R4 11.30am today there is a whole programme about the guy that wrote the Dr. Zeuss books...its well worth catching again on Iplayer.
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R4 11.30am today there is a whole programme about the guy that wrote the Dr. Zeuss books...its well worth catching again on Iplayer.
I think I had as much fun reading those Dr Seuss books to my kids when they were young as they did listening and later reading themselves. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Fox in Socks
Stop it! Stop it!
That's enough, sir.
I can’t say such silly stuff, sir.
Very well, then Mr. Knox, sir.
Let’s have a little talk about tweetle beetles….
What do you know about tweetle beetles?
Well…
When tweetle beetles fight, it’s called a tweetle beetle battle.
And when they battle in a puddle, it’s a tweetle beetle puddle battle.
And when tweetle beetles battle with paddles in a puddle, they call it a tweetle beetle puddle paddle battle.
And when beetles battle beetles in a puddle paddle battle and the beetle battle puddle is a puddle in a bottle…
…They call this a tweetle beetle bottle puddle paddle battle muddle,
and…
When beetles fight these battles in a bottle with their paddles and the bottle’s on a poodle and the poodle’s eating noodles…
…They call this a muddle puddle tweetle poodle beetle noodle bottle paddle battle,
and…
Now wait a minute Mr. Socks Fox!
When a fox is in the bottle where the tweetle beetles battle with their paddles in a puddle on a noodle-eating poodle.
THIS is what they call…
…A tweetle beetle noodle poodle bottled paddled muddled duddled fuddled wuddled fox in socks, sir!
Fox in socks, our game us done, sir.
Thank you for a lot of fun, sir.
— excerpt from ‘Fox in Socks’ by Dr Seuss (1904 - 1991)
:D
I like Ruth Padels work, I imagine her brain as a furnace - way way hotter than a cauldren. In the book "Angels" a lot of the poems have a pace and an edge that is sometimes breathtaking. A lot of the poems in this book are quite dark but I have tried to avoid choosing one with too much blackness about it.
Angel by Ruth Padel
No one sees me. Fathoms up
a nest of rays, all protein,
grey velvet triangles
siz metres wing to wing,
a coat on them like a Vymerana,
ripples at the edges, slow,
the way the skite-tooth grass
trembled in lunar winds back home.
So no one knows
and if they read the impress
where my egg sacs
crumbled into bed, work done,
there's nothing they could do.
I listen to the humming
and I wait. Suppose they clawed
one ring from my antenna-bone
up through that tunnel of sea-cow
and acetta-swabs
changing sex halfway through life,
pink to meridian blue,
they'd re-do Linnaeus,
any story of black holes,
re-assign prizes
for the signature of matter,
but still they wouldn't
see what's coming.
How do I know all this?
Baby, where I come from,
we had pre-rusted pictoscopes
to tell us about aliens like you.
Thanks for posting this Alf, excellent fun, and thanks to Hes for mentioning it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
evening all, stevie i liked the angel poem although i have to confess i have an aversion to creepy crawlies and the description of antenna bone did make me kind of shudder! very well written nevertheless!
dr zeuss...think our fave in this house is the cat in the hat....
well here is another "being human" poem which made me reflect that one of my really annoying habits is that I live my life far too much in either the future or the past...should try and rebalance things a bit me thinks...
The Present
By Michael Donaghy
For the present there is just one moon,
though every level pond gives back another.
But the bright disc shining in the black lagoon,
perceived by astrophysicist and lover,
is milliseconds old. And even that light’s
seven minutes older than its source.
And the stars we think we see on moonless nights
are long extinguished. And, of course,
this very moment, as you read this line,
is literally gone before you know it.
Forget the here-and-now. We have no time
but this device of wantonness and wit.
Make me this present then: your hand in mine,
and we’ll live out our lives in it.
I read this last night just before i dropped off, its gorgeous MG thank you for posting!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mountain Goatess
Hes your haiku were beautiful too x
ps MG i thought your interpretation of blank joy was spot on
Not a bad photo, taken from Pecket Well? I remember losing a wellie in a bog near that memorial whilst walking with my Dad as a nipper, brought back good memories, Cheers Stevie.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevie
The dream keeper
Langston Hughes
Bring me all of your dreams,
You dreamer,
Bring me all your
Heart melodies
That I may wrap them
In a blue cloud-cloth
Away from the too-rough fingers
Of the world.
Gorgeous Freckle :)
I used to have a dream keeper hanging in my bedroom window but I must have had it facing the wrong way as I still got nightmares!
