Even sheep need a break ;-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
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Even sheep need a break ;-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
LEGACY
My pappy was a rough and a serious man,
Up in the morning ‘fore six a.m.,
Out to the barn and we mustn’t play,
Feed the cows and the horses hay,
Get the chores and the milking done
Before the dawn and the rising sun.
Never a thanks or the thought of pay-
I didn’t mind, it was just his way.
Some pappys laugh and horse around
But I had respect for that hard-working man,
Who could barely read or write his name,
And he made sure I wouldn’t be the same.
His lack of learning always made him sad,
So he gave me all that he’d never had.
Yes, he gave me all that he’d never had.
Now I went to college and I earned my way,
Sure I’d make that education pay.
According to some it was no loss
For I became a corporation boss.
Now I have a wife and a couple of teens,
A great big house and a limousine.
My kids have never been like me,
They have plenty of money and time to run free.
No kid of mine need bend his back
Or heft a load to earn his tack.
They weren’t raised like my old man,
To dig in the dirt or live off the land.
I gave them all that we’d never had
And that’s the reason why they turned out bad.
Yes, that’s the reason why they turned out bad.
This poem was written as a bluegrass song.
Adeline Foster
Like this, nowt good comes easy, if it comes easy it's never fully appreciated.
How the world's changed:rolleyes:
Saw Joss and Kenny Stuart again last night and they were discussing how their childhood days in their hills shaped them and how very different things are these days for children. Nice choice Merry and Hi Hes!!! lovely verse from you there, saw a fair few sheep and their little lambs near castle crag yesterday...so cute!Quote:
Originally Posted by merrylegs
The Word
Down near the bottom
of the crossed-out list
of things you have to do today,
between "green thread"
and "broccoli" you find
that you have penciled "sunlight."
Resting on the page, the word
is as beautiful, it touches you
as if you had a friend
and sunlight were a present
he had sent you from some place distant
as this morning -- to cheer you up,
and to remind you that,
among your duties, pleasure
is a thing,
that also needs accomplishing
Do you remember?
that time and light are kinds
of love, and love
is no less practical
than a coffee grinder
or a safe spare tire?
Tomorrow you may be utterly
without a clue
but today you get a telegram,
from the heart in exile
proclaiming that the kingdom
still exists,
the king and queen alive,
still speaking to their children,
- to any one among them
who can find the time,
to sit out in the sun and listen.
-- Tony Hoagla
I know, this is gluttony, two in one day, but I couldn't resist sharing this one too...
Love: Beginnings
They're at that stage where so much desire streams between them,
so much frank need and want,
so much absorption in the other and the self
and the self-admiring entity and unity they make --
her mouth so full, breast so lifted, head thrown back
so far in her laughter at his laughter
he so solid, planted, oaky, firm, so resonantly factual
in the headiness of being craved so,
she almost wreathed upon him as they intertwine again,
touch again, cheek, lip, shoulder, brow,
every glance moving toward the sexual, every glance away
soaring back in flame into the sexual --
that just to watch them is to feel again that hitching in the groin,
that filling of the heart,
the old, sore heart, the battered, foundered, faithful heart,
snorting again, stamping in its stall.
-- C K Williams
I wonder if there's a 'middle' and 'endings' or am I just a cynical odd sod!
Yeah, it was a good night out in Keswick listening to Joss and Kenny Stuart. It was hosted by Keith Richardson who wrote his biography and he did a really good job.
The highlight of the night wasn't Joss and Kenny of course, but catching up with Freckle and OW. Nice to finally meet you.
I love the sound of those physio exercises!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
That is a good find Mossy. I like that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._1103203_n.jpg
I adore this photo Harry well done! ( in fact can I have a copy pleeeeeeeease!)Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill
Oh and it was so lovely to see you last night!!!!!! x 100 like!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
This poem is brilliant and so so true! repress your desires/needs/wants excessively and they will come back with avengence and bite you on the bum!
