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My 2025 Poetry Postcard Festival Exhibition…

November 9, 2025November 9, 2025humanist55

There are two major blogging challenges that occupy my year, Te A to Z Challenge and PoPoFest and each year of each Challenge/Festival, I seem to heap ever higher expectations on my particpation, and this year has been no exception! For the postcards, I like to make my own and so in 2023, I used favourite photographs I had taken, in 2024, AI generated images that hadn’t made the final selection for particular projects but which were good in their own right, and for 2025, I decided to revive my very intermittent painting skills.

I have painted since my teenage years, which you can read about in this year’s A to Z here. However, whi;st I spent much of my life in applied arts, signwriting, graphic design and the like, pure painting languished – how many times did I take my paints on holiday only to bring them home unused – so making at least 31 postcard-sized paintings (in the end I did more for bonus cards sent to me on the International List) was a challenge. I produced about 4 on most weekends through July and August, sometimes working on 2 at a time as each dried. Many were watercolour, many acrylics, some mixed, and one pencil drawing.

I’ve decided to post them in a single Exhibition post (Exhibit if you’re American) together with their handwritten (excuse the writing, please) poems, which according to the aims of PoPoFest, are to spontaneously write an epistolary poem to a stranger, preferably one which references the image on the postcard. I blew up photographs from years past, which I had hoped would make paintings and in particular, pictures from Crete where we spent 6 months during lockdown in 2020 – enjoy…

The sky here is watercolour, the rest acrylic, but even in this scan, it’s possible to see the greater luminosity of watercolour…

Watercolour, which enables the “tunnel” to glow with reflected light

Watercolour – the subtelties of the sky didn’t scan well…

Watercolour. The link is https://www.rte.ie/archives/2016/0729/805794-yeats-summer-school/ where you can see me painting a mural of WB Yeats

Watercolour and gouache on yellow, Elephant dung paper (I like its absorbency)…

Watercolour on buff, Elephant dung paper (this colour paper was a little too absorbent – too grabby)…

Watercolour with masking fluid. There should only have been 3 rails but I painted along the horizon line by mistake!

Acrylic and watercolour on yellow, Elephant dung paper.

Watercolour. The challenge here was to give the headland 3 3-dimensional form and not just make a flat cliff…

Acrylic. This allowed the nearly dry brush technique to create the reflections on the water.

This is the same subject as the previous painting but done in acrylic.

Top left is the photograph from which I made 3 different paintings…

08 November: Ten Things of Thankful

November 9, 2025November 9, 2025humanist55

Ten things for which I give thanks this week…

1 – After a pretty rainy week, Saturday morning dawned sunny…

2 – The reservoir above the village is now brim full, although the Yorkshire hosepipe ban is not yet lifted, it shouldn’t be long 9not that we need to water now lol)…

3 – I am always grateful to live in such a beautiful place and so, the sun out, I went up to “The Nab” to take a photo of Silsden village for you…

This is the reverse of the view from our house – The Nab is at top left…

And turning the camera round, here is the outcrop of Millstone Grit that forms The Nab. And yes, there is a quarry up there where agricultural workers with little to do in Winter, would carve millstones, water troughs and the like, out of the rock.

Whilst I was up there, a fog bank rolled in below me to the right…

And one more shot…

4 – Gratitude my daughter’s quite young Border Collie, Winnie, is sweet-tempered and settles down after initial excitement at greeting a visitor, quickly enough fo next weekend we shall be baby-sitting her at our house…

5 – By dint of Harrisa pepper, Dragons teeth deployment of sticks and thorny rose clippings, I seem finally, to have deterred the nameless cat who has been scratching in my bulb containers…

6 – I finished the very last task of my Poetry Postcard Festival participation for this year – a Cento poem using lines from each of the 43 poems on a postcard I received during July and August this year – it’s the post before this one, here on the blog…

7 – My friend who runs Collaborature – an online journal for collaborative poems, and I, have now topped 1,000 lines of what is turning into a novella written in Pushkin or “Onegin” sonnets after his book Eugene Onegin. You can read our epic “Shipmates” here.

