Rayray from an Egg

And I agree with your comment today about poetry. Breaking gibberish mid-line doesn't turn gibberish into poetry. But there is such a thing, the academics say, as "prose poetry." Forty years later, I still haven't figured out what it is.

Ian, I am delighted by your constructive comments.
As Browning observes, maybe writing a moving poem is indeed hard work. I agree with Paul Valery when he says that a poem is never finished. There is always room for improvement. However abandonment is not a strict alternative to finishing - I often shelve poems, then come back to them after 'clearing the register'. A fresh edit often works wonders. There is a danger of poems that are good in the first place becoming 'untouchable sacred cows'

RAY RAY, I knew there was some reason I connected with you. YOU COOK LIKE I DO, just with fancier food stuffs.

I just read your " recipe" for orange sauce. It Sounds like something I might write, cause to me, a recipe is just a suggestion. The only thing one can be sure of, I am going to change it, to make it my own, to utilize what is at hand or just because I can. BTW, I understood just what you were talking about, and think I could come up with an orange sauce if need be.

Now who was it who had an abundance of kumquats recently?

MizTrica1: Yes we do seem to think the same way about recipes and cooking. It is the concept or 'drift' that is important - NOT the strict formula with weights and measures and an exact listing of ingredients. Copy-cat cooking is too boring. Let's ring the changes and experiment !!

Rayray: I don't now what you're going to post tomorrow, but it's no fair comparing comic verse to poetry.

The fact is, when I finished reading your poem about the shepherd and the lost lamb, I genuinely felt cold and wet and tired, but very satisfied that I had done my job...

Poetry has no higher calling than the ability and talent to conjure up such a feeling...

Treasure it, thank god for it, develop it even more, and share it with the rest of us.

"k". of course

Rayray are you on holiday? SE is a quite a way from Yorkshire. Are you in Kent or East Anglia?

East Sussex eh? Up amongst the gentry! Sorry to hear you have a sore back, won't speculate on how you made it sore, I will leave you this wheat bag, they are really helpful, capsicum plasters help too. Hey! Thanks for the cushions, makes the place look and be much more comfortable, why didn't I think of that? Hope you are feeling better soon.

Sending you a cyber back rub. Hope its not too long before you're up and about. Take care, Rayray.

Hey Rayray, relax and get some sleep...I liked the jokes...humour has solved more problems that it has caused

I found the jokes funny - the second one I laughed at it about as had as I did the first time I heard it.

I know what Ian was trying to say - we've been down that road before. He seems very tempermental about Irish jokes and immediately goes into a rant about you wouldn'tsay it about the Jews. Makes me wonder.

You may want to read the second of my triple post, after you left last night.

Rayray, I'm sending you some I hope you find them as entertaining and amusing as I find your (and other) poetry.
I particularly like this one, I've named her 'The Ovine Miss S'
Others in my sheep repertoire include
Black sheep
Happy sheep
Dead sheep (a chef's favourite)
and last but not least

Your response was eloquent but unfortunately it will fall on deaf ears. Nothing in it would make him feel the need to come down off his high horse. Please don't let him take up too much of your time, there are much more pleasant things in life to think about. Your humour, for one!

RAYRAY, PLS, thanks for visiting my page. Strawberry tarts, how did you know they are a favorite? I might even like strawberries better than peaches! And they are grown in our local, I have taken short, limber, underage friends to pick strawberries with me. The owners of the U-pick-it fiends are very tolerant of us who eat them straignt from the vines. The crunhy sand only takes away a bit of the pleasure of eating them.

I am sure the sleep cushions will be welcomed by visitors to my riim, thank you very much.

We have been missing your ppoems lately, I hear you have a bad back. Warm that wheat bag Lynda sent you, of make yourself a rice sock ( as it sounds, fill a sock with rice, tie a know in the top if you have no sewing skills, warm and apply) and I vouch for the capsaicin (they spell it funny in OZ) rub, works wonders for aches and pains.

I looove what you've done woth the room! Are the original artworks for sale? BTW This is a licensed establishment, isn't it?

I have been thinking of you. How is your back?

Hi, Rayray, PLS! I hope you have been getting some relief with your back! It seems that when your back hurts, you just can't get comfortable doing anything (sitting, standing, walking, jumping rope, doing hopscotch, etc.) Good luck finding some relief! (By the way, I like the looks of your place here! I hope you didn't hurt your back moving things around!) I hope you'll enjoy this fresh apple cider. I'll just put it in the fridge.

Hello Ray - are the works of art yours? Are you an artist as well as a poet. Goodness me, you do keep yourself busy in retirement.
Cheers,
Anne

Yes Anne. The art-work is particularly time-consuming and exacting, and I am always busy with one thing or another. I have written a whole volume of poetry over the past 20 years or so. Thanks for your interest.

