Nice choice MG. Read it twice, could be Hobbit forming!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mountain Goatess
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Nice choice MG. Read it twice, could be Hobbit forming!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mountain Goatess
Ha ha ha...nice one Steve! I really liked MG's choice too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stevefoster
Oh no...that's not a cheery poem (good though). I'm going to keep my head in the clouds and hope for happy endings.:)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
This is an interesting poem. I like the idea that we can be better people, the people we'd like to be, when we are with people that don't know us.
Found
I'd like to be who I am with her all the time. So brilliant,
she tells the nurse who freshens the bed. She just knows
where everything is. Without looking, I can slip my hand
inside her purse and pull out a tin of face powder.
She'll grope the empty bed
and by the time she begins to reach toward the table,
I've placed a Q-tip glistening with mineral oil
in her fingers. I want her to believe
this is the way things are now;
everything she needs hangs in the air, waiting.
If you want to know the truth, you can't trust me
with anything. I lose things no one should be able to lose:
a young brother, a mother.
But I can speak as slowly and loudly as you need.
I can make a book shout; surge us far into the chapter
and when your snoring wakes you, I'll jump back to the beginning.
You'll ask me if I've done this before.
I can press the call button and make women appear at the door.
Stephanie Levin
I enjoyed that Hes. I wonder where I can get one of those call buttons :o:rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
This poem makes me want to go out and buy a pomegranate :D
Granada
To be so far from oxtail stew, sardines
in garlic sauce, blood oranges in pails
along the avenida, midday heat
wetting necks and wrists; to be so stuck
in stone-thick ice and clouds and recall
the pomegranate we shared, its hardened peel,
the translucent membrane gently parting
seed from luscious crimson seed, albedo
soft beneath bald rind, acid juice
running down our fingers, knuckles, palms,
the mild chap of our lips from mist and flesh;
so far away from that, and still
the tangy thought of pomegranates
crowning coats-of-arms and fortress gates
like beating hearts prepared to detonate
their countless seeds across Granada,
ancient town of strangled rivers
and nameless bones in every desert hill...
In Spain, said Lorca, the dead are more alive
than any other place on earth. Imagine, then,
the excavation of his unmarked grave
like the quick pull on a grenade's pin,
and the sound that secrets make
as they return from that other world
of teeth and blood and fire.
Joanne Diaz
I have been away too long!....this is lovely alf....Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
six weeks of the summer holidays with two small children has been wonderful (if exhausting!) with lots of lovely memories, they sharp grow up fast...
anyhow...on a different note....here is simon armitage at his romantic best...from the book of matches, an excerpt from a poem he wrote for the love of his life
Let me put it this way:
if you came to lay
your sleeping head
against my arm or sleeve,
and if my arm went dead,
or if I had to take my leave
at midnight, I should rather
cleave it from the joint or seam
then make a scene
or bring you round.
There,
how does that sound?
Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Welcome back freckle :D
Loved the Simon Armitage extract and hope your kids didn't poke anything into their ears in the hols!.
The Listening of Plants
On the buffet where she kept her celadon dishes,
Mother placed a vase of pussy willows
hurried out of their branches.
The buds were cat toes walking up a mottled branch,
miniature koalas hanging on their eucalyptus
in a scattered line.
I snapped one off the twig and rolled the bud
on the flats of my thumb and finger,
its smoky gray coat how I imagined koala fur might feel.
I rubbed the willow bud along the bone of my jaw
wanting to know how a plant can wear animal skin.
It was too small, like touching nothing.
I splayed my hand along its curves,
felt the hairs rise in the divot of my palm,
I would have needed a sweater of willow to be satisfied.
Instead I slipped it into my ear. How did I know
a pussy willow was the right shape for the foyer of my ear,
long hall leading to the eardrum and the bones behind?
The bud rested there and I listened,
wanting to hear what it had to say
which was quiet, which was the muted listening of plants.
