A comic masterpiece, John. Makes your eyes water as well!

Comment is about THE SALUTARY TAIL OF FAISAL THE TURKISH NOSE BARBER (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Thanks Martin, Stephen and John.

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

😋

Comment is about DELIGHT (blog)

Original item by Dee Allen.

Thank you Tom M for the like

Comment is about The Children With No Voice (blog)

Original item by Tobani / Nataiella

Thanks kindly Uilleam O’ Ceallaigh 😊and Tom Merton 😊
🌷🌷

Comment is about Potato Time Travel (blog)

Original item by Red Brick Keshner

Thanks RBK.
I remember my dad buying fertilizer for our front garden. It was composed of blood and bone. Having walked through a landscape such as you describe makes me ever more mindful of the grim reality of warfare.

Comment is about Potato Time Travel (blog)

Original item by Red Brick Keshner

Such a wonderful heart-warming poem Mr. K and so many beautiful lines.

It takes me back to when I read about the I Irish potato famine
-horrendous!

Kind regards

Tom

Comment is about Potato Time Travel (blog)

Original item by Red Brick Keshner

I did mean that as a complement Stephen!

Like many of us, I've shed tears over the news of various tragedies, and I don't take kindly to being lectured at by attention-seeking pompous pricks of politicians / celebrities about my not being "silent" and "respectful" enough.

Comment is about A Day At The Beach (blog)

Original item by Stephen W Atkinson

Thank you very much for your kind comments, they are really appreciated, My Mum's name was Elizabeth but she was affectionately know as Lil or Lilly (from Lillian her second name)

Comment is about 'Enough Is Enough' (blog)

Original item by Mike Bartram

Marvellous poem, Steve. One of the best I’ve ever read on here. But it begs the question “Would the world have been a better place if Edward VIII with his Nazi sympathies had been on the throne and Chamberlain Prime Minister And War with Germany avoided?”. So should we have just sent Hitler a stern “memo”? As Stephen says, “thought provoking” indeed.

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

😂 A nasaly tour de force J.C! Not to be sniffed at. 👏

Comment is about THE SALUTARY TAIL OF FAISAL THE TURKISH NOSE BARBER (blog)

Original item by John Coopey

Brilliant, as usual, Stephen! There's no getting rid of Trump now, regardless of what the people may, one day, come to realise.
The ego has landed!

Comment is about Courtesy (blog)

Original item by Stephen Gospage

I echo Graham's sentiments, but a fantastic thought-provoking poem it is. 👏

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

Sorry about that, Uilleam! I'll do a happy one next time!
And thanks for the likes everyone 🌷

Comment is about A Day At The Beach (blog)

Original item by Stephen W Atkinson

Excellent. Well structured, and the repetition really drives the pathos home.

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

Thanks Greg!

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

Thank you for the comments Rolph, Graham and John, and thanks to everyone who liked this poem.

I think that Biden's instincts are to do things properly (as Obama did before him) and to rise above all Trump's election denial of 2020. If only for his innate decency (but in fact for much more), I believe that Joe Biden will come to be regarded as a great President.

The temptation must have been there, Rolph, but in time the current President's correct behaviour will make Trump look like the oafish fool he is.

Comment is about Courtesy (blog)

Original item by Stephen Gospage

Thank you Manish for the like.

Comment is about Born in a Dream (blog)

Original item by Tobani / Nataiella

Beautifully crafted poem, Steve, in the voice of a first world war veteran, it seems to me. I can imagine Sassoon applauding.

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

Many thanks, Antony, for this interview. I was at a Remembrance event on Sunday night involving local poets and a local ceilidh orchestra, and heard a heartfelt poem from a forces veteran who had seen a Liverpudlian comrade killed by 'insurgents' in Aden [now Yemen] in the early 1960s. Just one of the many colonial jobs that British soldiers were called upon to do, dangerous tasks that are now virtually forgotten. British forces left Aden in 1967.

Comment is about ‘Grief never goes away …  it is almost as raw now as on the day it happened.’ A mother speaks about losing her son in Afghanistan. Lest we forget (article)

Original item by Greg Freeman

Down with virtue-signalling, that's what I say! 😡

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

Thank you New Shoes and Aisha for the likes

Comment is about I Remember (blog)

Original item by Tobani / Nataiella

Don't forget the custard!😋

Comment is about Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb [song version] (blog)

Original item by Ian Whiteley

Excellent Ian.
Ah, yes the rhubarb triangle; is that anywhere near Bermuda, where the cheese spread comes from?

Comment is about Rhubarb, Rhubarb, Rhubarb [song version] (blog)

Original item by Ian Whiteley

It's barely eight-thirty am, and I've got tears in my eyes.

