To Bethena

I missed your love and kindness,
your soul of souls,
but beauty with its assorted delinquents and trinkets
never fades or wilts,
and 'tho I nest amongst adders in the dawn
I am at the gentle mercy of you always.
Those eyes, that smile,
a face which had all the answers
and hangs forever, a portrait in my chest.
Oh to have known you darling Bethena!
To have held your hand
and walked with you, both poets on fire,
a furious blaze all together smothering the page.

I gaze into your eyes, those chessnut pools
and know what might have been
is happening now in the emerald garden
where your delicate touch is freezing the furies.
Bethena! Gone before your time
but time itself will be your tribute
as those you Love remember you,
and this ode, testament of your inspiration
which reshaped the horizons of a distant hand.
Oh to have known you!
But content am I to know that you live on,
triumphed over crocodiles
and sending Love in butterflies...

©Steven Francis poems 2010

Remembering you today, 12 years on x

A Golden Legacy (There Is Hope)

Lass fantastic Jess Ennis

Heres some free advice from an old tooth to the younger lambs: forget the idiot reality television, the hideous 'Towie' creatures and plank pop stars. Put down thy warm bottles of WKD and give up your spot on street corners with the louts and look at the photo above. Jessica Ennis is your new role model.
If there is to be any worthwhile legacy from these London 2012 olympic games, then it must be that Britain's young will look to Ennis, Farah and the reast of Team GB, switch off the television and get out and start chasing their dreams. You can achieve whatever you want to in this life, you really can. Just look at the photographs plastered all over the newspapers to see the evidence. Or better still count the Gold medals. Who needs the foul Jordan and Jodie Marsh when you have real role models aplenty in Team GB?
I admit I went into these games with the black dog of doubt snapping at my heels, believing the only winners and legacy from them would be big buisness and lardy politicians buttering their own bread. And this is still true of course but now after witnessing the success of our spunky athletes, I can see something more special being brewed: inspired youth.

Fists Over the Mirage

I Can See You

People over on Twitter are getting excited over some television show being aired for the first time in the UK tonight. I find this ever so sad. We used to be inspired by Shakespeare, Everest, the Oceans and the flight of birds. Now it is television that gets the people off. The death of Mankind. You think Dai Jakes overly dramatic? Not when one considers we shall never see the likes of Da Vinci ever again. Yes we still have brilliant inventors and innovators but by and large our (or rather yours as I dont watch) imaginations have been cut to the quick by the relentless tide of rubbish television, made worse by countless channels and the need to fill them. Anything can get on TV these days.
I won't belabour the fact because my views about television are quite clear and well known but after witnessing such blind fever over a mere television show, I can only reiterate my feelings on the subject. And despair at the hopelessness of it all. Talk about putting a gun to your head, the majority of people are willingly stupefying themselves without seeming to care one jot. Still I mustn't be too harsh on them because perhaps its their way of numbing the senses and they use television in the same way as others use alcohol and drugs.
Still, I find it very sad to think hardly anyone reads the classic novels anymore and prefer iPods and the like. True the great books are available to download from places like iBooks but who is it (apart from yours truly) that is reading them? Not many I would wager.
Do thyselves a big favour and bin the dreadful television (or watch less), your mind and imagination will thank you. It doesn't like to be spoonfed ideas you know.

***** ***** ***** *****

No doubt amazed a person could ever live without television (when most seem hoplessly addicted), a few folks have asked me if I miss it. Three words: dear God no! Why on earth would I? I switched off a while ago now, and feel much better for having pulled the plug. More free, less cluttered in ideas and this is what people don't realise, the sense of liberation one gets when not glued to a TV timetable/guide is fantastic, like a dense fog suddenly lifted from the spirit. I doubt I will ever go back to watching lobotovision, the bland programes and series on offer are just not worth it and I prefer fresh air and books. Hell I would even take another episode of alcohol cold turkey over it!
Life for me now is less than 1% television. I do watch the news once a day (but its more often radio I hear it) and I enjoy Sons Of Anarchy (although ive never watched it on the tube, DVD boxsets only). And regardless of what other people think (to be honest I doubt theyre still capable of honest thought), I am NOT missing a darned thing. Whatever silly show or drama series you could suggest to me, I could offer you a thousand times more in the works of Shakespeare for example, or simply by walking the countryside and gazing at red kites. Life is never made richer by flicking the remote control but try a book, a good book, and you will be amazed and perhaps even inspired (but small steps first).
Also never get it in your head and believe thay I am missing out on anything by my television abstinence. That is delusion at its finest and proving how good a job TV does of mashing your mind. It is the people who ignore the works of the immortal and great who are missing out but alas for around 75% they are forever lost, doomed to digital purgatory in a hell I would fear more than Dante's vision. Over the top? Yes I am prone to being OTT when I witness such wilful ignorance being displayed without shame and in such abundance. Unlike most I feel with my soul, not my skin therefore the stings from mortal folly burn me to my chore.
Of course now it sounds like I am lambasting television as the death of orignal ideas and I am but also from discovering my freedom and even after what Ive written here, everyone is free to follow whatever brings them pleasure and certainly I hold no malice or grudges againt anyone because I have no right (nor wish) to take away anyones entertainment. Each to their own. Stripped of all this wordy mass, I guess this is an appeal from a humble poet and writer to people to give literature another chance because from where I sit I only watch words being drowned by the deafening volume of television and its heartbreaking.