http://slow.writerscafe.org/bluepoet37 The original writings of author Mark Cope en-us Copyright 2026 WritersCafe.org 1776016819 WritersCafe.org RSS Generator 15 Cavorting like fools under moonlight, no more dancing on glass;flames of passion within me ignite, all others you surpass.The sweet love you have shown to me, is etched upon your face;From my woe I am a refugee, within your soft embrace.I won't let go like I have before,.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/1393155/ "Due to this population explosionthe masses must be controlled."Knee deep in a paddy fieldheld under water."Chinese government officialswill be sent out to spread the message."The baby's cries were silenced."Limits will be respected;couples will be restricted to one child.".. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/1393149/ Roll-call wake-up with the breath of rotting feet;another day, another open wound that won’t heal.‘Dressed!’ ‘Make beds!’‘Collar down!’‘Fall in!’‘Keep time!’ ‘Eyes right!’Orders barked at a brutal rhythm .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/772880/   I stare out in hurried on jeans,brightly freckled skylighting up the oceanby my sand soaked feet.Am I the only one awake tonight?The hypochondriac of loveand the speckled pinpricks of deathlisten to the oceansoothing us to sleep.My dreams are a Tuscan paintingall bright .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/695366/   I look up from a blank page,swimming in a galaxy of questions,last summers butterfliesstill dead on the dusty windowsill.Outside I see one person walkinglook again it's two in disguise.Romeo succumbed to this Tybalt love,Juliet ran back to Paris.Is there anything left to s.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/684813/ Upon the moat the daffs do shine     beneath the city wall,beyond, the view that is all mine     look on a splendid sprawl.The majestic Minster is beheld     in holy patriotic glory,its beauty is unparrelled  &nbsp.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/560458/ I had been to the Lake District on occasions in the past and had never really understood, nor got to grips with the full potential of the area. The lakes themselves were agreeable enough but I never discovered why so many thousands of people relentlessly trampled all over the region and came back .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557783/ Heathcliffe Mews, Vilette Coffee House, Eyre’s and Grace’s. This could only be Brontë Country. From the moment you step into the hard-nosed West Yorkshire village of Haworth, its main street running away down a steep descent and dressed like a heavyweight boxer in a tutu, you are .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557782/ A magazine I had never heard of before had recently voted Hebden Bridge the fourth funkiest place on Earth. They had run a piece about it on my local television news; Calendar or Look North, I forget which. Did they mean Hebden Bridge was authentic, stylish and exciting; or that it was foul smelli.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557781/ How long does a book have to be? I must be nearing the end by now? You are in a better position to tell me as there should be a lot less pages in your right hand than those in your left. Unless you are one of those readers who hold a book in one hand with your thumb pressed into the spine. Not tha.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557780/ We called into a motorway services and sat looking out at the rain lashing down the six lanes of motorway passing beneath us, little arteries of raindrops trickling down the panes. This was our annual visit to a fast food emporium. It would usually be at our local drive-by, but it made a refreshin.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557779/ I could think of no finer way to view a city for the first time than to climb the nearest church tower and feast my eyes all at once on the glories it possessed, and there can be no finer city to view from above than Oxford.  Oxford is a city that is well hidden from view as you approach,.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557778/ Each Sunday, just as the morning is bidding farewell, I manage to crawl out of bed and descend the stairs in time to turn on the television and watch The Book Show on some obscure channel. On this programme, presided over by the delectably husky Mariella Frostrup, three guest authors are interview.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557776/ All authors know that sinking feeling of rejection. Even the worldwide phenomenon that is JK Rowling. Even her first Harry Potter book was rejected, so I am told, by twelve publishers before Bloomsbury took it up. Agatha Christie is said to have received so many rejection slips she papered a room .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557774/ Doom bar...Before reaching the Atlantic Cornish coast we stopped off at Wadebridge station quite some years after the last train had departed. It seemed an odd place to find a museum room dedicated to the 20th century’s most beloved poet, but that was John Betjeman all over " always poppin.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557773/ The first English novel " by that I mean the English novel as we know it " was Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe back in 1719, which doesn’t sound all that long ago when you consider we already had as our back catalogue of literature: Shakespeare, Milton, Spenser, Donne, Marlowe, Jonson, .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557772/ Upon finishing a detective novel I often find myself wondering why the detective is always so thoroughly unlikeable. They are supposed to be the hero of the story and as such you would think they would act accordingly. They should be the character to whom you, the reader, relate most. They ought t.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557771/ The skies over Dorset had welled up all day without shedding so much as a tear, but it was sufficient warning for us to acquire a room in a modest bed and breakfast for the night. We wished no repeat of the Brighton fiasco.  Rachel, our modest bed and breakfast locater at the Dorchester t.