8 – I shall have a busy but different week at work since my bosses are opening a self-storage warehouse in an old office building and they want me to be there for the first week to help get it running.

9. My grandson Dillon and his girlfriend Izzy, will be living at home with their parents Bev and Don in the next village, Addingham for the next year, having spent the Summer touring in their small camper van. They have asked me to teach them how to paint which will be fun…

10. Grateful to have been inducted into The Hall of Hostinae of Ten Things Thankful and for all the lovely messages of welcome from you all…

Destruction and Redemption

November 8, 2025November 8, 2025humanist55

Poetry Postcard Festival 2025 Received Postcard Cento

I: Destruction

People are waking in the night
hearts racing, blood pounding
dreams, fantasies, deceptions, escape
The future is – unexplainable
I try not to disturb them
when I slowly reach my hand toward
the culture that informed my values…
Cruel and crude, greedy old man
— shouting, destroying
the Bad King who demands from him,
the Good Kingdom
his world has become much smaller
a pretty close second
Puppets! Who is pulling the strings?
Like my heart, they did not weep
another missed connection, warped, failed
shouting colour into gray
streets where no one listens
the beauty of the Badlands

We know so little – despite knowing so much
Consumption society has chewed up
spit out this vast and beautiful continent.
transported in cardboard boxes
to lockers at Hub Food
discouraged now as our progress is torn down,
a government being dismantled
thinking then it can’t happen here. But it does
I’m not sure there is enough of me today
bobbing movement of nature
you are missed daily
somewhere unknown,
another world away;
it was there
….no more
what if I told you
still, I hope for forgiveness…
the suggestion of brokenness
the promise of wholeness
we are all a part of everything
– I can’t help hoping

II: Redemption
if humans could fly,
would we ever walk?
around my imagination
whatever you want’s okay!
I close my eyes
and breathe in fireweed
your magic encapsulates me
waiting for the perfect day
that clear blue sky
is here year round
stairway to heaven
sun drops sparkle air
to reach, always, for the light
someone is thinking of me
remembering gratitude’s
call to learn what
was above and
below
today’s sun reluctantly begins
to set…

Poets and lines:-
Penelope Moffet 1-2, Jerrold Narland 3, Kerfe Roig 4, Susan Montgomery 5-6, Lawrence Pevec 7, Nancy R. Parr 8-9, Emily Bernhardt 10-11, Anon. 12, Grant Swados 13, Margie Ripperger 14, Anon. 15, Akua Lezli Hope 16, Jeannine Jordan 17-18, , Mary Mueller 19, Cassandra Bissel 20, Suzanne Harris 21-22, Karen Keltz 23-24, Ruth Vanklstine 25-26, Laura Gamache 27, Anon. 28, Lulu 29, Dava Wharton 30, Margaret Roncone 31-32, Rebecca 33-34, Muriel Karrr 35, Lisa Humphrey 36, Anon. 37-38, Nitya Prema 39, Karen Loeb 40, Amy Leonard 41-42, Donita Ries 43, Sandra Gadjewski 44, Diana Kolpak 45-46, Margaret Hill-Daniels 47, Cathy Wetter 48, Mary Skeen 49-50, Lynn Caldwell 51, Susan Vespoli 52, Julie Naslund 53, Angela Marie Ebba 54, Lula 55, P. O’Neill 56-58,Pence 59.

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Björn Rudberg (brudberg) in OpenLinkNight invites us to submit a poem of our choice…

This cento poem takes lines from all the postcard poems I received during the July-August Poetry Postcard Festival (POPoFest) run by Cascadia Poetics LAB out of Seattle, USA. Most of the participants are American but it seems that many want to send a postcard to poets elsewhere and so all the no-US poets are sent out on a separate list – so that I, as a UK resident, was lucky enough to receive 24 from my Group 4 list and 19 “bonus ” cards from the International list.

