He he!Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Whippet
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He he!Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Whippet
Where's mine? There must be something wrong with my plumbing...I'm off to see the landlord to complain!
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Originally Posted by Masham Man
Hee hee!! I like it OW! Sorry about the unladylike language...I didn't have enough breath to say 'oh my goodness, that was almost very painful'.
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Originally Posted by Old Whippet
Love it! Good choice MM. Thanks for the heads up on the radio programme too. I'll be tuning into it on Iplayer I think due to my inclination to be owl-like as opposed to larky!
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Originally Posted by Masham Man
It's this saturday Hes you will be Larky, its Trollers! Anyway I'll leave you owls I'm off to bed
The Tame Hare
She came to him in dreams — her ears
Diddering like antennae, and her eyes
Wide as dark flowers where the dew
Holds and dissolves a purple hoard of shadow.
The thunder clouds crouched back, and the world opened
Tiny and bright as celandine after rain.
A gentle light was on her, so that he
Who saw the talons in the vetch
Remembered now how buttercup and daisy
Would bounce like springs when a child's foot stepped off them.
Oh, but never dared he touch —
Her fur was still electric to the fingers.
Yet of all the beasts blazoned in gilt and blood
In the black-bound scriptures of his mind,
Pentecostal dove and paschal lamb,
Eagle, lion, serpent, she alone
Lived also in the noon of ducks and sparrows;
And the cleft-mouthed kiss which plugged the night with fever
Was sweetened by a lunch of docks and lettuce.
Norman Nicholson (1914-1987)
Oh my goodness....of course!! Well, that sorts out what I listen to whilst I eat my breakfast! Goodnight!
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Originally Posted by Masham Man
This is an interesting poem...who knew that hares could be so seductive!Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
I really like that quality and wonder if it is to do with the belief that witches shapeshifted into hares. I read that Nicholson's poem is inspired by Cowper's about his tame hare. It is interesting how the hare seemingly has so much more of a sense of knowingness, intelligence and mystery than a rabbit and has inspired so much mythology and devotion in comparison.
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Originally Posted by freckle
;);););)Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Whippet
Here is a verbal poem about The Hare As Witch AnimalQuote:
Originally Posted by Hes
That's a good find Xrunner. Its disturbing though, especially when you think of all those poor women that were drowned or burnt just for being herbalists or wisewomen.
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Originally Posted by XRunner
Just caught up after a weekend offline with the PC being infected. The **** poem was very apt as that word was heard a lot round here. I wouldn't mind someone attempting to extort my credit card details from me as long as they were gramatically correct whilst doing it! The standard of the hacker's Queen's English left a little to be desired. ;-)
Top stuff OW.
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Originally Posted by Old Whippet
I like that Hes...reminds me of Watership Down!
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Originally Posted by Hes
Wow. That is stunning. I just kind of, well, GET that.
That definately gets added to the favourites folder.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
On no what a nightmare! Poor you !Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill
Hedgerows, boulders,
nettles and rocks
all around me now
as i sketch on my box
The views from this spot
and over the wall
must surely be ranked
the best of all
Trees, crags, cottages too
times like this are too few
To spend my time in
this scenic pathway
marks a wonderful end
to a beautiful day
NB
Attachment 4560
That's a lovely sketch NB & I enjoyed the poem.
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Originally Posted by Nee Bother
Oh no, that sounds like a right pain. Hope all's back to normal again HHH.
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Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill
I think that's a first for the thread. A self-illustrated submission.
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Originally Posted by Nee Bother
Thanks NB. Sitting at my work desk I am wishing I was there.
Me too :-( hopefully there at weekend thoQuote:
Originally Posted by Old Whippet
March
March! March! March! They are coming
In troops to the tune of the wind.
Redheaded woodpeckers drumming,
Gold - crested thrushes behind;
Sparrows in brown jackets, hopping
Past every gateway and door;
Finches, with crimson caps, stopping
Just where they stopped before.
March! March! March! They are slipping
Into their places at last. . .