Well...there was me thinking I was going to have a mundane evening.....phew!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
particularly liking the oaky line.....holey moley....!
Meeting Point
Time was away and somewhere else,
There were two glasses and two chairs
And two people with the one pulse
(Somebody stopped the moving stairs)
Time was away and somewhere else.
And they were neither up nor down;
The stream's music did not stop
Flowing through heather, limpid brown,
Although they sat in a coffee shop
And they were neither up nor down.
The bell was silent in the air
Holding its inverted poise -
Between the clang and clang a flower,
A brazen calyx of no noise:
The bell was silent in the air.
The camels crossed the miles of sand
That stretched around the cups and plates;
The desert was their own, they planned
To portion out the stars and dates:
The camels crossed the miles of sand.
Time was away and somewhere else.
The waiter did not come, the clock
Forgot them and the radio waltz
Came out like water from a rock:
Time was away and somewhere else.
Her fingers flicked away the ash
That bloomed again in tropic trees:
Not caring if the markets crash
When they had forests such as these,
Her fingers flicked away the ash.
God or whatever means the Good
Be praised that time can stop like this,
That what the heart has understood
Can verify in the body's peace
God or whatever means the Good.
Time was away and she was here
And life no longer what it was,
The bell was silent in the air
And all the room one glow because
Time was away and she was here.
Louis MacNeice
Magnificent Frecks. Presumedly the ash she flicked away was volcanic and they were whiling away time in the departure lounge!!!Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Going for the most soppiest ditty record...
Wishing I was beside You Now
I wish...
you were beside me
that I was beside you
that we were
beside each other,
and then, of course,
we would be...
totally
beside ourselves (in LOVE)...
x
I enjoyed Meeting point, thanks, very evocative.
Ive another favourite of mine, from an Irish poet, Derek Mahon, about mornings..
[U]Everything is Going To Be Alright[U]
Why should I not be glad to contemplate
the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window
and a high tide reflected on the ceiling.
There will be dying, there will be dying,
but there is no need to go into that.
The poems flow from the hand unbidden
and the hidden source is the watchful heart.
The sun rises in spite of everything
and the far cities are beautiful and bright.
I lie here in a riot of sunlight
watching the day break and the clouds flying.
Everything, is going to be alright.
I love the quiet optimism and creative energy in this.
A couple of excellent selections from Mossy tonight together with a freckle goodun as well :D
The way through the woods
They shut the road through the woods
Seventy years ago.
Weather and rain have undone it again,
And now you would never know
There was once a road through the woods
Before they planted the trees.
It is underneath the coppice and heath
And the thin anemones.
Only the keeper sees
That, where the ring-dove broods,
And the badgers roll at ease,
There was once a road through the woods.
Yet, if you enter the woods
Of a summer evening late,
When the night-air cools on the trout-ringed pools
Where the otter whistles his mate,
(They fear not men in the woods,
Because they see so few.)
You will hear the beat of a horse's feet,
And the swish of a skirt in the dew,
Steadily cantering through
The misty solitudes,
As though they perfectly knew
The old lost road through the woods ...
But there is no road through the woods.
Rudyard Kipling
Not poetry but the poetic closing passage from the Norman Maclean novella A River Runs Through It.
Now nearly all those I loved and did not understand when I was young are dead, but I still reach out to them. Of course, now I am too old to be much of a fisherman, and now of course I usually fish the big waters alone, although some friends think I shouldn't. Like many fly fishermen in Western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise.
Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of the rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.
I found this extremely moving along with Derby T's excerpt ....lovely stuff, thanks also to Mossy and Alf for some more cool contributions....its gorgeous here today hope you are all having a wonderfyul day xQuote:
Originally Posted by duncs
Evening all...
Sunset
Slowly the west reaches for clothes of new colors
which it passes to a row of ancient trees.
