Friday, 20 June 2025

LOVE'S ANGER

“He who angers you conquers you.” - Elizabeth Kenny 

This week, Poets and Storytellers United has as its theme “Anger as a (Healthy) Fuel. Generally anger is seen as a negative feeling (after all it is one of the deadly sins!). However, anger in small doses can be beneficial or at least act as stimulus for generation of positive feelings… Here is my take on it:

Love’s Anger

Jealousy is the lover’s greatest fault and loath,
And rightly, anger in the beloved will engender.
Frigid indifference is quite the opposite of both
For in each lover’s heart, an icy apathy will tender.

A little anger is the spice of love
For lovers’ petty quarrels quickly go,
And soon again a kiss will rise above
The clash, and love renewed will glow.

If love to hate has turned,  it grows, it hasn’t died,
For love and hate, faces of the same gold coin;
Anger and peace both coexist, they lie side by side
And in the end again lovers will love and join.

Beware the silence, and indifference’s groans
For they’re the ugly beasts that love consume:
They chew it up, and spit out its barest bones,
Leaving behind loneliness, heartbreak and gloom…

A little anger is the spice of love
For lovers’ petty quarrels quickly go,
And soon again a kiss will rise above
The clash, and love renewed will glow.

Here’s the poem set to music and you can find all my music in my “Otidorchestre” channel or listen to it on YouTube, SpotifyAmazon, Deezer, Flo, Pandora, and other music sharing sites.

Tuesday, 17 June 2025

TRAVEL TUESDAY 502 - GIBRALTAR

“Well, Gibraltar is a place which you either love or hate. I quite like it. It's a rock, that is essentially what it is. It's a British colony.” —  Nigel Short
Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel.
There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest of us. Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only.
Do not use this meme to advertise your products or services as any links or comments by advertisers will be removed immediately.
Gibraltar is a British Overseas Territory located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula. It has an area of 6.7 km2 and is bordered to the north by Spain. The landscape is dominated by the Rock of Gibraltar at the foot of which is a densely populated city area, home to over 30,000 people, primarily Gibraltarians.
In 1704, Anglo-Dutch forces captured Gibraltar from Spain during the War of the Spanish Succession on behalf of the Habsburg claim to the Spanish throne. The territory was ceded to Great Britain in perpetuity under the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713. During World War II it was an important base for the Royal Navy as it controlled the entrance and exit to the Mediterranean Sea, which is only 13 km wide at this naval “choke point”. It remains strategically important to this day, with half the world’s seaborne trade passing through the strait.
Today Gibraltar’s economy is based largely on tourism, online gambling, financial services and cargo ship refuelling. The sovereignty of Gibraltar is a major point of contention in Anglo-Spanish relations as Spain asserts a claim to the territory. Gibraltarians overwhelmingly rejected proposals for Spanish sovereignty in the 1967 referendum, and the idea of shared sovereignty in 2002. Under the Gibraltar constitution of 2006, Gibraltar governs its own affairs, though some powers, such as defence and foreign relations, remain the responsibility of the British government.