Literature white lily buds, dripping
Under the showers that fall fast;
Buttercups, violets, roses;
Snowdrop and bluebell and pink,
Throng upon throng of sweet posies
Bending the dewdrops to drink.
March! March! March! They will hurry
Forth at the wild bugle sound,
Blossoms and birds in a flurry,
Fluttering all over the ground.
Shake out your flags, birch and willow!
Shake out your red tassels, larch!
Grass blades, up from your earth - pillow.
Hear who is calling you. . . March."
Lucy Larcom
Thats a good one to get us into March Harry :thumbup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill
Eating Poetry
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
There is no happiness like mine.
I have been eating poetry.
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
Her eyes are sad
and she walks with her hands in her dress.
The poems are gone.
The light is dim.
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.
Their eyeballs roll,
their blond legs burn like brush.
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.
She does not understand.
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
she screams.
I am a new man.
I snarl at her and bark.
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.
Mark Strand
Simon Armitage on the Culture Show next Thursday :cool:
I always try to be seasonal in my poetry, just like my fashion!
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Originally Posted by Alf
He's been a busy chap this year. Looking forward to his Pennine Way book.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
this is brilliant alf! liked the snarling bit :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
harry i really enjoyed the march poem choice, i just can't quite believe that it is march already! ...I too can't wait for the penine way book, I wonder if the dufton gig will get much of a mention and if so hope that it is positive.....she says nervously ( i think i may have acted like a bit of an star struck fool around him!)
At least you didn't fall at his feet in a bog Freckle! x
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Originally Posted by freckle
At least your dog didn't try to shag his leg!
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Originally Posted by Hes
quite!Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill
and as they say in monty python "and now for something completely different..."
First Things First
WH Auden
Woken, I lay in the arms of my own warmth and listened
To a storm enjoying its storminess in the winter dark
Till my ear, as it can when half-asleep or half-sober,
Set to work to unscramble that interjectory uproar,
Construing its airy vowels and watery consonants
Into a love-speech indicative of a Proper Name.
Scarcely the tongue I should have chosen, yet, as well
As harshness and clumsiness would allow, it spoke in your praise,
Kenning you a god-child of the Moon and the West Wind
With power to tame both real and imaginary monsters,
Likening your poise of being to an upland county,
Here green on purpose, there pure blue for luck.
Loud though it was, alone as it certainly found me,
It reconstructed a day of peculiar silence
When a sneeze could be heard a mile off, and had me walking
On a headland of lava beside you, the occasion as ageless
As the stare of any rose, your presence exactly
So once, so valuable, so very now.
This, moreover, at an hour when only to often
A smirking devil annoys me in beautiful English,
Predicting a world where every sacred location
Is a sand-buried site all cultured Texans do,
Misinformed and thoroughly fleeced by their guides,
And gentle hearts are extinct like Hegelian Bishops.
Grateful, I slept till a morning that would not say
How much it believed of what I said the storm had said
But quetly drew my attention to what had been done
—So many cubic metres the more in my cistern
Against a leonine summer—, putting first things first:
Thousands have lived without love, not one without water.
Here is a good long poem for Saturday poets to read at their leisure.
The final line will become the chosen words for the Olympic Games next year.
Ulysses
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,--
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me--
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads--you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
(Lord Tennyson)
Good Evening everyone x
Well it's been a while since I've been on the forum so I've much catching up to do , but seen some lovely poems posted . I'm currently working my way through X runners Tennyson classic , which is exquisite , a work of art and maybe one of the best poems ever written . I was going to post something pretty simple , but next to ' Ulysses ' I decided it may look quite ridiculous !
The horror.......!Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill
Ha ha. I'd forgotten about that until that post!
I wonder if it'll make the book?
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Originally Posted by Old Whippet
He just mentioned us on Ramblings! He said he nearly gave up on Cross Fell and had to be rescued by fell runners. Woohooo....surely poem material? :)
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Originally Posted by Harry H Howgill
At the endQuote:
Originally Posted by Hes
of a long day
walking a leg
of the Pennine Way
I met a dog
who had just
started his own leg
Go away!
Alf Armitage
:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf