Today is the 21st National Poetry Day here in the UK with events taking place nationwide with flash-mobs of poetry readings, Blackpool lights ablaze with verse as well as schools around the country taking part in a Readathon. 

To celebrate the event I want to feature the work of a friend and new poet, Thalia Gust. I find her work astonishing on so many levels, at times ethereal and spiritual, then humorous, later down-to-earth. From the personable to the international.  Always a delight and I hope you enjoy and find the poem as rewarding as I do.

Blockbusters

We have ‘Blockbusters’, ‘Hits’, ‘Bestsellers’

All aggressive words and little to do with Creation.

We grab some food, hit the sack, beat the record.

Where is the grace gone?

♦♦♦

Pour souls, beaten to death

No succour to be had

Art and literature turned to weapons,

Stealthily harming us all.

♦♦♦

Where is the balm, the uplifting thoughts,

The poems and books.

Did they all get sacrificed on the altar

The altar to Mammon.

♦♦♦

Empty spirits and souls

Buried under the avalanche, feeding mindlessly

Slowly dying, crying and hungry

For the rescue team to come.

♦♦♦

Stop sitting in the stinking mud.

Stand up, cleanse the silt from your soul.

Walk away from it all, lift your eyes to the sky

Let the sound of nature fill your heart.

♦♦♦

Watch, there is a glimmer guiding you out

Guiding you, showing the way.

New books, new films are filling the void

Showing us the simple fullness of life.

♦♦♦

They come quietly, without fanfare

They are written from the heart

From mouth to mouth they spread

Like gentle rain from heaven, their words transform.

© Thalia Gust

Finally on this National Poetry Day a special collection of poems , Light – A National Poetry Day Anthology, has been created and is free to download. I highly recommend this and one of my childhood favourites made it in – Edward Lear’s The Owl and The Pussycat.