Blog of the Week - WORDS AND THOUGHTS

In bringing back our featured Blog of the Week, it is with great pleasure that we begin this series with one of our long-time members, Eileen O'Neill of Words and Thoughts. Eileen has been with Poets United since its early days, and  has faithfully participated in Thursday Think Tanks and the Poetry Pantry. I thought it would be nice to introduce one of our earliest members to some of our newer members, who may not have met her yet.

Eileen hails from Ireland, but now lives in Cheshire, England. Her blog often features the beautiful countryside she lives in, and sometimes Eileen writes about "the troubles" in her home country.

Here are a few of Eileen's poems, for you to enjoy. I  looked around in the archives, back to 2010, and discovered a poem Eileen wrote to Poets United in its early days. Wow!

A Poetic Connection - Eileen's poem about connecting with....us!!!! Love it!

From those early days of my solitary station,
I have now encountered a welcome friendly embrace.

A community to support and express the poetic thought,

Sharing the positives and rethinking the negatives.

The commentary spoken through the written comments,

A helping hand extended and opportunities afforded.

To push through those occasional moments of blockage,

To help replenish that dreaded famine of word drought.

A worthy worldwide friendship and connection with poets united.

© Copyright Eileen T O’Neill 19/12/2010

Baby Michael - In 2011, Eileen's first grandchild was born.

A most magnificent little life,

Has influenced so many others.

His arrival changed so much,

Enriching mundane moments.

His enthusiasm and progress,

Captured in his smiling face.

His infantile ways bring joy,

Gladdening those about him.

I wish to extol his presence to all,

That of my dearest little grandson.

©Copyright Eileen T O’Neill 17/12/2011

Shades of Autumn  - An ode to fall, 2012,  with all of its beautiful scents and colors

You will find many other fine poems on Words and Thoughts, as well as on Eileen's second site Beyond Confines.

Thanks, Eileen, for your faithful participation over the years. Poets United has always been about community, and it is a privilege to shine a little light on some of the talented people in our midst.

Come back next Monday, kids. I promise you an interview that will be a show-stopper! It has been in the works a while, and is not to be missed!

The Life of a Poet - Eileen T O’Neill

This interview was Written and done by Sherry Blue Sky

‘’Talent develops in a quiet place, character in the full current of life’’

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

This quote can be found at the top of the site Words and Thoughts, and, as I have come to know this writer, it seems an appropriate one for the poet herself. Yes, we are sitting down today with Eileen O’Neill, one of our most self-effacing, but most steadily supportive and encouraging members. You’ll find Eileen’s appreciative comments sprinkled liberally throughout the blogosphere, and likely have been the recipient of many.

Poetry Blog of the Week - Stardreaming with Sherry Blue Sky (7 Feb 2011)

At poets united we are all about our community so please take the time support your fellow poets by visiting our blog of the week.

This week our bog of the week selected by Eileen T O'Neill is:

Sherry Blue Sky @ Stardreaming With Sherry Blue Sky

We Suggest the following poems for your reading pleasure:

The Owl is the Doorway Into the Unknown (6 July 2010)

Legacy (3 Feb 2011)

Running Free (5 Feb 2011)

Every week at Poets United we try to introduce our members and readers to a poet and poetry blog found here in our community. Poets United is about reading, writing and enjoying one another’s poetry and this just one more way to show our support for one another.We would love to hear your comments on this poet’s blog and poetry so please come back after visiting the blog of the week and let us know your thoughts.

We hope you enjoy visiting the highlighted blogs. Thank you for supporting your fellow poets and I am sure we will soon see your blog highlighted here.

Poets United

(This blog was selected by Eileen T O'Neill.  She is currently one of our contributors and poets found here at Poets United.  Her hard work and help with Poets United can be found in nearly every corner of this site and for this we are grateful. If you would like to learn more about Eileen or read some of her own poetry you can visit her blog "Words and Thoughts" or keep a look out out for more of her posts.) 

Poetry Blog of the Week - Simply Poetry (17 Jan 2010)

At poets united we are all about our community so please take the time support your fellow poets by visiting our blog of the week.

This week our bog of the week is:
Selected by Eileen T O'Neill

Simply Poetry by 2wolvz

We Suggest the following poems for your reading pleasure:

Emerging from the Shadows

An Angel's Tears

Summer Search the Winter Dream

Every week at Poets United we try to introduce our members and readers to a poet and poetry blog found here in our community. Poets United is about reading, writing and enjoying one another’s poetry and this just one more way to show our support for one another.We would love to hear your comments on this poet’s blog and poetry so please come back after visiting the blog of the week and let us know your thoughts.

We hope you enjoy visiting the highlighted blogs. Thank you for supporting your fellow poets and I am sure we will soon see your blog highlighted here.

Poets United

Poem of the Week - Roses in the Park 14/Dec/2010

Selected by Eileen T O'Neill

This Poem can be found at:

Robert Cameron Hazelton @ Average Poet

Dedicated to John Lennon on the 25th anniversary of his untimely death.

