Thursday extracts. Walt Whitman on love...

Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman (1819-1892) American poet, was a man ahead of his time. He wrote some of the sexiest poetry ever put on paper - and it got him into trouble.
His collection Leaves of Grass was deemed obscene because of its overtly sexual nature. Here's a taster of why.



From Spontaneous Me

The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,)
The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me,
This poem drooping shy and unseen that I always carry, and that all men carry,
(Know once for all, avow'd on purpose, wherever are men like me, are our lusty lurking masculine poems,)
Love-thoughts, love-juice, love-odor, love-yielding, love-climbers,
and the climbing sap,
Arms and hands of love, lips of love, phallic thumb of love, breasts
of love, bellies press'd and glued together with love,
Earth of chaste love, life that is only life after love,
The body of my love, the body of the woman I love, the body of the
man, the body of the earth,
Soft forenoon airs that blow from the south-west,
The hairy wild-bee that murmurs and hankers up and down, that gripes the
full-grown lady-flower, curves upon her with amorous firm legs, takes
his will of her, and holds himself tremulous and tight till he is satisfied;

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FFF55. Impress me

You want to impress me?  Bring me flowers. Not boring roses but bright daffodils. Clove-scented pinks. Feed me well. French bread, salty butter, crisp salad leaves. Fresh crab and a bottle of bone dry Chablis. Follow it with a good blue cheese; Roquefort with pears, and a glass of fine port.

Read me Walt Whitman.

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Fortunately the person who needs to know this advice has got it pretty well sorted!  (xx K. )

FFF55 is a weekly challenge to write a story in just 55 words.  It's hosted over at the G-Man's blog.  Go visit!

Do I contradict myself?

It's the first day of March and that seems like a good time to do some Spring cleaning. One of the things I've decided to Spring clean is my blog. Or rather, my blogs. I already have more than one blog and some of my readers will know that I have a lot of different sides to my character. There's the one who takes photos and the one who paints and draws. There's one who is a bit of a whizz in the kitchen and handy at saving money. There's the historian, the traveller, the mystic, the worker, the layabout, the nature lover, the gardener, all sorts of people. In fact one of my favourite quotes is from Walt Whitman and it's to do with being lots of different people in one mind and body.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself.
I am large. I contain multitudes

All of those people have found their way onto my generic blog. MorningAJ. The one that I started out with. Then one part of me peeled away. She started out as a couple of pages called "How to..." but she became Auntie Anne. The best thing since sliced bread. And her advice, recipes, anecdotes, hints and tips have their own place now. (And their own little group of followers!) But it started to become obvious that another part of me needed space of its own. And that's the writer. The Wordsmith. So here it is. I already spend my days writing marketing and publicity for an organisation in the Midlands (and that's as far as I'm going to go in identifying it. I do not profess to represent my employer once I leave the office. This blog is mine. All my own. And the views expressed here must not be seen as reflecting on anyone but myself.)but a lot of my spare time is spent writing creatively. Short stories, flash fiction, bad poetry, and there's even a novel in progress.