Today's poet

Whitman

After we've had
our age of gold
and sung our song of brass,
fingers will brush
the age aside,
fingers and leaves
of grass.

Alfred Kreymborg

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hes

a warm playful wind
ripples through a barley sea
curlews rise calling

---

Mmmmmmmmmmm - lovely, I can hear them now.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mossdog

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.

---

Thank you Mossy I am glad you liked it I felt particularly moved when writing it, your interpretation was spot on really, I find these days that I am more acutely aware of the connections between my past experiences as a child with more recent ones, especially when it comes to attachment figures. In this poem I am trying to describe such a moment in time when I had a pleasant reminder of how it is to feel held by the ordinary aspects of sharing a space with another, with the creaks of the boards but more significantly little moments like when someone watches you sleep. There was also a bit of longing thrown in there too! :-)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mossdog

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

---

I like this...there is definately a theme in your choices emerging and one which I can relate to....I have to be careful not to dwell too much on the passage of time and could learn a trick or two in this instance from some eastern philosophies about "living in the moment" a bit more!!!!! :-)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by freckle

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.

---

Gorgeous poem freckle :cool: I remember how important that shard of light was :)

The Dead Man Walking

They hail me as one living,
But don't they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?

I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.

Not at a minute's warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time's enchantments
In hall and bower.

There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death ...

-- A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.

But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.

When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;

And when my Love's heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.

And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am to-day,

Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.

Thomas Hardy

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alf

The Dead Man Walking

They hail me as one living,
But don't they know
That I have died of late years,
Untombed although?

I am but a shape that stands here,
A pulseless mould,
A pale past picture, screening
Ashes gone cold.

Not at a minute's warning,
Not in a loud hour,
For me ceased Time's enchantments
In hall and bower.

There was no tragic transit,
No catch of breath,
When silent seasons inched me
On to this death ...

-- A Troubadour-youth I rambled
With Life for lyre,
The beats of being raging
In me like fire.

But when I practised eyeing
The goal of men,
It iced me, and I perished
A little then.

When passed my friend, my kinsfolk,
Through the Last Door,
And left me standing bleakly,
I died yet more;

And when my Love's heart kindled
In hate of me,
Wherefore I knew not, died I
One more degree.

And if when I died fully
I cannot say,
And changed into the corpse-thing
I am to-day,

Yet is it that, though whiling
The time somehow
In walking, talking, smiling,
I live not now.

Thomas Hardy

---

Alf this is such a beautiful poem imbued with such a strong sense of loss, really moving and so well observed I think, certainly makes you think...thank you for posting...you have reminded me again how great a poet Thomas Hardy is :-)

Hello all

liked that last poem frecks. Heres a couple more i've done recently

Homeless chic

He was leant up against the bus stop railings.
His pose, deliberate, staged, one hand raised,
cupped around an ear, listening.
his outfit was brilliant!
Well thought out, heavily repaired trousers
and an ill fitting coat, two sizes too large.
no boho hats or scarves
too pretentious.
A carrier bag,
genius!

I wonder whart effort is required to create
that; slept outdoors, through the winter
in the same set of clothes look.

Some would say he was trying
too hard and his sartorial ideas,
obviously had come from a book or photo
sets of the great depression when this
image was last bang on trend.
No one can be this original.

But this is a look; hard to carry off
a bit more effort is required and integrity
needed than just being a fashion geek.
If you want to wear it,
you've got to live homeless chic.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by N-dubya

Hello all

liked that last poem frecks. Heres a couple more i've done recently

Homeless chic

He was leant up against the bus stop railings.
His pose, deliberate, staged, one hand raised,
cupped around an ear, listening.
his outfit was brilliant!
Well thought out, heavily repaired trousers
and an ill fitting coat, two sizes too large.
no boho hats or scarves
too pretentious.
A carrier bag,
genius!

I wonder whart effort is required to create
that; slept outdoors, through the winter
in the same set of clothes look.

Some would say he was trying
too hard and his sartorial ideas,
obviously had come from a book or photo
sets of the great depression when this
image was last bang on trend.
No one can be this original.

But this is a look; hard to carry off
a bit more effort is required and integrity
needed than just being a fashion geek.
If you want to wear it,
you've got to live homeless chic.

---

Damn it N Dubya you are gooooooood! I love this, the way you have told a story with a twist at the end, ironic as ever, you make it look easy! hey, i should be your publicist! can I have a cut when you get your first book deal! ...........:o seriously though nice one!

"Between Us Now"

Between us now and here -
Two thrown together
Who are not wont to wear
Life's flushest feather -
Who see the scenes slide past,
The daytimes dimming fast,
Let there be truth at last,
Even if despair.

So thoroughly and long
Have you now known me,
So real in faith and strong
Have I now shown me,
That nothing needs disguise
Further in any wise,
Or asks or justifies
A guarded tongue.

Face unto face, then, say,
Eyes mine own meeting,
Is your heart far away,
Or with mine beating?
When false things are brought low,
And swift things have grown slow,
Feigning like froth shall go,
Faith be for aye.

Thomas Hardy

I am in the mood for a bit of leaning..............

possibly in an old book shop ...in the poetry section?......


Leaning Into The Afternoons

Leaning into the afternoons I cast my sad nets
towards your oceanic eyes.

There in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames,
its arms turning like a drowning man's.

I send out red signals across your absent eyes
that smell like the sea or the beach by a lighthouse.

You keep only darkness, my distant female,
from your regard sometimes the coast of dread emerges.

Leaning into the afternoons I fling my sad nets
to that sea that is thrashed by your oceanic eyes.

The birds of night peck at the first stars
that flash like my soul when I love you.

The night gallops on its shadowy mare
shedding blue tassels over the land.

Pablo Neruda

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by freckle

"Between Us Now"

Between us now and here -
Two thrown together
Who are not wont to wear
Life's flushest feather -
Who see the scenes slide past,
The daytimes dimming fast,
Let there be truth at last,
Even if despair.

So thoroughly and long
Have you now known me,
So real in faith and strong
Have I now shown me,
That nothing needs disguise
Further in any wise,
Or asks or justifies
A guarded tongue.

Face unto face, then, say,
Eyes mine own meeting,
Is your heart far away,
Or with mine beating?
When false things are brought low,
And swift things have grown slow,
Feigning like froth shall go,
Faith be for aye.

Thomas Hardy

---

Good choice freckle :D

A Grain Of Sand

If starry space no limit knows
And sun succeeds to sun,
There is no reason to suppose
Our earth the only one.
'Mid countless constellations cast
A million worlds may be,
With each a God to bless or blast
And steer to destiny.

Just think! A million gods or so
To guide each vital stream,
With over all to boss the show
A Deity supreme.
Such magnitudes oppress my mind;
From cosmic space it swings;
So ultimately glad to find
Relief in little things.

For look! Within my hollow hand,
While round the earth careens,
I hold a single grain of sand
And wonder what it means.
Ah! If I had the eyes to see,
And brain to understand,
I think Life's mystery might be
Solved in this grain of sand.

Robert William Service

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mountain Goatess

A Grain Of Sand

If starry space no limit knows
And sun succeeds to sun,
There is no reason to suppose
Our earth the only one.
'Mid countless constellations cast
A million worlds may be,
With each a God to bless or blast
And steer to destiny.

Just think! A million gods or so
To guide each vital stream,
With over all to boss the show
A Deity supreme.
Such magnitudes oppress my mind;
From cosmic space it swings;
So ultimately glad to find
Relief in little things.

For look! Within my hollow hand,
While round the earth careens,
I hold a single grain of sand
And wonder what it means.
Ah! If I had the eyes to see,
And brain to understand,
I think Life's mystery might be
Solved in this grain of sand.

Robert William Service

---

Lovely stuff Mountain Goatess...i love the observation of "relief in little things"

Under the Waterfall

'Whenever I plunge my arm, like this,
In a basin of water, I never miss
The sweet sharp sense of a fugitive day
Fetched back from its thickening shroud of gray.
Hence the only prime
And real love-rhyme
That I know by heart,
And that leaves no smart,
Is the purl of a little valley fall
About three spans wide and two spans tall
Over a table of solid rock,
And into a scoop of the self-same block;
The purl of a runlet that never ceases
In stir of kingdoms, in wars, in peaces;
With a hollow boiling voice it speaks
And has spoken since hills were turfless peaks.'