I'm glad and proud that my poetic interpretation of 'Blank Joy' was approved by the Poet Laureate of Fellrunner Forums :wink:
Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
I too like the dream keeper poem. Difficult to follow that but here we are in a new day, remembering or not remembering dreams, and all I have to offer is this poem by Pat Winslow that I find really funny and have been meaning to post on here for ages, just as a change. Her interpretation of the situation was a surprise, to me anyway, and probably why I found it funny. Hope you all do too.
Mycroft and Sherlock by Pat Winslow
You'd call them singular, I suppose.
They were forever counting.
How many steps from our bedpost to the tallboy,
how many stairs to the landing.
There wasn't a cupboard
they hadn't opened or found the key to.
They made an inventory
of everything from saucers to coats.
Holidays were a nightmare -
how many quarter mile posts between stations,
what size boots the ticket inspector wore,
what he'd eaten the day before.
They could look at a train and tell you
what the weather was like in Carlisle.
You can't imagine how many friends we lost.
The 'samples' nurse found beneath their beds -
cigar butts, half-drained glasses, combs,
handerkerchiefs and socks and underwear.
The drugs I can understand. Their father did it.
And at least it kept them quiet.
But the tendency to want the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but.
Our guests were MPs and businessmen.
Besides, I had a lover.
That was soon over. And my marriage.
They didn't care. They had each other.
And later, Sherlock had that doctor.
The signs were there, of course.
I just never saw them.
And to balance things up, this from Ruth Padel, from the book "Angels" again.
Foxgloves by Ruth Padel
I found her recipe
in the Taunton Evening News,
reading it out Friday night
as I always did. He made do
in the ioniser room six days
with pinpricks on parchment.
'Two to four cups spring water.
Or use distilled. One heaped tsp. ginseng.
Two tbs. sea salt crystals. One head
of coltsfoot. One pinch she-wolf's hair
from a live and shedding wolf.
This is important. Ask keepers
at your local Wildlife Centre. One ounce
graveyard topsoil from the bed
of someone you revered for courage.
Don't use a shovel. Always replace
any sod you pull up.' When we met
it was September. Spores were out.
Asthma bad. Her voice was a samaritan silk.
Her eyes went to slits, bronze fennel.
Something hula-hooped in my belly.
She said, 'Foxgloves. Velvet.
Darkness. Alice, I want it.'
He has forbidden her the house.
He can't see her standing on our path,
full sun, without a shadow. I found
honey in her fingers like the blind.
I really enjoyed both of your choices Stevie especially the funny Sherlock Holmes one. Freckle, that is one of my favourite poems from Being Human.
One Way of Looking at Thirteen Blackbirds
A black cat crossing your path is bad for luck, it's said.
But to cross the path of thirteen blackbirds —
that has to be a sign. There's meaning
in the way they're sitting on that line
side by shadowy side,
yellow eyes unblinking,
staring down at you
all of one mind,
just waiting
to dive.
Jeff Tigchelaar
nice choice HesQuote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Since the "Buzzard incident" I have had a new respect for birds and what they are capable of.
Apparently they are all descended from meat eating dinosaurs :w00t:
Thanks for posting this Stevie it made be look for more of her stuff. I found 'Ghost' which I found very moving but probably a litle strong for the thread without a warning.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevie
You can find it here http://www.poetrypf.co.uk/patwinslowpage.html
John Keats, a man who died aged 25 in early "summer" never got to
experience autumn and winter in terms of years but maybe he
did in terms of emotion ?
The Human Seasons
Four seasons fill the measure of the year;
There are four seasons in the mind of man:
He has his lusty Spring, when fancy clear
Takes in all beauty with an easy span:
He has his Summer, when luxuriously
Spring’s honey’d cud of youthful thought he loves
To ruminate, and by such dreaming high
Is nearest unto heaven: quiet coves
His soul has in its Autumn, when his wings
He furleth close; contented so to look
On mists in idleness—to let fair things
Pass by unheeded as a threshold brook.
He has his Winter too of pale misfeature,
Or else he would forego his mortal nature.
John Keats
In the process, of transition
can you capture the moment
when the ownership
of ones heart
passes from one to another
still possesed by one
but knowing it has
to soon move on
to a new host
who will nourish
nuture, revitalise
and love
Hi Rev, I like this very much. The end of a relationship and the start of a new one are very poignant times I think. It sometimes seems inconceivable that you will ever give anyone your heart again but then, out of the blue, you find you are willing to make a leap of faith...I think the potential happiness outweighs the risk!:)
Quote:
Originally Posted by TheReverand
Hi Alf, I had a buzzard buzzing incident too and it certainly put things in perspective! :w00t:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Am making printing plates and listening to Poetry Please on Iplayer. I loved this John Fairfax poem which you can read and listen to here:
http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetrya...o?poemId=13915
Its not poetry but I love the R4 programme that's currently on....Vampires versus Zombies!! They have 'experts' on discussing who would win in a vampire/zombie fight. awesome!:thumbup::thumbup:
Vampires YES
Zombies NO
Vampires = high gothic, melodrama, literature, looking good, the temptation of immortality
Zombies = grunge, downmarket horror, unthinkingness, looking bad, the curse of immortality
And I have no idea what I'm talking about.
Sorry, bit of an epic post. Skip it if you like.
Some poems might as well have been written in a continuous line form and word-wrapped like a paragraph, the words taken from their original vertical arrangement and spread out flat. The meaning and impact would be little changed.
I have sometimes thought that some of the prose produced by Iain Sinclair is worthy of the opposite treatment. I think of much of his work as being like a collection of broken shards of glass, shards of a mirror even. He often writes in short staccato bursts, and the outcome can be like poetry but arranged linearly. I have made an attempt at selecting a suitable passage and stacking it vertically, like a poem, to see what the effect is.
This is from the first and second pages of his book London Orbital, in a chapter entitled ‘Prejudices Declared’, where Sinclair sets out the stall of the book – why he chose to walk around London in the acoustic footprint of the M25, and what the M25 means to him. One thing it means is Thatcher, and he obviously has it in for our former glorious leader. This was written about the opening of the M25 in October 1986.
Thatcher, who never grasped the concept
of ‘dressing down’, her range going from
airfixed-in-pressurised-dimethyl-ether
(with solvent abuse warning on can) to
carved-out-of-funerary-basalt,
decided that day, or had it put to her
by style consultants
that she should treat this gig as an outside broadcast,
a chat from the paddock at Cheltenham,
not the full Ascot furbelow.
A suit, semi-formal (like Westminster Cathedral),
in a sort of Aquascutum beige.
Autumn. No hat.
A war footing: mufti-awkward.
Argie bashing, ranting.
Cromwell-fierce, hormonally stoked, she
wields her small scythe, dismissing
the unseen enemy, stalkers in the bushes,
eco-bandits, twitchers, pennypinchers,
lilylivered Liberal fifth-columnists,
bedwetters, nay-sayers.
‘I can’t stand those who carp
and criticise when they ought to be
congratulating Britain
on a magnificent achievement and
beating the drum for Britain all over the world.’
Rejoice. The military/industrial two-step.
That old standard.
Mrs Thatcher went on to rave
over the ‘the Sainsbury’s effect’,
the introduction of US mall-viruses,
landscape consumerism,
retail landfill.
YES was the word.
Thatcher filtered in perpetual green glow,
like a Hammer Films spook.
Bride of Dracula.
Green meant GO.
You may know of Sinclair from his increasingly prominent opposition to the imposed regeneration taking place in the east of London – firstly the Millenium Dome, now the Olympic Village. He identifies himself as one of the aforementioned liberal fifth-columnists and nay-sayers, and campaigns for regeneration to take place organically rather than being forced by central government.
Sinclair does also write and publish poetry, and perhaps I will find something I think you will like enough to post on here one day. I do recommend London Orbital though.
who will you vote for?
http://ticketing.southbankcentre.co....etry-parnassus
Wow! this is brillaint rev! i think the concept of tranisition i such a useful one in life to help us negotiate its various challenges... a beautiful poem thank you for postingQuote:
Originally Posted by TheReverand
very well put hes.. you are a very astute young lady! xQuote:
Originally Posted by Hes
The Hug by Thom Gunn
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.
Considering Magic by Elizabeth Jennings
Don't think of magic as a conjuring trick
Or just as fotune-tellers reading hands.
It is a secret which will sometimes break
Through ordinary days, and it depends
Upon right states of mind like good intent,
A love that's kind, a wisdom that is not
Pleased with itself. This sort of magic's meant
To cast a brilliance on the dark trains of thought
And guide you through the mazes of the lost,
Lost love, lost people and lost animals.
For this, a sure, deep spell of care is cast
Which never lies and will not play you false.
It banishes the troubles of the past
And is the oldest way of casting spells.
Thom Gunn is not poet I'm familiar with, Freckle, but I like what you have posted. Thanks for the link too.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
thanks for your positive thoughts on my ramblings ladies x
your welcome stevie and thank you for so many fabolous choices of late...
one poem b4 the land of nod ...