Dear Ray, Thanks for your good wishes for my daughter this morning. I am happy to report all went well and she is fine and sleeping it off. Her doctor said she may even leave hospital tomorrow! I have written a summary of what I know about the cochlear implant, which is on My Page, if you'd care to look it up. The worst fact I know about it is that when Liz was a little girl and the cochlear implant was invented the company went public to raise money and you could get shares for about $2.00. Today they're worth over $75 each. Another one of those "If Only" stories.
Love your work, mate. Cheers, Kate from Deni (Tree Sheila)

Anne: Yes the art-work is mine. I drafted 91x cartoon sketches in felt-tipped pen in Queensland more than 30 years ago. Since 2000 I have scanned them into my puter and edited them as image files. The cleaning up and perfection of the images takes hours and hours - some of them take 100 hours each - but the results are favourable. I have so far edited about 40x selected images.

Rayray, out here, we pronounce Ms as "miz". We do use it a lot because quite a few professional ladies often retain the use of their maiden name (hence forth Ms _____) but the children will have their father's name.

Yes, my dear Rayray, I have received your e-mail regarding the postal strike. Luckily for the likes of us we have e-mail! Since I have started using the internet to pay my bills, order gifts for my darling grandson who lives on the other side of the country, etc, etc, I keep thinking, oh my how far we have traveled! Here have some and some to soothe your ruffled feathers (the ones I caused to fly about with my ∞¢¶§•ºªº!!

Hey!!! I got your package!! Since the weekend is coming up, I will get the data traveler as promised and will send it to you as soon as I can. Problem I have is trying to get to the post office when it's opened! But not to worry I will get there! May take almost a week, however I try for sooner. Please not to worry, I never forget a promise!

Thanks Shosho. I hope you and your students enjoy the poems.

Rayray, did you get my package? You should by now. If not I'm going to cry!

Rayray - I have 2 cousins (sisters) named Diane & Gloria (one lives in Calif the other recently moved to Nevada.

Greetings:
If you would google ma###zda, you will find a great number of websites that you can open and find these cryptic numbers listed along with the other little c###t codes. One site I opened is /www.shenyibags.com/GuestBook.asp

Substitue real numbers for the # thingies, of course.

Wow, jeb; that sounds very technical. Is this some kind of fancy advertising?

Rayray, I hope you are feeling better after your nasty reaction to the flu vax. Take care.

My daughter saw a picture last night called "black Sheep". She said that it was the funniest horror movie she had ever seen. While she was telling me about it, I thought of you. Let me know if you see it.

Hi, Rayray - The poem Ian referenced ("The White Magnolia Tree") is at the following website:
http://members.optushome.com.au/davcas/w_magnoliatree/

Hello! I like this soup, hope you will too. You can adjust (add) the spices and add anything else you like. Very versatile
Garden Vegetable and Bean Soup (4 servings)
1 cup chopped onions
2/3 cup sliced celery
2 sliced carrots
1 1/4 tsp. minced garlic
2 tsp. vegetable oil
1 1/4 lbs. canned navy beans, or Great Northern beans, drained, rinsed, DIVIDED
2 1/3 cups fat free low sodium chicken broth
1 1/3 cups broccoli florets
1/4 tsp. dried rosemary
1/8 tsp. ground thyme
2/3 cup spinach leaves
Sauté onion, celery, carrots, and garlic in oil in large saucepan 3-4 minutes. Add HALF the beans, plus the chicken broth, broccoli florets, and herbs, heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer until broccoli is tender, 5-7 minutes. While soup is cooking, process remaining beans and spinach in food processor OR mash until smooth. Stir into soup; simmer until hot, about 2 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Can be prepared 2-3 days in advance;refrigerate, covered. Can be frozen up to 2 months.

Hi Rayray. This is the first time I've visited your site. Awesome poems - so clever. You are up there with Banjo Patterson - high praise from an ozzie sheila! Keep them coming.

Ray Ray - since I'm a widow, you could have kept all that wooden stuff and just sent the live models for Anne's album (or at least something that looks that good today). This widow isn't really interested in antiques.

I'm still thinking about a return gift to equal those magnificant oaks you left me. Might take me a while but I will! Ciao.

What a wonderful surprise when I opened the door and found the industrial excavator! How did you know that I've ALWAYS wanted to have a go on one of those! [since I nearly drove a tractor into a dam as a mad young thing of 15] I hope I don't bring the house down with it. Will keep you posted!!

Bean; if, when young, you tried a damnbusting project with a tractor, I hate to think what you will do with your new acquisition of the industrial excavator. Perhaps you will be able to write a book called "Journey to the Centre of the Earth"

Rayray, you are so kind. I always needed spiders, centipedes, snakes, leeches, hornets, not to mention stingrays, blue octopi (octopuses?) and a nest of bull ants, a whine of mosquitoes, and a bevy of belligerent black bears so that I can practice having loving kindness to ALL sentient beings without exception. It is so much easier now you have nominated them (and I assume you will include my extras) as my protectors.

Here is a poem about such things:

The daddy longlegs hang about
in every corner of this house
however much I put them out.

Although I meditate on what
compassion is I find I'm not
considerate of the spiders' lot.

But when the mossies start to bite,
then maybe spiders have a right
PROVIDED they keep out of sight.

By the way, there is a story about my teacher, Lama Zopa Rinpoche. He was in retreat in India when a scorpion decided to visit. Indian scorpions can be lethal unlike our Aussie ones which just have a nasty bite. Instead of freaking out, as I would have, he sat there calmly and offered the scorpion a drink of a few drops of milk. Thereupon the scorpion visited him daily for his drink.