Talent runs right through that family :cool:
Well done mini freckle aka Sophie :D
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Dog Star
We are not one but two,
Not many people know that.
Separated by a mere 49.9 years
The logical refer to us a binary system
While star crossed lovers project their desire for merger
We just like to hang out,
orbiting around each other, at a comfortable distance
respecting our respective rights to individuality
and making the most of our luminosity while we've still "got it"
And hey 230 million years together ain’t bad going is it?
But watch this space
Here today, red giant tomorrow.
Goodbyes are not forever
Goodbyes are not the end
They simply mean I'll miss you
Until we meet again.
XX
Oooooo now I do like that Alf..........especially the last line........all this sympathy for the stars must be something in the air...........
hello Lola! nice little verse there ;)
Well...I am having a girls night in with a couple of friends, rissotto, wine and chattering children in the background.....might be a poem in there somewhere....have a nice night all x
now here is one sassy laydee................
Phenomenal Woman
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.
Maya Angelou
off camping for two days ...hope i can construct the tent!
A Dream
Once a dream did weave a shade
O'er my angel-guarded bed,
That an emmet lost its way
Where on grass me thought I lay.
Troubled, wildered, and forlorn,
Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
Over many a tangle spray,
All heart-broke, I heard her say:
'Oh my children! do they cry,
Do they hear their father sigh?
Now they look abroad to see,
Now return and weep for me.'
Pitying, I dropped a tear:
But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied, 'What wailing wight
Calls the watchman of the night?
'I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetle's hum;
Little wanderer, hie thee home!'
William Blake
Just came across this Haiku / World Cup page. Looks interesting but haven't had chance for a close look yet.
http://haikuworldcup.blogspot.com/
Another good link too... Haiku of birds.
http://www.wingbeats.co.uk/index.html
Better keep the thread fresh while freckle is away under canvas :) (she is missing the 20p off a bottle of Snecklifter offer at Morrisons as well! )
THE FAERY CHASM
No fiction was it of the antique age:
A sky-blue stone, within this sunless cleft,
Is of the very footmarks unbereft
Which tiny Elves impressed; – on that smooth stage
Dancing with all their brilliant equipage
In secret revels – haply after theft
Of some sweet Babe – Flower stolen, and coarse Weed left
For the distracted Mother to assuage
Her grief with, as she might! – But, where, oh! where
Is traceable a vestige of the notes
That ruled those dances wild in character? –
Deep underground? Or in the upper air,
On the shrill wind of midnight? or where floats
O'er twilight fields the autumnal gossamer?
William Wordsworth
Good morning !
A taste of the sea for all beachcombers - with a poem on flotsam, jetsam and jettison (words you couldn't use to describe today's industrial junk).
This is by Keith Murray of Aberdeen - they've got a lot of sea round Scotland.
Off to track and field at York for the steeplechase today.
CONTRABAND
This morning a crab in clumsy armour
pinches pearls of spray from a lonely wave
a clash of green bottles their messages
play out wind songs over their empty necks
sing out to the damp daft bag of Dutch fertiliser
how useless this sudden washed up world is
where a carton of colour comic cuts from Milwaukee
spills its once perfectly drawn characters
to running inks escaping into the sand
their dialogues now a mystery of broken speech bubbles
a froth of shells mimic treasure
to the black tattered flag of my mind playing pirate
only the winged mastery of a single gull
balances the definite weight of the wind
and for a moment I am up there with him
snatching that invisible clean perfection.
Nice choice SA :)
Perfect Day by Kathleen Jamie
I am just a woman of the shore
wearing your coat against the snow
that falls on the oyster-catchers' tracks
and on our own; falls
on the still grey waters
of Loch Morar, and on the shoulders
gentle as restraint: a perfect weight
of snow as tree boughs
and fences bear against a loaded sky:
one flake more they'd break
Song of the West Men
To the far of the far
off the isles of the isles,
near the rocks of the rocks
which the guillemots stripe
with the shite of their shite,
a trawler went down
in the weave of the waves,
and a fisherman swam
for the life of his life
through the swell of the sea
which was one degree C.