Land Love
DOUGLAS DUNN
We stood here in the coupledom of us.
I showed her this — a pool with leaping trout,
Split-second saints drawn in a rippled nimbus.
We heard the night-boys in the fir trees shout.
Dusk was an insect-hovered dark water,
The calling of lost children, stars coming out.
With all the feelings of a widower
Who does not live there now, I dream my place.
I go by the soft paths, alone with her.
Dusk is a listening, a whispered grace
Voiced on a bank, a time that is all ears
For the snapped twig, the strange wind on your face.
She waits at the door of the hemisphere
In her harvest dress, in the remote
Local August that is everywhere and here.
What rustles in the leaves, if it is not
What I asked for, an opening of doors
To a half-heard religious anecdote?
Monogamous swans on the darkened mirrors
Picture the private grace of man and wife
In its white poise, its sleepy portraitures.
Night is its Dog Star, its eyelet of grief
A high, lit echo of the starry sheaves.
A puff of hedge-dust loosens in the leaves.
Such love that lingers on the fields of life!
I really like both of your choices Freckle, particularly The Hug.x
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevie
This has a whimsical feel to it stevie i really enjoyed it thank you
Getting Older
Elaine Feinstein
The first surprise: I like it.
Whatever happens now, some things
that used to terrify have not.
I didn’t die young, for instance. Or lose
my only love. My three children
never had to run away from anyone.
Don’t tell me this gratitude is complacent.
We all approach the edge of the same blackness
which for me is silent.
Knowing as much sharpens
my delight in January freesia,
hot coffee, winter sunlight. So we say
as we lie close on some gentle occasion:
every day won from such
darkness is a celebration.
Great choice freckle. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Kindness
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
Naomi Shihab Nye
.
I am sure Hes will realise the significance of this poem......:)
The Hare And The Fox
The fox lay still behind the curtain
beside the wall.
The hare was running with nimble foot
O'er the wall.
Was ever brighter a moon-lit night,
Before, behind me, left and right,
O'er the wall!
The fox laughed low by the curtain
beside the wall.
The hare was running with daring foot
O'er the wall.
I am so happy for everything!
Hello? Why go you with mighty spring
O'er the wall?
The fox lay hid behind the curtain
beside the wall.
The hare dashed to him with reckless foot
O'er the wall.
May God have mercy, but this is queer! --
Good gracious, how dare they dance so here
O'er my dining room wall! :thumbup:
(adapted from a poem by Bjoenstjerne Bjornson)
There will be mayhem if the fox catches that hare:w00t:
One day the end will come
And i'll ask myself, What have i done
Sat on my bum, posting on a forum
Should really shut up and go for run
So tomorrow i'll jog, with my dog
Probably fall headfirst in a bog
Or fall backwards upon my bum
Be reet, at least i'll have some fun
Something I penned in the late 90's when I was racing. apologies in advance
The arrival of cars brings the playing fields to life
People alight eager to register their entry
Signing the declaration – ‘On your head be it’
Hands fumbling trying to pin numbers on vests
Bodies mill around in various colours of cloth
Are there really so many makes and patterns?
The experienced are relaxed, smiling and swapping jokes
Newcomers are nervous and self conscious
Runners disappear to perform their warm up
Some sprinting erratically other taking careful strides
Muscles and tendons stretched in preparation
Systems primed, ready to switch into overdrive
Tensions building as the time for ‘off’ draws near
Fingers twitching ready to start the watch
The whippets head for the front line
Mortals gather in the pack behind
The starter wishes good luck to all
On your marks GO – what about set?
A mad rush to get to the front
Avoid getting caught in the bottleneck
The pace drops on the first ascent
Reality focused on the task ahead
Who’s been doing their hill homework?
How can he run s fast up this?
The top and tired legs start stretching out
Flat paths allow a rise in speed
Track athletes show their metal
Reborn after the pain of the climb
A descent changes the rhythm
Disengage brain and freefall to the bottom
Co-ordination a thing of the past
Grit your teeth and hang on
The races has it’s own peculiar lifecycle
Hard climb, fast flat and swooping downhill
Places are won and lost throughout
How close is the person behind you?
The marshal urges you on to greater things
Shouting your position in the field
Not far to go – keep pumping
Breathing hard, heart beating like a bass drum
At last – the final drop to the finish
Can you catch the plummeting figure in front of you?
From somewhere you manage to summon a sprint
Hurling yourself across the line
Then it is over, the pain is gone
The agony replaced by euphoria
The smiles on the finishers say it all
Hard as it was it was worth it!