You look, and soon these two worlds both leave you
one part climbs toward heaven, one sinks to earth.
leaving you, not really belonging to either,
not so hopelessly dark as that house that is silent,
not so unswervingly given to the eternal as that thing
that turns to a star each night and climbs-
leaving you (it is impossible to untangle the threads)
your own life, timid and standing high and growing,
so that, sometimes blocked in, sometimes reaching out,
one moment your life is a stone in you, and the next, a star.
Rainer Maria Rilke
Atavism
Sometimes in the open you look up
where birds go by, or just nothing,
and wait. A dim feeling comes
you were like this once, there was air,
and quiet; it was by a lake, or
maybe a river you were alert
as an otter and were suddenly born
like the evening star into wide
still worlds like this one you have found
again, for a moment, in the open.
Something is being told in the woods: aisles of
shadow lead away; a branch waves;
a pencil of sunlight slowly travels its
path. A withheld presence almost
speaks, but then retreats, rustles
a patch of brush. You can feel
the centuries ripple generations
of wandering, discovering, being lost
and found, eating, dying, being born.
A walk through the forest strokes your fur,
the fur you no longer have. And your gaze
down a forest aisle is a strange, long
plunge, dark eyes looking for home.
For delicious minutes you can feel your whiskers
wider than your mind, away out over everything.
William Stafford
just gorgeous mossy.....thank youQuote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
Summer in the Mountains
by Li Po
Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-tree trickles on my bare head.
Nice and simple - that's how we like em. Very refreshing poem - thanks Frecks.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Here's something somewhat less refreshing...sorry...
Fast Food
Big mac, small mac, burger and fries
Shove 'em in boxes all the same size
Easy on the mustard, heavy on the sauce
Double for the fat boy, eats like a horse.
Fry them patties and send 'em right through
Microwave oven going to fry me too
Can't lose my job by getting in a rage
Got to get my hands on that minimum wage.
Shove it in their faces, give 'em what they want
Got to make it fast, it's a Fast Food Restaurant.
Shake's full of plastic, meat's full of worms
Everything's zapped so you won't get germs
Water down the ketchup, easier to pour on
Pictures on the register in case you're a moron.
Keep your uniform clean, don't talk back
Blood down your shirt going to get you the sack
Sugar, grease, fats and starches
Fine to dine at the golden arches.
Shove it in their faces, give 'em what they want
Got to make it fast, it's a Fast Food Restaurant.
Baby thrown up, booth number 9
Wash it down, hose it down, happens all the time
Cigarettes in the coffee, contact lens in the tea
I'd rather feed pigs than humanity.
Shove it in their faces, give 'em what they want
Got to make it fast, it's a Fast Food Restaurant.
Richard Thompson
The Hug
It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who'd showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.
I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.
Thom Gunn
i like this, has a real soothing feel to it...what is it about love and that sense of timelessness?Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
also liked the macdonalds one too, thought it was such a good observation of life's little inhumanities and the insataibility of this fast world we live in
Summer Sun
Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.
Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.
The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.
Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.
Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.
Robert Louis Stevenson
Ooooo I like that MG...i have just got back from a 6 miler in a right lather, it is well hot! i really feel for those doing the edinburgh marathon again in these conditions, can't be easy!....anyhoo when is your next race did you do pier to pier in the end? I am doing gummers how, then probs windy gyle if i can swing it (but oh dear looks like navigation is involved...yikes!) oh and in a moment of madness i have entered the moray marathon in September...thought it might give me a training focus over the summer months! hope your well anyway MGQuote:
Originally Posted by Mountain Goatess
Splintered
As it come to this ?,
We target our oral barbs,
With pinpoint accuracy,
Is there a way back ?,
Do you still love me ?,
I know this much i need you,
But i don't think my fragile mind,
Is capable of taking much more,
It hurts too much,
And i'm splintered,
Ready to crack,
Find me a bed in a secure unit,
Where i can be forgotten,
Playing chequers with the others.
By Matt Harmston
Mmmm playing chequers with the others makes me think of one flew over the cuckoos nest, cracking film.Quote:
Originally Posted by Herakles
Before Summer Rain
Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don't know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood
you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour
will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.