Roses in the Park


We gathered speechless in the growing dark
remembering the brilliance of his light
and left our rosy sorrow in the park.

As one of four he made a lasting mark
which cruelly found his heart that fateful night;
we listened speechless in the growing dark

and prayed the news report was just a lark,
for who would ever… but no, it was right;
we lost our rosy visions. In that park

so named for berried plains, the truth is stark
that being human should bring great delight,
not speechless mourning in the growing dark;

commemorate the magic of his spark
and offer love to all within your sight.
The scent of rosy tributes in the park

imbue the air with their resigned remark,
imagine his disdain for this sad rite.
We gather speechless in the growing dark,
and leave our rosy visions in the park.

~ Robert Cameron Hazelton

We are also happy to inform our members here at Poets United that RCH had entered this poem into the Liverpool Poetry Competition where in his category he placed second with this wonderful tribute poem. If you would like to read more about this you can by going to The Beatles Story.  Congratulations Robert on a wonderful achievement

(This poem was selected by Eileen T O'Neill.  She is currently one of our contributors and poets found here at Poets United.  If you would like to learn more about Eileen or read some of her own poetry you can  visit her blog "Words and Thoughts".  Eileen is a poet and writer who has been a wonderful supporter of Poets United since its start.  We would like to thank her for all of her hard work.)

Poet History #8 - Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott 1930- Present
Written by Eileen T O'Neill

I have chosen to write about a poet who has written one of the most beautiful poems that I have ever read entitled, Love after Love.......

This poem was the epigraph in the novel The Time Traveller’s Wife, written by Audrey Niffenegger.

Love after Love

The time will come

when, with elation

you will greet yourself arriving

at your own door, in your own mirror,

and you will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart

to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored

for another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,

peel your own image from the mirror.

Sit. Feast on your life.

Copyright Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott was born in St Castries, St Lucia on 23rd January 1930. St Lucia, a tiny island in the eastern Caribbean, was at that time an outpost of the British Empire. At the age of fourteen years, he had his first poem published in the local newspaper, The Voice of St Lucia, on August 2nd 1944. It consisted of forty four lines of Miltonic-Wordsworthian blank verse.

Poem of the Week (19 October 2010) Journey of Life

Selected by Eileen T O'Neill

This Poem can be found at:

Poems of Life and Love and Quotes

Journey of Life

Weights that I carry
Through a year of agony
About to end finally
A new window of hope
Bridges between the gaps
The unknown and the past
I will dare lose my doubts
And should I need to forget
To find the right rough path
A leaf of life has fallen
Comes a new, better one
Nourish it, for it to bloom
Avenues of the future
Promise of new adventures
With touch of sweet tortures
Float, the dawn has come
Pack your spirit with dreams
Sail away with optimism
A new journey has begun…

~ Ronald Mallari

(This poem was selected by Eileen T O'Neill.  She is currently one of our contributors and poets found here at Poets United.  If you would like to learn more about Eileen or read some of her own poetry you can  visit her blog "Words and Thoughts".  Eileen is a poet and writer who has been a wonderful supporter of Poets United since its start.  We would like to thank her for all of her hard work.)

Poem of the Week ( 14 September 2010) - witness in absentia

Selected by Eileen T O'Neill

This poem can be found at:

dream is a vagabond

~ an Aesthetic Bard  (Sasidharan)

witness in absentia

sea, the night; here, the silence in fright,
the roar, bear form, swathe deeps,
swap blue liquid ether, bare,
unseen seer unaware,where
light flicking chill-lathered sighs,
touch feet, leave,return,slither-reach,
serpentine sneaks,choke, edge
of gargantuan liquid’s infliction,
heave grimy licking marine leaches;
props waver,fear feral,
rob, peach parched lip’s salt,
raw gnawing erratic embrace
empty fanatical forsaken wind’s
minute nudges still, shell, yarn minds
cloak skies,lies underneath
sans,sun,earth,ether,time,place,
apiece,missing the presence,then.

~ an Aesthetic Bard  (Sasidharan)

(This poem was selected by Eileen T O'Neill.  She is currently one of our contributors and poets found here at Poets United.  If you would like to learn more about Eileen or read some of her own poetry you can  visit her blog "Words and Thoughts".  Eileen is a poet and writer who has been a wonderful supporter of Poets United since its start.  We would like to thank her for all of her hard work.)

Poetry Blog of the Week (9, August 2010) - Words and Thoughts

Words and Thoughts - Fulfilling a dream isn’t that what poetry is? If poetry does not fulfill a dream then it at a minimum has to create one I would imagine. One way or another, this is being accomplished by Eileen T O’Neill and her poetry blog “Words and Thoughts.” Eileen’s blog is a pleasant and calming place to stop in and visit. Her poetry is reality captured in its simplest and purest form. Her layout is not a flashy and neither is her style. Those who read “Words and Thoughts” do so because they enjoy and have come to expect Eileen’s authentic and openly honest approach to poetry.