Taking a line from each, two poems emerged, which I have chosen to present as Parts 1 & 2 since the bleakness of the first needs amelioration by the optimism of the second…

Serendipitously, Björn’s optional prompt on this occasion was the writing of letters and the idea of the POPoFest, is to write Epistolary poems to the recipient that reference the image on the postcard, to write spontaneously without editing. I chose to reclaim my painting skills this year and sent 31 original paintings out, one of which is shown below…

Collaborators in the Craft

November 5, 2025November 5, 2025humanist55

You have done it on your own
the craft of poetry
garnering your words
identifying your voice
never mixing metaphors
unless you mean to
accenting with alliteration
tackling subjects
from waxing lyrical about nature
to sounding the clarion calls
to activism in a world gone mad…

Now, why not try the delights
of collaboration…
a dance á deux
a menage á trois
an orgy of poesie
with multiple poets
if you will
bat stanzas back and forth
ekphrast a painting
or photograph by a friend
why do it on your own
when you can do it together
become a collaborator…

Ten months ago, our very own Melissa Lemay, started an online journal of collaborative poetry, Collaborature so why not head over there and have a gander at all the exciting poems that have been submitted and then reach out to another poet to have a go at collaboration…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Lisa or Li in Poetics invites us to write about Getting Crafty…

A New Call to Revolution

October 31, 2025October 31, 2025humanist55

Demonstrators gather during a “No Kings” protest against U.S. President Donald Trump’s policies in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 18, 2025.

A nation birthed by bold revolution
now suffering a jumped-up would-be King
despite the founders’ strong constitution
how could their law be such a broken thing
– poisoned so, by the cunning fascist’s sting…
The tyrant can’t be broken using force
– garnered a band of brutish thugs of course
but being laughed at – one thing he can’t stand
marching in fancy dress, one such recourse
a steadfast, strong and democratic band!

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Grace in Poetry Forms, invites us to write a Dizain – ten lines of ten syllables and a rhyme scheme of ABABBCCDCD.

Denise and Rich Heinrich in Scottsdale for on Oct. 18, 2025 for No Kings’ Day.

Monarch

October 23, 2025October 23, 2025humanist55

I am one of the fortunate ones
a member of the last cycle of breeding
in the North American summer
and as such I got to fly South
past California – could have stopped there
but by then I had the travel bug
and I, and many of my cohort
carried on to Mexico, not for the heat
Oh no! We settled in the great pine forest
in the mountains, where it was warm enough
as long as we huddled together
to survive the winter

We curtained the trees with our colour
– the reason we are called monarchs
allegedly – orange in honour of
William the Third of England – William of Orange
– so I guess we were named by the Brits
before the proto-Republicans got their act together
and kicked their oppressors out
– anyway, the name stuck
and no one thought fit to change it
even now, when Americans are driven
to hold “No Kings!” parades – we butterflies
– the most numerous in North America
retain our royal soubriquet
and regal we were as we rose
en masse from the Mexican trees
to head North again for the summer
and it’s not just for the food of course
but for the perpetuation of the species

I would like to tell you of my life
as a caterpillar and later a pupa
but as I overheard a young teacher
explaining to his class
what happens inside the pupal case
is so complete a transformation
it’s as if we liquefy and alchemically
transform into a completely new creature
and with it, gone all memories
of that earlier life – of course
– we see them – the caterpillars
our offspring
munching their way through milkweed
but I can’t imagine their lives
ae very interesting – not compared
to we adults, travelling thousands of miles
seeing the sights, hanging out together
and then becoming one of the sights ourselves
– a wonder of nature!

That teacher also said that
we are of the genus Danaus
Which is perhaps the masculine
of Danae upon whose great- great-grand daughter
Zeus came as a shower of gold
– and that is surely a fitting origin
story for the naming of we Monarchs…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, it is Open Link Night and lillian invites us to submit a poem of our own choice and if possible, to join on Saturday to read them out live…

This poem came out of my writing group, where, after reading The Promotion by James Tate, we were prompted to write the compressed life story of a previous life as an animal…

Reliable Rain After Lunch

October 22, 2025October 22, 2025humanist55

“Four seasons in one day”
sang Crowded House and
as you draw nearer to the Equator
all the seasons happen
in every day’s cycle

