England Waves (Goodbye to Europe)

“Brexit, or NO Brexit; that WAS the big question,

Whether ‘tis be nobler to leave this ‘Club of Europe’ or remain & suffer.

These bureaucratic & doctrinall of outrageous EU budgetary fortune,

Or take arms to a sea of immigrants,

And by rejecting end it, to fiscally wither, to weep;

No more Johnny Foreigner; that I say is the End!”

~Ray Russell
“More the Tragedy of Cameron, the Prince of a muddled Parliament”

A Poem as Pretty as a Tree

Kearsney Abbey in Dover

Here is  a little creative poetry editing,  when A E Housman wrote this he was about 20, since I’m a bit older…

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

Is hung with bloom along the bough,

And stands about the woodland ride

Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my fourscore years and ten,

Sixty will not come again,

And take from ninety springs three score,

It only leaves me thirty more.

And since to look at things in bloom

Thirty springs are little room,

About the woodland I will go

To see the cherry hung with snow.

~Paul

Blue Collar Sage

some who appear brilliant make foolish moves

( Alexander McQueen, 40 years old forever )

my hero L.T. *   once said of sages,

“they run beyond convention…

They listen to the soundless

And look at the formless,

They are not constrained by society

And not bound by its customs.”

Not every beatnik is a sage,

but there are sages among them,

someday you may be there too.

~paul

* Lao-Tzu

Shameless Holiday Sales Pitch

A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever
The irony of this time of year is that it is supposed to be a time of joy and peace, and spiritual awareness. but it’s very easy to get stressed out by the annual orgy of materialism we call the holiday season.

You can feel better if you take a few minutes to meditate on this, perhaps some thoughts will arise about how to scale back the consumerist aspects of Christmas. Remember, hugs are good. also chocolate. But let’s try not to spend money we don’t have to buy things we don’t need to impress people we don’t like.

About meditation. What is the result of a good meditation session? It is a way to find your way back to that emotional space you have felt before, after a very good day. A place of awareness, acceptance, appreciation.   meditation helps make every day a good day.

I  humbly suggest this book as a gift for yourself, a visual venture into moments of inner peace, awareness of everyday miracles in spite of headaches and heartaches, remember your essence is as sacred as anyone’s; you are capable of love.

Eventually, your body will fail, you will return to the void from whence you came, but today, give thanks for small blessings, for bread, and butter, and beer and beauty.

It is good to give and to receive.

http://www.pauldagys.com/books.html

http://www.blurb.com/b/1380543-sounds-of-silence

~Paul

Photography, Architecture, Truth

Only photography can explain how a pier appears. If you came to Dover, you could see the Prince of Wales pier, which was completed in 1902.   The shelter seen in the photograph was added in 1977

Some things are very hard to explain. Once a writing teacher said, give me three sentences about your home town.   I finally put down… i came. i saw. i departed.

Despite new devices, it’s still hard to communicate. i loved photography more than anything, because it was so hard to dispute. Words can have meanings multiple, but

THERE REALLY WAS a pier where boys and girls jumped

into the cold British sea, there was a place where just for a moment, sun, shadows and shapes spoke silently. There really was.

But in our digital age, one could show even the Eiffel tower standing in a crater on the moon, so if a digital image is to convince, you have to trust the source.

And you CAN trust me my friend, really, the check is in the mail.

Really, i’m from the government and i’m here to help you. Really…

~paul

Putting the Stamp on Poetry

Separate Holidays 

Ten-thirty in my time,
gone midnight in yours.

You will have dined on meat cooked by thieves,
sipped iced water to cut through
walnuts, sugar and filo
steeped in thyme-infused honey.

You will dream of mountains
hunched around villas baked white and silent:
gnarled olive trees, their leaves shuddered
silver-green in hot, dry winds;
listless waves lapping scorched Ionian shores.

You will wake with the tang of lemon on your lips:
I wake to cold white sheets;
needles of Norfolk rain.

                                       Julie Stamp