'And why gives this the only prime
Idea to you of a real love-rhyme?
And why does plunging your arm in a bowl
Full of spring water, bring throbs to your soul?'

'Well, under the fall, in a crease of the stone,
Though precisely where none ever has known,
Jammed darkly, nothing to show how prized,
And by now with its smoothness opalized,
Is a grinking glass:
For, down that pass
My lover and I
Walked under a sky
Of blue with a leaf-wove awning of green,
In the burn of August, to paint the scene,
And we placed our basket of fruit and wine
By the runlet's rim, where we sat to dine;
And when we had drunk from the glass together,
Arched by the oak-copse from the weather,
I held the vessel to rinse in the fall,
Where it slipped, and it sank, and was past recall,
Though we stooped and plumbed the little abyss
With long bared arms. There the glass still is.
And, as said, if I thrust my arm below
Cold water in a basin or bowl, a throe
From the past awakens a sense of that time,
And the glass we used, and the cascade's rhyme.
The basin seems the pool, and its edge
The hard smooth face of the brook-side ledge,
And the leafy pattern of china-ware
The hanging plants that were bathing there.

'By night, by day, when it shines or lours,
There lies intact that chalice of ours,
And its presence adds to the rhyme of love
Persistently sung by the fall above.
No lip has touched it since his and mine
In turns therefrom sipped lovers' wine.'

Thomas Hardy

Nice one Frecks x

Life Is A Reflection

I think you should know
Life is a reflection of the past
It may be hard to believe
Might hurt a bid but,
The future awaits patiently
When the past hunt our hope
then, future is fate.

I think you should know
Image behind the mirror
Never lie
But, the reflection is
Not the conclusion.
A chameleon may reflect
Our heartbeats, longing,
And Desiring for reality.

I think you should know
Believing is strength
To see it come alive
Not just hoping but,
Developing confidence
Is the zeal to carry on.

Not knowing is a loss
The pains and weakness
An illusion.
Seeing the dreams
Having faith.
knowing it
Is a great future
Life is a reflection of the past

Fiefa Bruce

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by freckle

Under the Waterfall

'Whenever I plunge my arm, like this,
In a basin of water, I never miss
The sweet sharp sense of a fugitive day
Fetched back from its thickening shroud of gray.
Hence the only prime
And real love-rhyme
That I know by heart,
And that leaves no smart,
Is the purl of a little valley fall
About three spans wide and two spans tall
Over a table of solid rock,
And into a scoop of the self-same block;
The purl of a runlet that never ceases
In stir of kingdoms, in wars, in peaces;
With a hollow boiling voice it speaks
And has spoken since hills were turfless peaks.'

'And why gives this the only prime
Idea to you of a real love-rhyme?
And why does plunging your arm in a bowl
Full of spring water, bring throbs to your soul?'

'Well, under the fall, in a crease of the stone,
Though precisely where none ever has known,
Jammed darkly, nothing to show how prized,
And by now with its smoothness opalized,
Is a grinking glass:
For, down that pass
My lover and I
Walked under a sky
Of blue with a leaf-wove awning of green,
In the burn of August, to paint the scene,
And we placed our basket of fruit and wine
By the runlet's rim, where we sat to dine;
And when we had drunk from the glass together,
Arched by the oak-copse from the weather,
I held the vessel to rinse in the fall,
Where it slipped, and it sank, and was past recall,
Though we stooped and plumbed the little abyss
With long bared arms. There the glass still is.
And, as said, if I thrust my arm below
Cold water in a basin or bowl, a throe
From the past awakens a sense of that time,
And the glass we used, and the cascade's rhyme.
The basin seems the pool, and its edge
The hard smooth face of the brook-side ledge,
And the leafy pattern of china-ware
The hanging plants that were bathing there.