In Tennerife, north side
of the island
you wake to blue skies
and yet already a wisp
of cloud pours over the lip
of Mount Teide like
the tentative sign of
an eruption by this
still hot to the touch
at the top, relatively
sleeping giant, but
as the morning wears on
the cloud finds it’s level
and spreads less threateningly
over the pine forests
below the crater edge
shrouding them in fog
on out over the banana
plantations that surround
Puerto de la Cruz
then on over the city itself
where, just after lunch
they deliver their own
micro-seasonal rain
hardly worth the
unfurling of an umbrella
but nurturing the bananas
as reliable as clockwork
except when the occasional
Atlantic storm disrupts
the proceedings
and having delivered their
promise, the clouds dissolve
and the season of
sunny evening takes their place…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, kim881 in Poetics, invites us to write about “micro-seasons” after the Japanese custom of dividing their year not just into four seasons but into seventy-two “micro-seasons” such as ‘frogs start singing’ and ‘crickets chirp around the door’…

Tomorrow

October 17, 2025October 17, 2025humanist55

“…Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…”
_{From “My Epitaph, Written in Sprigs of Dill}” _{Gunther Grass}

Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything
The food I eat, though it’s too much
And I don’t want to see my guilt
For taking my small comfort there

Sitting down at my computer
Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything
Thoughts in emails to far-flung friends
Work will intrude briefly, perhaps

Poetry, words of protest hot
Letters within my novel too
Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything
Living my life there on the page

Days of action now mostly past
Memories wrestling with new thoughts
Both are rich seams for me to mine
Tomorrow, I’ll write down everything…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Laura Bloomsbury in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft invites us to celebrate the birth day of Günter Grass who, as well as being a ‘politically engaged’ German novelist, was also a poet…

October No More…

October 9, 2025October 9, 2025humanist55

October, you are no more the harbinger of Autumn
The green elm with the one great bough of gold
came in late August – the yellowing of drought
stealing the march on your glorious displays
and dooming those boughs to die with your first frost
for those burned leaves made no antifreeze
for the tree to suck back in before the leaves
their final purpose fulfilled
into the grass slip[ped] one by one…
And too came branches near breaking with berries
their colour near drowning out the last green leaves
turning the trees a brown when seen from afar
another false Autumnal hue and a feast too early
for the migrant birds which land in October
they will find the berries gone over, their bounty wasted
and now the land is draped in true October colours
we may be lulled into thinking the season too runs true
but like those birds in coming hunger mired
will Harebell and snowdrop, at their season due,
awake to the unseasonal “beast from the East”
or interminable drought or rain or heat?
October you are not the only month no longer
acting true to expectations – all is climate changed…

The italicised lines are taken from “October” by Edward Thomas, 1915.

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Dora in Poetics invites us to trip the October Light Fantastic and although that beautiful display has begun, it is not the whole story this year, and indeed, for coming years, and I find I cannot celebrate with unalloyed pleasure…

They Dream of Solidarity

October 3, 2025October 3, 2025humanist55

We are The dreamers of dreams
But they are the creators of nightmares
She cannot bear to listen to the news now
He oscillates between feeling fury and futility
They control the narrative with false news
We cannot believe the lies that others will swallow
They wave false flags to justify
Their repressive responses
We wonder where the bullies came from
That swell their ranks
They raise their fists in anger
We throw up our hands in horror
They wave their guns in the air
We waiver in fear for our lives
But he nurtures resistance
And she writes poems and placards
He investigates logistics
She strategizes
They start a movement
Others join the march
All are non-violent but
They shout “We the People!”
And congregate to be counted
He who would be strong
Looks weaker by the day
They garner solidarity
We can push back
I can have hope…

The opening line of this poem is taken from “Ode” by the poet Arthur O’Shaughnessy and first published in 1873.^[1] It is the first poem in O’Shaughnessy’s collection Music and Moonlight (1874). In it, he extols the role of artists in creating new worlds and the poem was put to music by Edward Elgar as The Music Makers (Op. 69) – Elgar’s final choral work. Both poem and choral piece should inspire us to come our of the shadows currently being cast by authoritarian regimes around the world today, and to stand together…

Over at dVerse Poets Pub, Björn Rudberg (brudberg) in Meeting the Bar: Critique and Craft, challenges us to adopt a different POV – through the use of different pronouns, we can move out of our (sometimes) preferred First Person Point of View…