As I was Going to St Ives Mouse Pad | Zazzle #Sold

Original & vintage art © First Night Design [www.firstnightdesign.wordpress.com]

Source: As I was Going to St Ives Mouse Pad | Zazzle

Take care and keep laughing!

First Night Design | Carpe Diem: Let me die a youngman’s death by Roger McGough #Reost

FROM THE ARCHIVE 8th April 2013

The Liverpool poet Roger McGough never ceases to enthrall me. I was reminded of this marvellous poem by a friend who posted it on Facebook yesterday.  McGough makes you smile and always makes trenc…

Source: Carpe Diem: Let me die a youngman’s death by Roger McGough | First Night Design

First Night Design | The Sick Rose by William Blake #Repost

FROM THE ARCHIVE 23rd April 2013

I have used a rose from The Graphics Fairy and a background from Kerstin Frank to create an image for William Blake’s poem, The Sick Rose. Blake, of c…

Source: The Sick Rose by William Blake | First Night Design

First Night Design | One, Two, Buckle My Shoe…

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe Postcard

One two buckle my shoe,
Three, four, knock at the door,
Five, six, pick up sticks,
Seven, eight, lay them straight,
Nine, ten, a big fat hen,
Eleven, twelve, dig and delve,
Thirteen, fourteen, maids a’courting,
Fifteen, sixteen, maids in the kitchen,
Seventeen, eighteen, maids a’waiting,
Nineteen, twenty, my plate’s empty.

---

How satisfying it is to read nursery rhymes out loud. Go on – try it!

---

“The things which the child loves remain in the domain of the heart until old age. The most beautiful thing in life is that our souls remain hovering over the places where we once enjoyed ourselves. I am one of those who remembers those places regardless of distance or time.”
Kahlil Gibran, Mirrors of the Soul

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As I was Going to St Ives Postcard

As I was going to St. Ives,

I met a man with seven wives,

Each wife had seven sacks,

Each sack had seven cats,

Each cat had seven kits:

Kits, cats, sacks, and wives,

How many were there going to St. Ives?

---

Both images were scanned from my copy of The Children’s Encyclopaedia by Arthur Mee, published by the Educational Book Company Ltd. These popular volumes were published from 1908 until 1964 but the volumes I have were not given to me as a child but bought in my late teens from a charity shop. There’s no date of publication but the nature of the information and the images suggest the 1920s or 1930s.

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Available at the following galleries:
One, Two…
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK
As I was Going…
Zazzle US
Zazzle UK

Take care and keep laughing!

Christmas Ornaments by Wendy Cope

Don’t even think about asking for news of my computer! Enjoy, instead, this post from Christmas past.
Take care and keep laughing!
Sarah x

First Night Design

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas Throw Pillows

The mice attacked the Holy Family –
The one I bought in Prague, made out of straw.
By Christmas, Joseph was an amputee
And Mary and the baby were no more.
But I have other treasures to display –

Father Christmas Gift Wrap by FirstNightDesign

Two perching birds, a Santa Claus, a clown,
A rooster from the church in Santa Fe,
A little harp and drum, a shoe, a crown –

Thanksgiving Rooster Poker Deck by FirstNightDesign

Collected in the years I’ve lived with you,
The years of warmth and love and Christmas trees,

Scrapbook Fir Tree Spiral Notebook by FirstNightDesign

And someone to come home to, someone who
Can share what I bring back from overseas
And sometimes travel with me. Darling, look –
Our moon from Paris, glittering on its hook.

Home Sweet Home for Christmas Plaques by FirstNightDesign

Take care…

View original post 20 more words

Calico

Pippa Rathborne's SCRATCH POST

Please don’t ask me how I feel.
In the garden of how I feel
nothing grows
but tears and sighs and bitter aloes.
I cannot speak my sorrow:
it swells inside me, fungating tumour,
choking words and ulcerating thoughts.

In the garden of how I feel,
there is no light; sunken corner
of mind’s eye
diseased, where knotted stems writhe and mould,
mandrakes scream, torn out of earth,
and the angry rustling of ivy leaves
sirens that rats are tunnelling through.

It’s their garden now; dead ones stink
where lily and rose used to be.
Memory
by violence of absence mutates,
past and present are displaced –
love severed, nothing looks nor feels the same
that once was seen and felt by her, too.

Please don’t tell me, then, to “move on”-
raw amputee crawling towards
a closed door.
Let me journey in catacombed mind
to resurrect the garden,
replant…

View original post 69 more words

Beltane

No computer. Still. So here is some poetry from julijuxtaposed. Do check out her other poems for she has quite a way with words when it comes to the state of the UK. I nominate her for Poet Laureate!

juxtaposed

Fertile
Filling
Salamanders
Full of
Willing
Waxing
Line
And circle
Gelling
Belly
Swelling
Life arising
Coupled
Growing
Strong
And supple
Green
Uncurling
Ideas
Burning
Sparking
Kindled

New is
Bursting
Through
And forth
And out
And up
In longing
Unto
Gentle rain
And nearing
Sun
As flowering
Is quickening

Exhilaration
Come

View original post

First Night Design | Wearing of the Green on St Patrick’s Day

Lady Wears the Green for St Patrick by FirstNightDesign
Create unique personalized photo note cards from zazzle.com.

And here’s one I did last year.

