Today's poet

more on the theme of trees from my main man.......should have saved it for dec but couldn't resist.....

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower

who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly

i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid

look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,

put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't a single place dark or unhappy

then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud

and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"

-- E. E. Cummings

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill

The wind holds its breath
To let the Oak inhale the final
Goodness from its leaf
Abandoning the rusty to their fate

---

This is lovely HHH. Just right for today. I am noticing an oak theme emerging and I'm going to add to it with a couple from this afternoon's training run:

through still grey halflight
ghostly oaks from mist appear
in damp filigree

footfalls break silence
startled pheasant startles me
and we both take flight

Hey Freckle, liked your choice tonight. Have you read 'Trees be company'? it is an anthology of poetry about trees and woodlands collated by Common Ground. They've also published two more called 'Field Days' and 'The River's Voice'. Well worth checking out.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hes

footfalls break silence
startled pheasant startles me
and we both take flight

---

A lovely image Hes :)

A definition
of a tree: a plant with a
stick up the middle

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hes

Hey Freckle, liked your choice tonight. Have you read 'Trees be company'? it is an anthology of poetry about trees and woodlands collated by Common Ground. They've also published two more called 'Field Days' and 'The River's Voice'. Well worth checking out.

---

thanks hes sounds cool....love your haiku tonight you are a natural!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hes

Hey Freckle, liked your choice tonight. Have you read 'Trees be company'? it is an anthology of poetry about trees and woodlands collated by Common Ground. They've also published two more called 'Field Days' and 'The River's Voice'. Well worth checking out.

---

I've just read Colin Tudge's "The secret life of trees", and "Out of the Woods" by Will Cohu. You'll never come across two more enthusiastic guys on their subjects.

I'm rubbish still though. I can't recognise more than a few.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill

I've just read Colin Tudge's "The secret life of trees", and "Out of the Woods" by Will Cohu. You'll never come across two more enthusiastic guys on their subjects.

I'm rubbish still though. I can't recognise more than a few.

---

Those books sound good and you can't beat enthusiasm, I reckon. The Secret Life of Trees is already on my wishlist. I've been very lucky in that my mum is a doctor of zoology and an ecologist and my ex was an arboriculturist so I'm not bad on plant and tree identification but as the taoists say...you don't need to name things to appreciate them (ok that isn't exactly how they put it but you catch my drift).

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by XRunner

Have you read THAT poem by Auden.

(Blame Freckle if you think its rude:)

---

Here is a more appropiate poem by W.H.Auden:

The Runner:

All visible visibly
Moving things
Spin or swing,
One of the two,
Move, as the limbs
Of a runner do,
To and fro,
Forward and back,
Or, as they swiftly
Carry him
In orbit go
Round an endless track:
So, everywhere, every
Creature disporting
Itself according
To the law of its making
In the rivals' dance
Of a balanced pair
Or the ring-dance
Round a common centre,
Delights the eye
By its symmetry
As it changes place
Blessing the unchangeable
Absolute rest
Of the space all share
The camera's eye
Does not lie
But it cannot show
The life within,
The life of a runner,
Of yours or mine,
That race which is neither
Fast nor slow,
For nothing can ever
Happen twice,
That story which moves
Like music when
Begotten notes
New notes beget
Making the flowing
Of time a growing
Till what it could be
At last it is,
Where Fate is Freedom,
Grace, and Surprise.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Derby Tup

Don't worry OW, kit's packed ;)

---

Bon Voyage DT. Hope you have a brilliant time in China (where abouts are you going?). Your morning haikus will be missed but I reckon you'll come back with some stunning ones.

Safe travels.

alas I cannot claim this as my own but it made me chuckle

Most countries, states and still proud nations,
When trumpeting their reputations,
Will offer up their best locations,
To tempt the tourist population.

The tv films show gorgeous vistas,
City lights and pretty sisters.
This might get YOU off and packing,
But in my view there's something lacking.

The thing that has my full attention,
Those travel brochures never mention.
I need the lowdown, urgently,
On creatures with a taste for ME.

