shirley, thank you for your kind remarks on 'The Tartan Bard' very much appreciated.

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Hi Shirley, thank you for your comments on No More, much appreciated. Just been reading some of yours too, have to say I really enjoyed Wild Wolf and Who is this Woman in the Mirror? I can certainly relate to that one! x

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Hi Shirley;

Will take a bit more time to explain this to you than I really have time but I'll drop you a proper note probably next week-end when I have a bit more time and explain what I mean.

Hope you are good

Cheers x

Andy N xx

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Hi - many thanks (Armagh)B.

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I reckon the hardest thing is getting a publisher interested - there are lots of super writers on WOL who deserve to be published, but it's not easy. If you had poems with illustrations like those I reckon you'd have a much better chance - only my 2 cents though :)
good luck with it. B

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Thank you dear Shirley for commenting on "In a Wood". Much appreciated. With warmest wishes, Larisa

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Hello Shirley
Thanks for commenting on my two poems "Fix" and "I Dreamt You Were Little Again".
There's a saying, "When they're young they break your arms and when they're older they break your heart". Kids!
I've done a few about my kids but be careful if you stumble across some of my more risque stuff.
On the audio front, I'm sure a predominantly British audience would love to hear your Southern tones. I know I would.

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Hello Shirley
I've just taken the time to read the samples on your Profile page.
I was very impressed, particularly with "My Mother's Gentle Hands". I posted one on a similar theme called "Fix" from the perspective of the parent rather than, as yours does, from the child.
Keep posting.

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Thanks Shirley for your nice comment on my Drift Reservoir poem - I think the swan's death was accidental, maybe due to some sort of fishing line or something. Reservoirs do seem to be popular with fishermen. Perhaps I should have reported it? I didn't think of that till I read your comment.

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Hi Shirley - thanks for commenting on 'When We Share' much appreciated. :)

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Hi Shirley,
RE Crying out, thank you for taking time to comment on it. bit of a surprise since it was blogged ages ago lol :-)

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au contraire Shirley..thank you for posting and reading your emotive Wild Wolf poem...you got me thinking and writing..haven't written anything much since my mum died, so thank you for awakening a subject close to my heart : ) Debx

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