Oh no poor you! x
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To Newcastle
I met a man the other day-
A kindly man, and serious-
Who viewed me in a thoughtful way,
And spoke me so, and spoke me thus:
"Oh, dallying's a sad mistake;
'Tis craven to survey the morrow!
Go give your heart, and if it break-
A wise companion is Sorrow.
"Oh, live, my child, nor keep your soul
To crowd your coffin when you're dead...."
I asked his work; he dealt in coal,
And shipped it up the Tyne, he said.
Dorothy Parker
another cautionary tale....
Within this tree
Jane Hirshfield
It is foolish
to let a young redwood
grow next to a house.
Even in this
one lifetime,
you will have to choose.
That great calm being,
this clutter of soup pots and books --
Already the first branch-tips brush at the window.
Softly, calmly, immensity taps at your life.
For anyone out there that is noticing their age. I found this and loved it:
Salt and Pepper
Here and there
White hairs appear
On my chest -
Age seasons me
Gives me zest -
I am a sage
In the making
Sprinkled, shaking.
Samuel Menashe
Nope, the Isle of Man :D I don't think I can get accused of taking coals there :rolleyes:
Mountain Marathon on Saturday then sampling the wares of those IOM breweries for a couple of days http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/t...bit/banana.gif
Happiness
There's just no accounting for happiness,
or the way it turns up like a prodigal
who comes back to the dust at your feet
having squandered a fortune far away.
And how can you not forgive?
You make a feast in honor of what
was lost, and take from its place the finest
garment, which you saved for an occasion
you could not imagine, and you weep night and day
to know that you were not abandoned,
that happiness saved its most extreme form
for you alone.
No, happiness is the uncle you never
knew about, who flies a single-engine plane
onto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikes
into town, and inquires at every door
until he finds you asleep midafternoon
as you so often are during the unmerciful
hours of your despair.
It comes to the monk in his cell.
It comes to the woman sweeping the street
with a birch broom, to the child
whose mother has passed out from drink.
It comes to the lover, to the dog chewing
a sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,
and to the clerk stacking cans of carrots
in the night.
It even comes to the boulder
in the perpetual shade of pine barrens,
to rain falling on the open sea,
to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
Jane Kenyon
A Sea Fret
Running lonely in the fog
No one close or so it seems
A seagull swoops down low to me
And interrupts my dreams
I am an only figure
All around me speaks of white
An hour ago was sunny
But now it feels like night
The horn booms out across the seas
Ships captains do not fret
Steer clear of mermaids, rocks and waves
And the fog won't take you yet
Music beating in my ears
Pace, tempo, stride is flowing
I can barely see the ground below
But my feet just keep on going
Am I running into emptiness
The path seems to go nowhere
No markers or horizons
Just a hazy, eerie glare!
MG
This is from May Swenson - from Utah - who was a prolific poet in her lifetime. It's maybe a bit late for the subject given that Easter is at the end of April thanks to the moon :
Daffodils
Yellow telephones
in a row in the garden
are ringing,
shrill with light.
Old-fashioned spring
brings earliest models out
each April the same,
naïve and classical.
Look into the yolk-
colored mouthpieces
alert with echoes.
Say hello to time.
May Swenson ps I'm not reading the forum so often but liked the pieces on woodland
I really like that MG. And you've captured that strange sense of suspension and otherworldliness that running in fog can often induce. I don't think I've ever run on the coast and certainly not while being 'serenaded' by fog-horns! I especially like the last verse which seems very allegorical. Thanks
Thanks Mossy. I had some good verse lined up whilst out there but it had disappeared from my mind by the time I got home. We should carry a pen and paper to capture these atmospheric moments when they are freshly thought up! The fog horn is still sounding as I type...it is headache inducing for me as I'm not used to living by the sea! x
This is great MG. So evocative. I did a race at New Marske today and then headed over to Saltburn and the sea fret was incredible. I've taken loads of eerie photos of people silhouetted in the mist and I didn't see the horizon or the sea at all for most of the afternoon.
The Woods At Night by May SwensonThe binocular owl,
fastened to a limb
like a lantern
all night long,
sees where all
the other birds sleep:
towhee under leaves,
titmouse deep
in a twighouse,
sapsucker gripped
to a knothole lip,
redwing in the reeds,
swallow in the willow,
flicker in the oak -
but cannot see poor
whippoorwill
under the hill
in deadbrush nest,
who's awake, too -
with stricken eye
flayed by the moon
her brindled breast
repeats, repeats, repeats its plea
for cruelty.
'Pegasus'
Riding the wind, my hands out stretched.
No one would believe this story, it’s to far fetched.
I closed my eyes but for a moment, felt the wind in my hair.
I opened them slowly, being whisked up in the air.
With wings white, each feather lined with gold.
This was a great mythical horse, or so I’ve been told.
Rainbow colors flowed through out its long mane,
I knew if I told you you’d think I was insane.
Without hesitation we rose higher and higher.
As we approached the sun my skin felt as if it was on fire.
Suddenly he folded his beautiful outstretched wings.
And I knew at once the relief a storm cloud brings.
We rode thru a rainbow, with every color and hue.
As we gently glided closer to the ground, I knew my ride was thru.
I knew I never would forget the day I rode the wind.
And as long as I believed, I knew you would be back again.
A mythical legend born in the realms kings.
I watched in awe as you stretched out your wings.
Stood on your hind legs and bound upward without a care.
The noblest of them all, Pegasus, had once again taken to the air
To go with my new avatar, it's not mine, wind in my hair tells you that.
There is a good compilation of poetic wedding vows from Wendy Cope on the Guardian website today. Some delightful different versions...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...n-duffy-poetry
Funny
What's it like being a human
the bird asked
I myself don't know
its being held prisoner by your skin
while reaching infinity
being a captive of your scrap of time
while touching eternity
being hopelessly uncertain
and helplessly hopeful
being a needle of frost
and a handful of heat
breathing in the air
and choking wordlessly
it's being on fire
with a nest made of ashes
eating bread
while filling up on hunger
it's dying without love
it's loving through death
That's funny said the bird
and flew effortlessly up into the air.
Anna Kamienska
Revelation
It happens of course when you’re on holiday.
When the first scent of Bergamot
drifts off a teacup,
and you glance over an ocean
laden with crystals,
the muslin curtain floats up
and in a slight forgetting of yourself
the horizon tilts
and you gasp, breath flown,
intoxicated by all manner of possibilities.
Then you go home
and force yourself
to like again, things
you don’t really care about.
Except that one day, vacant eyed
toiling around a supermarket
you find yourself
for no apparent reason
picking up a packet of Earl Grey tea.
Tina Sederholm
Anne Summerfield
Drawers
I wonder what knickers I’ll leave when I die,
what cast asides of lace and mesh.
White cotton and poppy embroidered,
black velvet and gold or marabou trimmed?
Perhaps by then all my pants will be sensible,
double gusseted with legs in, not a thong in sight.
Perhaps I’ll be that old.
Or maybe, at eighty, still loyal
to Agent Provocateur and D and G,
I’ll fill a drawer with scarlet, lilac, shocking pink,
lycra and silk celebrations of life.
I agree some wonderful choices here Harry thank you for posting...I really liked the following poem.....
Clare Shaw
Vow
Say yes.
That word on your lips
is a kiss;
is a promise already made.
We made it.
Love did not turn from hurt
or hard work.
When lights failed, it did not switch off.
When love had no road,
we willingly built it.
We shouldered its stones
and its dirt. So thank god
there are days like this when it's easy.
When we open our mouths
and the words flood in.
Put the word of your hand
in mine.
We have learnt to hold to each other
when nothing was given by right;
how love will insist
with its ache; with its first painful
tug on the guts;
its snake in the nest of the ribs;
the bomb in the chest;
in the Y of the thighs; the red, red
red sun of it, rising.
How love must, at all costs,
be answered. We have answered
and so have a million before us
and each of their names is a vow.
So now I can tell you, quite simply
you are the house I will live in:
there is no good reason
to move. Good earth,
you are home, stone, sun,
all my countries. Vital to me
as the light. You are it
and I am asking.
Say yes.
Love opens a door
then slams it. It does.
It loses its touch and its looks.
But love needs its fury.
We have fought
and when times make it necessary,
we will again. When night draws in,
we won't forget
how once the streets ran wet with light
and love. Like blood. They will again.
But for now,
we make our promises gently.
This extraordinary day we have made.
Listen –
the birds in their ordinary heaven.
Tonight the sky will blaze
with stars. Today, my love,
rooms bloom with flowers.
Say yes.
The sky is ours.
sigh.............................................. .................................................. ..
I really liked the poem by Tina Sederholm Mossy. Very simple but lovely.
This choice has made me think I'd better go and clear out my undies drawer! :) I'd hate to be remembered for my failure to sort my whites from my colours!:o
M&S and La Senza don't really have the same frisson as D&G and Agent Provocateur either.;)