Today's poet

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Originally Posted by Mossdog

'tis a bit dismay our Freckle. Are you feeling ok? I know life can't always be a Berni Inn basket of chicken and chips, but I can't help thinking Donald has been gratuitously bleak.

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I read Donald Hall lost his wife to leukemia Mossy and that loss has obviously influenced his poetry. The same as it did for Thomas Hardy http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/t...gebit/sad2.gif.

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Originally Posted by Alf

I read Donald Hall lost his wife to leukemia Mossy and that loss has obviously influenced his poetry. The same as it did for Thomas Hardy http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/t...gebit/sad2.gif.

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indeed alf, here is a poignant poem linked with this....
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5728

Alone for a week
Jane Kenyon

I washed a load of clothes
and hung them out to dry.
Then I went up to town
and busied myself all day.
The sleeve of your best shirt
rose ceremonious
when I drove in; our night-
clothes twined and untwined in
a little gust of wind.

For me it was getting late;
for you, where you were, not.
The harvest moon was full
but sparse clouds made its light
not quite reliable.
The bed on your side seemed
as wide and flat as Kansas;
your pillow plump, cool,
and allegorical. . . .

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Originally Posted by freckle

I am good thanks Mossy...just liked the poem! and your baby running bare foot choice too! Good that we can rely on old stalwarts such as yourself to drag this thread back from the brink of the second page (she states aghast!) ....

here is a little offering inspired by my love of autumn (amongst other things)...

Tricking the sloes

I was so satiated words vanished
And all that remained was a wish for time
to be frozen by a great imaginary shutter
capable of snapping this golden leitmotif,
writ large in the forest with its slight clart underfoot,
and leaves in varying continua of life and death.

Through the lens a discrete image would form
our hands unknotting, working in unison
to capture with enthusiasm
each purple waxy drupe before the frost.
It would remember with ease our discussion
of how simple trickery via a blast in the freezer,
would transform the astringent blooms
into sweet heady fruit ripe for infusion.

Yet try as I might, time cannot be paused
I failed to develop the camera of my dreams
And as the light fell in dappled blankets
Over the hush of secret elms
it was time to go home.
Passing an elderly couple
who were one step ahead of us
with their own blend of liquid memories
I was reminded with a small pang of reality

It will not always be time to trick the sloes.

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The old creative juices are flowing again by the look of it freckle, well done :cool: . I see you sneaked a "clart" in there as well to keep it local :D

I can't remember if I posted this before but I am reading an excellent biography on Edna St. Vincent Millay at the moment called 'Savage Beauty'.
This is one of her sonnets:

I shall go back again to the bleak shore


I shall go back again to the bleak shore
And build a little shanty on the sand,
In such a way that the extremest band
Of brittle seaweed will escape my door
But by a yard or two; and nevermore
Shall I return to take you by the hand;
I shall be gone to what I understand,
And happier than I ever was before.
The love that stood a moment in your eyes,
The words that lay a moment on your tongue,
Are one with all that in a moment dies,
A little under-said and over-sung.
But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies
Unchanged from what they were when I was young.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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Originally Posted by freckle

indeed alf, here is a poignant poem linked with this....
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5728

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Thanks for that freckle I didn't know he had been very ill as well !

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Originally Posted by Alf

I can't remember if I posted this before but I am reading an excellent biography on Edna St. Vincent Millay at the moment called 'Savage Beauty'.
This is one of her sonnets:

I shall go back again to the bleak shore


I shall go back again to the bleak shore
And build a little shanty on the sand,
In such a way that the extremest band
Of brittle seaweed will escape my door
But by a yard or two; and nevermore
Shall I return to take you by the hand;
I shall be gone to what I understand,
And happier than I ever was before.
The love that stood a moment in your eyes,
The words that lay a moment on your tongue,
Are one with all that in a moment dies,
A little under-said and over-sung.
But I shall find the sullen rocks and skies
Unchanged from what they were when I was young.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

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this is awesome alf...melancholy and brilliant....i bet her biography is cheery mind :w00t:

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Originally Posted by freckle

Alone for a week
Jane Kenyon

I washed a load of clothes
and hung them out to dry.
Then I went up to town
and busied myself all day.
The sleeve of your best shirt
rose ceremonious
when I drove in; our night-
clothes twined and untwined in
a little gust of wind.

For me it was getting late;
for you, where you were, not.
The harvest moon was full
but sparse clouds made its light
not quite reliable.
The bed on your side seemed
as wide and flat as Kansas;
your pillow plump, cool,
and allegorical. . . .

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She was a talented poet as well :cool:

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Originally Posted by freckle

this is awesome alf...melancholy and brilliant....i bet her biography is cheery mind :w00t:

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She was a talented poet at an early age and her life was described as heaving, grieving and ecstatic !

This is a real treat Freckle, lovely.x

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Originally Posted by freckle

I am good thanks Mossy...just liked the poem! and your baby running bare foot choice too! Good that we can rely on old stalwarts such as yourself to drag this thread back from the brink of the second page (she states aghast!) ....

here is a little offering inspired by my love of autumn (amongst other things)...

Tricking the sloes

I was so satiated words vanished
And all that remained was a wish for time
to be frozen by a great imaginary shutter
capable of snapping this golden leitmotif,
writ large in the forest with its slight clart underfoot,
and leaves in varying continua of life and death.

Through the lens a discrete image would form
our hands unknotting, working in unison
to capture with enthusiasm
each purple waxy drupe before the frost.
It would remember with ease our discussion
of how simple trickery via a blast in the freezer,
would transform the astringent blooms
into sweet heady fruit ripe for infusion.

Yet try as I might, time cannot be paused
I failed to develop the camera of my dreams
And as the light fell in dappled blankets
Over the hush of secret elms
it was time to go home.
Passing an elderly couple
who were one step ahead of us
with their own blend of liquid memories
I was reminded with a small pang of reality

It will not always be time to trick the sloes.

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