Wearing the Green on St Patrick’s Day Greeting Card by FirstNightDesign
View more Wearing the green Cards

Both ladies are from the enormous collection of free vintage images at The Graphics Fairy.

Saint Patrick was a gentleman
Who through strategy and stealth
Drove all the snakes from Ireland
Here’s a drinkee to his health!
But not too many drinkees
Lest we lose ourselves and then…
Forget the good Saint Patrick
And see them snakes again!
Author unknown

Take care and keep laughing!

Related articles

• Keep Calm and Sham Rock! St Patrick’s Day – Sunday 17th March 2013
• Wearing the Green on St Patrick’s Day – New Greeting Cards
• Happy St Patrick’s Day!

First Night Design | Unfortunate Coincidence

By the time you swear you’re his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying —
Lady,  make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

The Collected Dorothy Parker

Take care and keep laughing!

Related articles

Christmas Ornaments by Wendy Cope

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas Throw Pillows

The mice attacked the Holy Family –
The one I bought in Prague, made out of straw.
By Christmas, Joseph was an amputee
And Mary and the baby were no more.
But I have other treasures to display –

Two perching birds, a Santa Claus, a clown,
A rooster from the church in Santa Fe,
A little harp and drum, a shoe, a crown –

Thanksgiving Rooster Poker Deck by FirstNightDesign

Collected in the years I’ve lived with you,
The years of warmth and love and Christmas trees,

Scrapbook Fir Tree Spiral Notebook by FirstNightDesign

And someone to come home to, someone who
Can share what I bring back from overseas
And sometimes travel with me. Darling, look –
Our moon from Paris, glittering on its hook.

Take care and keep laughing!

Related articles

• Liberty Fabric Baubles (wolvesoflondon.wordpress.com)
• The Special Needs of Christmas (lillian888.wordpress.com)
• DIY Dough Christmas Ornaments (thethingsivemade.wordpress.com)

The Sick Rose by William Blake

O Rose Thou Art Sick by FirstNightDesign

I have used a rose from The Graphics Fairy and a background from Kerstin Frank to create an image for William Blake’s poem, The Sick Rose. Blake, of course, did his own illuminated border and illustration, which is rather different to my interpretation, as you can see below.

The Sick Rose by William Blake

O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.

William Blake’s The Sick Rose c1896 © The Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge [credit: Wikipedia]

Take care and keep laughing!

Related articles

• Quote for Today: William Blake (synkroniciti.com)

Carpe Diem: Let me die a youngman’s death by Roger McGough

Youngman’s Death @ First Night Design

The Liverpool poet Roger McGough never ceases to enthrall me. I was reminded of this marvellous poem by a friend who posted it on Facebook yesterday.  McGough makes you smile and always makes trenchant points on whichever subject he writes about.

When I was in my thirties, I went back into education to do a Humanities degree. I did not complete the course, partly because I became ill and partly because I started resenting the way literature was being examined.  The pulling apart of sentences to build or deduce meaning began to ruin my native enjoyment.  I did not want to finish the degree and, like a then neighbour of mine, find I had no desire to pick up another work of fiction or book of poetry.  This neighbour had studied History at Oxford and in the fifteen or so years since, had read perhaps one history book.

That is not to decry what such study can do. I learned a great deal and was introduced to writers I had never considered reading such as Doris Lessing and the poet Grace Nichols.

In the meantime, I urge you to read what you will into Let me die a youngman’s death.  And whatever you think or feel about what he is saying is every bit as valuable and ‘right’ and ‘true’ as the pontificating of any literary critic. McGough, in a recent article in The Daily Telegraph recalls how he became hooked on poetry during a Physics lesson at his Catholic school: ‘To hell with this, let’s have some poetry,’ Brother Ryan said, and he’d close his eyes and recite a poem in Gaelic. I was transfixed because it was poetry out of context, rather than, ‘Turn to page 156 and tell me what the poet means at line 17.’

Let me die a youngman’s death by Roger McGough

Let me die a youngman’s death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death

When I’m 73
and in constant good tumour
may I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I’m 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber’s chair
may rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I’m 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman’s death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
‘what a nice way to go’ death

Take care and keep laughing!

Related articles

• Roger McGough on discovering poetry, his mother’s influence and envying The Beatles (telegraph.co.uk)

Take care and keep laughing!

An uncommon collection of quotes and thoughts

How can you have a day without a night
You’re the book that I have opened
And now I’ve got to know much more

Like a soul without a mind
In a body without a heart
I’m missing every part

View original post 211 more words

The Lion and the Unicorn

The Lion and the Unicorn Cards by FirstNightDesign

 

This beautiful illustration of the lion and the unicorn as in Lewis Carroll‘s Alice Through the Looking Glass is not, I have to confess, my work.   I have to thank Mr FND for the use thereof!  It is now available on my Zazzle store as a greeting card (above) and a postcard (below), with more products to come.  Coming soon will be t-shirts featuring the illustration—perfect Christmas and other holiday presents for your kids.

Each includes one verse from Carroll’s ditty of The Lion and the Unicorn:

The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown:
The Lion beat the Unicorn all round the town.
Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown:
Some gave them plum-cake and drummed them out of town.

The Lion and the Unicorn by FirstNightDesign

 

Take care and keep laughing!  And I hope those of you who celebrate Thanksgiving had a sublime time on Thursday.

Related articles

• Creature Repair Bay/Unicorn Illustration (jeromecantyart.wordpress.com)