'By night, by day, when it shines or lours,
There lies intact that chalice of ours,
And its presence adds to the rhyme of love
Persistently sung by the fall above.
No lip has touched it since his and mine
In turns therefrom sipped lovers' wine.'

Thomas Hardy

---

Hardy again freckle :cool:

It threw me a bit that line "No lip has touched it since his and mine " as I thought it was Hardy's voice behind the poem? Then I realised it was his companion that day at the waterfall voicing the poem , probably his wife as she is often in his poems.

"And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea."

Taken from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

I heard it quoted on an 80s TV Drama the other night ("Bird of Prey" a great series :cool:) and though I recognised the lines I couldn't remember where they came from but good old Google was close at hand.

http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poe...d_prufrock.htm

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alf

"And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea."

Taken from The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

I heard it quoted on an 80s TV Drama the other night ("Bird of Prey" a great series :cool:) and though I recognised the lines I couldn't remember where they came from but good old Google was close at hand.

http://www.everypoet.com/archive/poe...d_prufrock.htm

---

quite sublime alf! .................:o lovely choice

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alf

Hardy again freckle :cool:

It threw me a bit that line "No lip has touched it since his and mine " as I thought it was Hardy's voice behind the poem? Then I realised it was his companion that day at the waterfall voicing the poem , probably his wife as she is often in his poems.

---

i just thought it was such a cool story and I am dying to take someone special :cool: to a waterfall at the earliest opportunity!!!!!

http://fellpoets.blogspot.com/

By eck its quite on here these days....not enough angst in summer clearly!

found this today and rather liked it...

My Papa's Waltz by Theodore Roethke

The whiskey on your breath
Could make a small boy dizzy;
But I hung on like death:
Such waltzing was not easy.

We romped until the pans
Slid from the kitchen shelf;
My mother's countenance
Could not unfrown itself.

The hand that held my wrist
Was battered on one knuckle;
At every step you missed
My right ear scraped a buckle.

You beat time on my head
With a palm caked hard by dirt,
Then waltzed me off to bed
Still clinging to your shirt.

Been helping out on a lot of BGRs recently and felt the urge to pen this... I hope it rings a bell with those BGR alumni, both recent and less so!

Aftermath

Glowing with pride and wincing with pain
The heat-of-the-moment cries 'never again'
The pats on the back and the banners unfurled
The texts and the posts pass the news to the world

The following day and a duel with the stairs
A ten hour sleep and the diet of a bear
Reliving those moments of hell and delight
Puking on Pillar, the end of the night

The week rumbles on and the muscles repair
The jubilant mood now threatened by dispair
Months of obsession and focus have passed
Now difficult thoughts try to cope with the gap

The obvious question is what to do now?
The Paddy, the Ramsey, a mid-winter round?
A return to racing and pacing your friends?
Or finding excuses to go round again...

The Tyre

Just how it came to rest where it rested,
miles out, miles from the last farmhouse even,
was a fair question. Dropped by hurricane
or aeroplane perhaps for some reason,
put down as a cairn or marker, then lost.
Tractor-size, six or seven feet across,
it was sloughed, unconscious, warm to the touch,
its gashed, rhinoceros, sea-lion skin
nursing a gallon of rain in its gut.
Lashed to the planet with grasses and roots,
it had to be cut. Stood up it was drunk
or slugged, wanted nothing more than to slump,
to spiral back to its circle of sleep,
dream another year in its nest of peat.
We bullied it over the moor, drove it,
pushed from the back or turned it from the side,
unspooling a thread in the shape and form
of its tread, in its length, and in its line,
rolled its weight through broken walls, felt the shock
when it met with stones, guided its sleepwalk
down to meadows, fields, onto level ground.
There and then we were one connected thing,
five of us, all hands steering a tall ship
or one hand fingering a coin or ring.

Once on the road it picked up pace, free-wheeled,
then moved up through the gears, and wouldn't give
to shoulder-charges, kicks; resisted force
until to tangle with it would have been
to test bone against engine or machine,
to be dragged in, broken, thrown out again
minus a limb. So we let the thing go,
leaning into the bends and corners,
balanced and centred, riding the camber,
carried away with its own momentum.
We pictured an incident up ahead:
life carved open, gardens in half, parted,
a man on a motorbike taken down,
a phone-box upended, children erased,
police and an ambulance in attendance,
scuff-marks and the smell of broken rubber,
the tyre itself embedded in a house
or lying in a gutter, playing dead.

