Ha ha ha....I love it XRunner. I am pleased to see that the fox and hare are enjoying their new home and making lots of mayhem at the same time!!:thumbup:
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Originally Posted by XRunner
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Ha ha ha....I love it XRunner. I am pleased to see that the fox and hare are enjoying their new home and making lots of mayhem at the same time!!:thumbup:
Quote:
Originally Posted by XRunner
I really enjoyed this clivebaby and felt it conjured up a great deal of the general atmosphere at races, many thanks for posting and oh welcome to the thread!Quote:
Originally Posted by Cliveybaby
ha ha! like it steve... i have just got back from a 5 miler and have somehow managed to burn the front of my neck into a strange triangular shape, it looks deeply eccentric especially as I have now dyed my hair bright red! i get myself into some to right pickles!Quote:
Originally Posted by stevefoster
Where we started
If people can dream together, we dream together.
This is the way it always starts.
Out of the darkness of the streets that lie between us
and the river rising like a rampart raised to part the city
from its dreamed and dreaming counterpart across the river
falling like leaves shed by the streetlamps every evening
dreaming they shed light and keep the city from the river,
we make our way back to each other’s side.
It doesn’t take long. It never does,
not in the dream we dream together.
I know you and you know me so well,
all we need to find each other is to sleep.
Inside this world more real than real
we’re always more and more awake.
It’s how we dream it.
And maybe because it’s a collaboration,
like a double negative,
what we end up with is the opposite of a dream,
where I’m about to tell you something
but you already know it,
and you’re about to tell me,
since we’re dreaming together,
so that we stop and start and smile and stop again
like two strangers in a doorway.
But whatever it is that parts,
like dawn the lips of the curtains,
like the last look,
tears us from each other’s side,
you, half way across the labyrinth of dream
and boulevard, and me, in my half,
at the end of the street
at the end of the night,
the streetlamps stepping back in their own darkness
where we started.
Liane Strauss
The Thought-Fox (mostly by Ted Hughes)
I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank thread where my fingers move.
Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come
Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business
Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
This post is finished.
I have a bright red head but no hair. Managed not to fall in a bog but dog did, had to be dragged out!Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Like that Hamish, very good.Quote:
Originally Posted by XRunner
Don't know why Cliveybaby is apologising, great poem from him:thumbup:
Evening all...hope your weekend has been a good one...i have had a lovely restorative one including fun and games with a house full of kids, a top cycle on my new bike (which i think was the best suprise gift I have ever received! :wink:), a run and listening to this poem on poetry please at tea time...its left me feeling that sometimes life is sweet, better make the most of it before it all goes pete tong!
Amo Ergo Sum
Kathleen Raine
Because I love
The sun pours out its rays of living gold
Pours out its gold and silver on the sea.
Because I love
The earth upon her astral spindle winds
Her ecstasy-producing dance.
Because I love
Clouds travel on the winds through wide skies,
Skies wide and beautiful, blue and deep.
Because I love
Wind blows white sails,
The wind blows over flowers, the sweet wind blows.
Because I love
The ferns grow green, and green the grass, and green
The transparent sunlit trees.
Because I love
Larks rise up from the grass
And all the leaves are full of singing birds.
Because I love
The summer air quivers with a thousand wings,
Myriads of jewelled eyes burn in the light.
Because I love
The iridescnt shells upon the sand
Takes forms as fine and intricate as thought.
Because I love
There is an invisible way across the sky,
Birds travel by that way, the sun and moon
And all the stars travel that path by night.
Because I love
There is a river flowing all night long.
Because I love
All night the river flows into my sleep,
Ten thousand living things are sleeping in my arms,
And sleeping wake, and flowing are at rest.
Great poem freckle, a new bike, road or mountain bike? What sort, and divn't say one with 2 wheels!Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Oh no poor you steve! be careful! ....i think my red marks are actually hair dye as it is rubbing off!Quote:
Originally Posted by stevefoster
Alf- i loved the Liane Strauss poem especially the opening line and then later on this one...."you, halfway through the labyrinth of a dream...." such a good description of a dream in both the literal and metaphorical sense as sometimes it is not clear where dreams conscious and unconscious will take us ....thanks for posting
X runner i love the thought fox poem its one of my faves
Thanks Freckle and Steve. First time it has been aired to a wider audience since I wrote it.
