Pause for Poetry (14)

I started my Pause for Poetry series about two weeks after I started blogging. That was a year ago. The first P for P was kicked off by a wonderful poet and friend of mine, Paul Bura, who has been writing poems for centuries, perhaps even longer.

He has published about 10 anthologies of poems as well as a novel and a thought-provoking book about crop circles.

His latest anthology of poems hot off the press is The Red Kite. If you know and love Paul’s poetry then you’ll love this book. If you’re new to his work then you’ll also love this; and then you will want to seek out his previous tomes.

Spike Milligan was a fan and wrote:

Paul Bura is a straight down-the-line poet. He is sensitive and emotional, a journalistic poet with a good sense of imagery.

Dumdad in a foreword to an earlier anthology, Brand New, wrote:

And yet he is more than just a journalistic poet, although he himself writes that he strives to be “just a poet”. His talent lies in his deceptively simple style that lures us so effortlessly into his world. He leads us down paths we never imagined existed; he can also take us down well-trodden paths we know and make us see them anew. Knowing Paul, he would probably add he sometimes leads us up the garden path as well . . . He’s a poet who cares . . . Just another poet? I don’t think so.

Christy Brown enthused:

I laughed out loud in my midnight room at some of his tough, witty descriptions of childhood, smiled sadly at his love encounters, and groaned when he struck a certain all too responsive chord within myself. He has a voice that would make Dylan Thomas growl in his grave with envy.

Ian Dury said:

This geezer says it the way it is.

But don’t just read our words about this unique poet – go buy his books and find out for yourself!
I’m spoilt for choice in selecting a poem from The Red Kite as all the odes are worthy contenders to feature here.

Eeeny, meeny, miney . . . no, sod it, it’s my blog let’s print two of the rascals!


THE POST POLIO THING

I created a poem the other day
Of specific things that I had to say.

My arms were the subject as I recall:
What if I had no bloody arms at all?

It’s getting that way: my arms are weaker
This post polio thing prevents this speaker

From scribbling down the magical verse
That forms my trade; is that being perverse?

My brain is too fast for my wretched hands
Leaving it a mass of confusing strands . . .

The day will dawn when my brain will explode
Leaving bits of poems all over the road!

I also include the following poem which is atypical of his usual fare but made me laugh as I imagined his deep, majestic voice reading this.

POSH TALK

The faithful hind
Covered the grind
In a single bind
Without a signed,
Later, recaptured
Taken back to the pined.

Having wined and dined
The owners of the hind
Were finally fined
Ordered to leave behind
A cheque, which they signed
To the owners of the hind.

(NOTES: hind = hound, grind = ground, bind = bound, signed = sound, pined = pound.)