Birthday Greetings

As themes show signs of nature’s stay,
And time’s propitious dates hold sway,
The evidence augurs your bloom,
From sculptured years that now have hewn
A shapened belle upon a theme,
Appears today, your beauty’s seam,
Enjoined! auspicious perfect pair,
The past, has futured you so fair.

 

Past Tomorrows

Past tomorrows, come and stay,
Timed pressed presents, gifts today,
Passing backwards, thoughts that say,
Gentle times, now gone a way.

 

David Hollywood co-Directed The Bahrain Writer’s Circle and founded and ‘The Colours of Life’ poetry festival in Bahrain , The Gulf, and latterly worked in Antigua, The West Indies upon a variety of poetry in performance events. He is the author of an eclectic collection of poems titled ‘Waiting Spaces’ plus co-author of ‘My Beautiful Bahrain’, ‘Poetic Bahrain’, ‘More of My Beautiful Bahrain’, ‘Lonely’ and a variety of further publications. He was the in-house poet for ‘Bahrain Confidential Magazine’ and is one of the most widely read poets in The Middle East. He is a literary critic for ‘Taj Mahal Review’ plus an essayist on the subject of poetry appreciation. There are plans for a new collection of poetry and essays to be released in 2018. David has additional responsibility for the teaching of Wine Appreciation Programmes and Themes which he developed for the hospitality industry, and currently lives in his home country of Ireland.

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20 Responses

  1. J. Simon Harris

    Both of these have a nice fluid progression, very pleasurable to read. Although it’s a bit metaphysical, I think I like the second one best. Still, in the first one, I enjoyed your Dantesque elevation of the noun “future” to a verb.

    Reply
    • David Hollywood

      Many thanks for your kind appreciations and I am very pleased you enjoyed them.

      Reply
  2. Satyananda Sarangi

    Greetings Sir!

    Both the poems had good flow and unfathomable depth. I have always loved reading you here.

    Best wishes.

    Reply
    • David Hollywood

      Dear Satyananda, I am always flattered by your appreciations and thank you for your support.

      Reply
    • David Hollywood

      Dear Amy, I am delighted you enjoyed them. Many thanks for your comment.

      Reply
  5. C.B. Anderson

    David,

    There were a number of things I did not understand in “Birthday Greetings” and I shall attempt to enumerate them:

    In line 1, I see that “natures” has suddenly been given an apostrophe to make the word properly possessive.

    In line 3, the iambic meter you established forces the reader to read “augurs” as an iamb when the word is really a trochee: AU-gurs.

    In line 5, what is a “belle?” I only know it to mean a much-admired girl or woman. And I don’t mind the archaic past participle “shapen,” but there is no justification for adding an “-ed” to it, unless you are going for some grammatical tense that doesn’t exist.

    Line 6 comes out of nowhere. The verb “Appears” requires a subject, but your run-on grammatical structure provides none.

    “Enjoined?” This means either to command or prohibit. Did you mean “conjoined?”

    I find this “poem” to be completely garbled English. Perhaps that was your intention, but E. E. Cummings did it much better.

    May the Lord have mercy on the Anglophones living in Bahrain!

    Reply
    • David Hollywood

      Dear C.B,
      Many thanks for your opinion of my poems, and which I have to admit did make me smile as I tried to reflect upon the motivations for such commentary and tone. But there we are!
      Equally, I am sorry you did not understand so much about them and I hope this has not caused any inconvenience.
      I assume your intentions were to assist me achieve higher standards of presentation, and for which I indebted for the generosity, and would thank you for your efforts.
      In my case it is a lost cause due to the fact I am happy with them, as is my wife for whom ‘Birthday Greetings’ was written, and I am therefore going to change nothing about them.
      Considering some specifics of what you observe, you are quite correct about line 1, so no need for change there.
      As for line 2, the interpretation is whatever you prefer it to be, regardless of whether you sense it is forced or not.
      With regard to line 5 I am sure you have come neologisms and experimentation, and I also believe you understood this to be the case.
      Apologies if my structure is not up to standard, however I really am not going to spoil my thoughts and appreciations by attempting to gain perfection after the event is over. However, I once more thank you for whatever guidance this may give to future works.
      I am happy to acknowledge ‘conjoined’ would be better.
      With regard to E.E. Cummings, whoever he or she is, I am relieved to learn they are better at garbled English than I am, and I shall make every effort to avoid them. Thank you for the tip. However, I am sorry you found my own work to be somewhat similar as it was not intentional.
      Maybe the poems are not good enough in your estimation, but fortunately I am consoled by the response of others who did seem to regard the two poems for what they are, and I shall therefore remain in their camp.
      I am very sorry to read your last comment regarding Bahrain, as I believe it was unnecessary, but that is your choice, and as an Irishman I am only glad you were never my instructor in the use of English. Albeit, I imagine your academic awareness of the language is otherwise excellent, and good luck to you!
      Thanking you once more, with best regards.

      Reply
  6. Joan Carol Fullmore

    Thank you for the poems – especially the birthday one – I felt you wrote it just for me! Inspired for me a new way of viewing the passage of each year.

    Reply
  7. David Watt

    Thanks for your latest poems David. ‘Past Tomorrows’ succinctly sums up a concern we all share – the relentless march of time.

    Reply
  8. David Hollywood

    Thank you David, and I you are right about the march of time, which becomes more and more evident whenever I view last years photographs.

    Reply
  9. James Sale

    Lovely work, David, and like JSH I especially like that final line: The past, has futured you so fair. It just gets that sense of the interconnectedness between the past and the future by making it a verb. Nice one! Thank you.

    Reply
  10. David Hollywood

    Dear James, Many thanks for your very kind appreciations and I am just relieved they contain an inkling of merit.

    Reply
    • David Hollywood

      Thank you Rohini,
      I am very pleased you enjoyed them, and I am delighted your own has appeared on this site. It really is a wonderful opportunity for those who take poetry seriously.

      Reply

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