Reflection of Lamppost in Windowglass, Paris: Photograph

The reflection of this lamp-post seemed rather poetic to me.

Why do words sometimes remain mutinous and unyielding?
 There's a storm raging in my head but will words come to me, to assist
to help deflect the pressure that builds up on my mind
the whirling confusion of it sometimes too much to bear.

Without You : Poem

Without You

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Without you the waters lie still; the reflections of silent trees

Remain as though transfixed but not tranfigured

Green shrubs and leaves remain sombre; clouds peer

And wonder at the stillness.

It might even rain. Why doesn’t the rain

Fall now and be done with it’s will?

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Without you feelings remain in my heart

Unable to be expressed. Freedom and finery

Are long behind. Senses and sense are nonsense.

When will the cells in my body awake?

When will the dawn come and awakening light

Awaken my brain?

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Let me wait for another day yet again.

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Copyright: Rani Turton

Shadow Of A Streetlamp: Photograph

Wooden figure, Auxerre

In Auxerre, the older houses often have statues or wooden figures adorning them.

If Tears There Should Be: Poem

If Tears There Should Be

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If tears there should,lying dormant in

This silent heart, let them flow, unchecked

Or let them go

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If tears there be when I walk the streets

And my footsteps sound hollow

No time for sorrow

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If tears should overwhelm me

By sheer torrential power

Over and over

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Let the tears come on, slow.

The fountains flow.

Let this emotion show

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Now, or just go.

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Copyright: Rani Turton

Invalides, Paris

The golden dome of Invalides that contains both Napoleon's tomb and the Army Museum.

Deserts That Dance In My Mind: Poem

DESERTS THAT DANCE IN MY MIND

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Endless walks, nothing at all in sight;

Nothing and nobody in sight.

My mind, still and

Oblivious to the external world, scorched and

Silent, walked , walked, walked on.

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People with pasts have memories to keep them warm

And others, have nothing more to say.

The mind, like a furnace, clings to the air

To burn, to burn, to burn bright.

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There are deserts that dance in my mind

Strange, irreal and almost divine.

They beckon, they chase me from reason

As I circle in the vast nowhere, somewhere, everywhere.

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Copyright: Rani Turton

The Red Carpet, Cannes

The famous walk up the red carpet for the film festival at Cannes.

So Acute Was My Loneliness: Poem

So Acute Was My Loneliness

Cobbled stones, not dust.
So acute was my loneliness that dream I must.
Escapism was a flight from dreary realism.

If roam I must, if chains I must break
Alone, in this pebble-strewn destiny
My happiness I must fake.

So acute was my loneliness that home was far
Too far; too far and distant my loved ones and my thoughts
That in that black cosmic wilderness even the North Star
Seemed close enough to touch. That even my words
Seemed transparent and tinted with Orientalism

So distant and cold, so empty my worlds.
So acute was my loneliness even the poems would not come
The words fled, the streets wet, a spectre I had become
My memories tinged with the bitter things I had done

All alone. When dawns touched my lids after fitful sleep
I had resolved never, never to weep
However deep the pain. However acute the pain
The sun would shine tomorrow and I would become myself again.

Copyright: Rani Turton

Papa: Children's art

Artist's (10 years) conception of Papa!

Old Fire Engine, France

This wonderful old fire engine decorates a roadside near the town of Lagny.

Last leaves on a tree: Photograph

Another gust of wind and they should be gone.

Street Art, France

Signed street art on a wall in a suburb of Paris.

Nets and Knots: Poem

Nets and Knots

Nets and knots, knots and nets.

Away from the shore, away from land
Into the mist and sea
Living, living and trying to be.

I am not a knot in a net
A knot I am not.

But, yet all I saught
Taught me naught
Life was a lesson, a reason
A long way have I come.

Nets and knots
Knots and nets.
Away from what I wanted to be
Just fishing on a lonely blue sea.

Copyright: Rani Turton

Basilique Sainte-Thérèse of Lisieux

An important site for pilgrims. St Thérèse was canonised in 1925.

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The official website

http://www.therese-de-lisieux.catholique.fr/

Duck Conference

A serious duck conference in the river Marne, France.

Stone Lion, Dieppe

Stone lion on fountain at Dieppe.

One Day Old Age Will Bend Me Down: Poem

One Day Old Age Will Bend Me Down

One day age will bend me down

And I will walk slowly like my old father.

I will have left life's mysterious codes

Those codes that slowly left me, rather.

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That day will come soon enough:

Old age has its own mystey and pain;

But wonder too at the singing bird, the trailing rose

The thunder and the rain.

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My bones will be frail, my shoulders stooped.

I will recall the past, mirages and things;

Time will be measured by each new dawn, and

The wonders that each sunrise brings.

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Copyright: Rani Turton

Urban Art, France

An entire wall that has been painted by street artists in Chelles, France.