Oblation
Algernon Charles Swinburn

Ask nothing more of me, sweet;
All I can give you I give.
Heart of my heart, were it more,
More would be laid at your feet:
Love that should help you to live,
Song that should spur you to soar.

All things were nothing to give
Once to have sense of you more,
Touch you and taste of you sweet,
Think you and breathe you and live,
Swept of your wings as they soar,
Trodden by chance of your feet.

I that have love and no more
Give you but love of you, sweet:
He that hath more, let him give;
He that hath wings, let him soar;
Mine is the heart at your feet
Here, that must love you to live.

 "Creative minds are rarely tidy"
     The exception to the rule.
     -------------------------------
Having ordered your tools now
 - neat and tidier,
That will lead to you being unable to
 - abide m'dear,
Deviation in their proper places
 - spacially,
To be visually 'out' by even a
 - minute degree.
Poor Jamie, now you'll never get to sleep
 - at night,
Colin has a lot to answer for,
 - having caused your plight,
If only that 10mm spanner hadn't
 - disappeared,
Rehab had the OCD symptoms
 - almost cleared!
How many times will you have to check
 - if they're all there?
Will you be able to remove one
 - to do a repair?
Have you drawn outlines to see where their
 - dead bodies rest?
Matey, chuck 'em back in the toolbox...
 - it's for the best!

Back from my travels, have you missed me?
Don't answer that!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8I6hN4Y3qg

"James May's Man Lab" Trailer

Mr May showing us how to make a snail shadow on the wall!

I've had a stainless steel exhaust put on the old Celica today,
Cor Blimey! It sounds like a proper boy-racer's car now!

Soul's Beauty
Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Under the arch of Life, where love and death,
Terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw
Beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe,
I drew it in as simply as my breath.
Hers are the eyes which, over and beneath,
The sky and sea bend on thee, - which can draw,
By sea or sky or woman, to one law,
The allotted bondman of her palm and wreath.

This is that Lady Beauty, in whose praise
Thy voice and hand shake still, - long known to thee
By flying hair and fluttering hem, - the beat
Following her daily of thy heart and feet,
How passionately and irretrievably,
In what fond flight, how many ways and days!

To----
Percy Bysshe Shelley

One word is too often profaned
For me to profane it;
One feeling too falsely disdained
For thee to disdain it;
One hope is too like despair
For prudence to smother;
And pity from thee more dear
Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love;
But wilt thou accept not
The worship the heart lifts above
And the heavens reject not, -
The desire of the moth for the star,
Of the night for the morrow,
The devotion to something afar
From the sphere of our sorrow?

I met Col down at the pub on Friday dinnertime. Hadn't seen him for ages. Sad to say, he has really gone downhill recently. The fact is that he just can't hold his liquor! (He has always suffered with a perforated base.) I tried to take his mind off his troubles by suggesting he take up beer-mat collecting. I started him off with these... 

Speak!
William Wordsworth

WHY art thou silent! Is thy love a plant
   Of such weak fibre that the treacherous air
   Of absence withers what was once so fair?
Is there no debt to pay, no boon to grant?
Yet have my thoughts for thee been vigilant--
   Bound to thy service with unceasing care,
The mind's least generous wish a mendicant
   For nought but what thy happiness could spare.
Speak--though this soft warm heart, once free to hold
   A thousand tender pleasures, thine and mine,
Be left more desolate, more dreary cold
   Than a forsaken bird's-nest filled with snow
   'Mid its own bush of leafless eglantine--
   Speak, that my torturing doubts their end may know!

Superman, Supercar?
-------------------------
At Number One, is the true petrolhead,
Too classy to buy a Ferrari in red.
Perhaps Number Two, midlife crises thing,
With the need to experience a certain fizzing,
At Three is the, selfmade millowner 'up north',
Who needs a sleek Aston to go back and forth.
At Four there's the popstars and those who kick balls,
Who need to off-load as the share index falls.
At Five are the rest, all loaded, some ginger,
Even buying the classics their fortunes dont injure.

You'll be glad to know, I think you're number one,
And/or possibly two, (that's my brownie points gone!).
Still, a man of discernment, and yet you like toys,
Are supercars for men then, or Peter Pan boys?
James the answers you want, you have had all along,
You're just enjoying reading, the views of the throng!
So, please, end the debate by telling us why
If the supercar is pointless then, why did you buy?

As a joke someone hid Aleksandr's clothes while he went skinny-dipping.

Here he is, trying hard to look nonchalant, whilst preserving his modesty!

I may be absolutely barmy, but am taking the inclusion of my name in the Telegraph, as balm to soothe the former hurt.
All is well with the world once more. x

"100 per cent chance of life' on Earth-like planet
called Gliese 581g found 20 light years away."
Ooh er! Can you believe it?

Suspiria
Anon

O would I were where I would be!
There would I be where I am not:
For where I am would I not be
And where I would be I can not.

Come Share
(Mine)

I need to recall memories of when I was young,
As I listen to how much my ageing mother has forgotten,
Remembering growing up in a countryside idyll,
Picking cowslips in a dress of gingham cotton.

Aged five, I saw a dragonfly, a monster of the air,
With a wooden rake I made the iridescent sheaves of hay,
One day the front field flooded, so I paddled in the sea,
There were hours and hours and hours to every day.

Playing the kazoo in the Sunday School procession,
Following the village band, sun glinting off the brass,
Proud I was to sing, with my father in the choir,
Weaving round the maypole, egg sandwich picnics on cropped grass.

Singing 'Mary's Boy Child' for a close friend of my gran',
Getting sixpence for it, a fortune to me, thank you,
Wind howling down the hillside, snow drifts heralding, 'no school',
Making ice caves, going sledging, going home soaked through.

Given a ride on a huge charger, a dappled, white horse,
So momentous, his 'Shining Tanner' name I still recall,
Meadow Avenue, still fronted by a wavy field of green,
Playing house, swinging on joists as new buildings rose, tall.

Hanging upside down from the bars on the local 'rec',
Biking miles and miles through limestone dales, alone,
'Telecommunication', the word picked for charades at school!
Good Heavens! That's what I thought!
Thank goodness I am grown.

So Mother, please dont worry, share my memories with me,

As yours fade, I have enough for both of us, you know,

You were always there, contained, and waiting patiently for me,

That's why the bond will never break, and I will always love you so.

I envy anyone who is 'in love' today.
Also, anyone who doesn't have to go to work in the morning!

The Bargain
Sir Philip Sidney

MY true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one for another given:
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,
There never was a better bargain driven:
My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

His heart in me keeps him and me in one,
My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it was his own,
I cherish his because in me it bides:
My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

A Divine Rapture
Francis Quarles

E'EN like two little bank-dividing brooks,
That wash the pebbles with their wanton streams,
And having ranged and search'd a thousand nooks,
Meet both at length in silver-breasted Thames,
Where in a greater current they conjoin:
So I my Best-beloved's am; so He is mine.

E'en so we met; and after long pursuit,
E'en so we joined; we both became entire;
No need for either to renew a suit,
For I was flax, and He was flames of fire:
Our firm-united souls did more than twine;
So I my Best-beloved's am; so He is mine.

If all those glittering Monarchs, that command
The servile quarters of this earthly ball,
Should tender in exchange their shares of land,
I would not change my fortunes for them all:
Their wealth is but a counter to my coin:
The world 's but theirs; but my Beloved's mine.