The Tangled Branch Discussion Forums

Dave. Technically I feel you need 'timeless' rather than 'time less'.  But it's your poem. There's some deeply evocative lines in this. Michael, the boy who did not survive... Gentler, and yet somehow far more telling than 'the boy who died' .  The name is important.  It recognises his brief existen...

Dave, you paint a vivid picture with a number of clear images.  Promenade, sashay, flounce  and pirouette all earn their keep as being just the right words for the era. I particularly like the visuals in this little section... they ignore the shop grills' rotten teeth the Victorian houses' arched br...

Rites of passage: Indar, I still live in hope of one day finding the little photo we had in the family album when I was a kid.  but I fear it may have been lent to someone and never returned.  I was 18 months old, in the stoker's mess on Dad's last ship.  His messmates had carried me away into the ...

Like Dave I loved the image of your punk pigeons. I actually like city pigeons for the subtle iridescent colors and ability to adapt.  I agree about the iridescent colour, especially on the proudly stuck out breast of a male strutting around, cooing seductively at his intended mate.  I watched and ...

Found this from a couple of years back, whilst looking for something else, and decided to share it. Reference When Dad left the Royal Navy he discarded most of his stuff. His uniform symbolically shed, thrown from a train window. He boarded the train as a matelot,  clutching his discharge papers, st...

and sweet to read soemone who declares such a tender regard for pigeons Dave These are proper wild woodpigeons, not town pigeons.  Much easier to feel kindly disposed towards the 'wild ones'. I've hunted their species from time to time, but never in my garden .  They seem to know it's safe territor...

I really like this, Dave.  I've come back and read it several times.  It has a strange dream-like quality to it which teases at my imagination.  A woman, unselfconscious, playing  like a carefree girl,  wrapt in the moment.

And the watcher, excluded, knowing it's not for his benefit.

Gyppo

Pigeons Four feet from my back door two pigeons have built a nest, in my Fire Maple. Deep thick leaf cover, nothing to betray it save a few dropped sticks, and an increasing lime splatter on the paving slab below Two baby pigeons, spiky headed like hair-gelled punks, parent birds busy feeding them....

Welcome back, Dan.   It's been quiet around here

Gyppo