When I was a young man the first thing on my mind was the opposite sex. Next came rugby in the winter and cricket in the summer. Academic studies were not high on my list of priorities. However, there was one poet who stuck in my mind and it wasn’t so much his work that I remember, it was the brevity he used to express emotions or paint an image. That man was Percy Bysshe Shelley and I can’t even remember how to pronounce his middle name.
Some of his poems were not brief they went on and on and on to the delight of poetry aficionados, but not me. The telling of a long-winded poem to a beautiful girl was not a priority. However, succinct poetry that drove a spear through all resistance was!
This old poem of mine is influenced by Shelley’s great command of the simplistic.
The Girl In The Heart
To rise from this barren earth
To soar above, to wing away
To escape from all that’s lacking
And live to love another day
© 2017 Daniel Kemp All rights reserved
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About Daniel Kemp
Daniel Kemp’s introduction to the world of espionage and mystery happened at an early age when his father was employed by the War Office in Whitehall, London, at the end of WWII. However, it wasn’t until after his father died that he showed any interest in anything other than himself!
On leaving academia he took on many roles in his working life: a London police officer, mini-cab business owner, pub tenant and licensed London taxi driver, but never did he plan to become a writer. Nevertheless, after a road traffic accident left him suffering from PTSD and effectively—out of paid work for four years, he wrote and self-published his first novel —The Desolate Garden. Within three months of publication, that book was under a paid option to become a $30 million film. The option lasted for five years until distribution became an insurmountable problem for the production company.
All seven of his novels are now published by Creativia with the seventh—The Widow’s Son, completing a three book series alongside: What Happened In Vienna, Jack? and Once I Was A Soldier. Under the Creativia publishing banner, The Desolate Garden went on to become a bestselling novel in World and Russian Literature in 2017. The following year, in May 2018, his book What Happened In Vienna, Jack? was a number one bestseller on four separate Amazon sites: America, UK, Canada, and Australia.
Although it's true to say that he mainly concentrates on what he knows most about; murders laced by the mystery involving spies, his diverse experience of life shows in the short stories he writes, namely: Why? A Complicated Love, and the intriguing story titled The Story That Had No Beginning.
He is the recipient of rave reviews from a prestigious Manhattan publication and described as—the new Graham Green—by a highly placed employee of Waterstones Books, for whom he did a countrywide tour of book signing events. He has also appeared on 'live' television in the UK publicising that first novel of his.
He continues to write novels, poetry and the occasional quote; this one is taken from the beginning of Once I Was A Soldier
There is no morality to be found in evil. But to recognise that which is truly evil one must forget the rules of morality.
Daniel Kemp 
A lovely poem, Danny. My thoughts on poetry are like yours. I like powerful and strong poems that pack a punch. I don’t need long and I definitely don’t need a bunch of words I have to look up in the dictionary.
Some novels are the same. I think there are writers who believe the more complicated or diverse words they use in the narrative the more intelligent they sound, whereas to me I just want to understand the story without as you say–the use of a dictionary.
To write short well is a gift that as a reader I appreciate.
I read somewhere, and I totally agree, that to write a short story well is more difficult than to write a full novel. I think that can apply to poetry.