I have lost all my poems and rhymes from my PC but luckily have the originals that I printed off. I will type another up in word and copy and paste in.
i think its a cross between a mountain and about town bike, really i just plan on pootling about on it, gonna get a basket for the front and do a good impression of amelie! (with a geordie accent of course!)Quote:
Originally Posted by stevefoster
look forward to it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Cliveybaby
A hybrid eh, get a big basket for all them pickles:wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Good stuff freckle. Happy peddling and pootling.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
I cross the earth in studded shoes
They leave my imprint on the ground
There’s nought but swirling fog around
The path now forks which way to choose?
It must be left so right instead
I leave new patterns as I go
The rocks and reeds force me to slow
And interrupt the tracks I tread
I know that I’ve been here before
That tree is like some dreadful beast
My compass shows that west is east
And fresh new imprints mark the floor
Not Montrail’s lugs nor Walsh’s square
But Inov8s and they are mine
They stretch in front and make a line
That mark the route of my despair
I’m trying to get from A to B
To make a true and simple curve
If I could float up to observe
Concentric circles I would see
Out on this moor I like to roam
But I could be here for a year
By then I think the mist should clear
And I could find my own way home
And then salvation from this curse
For in the mist it all comes clear
My tracks map out how I got here
Which I now follow in reverse
My footsteps are now light with air
And overlay the ones I made
But soon the rain will make them fade
As If I’d never left them there
I reach the hill down which I slide
To take me from this foggy fell
And when I’m home and all is well
My studded shoes can rot outside
Very good that crowhill :thumbup: Tricky business this navigation :DQuote:
Originally Posted by crowhill
I enjoyed that post freckle. Good luck with the cycling. I must invest in one myself one of these days. I use my daughters old mountain bike now and then but its a bit small for me and the gears keep slipping.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Thanks Alf! - I've been watching this thread for a while and really enjoyed the poems, especially those written by our very own forumites. I had to choose a poem for our wedding and I had a crack at writing one for my speech so I've been in the "zone" recently. I wrote this one on my flight home yesterday - good way to pass a few hours! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
That was great crowhill I really enjoyed reading it.
This is another old one that I wrote whilst sitting on Shutlingsloe back in 1996.
Sunset on Shutlingsloe
The sun sets in front of me
A red ball slowly sinking in the spring sky
Sharp colours begin to fade away
Not to be seen again until the new dawn
Families have disappeared back to their homes
The Sunday stroll is enough for them
Shutlingsloe and the forest peaceful once more
No screaming children, red socks or picnic lunches
Sheep calmly grazing in the fields
The worry of running barking dogs gone for another day
If you listen you can hear the chatter of tiny birds
Saying their goodnights as they find a perch
The wind gets stronger as pink skies turn to grey
A warning to those still out that it is time to go home
The solitary fellrunner fades into the distance
I say goodnight to the hill and follow the path to where I began
Agree, nice one Jason and conratulations for the big day mate:thumbup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Cliveybaby
Thanks Steve, we had a tremendous day. Just perfect. You may have heard the church bells in Ripponden! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by stevefoster
Good stuff, wishing you and Jo many years of happiness together, couldn't hear the church bells though, too many noisy kids round here!Quote:
Originally Posted by crowhill
it was wonderful and I am so pleased that we are seeing some new writers on this thread, keep it going crowhill and clive baby and oh congratulations to the newly weds!Quote:
Originally Posted by crowhill
A very short one by Paul Farley that I can type in the 7 minutes remaining of my lunchtime:
Bacon and Eggs by Paul Farley
Breakfast. In a fat splashed gown
your working model fitted:
'The chicken is only involved
but the pig, the pig is committed.'
love it! that made me laugh out loud!Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevie
I wasn't too sure whether this bordered on patronising when I first read it but it was written before the days of Social Security and the Health service which clears it of that charge.
The last two lines are very good indeed :cool:
A Northern Suburb
Nature selects the longest way,
And winds about in tortuous grooves;
A thousand years the oaks decay;
The wrinkled glacier hardly moves.
But here the whetted fangs of change
Daily devour the old demesne –
The busy farm, the quiet grange,
The wayside inn, the village green.
In gaudy yellow brick and red,
With rooting pipes, like creepers rank,
The shoddy terraces o'erspread
Meadow, and garth, and daisied bank.
With shelves for rooms the houses crowd,
Like draughty cupboards in a row –
Ice-chests when wintry winds are loud,
Ovens when summer breezes blow.
Roused by the fee'd policeman's knock,
And sad that day should come again,
Under the stars the workmen flock
In haste to reach the workmen's train.