Exotic trippers know what's coming,
Long before they hear it humming,
A host of suckers, ticks and cleggs,
Snacking sweetly on their legs.

Back here at home we think we're sorted,
All our dangers are imported.
Yet in the woods there's something waiting,
Time to don your armour-plating.

In foolish youth, a bug that size,
Would have no status in my eyes,
But now I flee before the legions
Heading for my nether regions.

Now, some will decide to stay outdoors,
To flail about their campsite chores,
Or sit imprisoned in their cars
Scratching at their spots and scars.

Grown men will fill the air with screams
Or smear themselves with female creams.
But no-one can avoid the gaze
Of insect armies on warm days.

To those for whom this strikes a chord
Don't curse the Scottish Tourist Board
Just bow before the midge marauder
And slope back south down past the border.


How true...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by XRunner

Here is a more appropiate poem by W.H.Auden:

The Runner:

All visible visibly
Moving things
Spin or swing,
One of the two,
Move, as the limbs
Of a runner do,
To and fro,
Forward and back,
Or, as they swiftly
Carry him
In orbit go
Round an endless track:
So, everywhere, every
Creature disporting
Itself according
To the law of its making
In the rivals' dance
Of a balanced pair
Or the ring-dance
Round a common centre,
Delights the eye
By its symmetry
As it changes place
Blessing the unchangeable
Absolute rest
Of the space all share
The camera's eye
Does not lie
But it cannot show
The life within,
The life of a runner,
Of yours or mine,
That race which is neither
Fast nor slow,
For nothing can ever
Happen twice,
That story which moves
Like music when
Begotten notes
New notes beget
Making the flowing
Of time a growing
Till what it could be
At last it is,
Where Fate is Freedom,
Grace, and Surprise.

---

How wonderful especially "For nothing can ever happen twice"...mesmerising

also, nice one iandarkpeak....:-)

We are the Pilgrims, master: we shall go Always a little further: it may be beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, across that angry or that glimmering sea.

SAS memorial poem on the clock in Hereford.

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gloaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the height,
The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches biased with light,

The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying -fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

From The Hobbit, remember junior school teacher reading this when i was a nipper:cool:

Treble and double figure posters on this thread are:
Freckle 186
Harry H Howgill 118
Derby Tup 63
Hes 56
Mossdog 43
Merrylegs 34
Old Whippet 23
XRunner 23
Hanneke 22
Grouse 12
brett 12
GrahamB 11
southernsoftie 10

Ok. Watershed have just been passed. Time for a few 'romantic' verses eh? (But no more Auden smut...please...)

How about this for starters:

Power in Silence

BY MICHAEL FIELD

I

Though I sing high, and chaunt above her,
Praising my girl,
It were not right
To reckon her the poorer lover;
She does not love me less
For her royal, jewelled speechlessness,
She is the sapphire, she the light,
The music in the pearl.

II

Not from pert birds we learn the spring-tide
From open sky.
What speaks to us
Closer than far distances that hide
In woods, what is more dear
Than a cherry-bough, bees feeding near
In the soft, proffered blooms? Lo, I
Am fed and honoured thus.

III

She has the star’s own pulse; its throbbing
Is a quick light.
She is a dove
My soul draws to its breast; her sobbing
Is for the warm dark there!
In the heat of her wings I would not care
My close-housed bird should take her flight
To magnify our love.


So many lovely lines here...but all is not what it seems with 'Michael Field' (Freckle to note:D)

Freckles

Brilliant shafts of sunlight,
once shadowed by blackened thunderheads,
now burst through openings in emptied brokenness
streaking sky with gleaming, vertical hue

each beam,
each golden shard of flaming magnificence,
falls tenderly upon basking, fairest flesh below
with lingering blush,

and conjures flecks of melanin,
aroused,
like assemblies of browning worshipers,
enshrined in ivory temple

so that longing eyes,
nearly blinded
by the strength of sun's glorious brilliance,
can reverence heated memory
at each reflection
upon soft, speckled skin
and can remember. . .

having known passion.