But down in the village the tyre was gone,
and not just gone but unseen and unheard of,
not curled like a cat in the graveyard, not
cornered in the playground like a reptile,
or found and kept like a giant fossil.
Not there or anywhere. No trace. Thin air.

Being more in tune with the feel of things
than science and facts, we knew that the tyre
had travelled too fast for its size and mass,
and broken through some barrier of speed,
outrun the act of being driven, steered,
and at that moment gone beyond itself
towards some other sphere, and disappeared.

Simon Armitage

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OneOffPoet

Been helping out on a lot of BGRs recently and felt the urge to pen this... I hope it rings a bell with those BGR alumni, both recent and less so!

Aftermath

Glowing with pride and wincing with pain
The heat-of-the-moment cries 'never again'
The pats on the back and the banners unfurled
The texts and the posts pass the news to the world

The following day and a duel with the stairs
A ten hour sleep and the diet of a bear
Reliving those moments of hell and delight
Puking on Pillar, the end of the night

The week rumbles on and the muscles repair
The jubilant mood now threatened by dispair
Months of obsession and focus have passed
Now difficult thoughts try to cope with the gap

The obvious question is what to do now?
The Paddy, the Ramsey, a mid-winter round?
A return to racing and pacing your friends?
Or finding excuses to go round again...

---

Wonderful stuff One Off....doing a BGR is the stuff of dreams for someone such as me but I love to hear of tales associated with it and this is just awesome, particularly liked the reference to puking up, gave it that realistic edge! :-)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill

The Tyre

Just how it came to rest where it rested,
miles out, miles from the last farmhouse even,
was a fair question. Dropped by hurricane
or aeroplane perhaps for some reason,
put down as a cairn or marker, then lost.
Tractor-size, six or seven feet across,
it was sloughed, unconscious, warm to the touch,
its gashed, rhinoceros, sea-lion skin
nursing a gallon of rain in its gut.
Lashed to the planet with grasses and roots,
it had to be cut. Stood up it was drunk
or slugged, wanted nothing more than to slump,
to spiral back to its circle of sleep,
dream another year in its nest of peat.
We bullied it over the moor, drove it,
pushed from the back or turned it from the side,
unspooling a thread in the shape and form
of its tread, in its length, and in its line,
rolled its weight through broken walls, felt the shock
when it met with stones, guided its sleepwalk
down to meadows, fields, onto level ground.
There and then we were one connected thing,
five of us, all hands steering a tall ship
or one hand fingering a coin or ring.

Once on the road it picked up pace, free-wheeled,
then moved up through the gears, and wouldn't give
to shoulder-charges, kicks; resisted force
until to tangle with it would have been
to test bone against engine or machine,
to be dragged in, broken, thrown out again
minus a limb. So we let the thing go,
leaning into the bends and corners,
balanced and centred, riding the camber,
carried away with its own momentum.
We pictured an incident up ahead:
life carved open, gardens in half, parted,
a man on a motorbike taken down,
a phone-box upended, children erased,
police and an ambulance in attendance,
scuff-marks and the smell of broken rubber,
the tyre itself embedded in a house
or lying in a gutter, playing dead.

But down in the village the tyre was gone,
and not just gone but unseen and unheard of,
not curled like a cat in the graveyard, not
cornered in the playground like a reptile,
or found and kept like a giant fossil.
Not there or anywhere. No trace. Thin air.

Being more in tune with the feel of things
than science and facts, we knew that the tyre
had travelled too fast for its size and mass,
and broken through some barrier of speed,
outrun the act of being driven, steered,
and at that moment gone beyond itself
towards some other sphere, and disappeared.

Simon Armitage

---

nice one harry can't wait to hear the man himself live!

Couldn't have said it better myself
how true is every word?!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by OneOffPoet

Been helping out on a lot of BGRs recently and felt the urge to pen this... I hope it rings a bell with those BGR alumni, both recent and less so!