And the bones of his bones
were cooler than stone,
and the tide of his blood
was slower than slow.
He met with the land
where the cliffs of the cliffs
were steeper than sheer,
where the sheep had to graze
by the teeth of their teeth.
So he put out again
for the beach,
and made it to lava
that took back his skin
to the feet of his feet,
and arrived at a door
with a tenth of a tale
that was taller than tall,
as cold and as bled as a man
from a fridge. But he lived.
The good of the good
will come this way, they say:
tattered and torn,
unlikely and out of the storm,
if it comes at all.
Simon Armitage
To all hare-lovers out there. I think about hares a lot.
Lepus
Mist, asleep like poison gas
in the valleys underneath. But up here
clear skies, where the mind comes up
from the deep, lighter than air.
With a girl's fist for a head,
second-hand fur, kangaroo legs: a hare,
triggered out of the earth
in a triple-jump sprint, keeps up with the car.
Simon Armitage
Hi all
some great stuff on here in my absence, lovely choices by DT, Alf, SA and Harry.....I am particularly pleased to see a sea faring influence! and DT I will have to look up Kathleen Jamie, that was such an evocative and gentle poem...class!....Alf did you keep a snecklifter on ice for me?
I am sooooooo tired after my camping trip its unreal!......fresh air and 6 nippers chasing round a field= fatiguez!
bit of tennyson and bed for me..........
Now sleeps the crimson petal
Now sleeps the crimson petal, now the white;
Nor waves the cyprus in the palace walk;
Nor winks the gold fin in the porphyry font.
The fire-fly wakens; waken thou with me.
Now droops the milk-white peacock like a ghost,
And like a ghost she glimmers on to me.
Now lies the Earth all Danae to the stars,
And all thy heart lies open unto me.
Now slides the silent meteor on, and leaves
A shining furrow, as thy thoughts in me.
Now folds the lily all her sweetness up,
And slips into the bosom of the lake:
So fold thyself, my dearest, thou, and slip
Into my bosom and be lost in me.
Alfred Tennyson
Six nippers
One freckle
Equals fatiguez
Is that some spanish footballer? Can't remember seeing him at the World Cup.
Sleep well marra:wink:
Purity.
To think i saw the complexities of my soul,
Reflected back in your eyes,
Many festering open scars born in 40 years,
Your single white light shines where our love lies.
The miasma of raging emotion pulls me down,
Your all encompassing light saves my life,
Many times i'm near the end and for this i'm truly sorry,
Your pure love saves my soul; Thank you my darling wife.
By,
The little voice inside me that loves to write but which seems to have been dulled by ever more aggressive medicine regimes.
Nice to see you back Matt, take care mate:)
Here is one of the poems that Linford Christie read to the British athletes before the start of the highly successful European Championships:
Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.
Exercise caution in your business affairs;
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals;
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be,
and whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful.
Strive to be happy.
by Max Ehrmann
X runner that is such a good poem thank you for posting....so many wise words in such a short space, very inspirational, my fave's were....
Go placidly amid the noise and haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain and bitter;
Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Morning all!!!
Heard this on the radio late last night on something understood.....
The Rites of Manhood
Alden Nowlan
It's snowing hard enough that the taxis aren't running.
I'm walking home, my night's work finished,
long after midnight, with the whole city to myself,
when across the street I see a very young American sailor
standing over a girl who's kneeling on the sidewalk
and refuses to get up although he's yelling at her
to tell him where she lives so he can take her there
before they both freeze. The pair of them are drunk
and my guess is he picked her up in a bar
and later they got separated from his buddies
and at first it was great fun to play at being
an old salt at liberty in a port full of women with
hinges on their heels, but by now he wants only to
find a solution to the infinitely complex
problem of what to do about her before he falls into
the hands of the police or the shore patrol
—and what keeps this from being squalid is
what's happening to him inside:
if there were other sailors here
it would be possible for him
to abandon her where she is and joke about it
later, but he's alone and the guilt can't be
divided into small forgettable pieces;
he's finding out what it means
to be a man and how different it is
from the way that only hours ago he imagined it.