(Anon -Ten thousand cicadas )

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by XRunner

Freckles

Brilliant shafts of sunlight,
once shadowed by blackened thunderheads,
now burst through openings in emptied brokenness
streaking sky with gleaming, vertical hue

each beam,
each golden shard of flaming magnificence,
falls tenderly upon basking, fairest flesh below
with lingering blush,

and conjures flecks of melanin,
aroused,
like assemblies of browning worshipers,
enshrined in ivory temple

so that longing eyes,
nearly blinded
by the strength of sun's glorious brilliance,
can reverence heated memory
at each reflection
upon soft, speckled skin
and can remember. . .

having known passion.

(Anon -Ten thousand cicadas )

---

What a find! She'll love that!

Head-torch tonight
Gave myself one hell of a fright
Mud and sh*te, boy whad'a night.
:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Al Fowler

Head-torch tonight
Gave myself one hell of a fright
Mud and sh*te, boy whad'a night.
:D

---

Welcome to the thread AF.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mossdog

Ok. Watershed have just been passed. Time for a few 'romantic' verses eh? (But no more Auden smut...please...)

---

This is what you want...

http://www.links2love.com/poem_generator.htm

Some of the purists wont thank me for opening this can of worms. :D

ps. Why did you pick this page number to start this? Subliminal?

I have scarcely left you
when you go in me, crystalline,
or trembling,
or uneasy, wounded by me
or overwhelmed with love, as when your eyes
close upon the gift of life
that without cease I give you.

My love,
we have found each other
thirsty and we have
drunk up all the water and the blood,
we found each other
hungry
and we bit each other
as fire bites,
leaving wounds in us.

But wait for me,
keep for me your sweetness.
I will give you too
a rose.

Pablo Neruda

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill

Welcome to the thread AF.

---

Im useless at poems...but im going for the merry style of short but sweet.

I still cant get my head round why not all poems rhyme though:confused::D

I can't believe I found this on a wedding poetry site! Can't see Auntie Joyce approving! :eek:

Come slowly, Eden
Lips unused to thee.
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee,
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums,
Counts his nectars -alights,
And is lost in balms!

Emily Dickinson

Si Tu Me Olvidas

Quiero que sepas
una cosa.

T sabes cmo es esto:
si miro
la luna de cristal, la rama roja
del lento otoo en mi ventana,
si toco
junto al fuego
la impalpable ceniza
o el arrugado cuerpo de la lea,
todo me lleva a ti,
como si todo lo que existe:
aromas, luz, metales,
fueran pequeos barcos que navegan
hacia las islas tuyas que me aguardan.

Ahora bien,
si poco a poco dejas de quererme
dejar de quererte poco a poco.

Si de pronto
me olvidas
no me busques,
que ya te habr olvidado.

Si consideras largo y loco
el viento de banderas
que pasa por mi vida
y te decides
a dejarme a la orilla
del corazn en que tengo races,
piensa
que en esa da,
a esa hora
levantar los brazos
y saldrn mis races
a buscar otra tierra.

Pero
si cada da,
cada hora,
sientes que a m ests destinada
con dulzura implacable,
si cada da sube
una flor a tus labios a buscarme,
ay amor mo, ay ma,
en m todo ese fuego se repite,
en m nada se apaga ni se olvida,
mi amor se nutre de tu amor, amada,
y mientras vivas estar en tus brazos
sin salir de los mos.

Pablo Neruda

How romantic is THAT ?!








No, seriously; how romantic IS that? I can't speak Spanish.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill

This is what you want...

http://www.links2love.com/poem_generator.htm

Some of the purists wont thank me for opening this can of worms. :D

---

Just come up with my own love poem thanks to this... but on taste and decency grounds I've decided not to post here:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Al Fowler

Im useless at poems...but im going for the merry style of short but sweet.

---

Not my style Al, its Japanese, 3 lines, dunt ryhme, the first two lines are linked and the third moves away, ask Derby Tup, he knows more than me about haiku;)

For example:
Met a young lad called Al,
We had a trot up the Old Man to Wrynose and back
He moved away, i trailed behind, but what a day;)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Boy Wonder

Just come up with my own love poem thanks to this... but on taste and decency grounds I've decided not to post here:D

---

I was so hoping someone would post their's too! :D

Anyway, I'm laughing at it not even having read it, so it must be good!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by merrylegs

For example:
Met a young lad called Al,
We had a trot up the Old Man to Wrynose and back
He moved away, i trailed behind, but what a day;)

---

I met a machine named Merry,
God that man's got determination
He's doin' a BG, he'll nail it, supported by me.

:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by merrylegs

For example:
Met a young lad called Al,
We had a trot up the Old Man to Wrynose and back
He moved away, i trailed behind, but what a day;)

---

Your finest, most tragic yet: Merrylegs Topaz McGonagall!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Al Fowler

I met a machine named Merry,
God that man's got determination
He's doin' a BG, he'll nail it, supported by me.

:D

---

Help! Freckle, Hes, DerbyTup and Mossdog. Come back soon!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill

Help! Freckle, Hes, DerbyTup and Mossdog. Come back soon!

---

How very dare you!


I told you i was naff at these things.:(

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Al Fowler

How very dare you!


I told you i was naff at these things.:(

---

You have a special gift AF! Don't stop! :D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill

Si Tu Me Olvidas

Quiero que sepas
una cosa.

T sabes cmo es esto:
si miro
la luna de cristal, la rama roja
del lento otoo en mi ventana,
si toco
junto al fuego
la impalpable ceniza
o el arrugado cuerpo de la lea,
todo me lleva a ti,
como si todo lo que existe:
aromas, luz, metales,
fueran pequeos barcos que navegan
hacia las islas tuyas que me aguardan.

Ahora bien,
si poco a poco dejas de quererme
dejar de quererte poco a poco.

Si de pronto
me olvidas
no me busques,
que ya te habr olvidado.

Si consideras largo y loco
el viento de banderas
que pasa por mi vida
y te decides
a dejarme a la orilla
del corazn en que tengo races,
piensa
que en esa da,
a esa hora
levantar los brazos
y saldrn mis races
a buscar otra tierra.

Pero
si cada da,
cada hora,
sientes que a m ests destinada
con dulzura implacable,
si cada da sube
una flor a tus labios a buscarme,
ay amor mo, ay ma,
en m todo ese fuego se repite,
en m nada se apaga ni se olvida,
mi amor se nutre de tu amor, amada,
y mientras vivas estar en tus brazos
sin salir de los mos.

Pablo Neruda

How romantic is THAT ?!








No, seriously; how romantic IS that? I can't speak Spanish.

---

Oh my god!!! I love Neruda and I can speak Spanish, albeit not always fluently and with correct grammer, but enough to roughly translate. Believe me, this is a very romantic poem.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill

You have a special gift AF! Don't stop! :D

---

It is a very special gift...

I only went away to phone my friend about her boyfriend troubles and I came back to so many works of beauty, love, passion, friendship and genius....and some others.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hes

It is a very special gift...

I only went away to phone my friend about her boyfriend troubles and I came back to so many works of beauty, love, passion, friendship and genius....and some others.

---

Well we cant all be perfect....but we can jolly well give it our best shot.:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill

Your finest, most tragic yet: Merrylegs Topaz McGonagall!

---

Thought i was getting good at this poetry lark, William Topaz McGonagall, poet and tragedian of Dundee, has been widely hailed as the writer of the worst poetry in the English language..:eek:
Cheers Harry:D

The Coming of Grendel (Beowulf)

Now from the marshlands under the mist-mountains
Came Grendel prowling; branded with God's ire.
This murderous monster was minded to entrap
Some hapless human in that high hall.
On he came under the clouds, until clearly
He could see that great golden feasting place,
Glimmering wine-hall of men. Not his first
Raid was this on the homeplace of Hrothgar.
Never before though and never afterward
Did he encounter hardier defenders of a hall.

I have visions of last-orders/kicking-out-time at the end of XOTF!!:D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by merrylegs

Thought i was getting good at this poetry lark, William Topaz McGonagall, poet and tragedian of Dundee, has been widely hailed as the writer of the worst poetry in the English language..:eek:
Cheers Harry:D

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Yeah! But he's dead. So my money is on you!