Aftermath

Glowing with pride and wincing with pain
The heat-of-the-moment cries 'never again'
The pats on the back and the banners unfurled
The texts and the posts pass the news to the world

The following day and a duel with the stairs
A ten hour sleep and the diet of a bear
Reliving those moments of hell and delight
Puking on Pillar, the end of the night

The week rumbles on and the muscles repair
The jubilant mood now threatened by dispair
Months of obsession and focus have passed
Now difficult thoughts try to cope with the gap

The obvious question is what to do now?
The Paddy, the Ramsey, a mid-winter round?
A return to racing and pacing your friends?
Or finding excuses to go round again...

---

I enjoyed the Simon Armitage poem that Harry posted and freckle's Theo Roethke so here is one that very loosely links both poets from Michael Donaghy who like Roethke is an American and was included in the top 20 young poets in 1994 with Simon Armitage.


Machines

Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante's heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn't, of course, I've fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsicordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.


Michael Donaghy

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Alf

I enjoyed the Simon Armitage poem that Harry posted and freckle's Theo Roethke so here is one that very loosely links both poets from Michael Donaghy who like Roethke is an American and was included in the top 20 young poets in 1994 with Simon Armitage.


Machines

Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.

The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.

So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante's heaven, and melt into the air.

If it doesn't, of course, I've fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsicordists prove

Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.


Michael Donaghy

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I think the word to use here is "delectable" ....lush poem Alf, particularly like the phrase "gadgetry of love" and those last two lines...makes me think about the process of running down a hill .....the stuff of signatures i think!

Child


Your clear eye is the one absolutely beautiful thing.
I want to fill it with color and ducks,
The zoo of the new
Whose names you meditate ---
April snowdrop, Indian pipe,
Little
Stalk without wrinkle,
Pool in which images
Should be grand and classical Not this troublous
Wringing of hands, this dark
Ceiling without a star.

Slyvia Plath

Apparition of a Butterfly


Upon a fuzzy vista – vision blurred –
I tried to focus; nothing ever solid
Came to view, but undeterred, I blinked
An eye to try again. Through the mist
A coloured hue; polychromatic flames
Had flickered at a whim; a rhythm bore
A thrumming too: a naturalistic hymn.
Behold! Were I to find a synonym to
Reproduce or recreate
The apparition of a butterfly,
Evolving through the waning vapour,
Drawing on a sigh from this romantic.
Glory be! The raging sun above
Had fired his furnace, flaming off
The hangers on. Now I saw the flare:
His time has come. He spread a tortoiseshell –
A scene of Mother Nature at her best.
I lay in peace in knowing I was blessed.




Mark R Slaughter 2009

Thanks for posting those poems MG and freckle I did enjoy them :D

As I passed Dove cottage on my way up to the Helvellyn race on Sunday here's a beautiful sonnet from the lakeland poet himself :cool:

I Watch, And Long Have Watched, With Calm Regret

I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret
Yon slowly-sinking star, immortal Sire
(So might he seem) of all the glittering quire!
Blue ether still surrounds him, yet, and yet;
But now the horizon's rocky parapet
Is reached, where, forfeiting his bright attire,
He burns, transmuted to a dusky fire,
Then pays submissively the appointed debt
To the flying moments, and is seen no more.
Angels and gods! We struggle with our fate,
While health, power, glory, from their height decline,
Depressed; and then extinguished; and our state,
In this, how different, lost Star, from thine,
That no to-morrow shall our beams restore!


William Wordsworth

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mountain Goatess

Apparition of a Butterfly


Upon a fuzzy vista – vision blurred –
I tried to focus; nothing ever solid
Came to view, but undeterred, I blinked
An eye to try again. Through the mist
A coloured hue; polychromatic flames
Had flickered at a whim; a rhythm bore
A thrumming too: a naturalistic hymn.
Behold! Were I to find a synonym to
Reproduce or recreate
The apparition of a butterfly,
Evolving through the waning vapour,
Drawing on a sigh from this romantic.
Glory be! The raging sun above
Had fired his furnace, flaming off
The hangers on. Now I saw the flare:
His time has come. He spread a tortoiseshell –
A scene of Mother Nature at her best.
I lay in peace in knowing I was blessed.