And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.
Rainer Maria Rilke
I love this Mossy. Really gentle and beautiful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
Well, just repotted my tomatoes and am about to transplant my pumpkins and courgettes up to the allotment. I've been a stranger on here due to work, running, growing and romance so I enjoyed this Frost poem I just found very much!
Putting in the Seed
You come to fetch me from my work to-night
When supper's on the table, and we'll see
If I can leave off burying the white
Soft petals fallen from the apple tree
(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,
Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea);
And go along with you ere you lose sight
Of what you came for and become like me,
Slave to a Springtime passion for the earth.
How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed
On through the watching for that early birth
When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,
The sturdy seedling with arched body comes
Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.
Robert Frost
a warm playful wind
ripples through a barley sea
curlews rise calling
Hes,Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Yesterday, whilst driving back from Aysgarth Falls, I was admiring the Yorkshire views from my passenger seat window. I watched the waves of a beautiful green field and tried to put the description into a poem/haiku.
You have just done it beautifully, thankyou xxx
PS. Didn't realise you were at Ripon 10 until I saw your name listed in the local free paper. Well done on your team win....I was a few minutes behind you x
Helen.
Sparta the land of beautiful women,
Did bring forth a woman who would cause a war,
Her majesty was such that whilst she was queen,
She charmed Paris of troy into her marriage bed,
But when her husband king of Sparta,
Went to his bed expecting his wife she was gone,
Taken to Troy with her new lover,
Menalaus' rage was immense and set after them,
With the biggest fleet greece had ever mustered,
To crush Troy murder his wifes lover and return his queen,
And so the story did unfold that after many years of fighting,
With many thousands dead,
Did a plan arise to sack Troy from the inside,
A horse of wood 40 cubits high sat silent,
Outside the impenetrable walls of Troy,
The Trojans thought it was a gift to apollo,
As the greeks seemed to have vanished,
So they rolled it in to take to the temple,
But when they slept the horse did gently stir,
An army of greeks took the city apart whilst the trojans slept,
Too late did they realise their folly,
And Troy was raised to the ground,
Menalaus captured his errant wife and took her back to Sparta,
But such was her beauty her husband forgave her,
And the woman who had caused such loss of life,
Of the good honourable men of the aegean,
Was allowed to live a long fruitful life,
And even now after 3000 years,
We still remember the name of Helen.
By Herakles.
Hey Hes, lovely to see you back on again this is a beautiful and evocative haiku and that Frost poem is one of my fave's....i just checked out your photography on FB...awesome!!!!! :o) xQuote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Herakles that was somee poem you just posted eductional I think? nice one :o)
Leaving the door a jar
Did I dream?
I was a child again
And leaving the door a jar
Quite on purpose
A shard of light
And the odd trip to the loo
From each parent
Bestowing a gaze or two
Invisible embraces
As I lay pretending to sleep
Adoration evidenced by stillness.
Time passes unusually,
As it does in dreams
And now, in the creaks
In the every day sounds
of this new (old) house
I sense
I have come home again
an ancient village of memories
is reawakened
Not with these boards,
Nor the enveloping woods,
Not in the coke fire,
or the nan like ceilings
In fact, not in this
or any other abode
can security be so tenured.
Its in the listening ear,
the invisible embraces
and hands upon hands
here where we walk
adjacent companions
and time owed in lieu
with a glance or two
of long forgotten stillness.
That's a truely delicious peom Freckle really well written. To me, it's perhaps reflecting a longing for/or maybe a recent experience of, early solid foundations. For me, that final verse is especially moving.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Delay
The radiance of the star that leans on me
Was shining years ago. The light that now
Glitters up there my eyes may never see,
And so the time lag teases me with how
Love that loves now may not reach me until
Its first desire is spent. The star's impulse
Must wait for eyes to claim it beautiful
And love arrived may find us somewhere else.
Elizabeth Jennings