Comment is about A Day At The Beach (blog)

Original item by Stephen W Atkinson

Hello Stephen,
Thank you for your renewed compliment on my lines. I also hope that the 74,675,378 people who voted for Trump are in for a rude awakening. They should regret and rue the second they put the wrong cross in the box for a very long time - knowing full well who they were getting involved with.
Have a nice evening,
best regards
Rolph

Comment is about A Reckoning for a Nation's Madness (blog)

Original item by Rolph David

Yes Graham, as valid as Steve's poem is it is not for today IMHO.

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

Echoes of the Obama-Trump transition and comparison of 2017.

Comment is about Courtesy (blog)

Original item by Stephen Gospage

Just so spot on Stephen!

Comment is about Courtesy (blog)

Original item by Stephen Gospage

Wow Stephen,
What an awesome poem about that monster man Trump! Your words are so spot on...he shows with decency, dignity, manners, good behaviour and statesmanship how it can be done in this world, too. I wouldn't have invited him to the White House on Wednesday if I were him. I would have paid him back in kind. And I wouldn't go to his swearing-in either - or at most in disguise.
👍

Comment is about Courtesy (blog)

Original item by Stephen Gospage

As Stephen has noted a very well written piece. However my thoughts lie only with those that served and fell who gave us the liberty to criticize and comment as we all do! Let’s remember that.

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

They were a remarkable generation to whom we owe everything. I live in a little (population around 500) Cheshire village who lost 21 men in WW1 - aged 19-32. Amongst them were two 19 & 21 yr old brothers who were infantry Privates in the local Regiment, killed at The Somme and one (19 yr old) Captain, who died after 6 months’ service.

Comment is about Walking into light (blog)

Original item by R A Porter

💘Low Lands Live Love, Laugh Love, Love Love, Lead Love, Led Love.

It's Called Liefde! 💘

LoVe Y💘U AlL

Comment is about Remembrance? Forget It! (blog)

Original item by Uilleam Ó Ceallaigh

Cheers Uilleam! The old lie, indeed.

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

Thanks Graham (Sherwood) §will do§ and thank you Uilleam Ó Ceallaigh § there is too much noise out there, and inside as well, that do not belong. §

Comment is about Admonitions for an emerging poet (blog)

Original item by Red Brick Keshner

100% spot on Steve.
Many of the UK's so-called "Great" and so-called "Good" are currently cheerleaders for genocide. I'll have no more part in allowing myself to be gaslit by such hypocrisy.

To quote Wilfred Owen:

“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

Thanks Stephen! Watching the service from the Cenotaph on a TV in a Wetherspoons (long story) definitely gave me food for thought.

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

First of all, Steve, this is superby written and rhymed. Care has clearly gone into it. And it tells a deep, inconvenient, truth and just shows what impact a good poem can have: it's ordinary folk who pay the price for war, not the dignitaries who lead the ceremonies.
But you have said that far better than I can.

Comment is about The Poppy and The Cross (blog)

Original item by Steve White

Thanks again for a splendid poem on this (pressing!) issue, Rolph.
One can only hope that disillusion will set in quickly among some of the new Trump voters. But the Democrats have to offer something better.

Comment is about A Reckoning for a Nation's Madness (blog)

Original item by Rolph David

A fantastic read! Thanks a lot, Kevin.

Comment is about over Our Granny's Dead Body (blog)

Original item by kJ Walker

This would be a great addition to your profile RBK

Comment is about Admonitions for an emerging poet (blog)

Original item by Red Brick Keshner

A very moving poem for this time of year, JD.

Comment is about Lest we forget (blog)

Original item by JD Russell

Is that the old Man in the Moon up to his tricks again!

Comment is about Tidal Lock (blog)

Original item by Apollo Jameson

Thanks for all the recent likes to those who sent.

David

Comment is about Trafficked, Gangmasters Vlad & Kim (blog)

Original item by David RL Moore

I hope not too, John. Thanks for your kind comment.

Comment is about Time of Swine (blog)

Original item by Stephen Gospage

Thanks for your reading and comment Stephen, much appreciated.

David

Comment is about They Also Serve (blog)

Original item by David RL Moore

Thanks for likes: Red Brick Keshner, New Shoes, Uilleam , Stephen W,David RL Moore &TOM T 👍

Comment is about Forget Them Not (blog)

Original item by Tom Doolan

Good morning Uilleam,
I am convinced that being democratic, empathetic, trusting and confident is no longer enough to stand up to the evil forces of our world. There are simply too many of them, spread across the entire globe, and we are no longer even a minority. Many people have a penchant for right-wing slogans and posturing. This is shocking and cannot be justified or explained by anything.
Have a good week,
Rolph

Comment is about A Reckoning for a Nation's Madness (blog)

Original item by Rolph David

Thanks RBK.
"discard the noise that doesn’t speak."
Good advice.

Comment is about Admonitions for an emerging poet (blog)

Original item by Red Brick Keshner

Thank you Auracle for the like.

Comment is about I Remember (blog)

Original item by Tobani / Nataiella