Well a bright start to the day for someone by the look of it :D
If I can remember that far back through the mists of time though it was probably more the "Rites of Womanhood" as I think I was the one on the pavement :o :rolleyes:.
Ah! "the follies of youth" which leads me nicely into a bit of the bard.:)
Crabbed age and youth cannot live together:
Youth is full of pleasance, age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn, age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave, age like winter bare.
Youth is full of sport, age's breath is short;
Youth is nimble, age is lame;
Youth is hot and bold, age is weak and cold;
Youth is wild, and age is tame.
Age, I do abhor thee; youth, I do adore thee;
O, my love, my love is young!
Age, I do defy thee: O, sweet shepherd, hie thee,
For methinks thou stay'st too long.
William Shakespeare
Better get on with work now I've caught up on the recent posts but just want to say that its great to see Leonidas back and on form and I enjoyed the poem that XRunner posted.
quick dark scimitars
feeding low over barley
swallows at sunset
one more:
a distant gun shot
the copper beech blossoms black
eruption of crows
Sonnet LVIII
Two happy lovers make one bread,
a single moon drop in the grass.
Walking, they cast two shadows that flow together;
waking, they leave one sun empty in their bed.
Of all the possible truths, they chose the day;
they held it, not with ropes but with an aroma.
They did not shred the peace; they did not shatter words;
their happiness is a transparent tower.
The air and the wine accompany the lovers.
The night delights them with its joyous petals.
They have the right to all the carnations.
Two happy lovers, without an ending, with no death,
they are born, they die, many times while they live:
they have the eternal life of the Natural.
Pablo Neruda, from 100 Love Sonnets (Cien sonetos de amor)
Evening all...lots of lovely contributions today Af I need to find a positive poem about the ageing process...you have set me a challenge and I will not flinch in meeting it! (but will defer til a later date as quite frankly I am shattered and desperate for a holiday!)...Hes lovely to see you back hope the art is still going well and DT nice to see our fave Neruda back on here...
found this and rather liked it...
After Love
Afterwards, the compromise.
Bodies resume their boundaries.These legs, for instance, mine.
Your arms take you back in.Spoons of our fingers, lips
admit their ownership.The bedding yawns, a door
blows aimlessly ajarand overhead, a plane
singsongs coming down.Nothing is changed, except
there was a moment whenthe wolf, the mongering wolf
who stands outside the selflay lightly down, and slept.
apparently maxine kumin was good friends with anne sexton....this clip is very bleak but i do like it nevertheless....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDcARJqtqFs
HHH, I noticed a link to Blurp www.blurb.com this evening on a blog. It didn't load well on my phone but I understand you can upload stuff and have it printed off as a hard copy book ;)
A Fell Poet Society book would really be something! :cool:
A66 shut.
Richmond, Reeth, Muker. Swaledale
detour delightful
Suicide.
Tried suicide,
It's not what you think there's nowhere to hide,
You feel all the pain,
From all the loved ones out there that remain,
You don't break free,
Just lie there alone in your misery,
There is no light,
To take you away just jet black night,
One last rush of fire,
You take that last breath then you expire.
By Matt.
i like my body when it is with your
i like my body when it is with your
body. It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body. i like what it does,
i like its hows. i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones, and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss, i like kissing this and that of you,
i like, slowly stroking the, shocking fuzz
of your electric fur, and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh… And eyes big love-crumbs,
and possibly i like the thrill
of under me you so quite new
ee cummings
Well we have passed the 'watershed'!