Intro and Love Poem

Hi, I'm Jon...a blogging virgin..this is my first time blogging but not my first venture into websites. I'm the webmaster of an embarrassing number of websites. If interested, http://www.jbratton.com/ ,which I'm still developing, gives a trail to many of my other websites

For 35 years I've written rhyming material, predominantly humorous stuff and most of it I've still got, in 'back of an envelope' form, kicking about in the loft somewhere. I thought I'd publish it all in this blog, chronologically as it was written, with a bit of commentary to put each piece in context.
I need to dig it all out to know exactly how I'll proceed but I think the work will fall into phases, starting in 1973 with a bunch of song lyrics which I wrote over, I suppose, a couple of years. There would have been a few little humorous pieces for, say, a valentine card or two also in that first decade
In 1983 I went to work in the Middle East and in the next 7 years I wrote and delivered many multiple versed speeches which invariably started
This is just a little ditty
A Ma Salama poem
To say goodbye to our dear friends
As they make their way back home.
There were also a few pieces written for, and performed in an Am Dram Theatre
In 1990 I returned to the UK and within a couple of years after that I bought a Picture Framing Art Craft Shop..the most interesting shop in town..probably
With my artist pal Jim Harker we produced a product called a Doodle Ditty which was a framed up caricature, alongside a few verses about the 'victim'. I have a huge pile of the draft poems and indeed a few of Jim's draft drawings
In 2004 my son Gary launched a website http://www.imag-e-nation.com/ which was an eShop to sell craft products, mainly for handmade card makers, as well as providing a forum, gallery, tips, techniques and verses for cards
To support that website ie to send it traffic I developed http://www.verses4cards.co.uk/ and wrote a lot of verses, as well as perloining 'author unknown' stuff already on the web.
That brings us to the present time. I'm off to rummage in the loft for my VersaTile Scribblings but in the meantime here's a Love poem I wrote for the St Valentines Verses section of the website to give you a little flavour of what to expect over the coming months



This is a love poem
What I have written
Cos with all consuming love
I've been smitten

And when I say smitten
I mean everywhere
There's one bit, particularly smit
But let's not go down there

I say this joyously
Ecstatically, euphorically and such
Cos I love you, verily
Verily, verily much

I've told everyone I love you
There's no one I didn't tell
Why, I even told the vicar
And he toll'd the bell

William Shakespeare wrote sonnetly
"Love is as a fever, longing still"
I think he's right
I've never felt so ill

Cos I'm o'er brimming with love's fever
Yet all atingle, aroused, excited
And as to the state of me troth
It's well and truly plighted

I've come over all funny
But that's your effect on me
It's cos I love you more than....
...a dog loves a tree...
a lumberjack loves a cucumber snack.
..a fish loves staying wet..
.. Romeo loved Juliet..
.an aardvark loves ants
I've a stirring in me......mind

For the right words, sentiments
I'm grasping, groping
This poem could go on forever
Like us I'm hoping