For here dwell those who must fulfil
Dull tasks in uncongenial spheres,
Who toil through dread of coming ill,
And not with hope of happier years –
The lowly folk who scarcely dare
Conceive themselves perhaps misplaced,
Whose prize for unremitting care
Is only not to be disgraced.
John Davidson
Nice words Crow Hill - glad I'm not the only one with neglected shoes rotting at the back doorQuote:
Originally Posted by crowhill
I really like this Alf, a depiction of the north after the glory days of the industrial revolution and before the modern period when all parts of the country enjoy similar levels of domestic comfort.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
I have just got hold of a copy of Remains of Elmet, the 1979 paperback edition with Fay Godwin's photos. It is very wonderful and after I'd read it I'll post something from it on here.
In the meantime I am slightly disappointed not to find the "Heptonstall" poem in that was recently posted by Trig - repeated below. I have now seen that there is a 1994 edition called just "Elmet" and the contents are subtly different to "Remains of Elmet" and I'm wondering whether this "Heptonstall" poem (and there is more than one with that title) is in the newer "Elmet" edition. Can anybody help?
Thanks,
Steve
Heptonstall
Black village of grave stones
skull of an idiot
whose dreams die back
where they were born
Skull of a sheep
whose meat melts
under it's own rafters
only the flies leave it
Skull of a bird
the great geographie
drained to sutures
of cracked windowsills
Life tries
Death tries
The stone tries
Only the rain never tries
Quote:
Originally Posted by Stevie
I posted my own version of 'Heptonstall' after I had run the new Heptonstall fell race which was basically an unapologetic dig at Ted Hughes ! He was a great poet but like a lot of us had feet of clay.
"Your son's eyes.... would become
So perfectly your eyes,
Became wet jewels
The hardest substance of the purest pain
As I fed him in his high white chair"
Ted Hughes (looking after his son Nicholas following the suicide of Sylvia Plath)
Nicholas committed suicide in 2009
and a little snippet from one of my favourites, Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
He who, grown aged in this world of woe,
In deeds, not years, piercing the depths of life,
So that no wonder waits him; nor below
Can love or sorrow, fame, ambition, strife,
Cut to his heart again with the keen knife
Of silent, sharp endurance: he can tell
Why thought seeks refuge in lone caves, yet rife
With airy images, and shapes which dwell
Still unimpaired, though old, in the soul’s haunted cell.
I'm sorry stevie i can't help you with this query, i just checked out a review of this book which i don't possess and it looks brill but also canny expensive! wonder if i could get it on inter library loan! thnx for posting the poem and alf i enjoyed your last melancholy choice too xQuote:
Originally Posted by Stevie
Mutability.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!--yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever;
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest. -- A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise. -- One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same!--For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man's yesterday may ne'er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.
Break, Break, Break
By Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Break, break, break,
On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
And I would that my tongue could utter
The thoughts that arise in me.
O, well for the fisherman's boy,
That he shouts with his sister at play!
O, well for the sailor lad,
That he sings in his boat on the bay!
And the stately ships go on
To their haven under the hill;
But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still!
Break, break, break
At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
In Our Time on R4 yesterday was all about Tennyson's In Memoriam, worth listening to on Iplayer:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...s_In_Memoriam/
Found this at Verse Daily and liked the title....right, back to work for me now.
The confession of an apricot
I love incorrectly.
There is a solemnity in hands,
the way a palm will curve in
accordance to a contour of skin,
the way it will release a story.
This should be the pilgrimage.
The touching of a source.
This is what sanctifies.
This pleading. This mercy.
I want to be a pilgrim to everyone,
close to the inaccuracies, the astringent
dislikes, the wayward peace, the private
words. I want to be close to the telling.
I want to feel everyone whisper.
After the blossoming I hang.
The encyclical that has come
through the branches
instructs us to root, to become
the design encapsulated within.
Flesh helping stone turn tree.
I do not want to hold life
at my extremities, see it prepare
itself for my own perpetuation.
I want to touch and be touched
by things similar in this world.
I want to know a few secular days
of perfection. Late in this one great season
the diffused morning light
hides the horizon of sea. Everything
the color of slate, a soft tablet
to press a philosophy to.
Carl Adamschick
I wonder if Charles Darwin adopted that last line as his mantra ? :DQuote:
Originally Posted by freckle
A couple of excellent choices of poems there freckle :thumbup:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Smashing poem that Hes, thanks for posting it.