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/557770/ One day when I was kicking around the age of seven and I could not find my two brothers I asked my mother where they had gone.     "They’ve gone to the pictures." she replied.      "What have they gone to see?" I enquired.    .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/555939/ There you are. I SAID, THERE YOU ARE. SORRY I HAVE TO SHOUT BUT I CAN’T HEAR A THING ABOVE THIS WIND. WAIT WHILE I STEP INSIDE AND CLOSE THE DOOR. That’s better. We had been woken well before dawn by a furious wind whipping the sides of the tent. We could barely hear ourselv.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/553792/ We travelled on through into East Sussex passing the secluded grandeur of Rudyard Kipling’s Bateman’s residence. I have often wondered what compelled a perfectly respectable couple call their son Rudyard? It makes no difference that he is named after a lake positioned somewhere in the .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/553789/ I know I shouldn’t say this, but Kent is one of my favourite counties. Not for its scenery, landscape or beauty. It has its architectural faults like everywhere else. Take Ashford for instance �" please! On our first evening in Kent we had headed for Ashford to set up camp so we .. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/553785/ The Mother of England. The birthplace of English Christianity. The seat of the Primate of all England. Which ever way you look at it Canterbury sounds important. But it isn’t. I’m not just saying that because the first Archbishop chose Canterbury over my home city of York as the centre.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/552487/ Whenever London was mentioned to me as a teenager I invariably thought of dark Victorian streets, gat-lit cobbled alleyways and a miasmic fog choking the view. Perhaps I had read one too many Sherlock Holmes stories. Sherlock Holmes stories would not have been the same without the pea sou.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/552484/ For all the public transport in London: the tube, the bright red double-decker buses and the iconic black cabs; there is nothing quite like taking a stroll alongside the Thames on a cool spring morning. It happened to be a rather cold and dreary spring morning we awoke to but, as the sun tried des.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/552029/ When Amber first moved from her small Cheshire town to live with me in Yorkshire, the size of the crowds frightened the life out of her as the entire population of York came out to do their annual Christmas shopping all on the same day. I was used to immense crowds of people and simply barged thro.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/552024/ Have you ever visited somewhere you have never been to before and had a preconceived idea of what you may find there? Without looking at maps or guidebooks? Simply hearing the name of a place and assuming its identity? I do it all the time, and Cambridge was to be no exception.  In my str.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/552017/ Where the county of Lincolnshire converges with Cambridgeshire, Leicestershire, Rutland (England’s smallest mainland county) and the northern fringe of Northamptonshire we happened upon a neat little place called Helpston. The village didn’t seem quite sure in which county it belonged... http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/533411/ Lincoln is a surreal sort of town. Everybody knows it’s there, but no one seems too bothered about going to have a look. Perhaps because it’s in Lincolnshire, where else, and Lincolnshire is not everyone’s first holiday destination. Most people, by which I mean me, picture Lincol.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/525473/       ‘They f**k you up, your mum and dad’.  This was the first line of poetry I read as an adult. At least it is the first line of poetry I remember reading as an adult, and I recall its shocking statement hit me like a well aimed kick in the testicle.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/522799/ One of James Herriot’s clients was a Mr Charles Smedley. He lived at Coxwold, a few minutes south of Thirsk. Coxwold is a venerable and relaxing country village full of genteel cottages spread-out with a wide and grassy through-road gently running away with itself. Coxwold possesses a deligh.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/522787/ James Herriot called the view from Sutton Bank the best in Yorkshire. Sutton Bank is a plateau of rock bearded with trees, jutting out of the surrounding countryside like a fossilised tsunami, lying on the western fringe of the North York Moors. On a clear day you can stand, as Amber and I did, an.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/504778/ I began my inspirational quest, indeed my literary career, in a graveyard at night. It wasn’t quite the witching hour when ghosts and ghouls are wont to roam the earth. It was more like tea-time, but with the first throws of winter being heralded in on the wind it was already growing dark. I.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/503470/ The silky black sheen that ledto the blackbird’s inclined head dressed murderous intent by this fellowin a glacial stare verged in yellow.Following the fork as I turn the soilin drops of sweat from the toil.Inching closer where weed and soil combinehis prize glistens in the spr.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/501053/ It all began with an owl called Plop. If it were not for that inquisitive baby barn owl and his naïve compulsion of being afraid of the dark I swear I would not be in this mess today. I’m not sure if it was that book by Jill Tomlinson or the fact that I used to enjoy reading it to my scho.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/499069/ http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/499068/ The fox and the pussycat are both the same   yet treated as opposites,the cat is now tame while the fox gets the blame   and forced to live by his wits.To a cat they feed meat laid out at his feet   but a fox is thought of as ill,yet both would be beat and feel incomple.. http://slow.writerscafe.org/writing/bluepoet37/498422/