Mark R Slaughter 2009

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This is really lovely MG, you keep introducing me to new poets, I will have to look this guy up, thank you :o)

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alf

Thanks for posting those poems MG and freckle I did enjoy them :D

As I passed Dove cottage on my way up to the Helvellyn race on Sunday here's a beautiful sonnet from the lakeland poet himself :cool:

I Watch, And Long Have Watched, With Calm Regret

I watch, and long have watched, with calm regret
Yon slowly-sinking star, immortal Sire
(So might he seem) of all the glittering quire!
Blue ether still surrounds him, yet, and yet;
But now the horizon's rocky parapet
Is reached, where, forfeiting his bright attire,
He burns, transmuted to a dusky fire,
Then pays submissively the appointed debt
To the flying moments, and is seen no more.
Angels and gods! We struggle with our fate,
While health, power, glory, from their height decline,
Depressed; and then extinguished; and our state,
In this, how different, lost Star, from thine,
That no to-morrow shall our beams restore!


William Wordsworth

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i like the sadness and inevitability conveyed in the metaphor of this poem....he was a bit of a genius wasn't he? ......thanks Alf

I found this very special Michael Rosen poem written to celebrate 60 years of the NHS and with a view to increasing the awareness and understanding of the NHS amongst children....i think it is really quite moving

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7764884.stm

in a michael rosen type of mood...

Hand on the bridge

Hand on the bridge,
Feel the rhythm of the train.
Hand on the window
Feel the rhythm of the rain.
Hand on your throat
Feel the rhythm of your talk
Hand on your leg
Feel the rhythm of your walk
Hand in the sea
Feel the rhythm of the tide
Hand on your heart
Feel the rhythm inside
Hand on the rhythm
Feel the rhythm of the rhyme
Hand on your life
Feel the rhythm of time
Hand on your life
Feel the rhythm of time
Hand on you life
Feel the rhythm of time.

Michael Rosen is wonderful. The NHS poem was so lovingly written it was delightful.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by freckle

in a michael rosen type of mood...

Hand on the bridge

Hand on the bridge,
Feel the rhythm of the train.
Hand on the window
Feel the rhythm of the rain.
Hand on your throat
Feel the rhythm of your talk
Hand on your leg
Feel the rhythm of your walk
Hand in the sea
Feel the rhythm of the tide
Hand on your heart
Feel the rhythm inside
Hand on the rhythm
Feel the rhythm of the rhyme
Hand on your life
Feel the rhythm of time
Hand on your life
Feel the rhythm of time
Hand on you life
Feel the rhythm of time.

---

Mistress of the Fells

She strokes as I stride the Gable
Guides me away from tourtured fables
Her soft touch raising spirits and knees
My mistress of the fells

Her lure a summer dawn from the cairn
Like eyes transfixed on an endless gain
I beckon to her long reaching embrace
My mistress of the fells

Shes on you mind from rise to fall
Hazy focus the sight of dusk cruel
I wish this day would never end
My mistress of the fells

Gifts of hydration an ever lasting flow
Vistas of beauty, a mind seed to sow
A lustful take of her curves and warmth
My mistress of the fells

I drift away, back to the grind
A loosening of our precious bind
But ill be back swift and sure
My mistress of the fells

By Roy Scott

That's lovely Roy.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Roy Scott

Mistress of the Fells

She strokes as I stride the Gable
Guides me away from tourtured fables
Her soft touch raising spirits and knees
My mistress of the fells

Her lure a summer dawn from the cairn
Like eyes transfixed on an endless gain
I beckon to her long reaching embrace
My mistress of the fells

Shes on you mind from rise to fall
Hazy focus the sight of dusk cruel
I wish this day would never end
My mistress of the fells

Gifts of hydration an ever lasting flow
Vistas of beauty, a mind seed to sow
A lustful take of her curves and warmth
My mistress of the fells

I drift away, back to the grind
A loosening of our precious bind
But ill be back swift and sure
My mistress of the fells

By Roy Scott

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