When I asked Mother to extract a pussy willow
from my ear, I couldn't explain its presence
how I listened and heard its secret.
Laura Shovan
Green Heron
A little green in a fine mist.
Its chest veed by what isn't
rust.
Hunched against the dusk,
it stands on what must be
rock.
I watch it succeed
at trying to remain
unseen.
Always its beak aimed
at those marks which aren't
rain.
Daniel Wolff
There's always so much fine poetry shared on this thread, it's so rich - thanks all for posting. Found this which I really like:
I was wrapped in black
fur and white fur and
you undid me and then
you placed me in gold light
and then you crowned me,
while snow fell outside
the door in diagonal darts.
While a ten-inch snow
came down like stars
in small calcium fragments,
we were in our own bodies
(that room that will bury us)
and you were in my body
(that room that will outlive us)
and at first I rubbed your
feet dry with a towel
because I was your slave
and then you called me princess.
Princess!
Oh then
I stood up in my gold skin
and I beat down the psalms
and I beat down the clothes
and you undid the bridle
and you undid the reins
and I undid the buttons,
the bones, the confusions,
the New England postcards,
the January ten o’clock night,
and we rose up like wheat,
acre after acre of gold,
and we harvested,
we harvested.
Anne Sexton (Us)
I agree mossy, so many great choices, i enjoyed both your last choice and alf's....
Layer by layer
Sheathed like Russian dolls
These incarnations of the self.
I wonder if we ever peeled down
to the final minute lady
would we ever know?
the end of summer arrives
in a packed up vango
and a long drive :-(
Some really wonderful poems in the last week! Have had an exhausting weekend and reading the last few posts has been a perfect way to end the day, thanks!!:)
Autumn Perspective by Erica JongNow, moving in, cartons on the floor,
the radio playing to bare walls,
picture hooks left stranded
in the unsoiled squares where paintings were,
and something reminding us
this is like all other moving days;
finding the dirty ends of someone else's life,
hair fallen in the sink, a peach pit,
and burned-out matches in the corner;
things not preserved, yet never swept away
like fragments of disturbing dreams
we stumble on all day. . .
in ordering our lives, we will discard them,
scrub clean the floorboards of this our home
lest refuse from the lives we did not lead
become, in some strange, frightening way, our own.
And we have plans that will not tolerate
our fears-- a year laid out like rooms
in a new house--the dusty wine glasses
rinsed off, the vases filled, and bookshelves
sagging with heavy winter books.
Seeing the room always as it will be,
we are content to dust and wait.
We will return here from the dark and silent
streets, arms full of books and food,
anxious as we always are in winter,
and looking for the Good Life we have made.
I see myself then: tense, solemn,
in high-heeled shoes that pinch,
not basking in the light of goals fulfilled,
but looking back to now and seeing
a lazy, sunburned, sandaled girl
in a bare room, full of promise
and feeling envious.
Now we plan, postponing, pushing our lives forward
into the future--as if, when the room
contains us and all our treasured junk
we will have filled whatever gap it is
that makes us wander, discontented
from ourselves.
The room will not change:
a rug, or armchair, or new coat of paint
won't make much difference;
our eyes are fickle
but we remain the same beneath our suntans,
pale, frightened,
dreaming ourselves backward and forward in time,
dreaming our dreaming selves.
I look forward and see myself looking back.
Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Hi folks long time since i've even thought of poems, let alone read or attempt to write.
Just scanned through last few pages and enjoyed reading them, Freckles posting of Satiate reminded me of one of my favourites songs, Somalia, by Landermason...take 5 minutes to listen to it. Live rendition on Youtube not the best but Pauls guitar and the haunting pipes are wonderful.
Hi Everyone !
So many really good poems posted , Freckle's Autumn Perspective summarizes perfectly my thoughts of late , especially the last line ......... I look forward and see myself looking back !
Not sure if this poem has been posted before , I read it for the first time last night !
SOME FILL WITH EACH GOOD RAIN
There are different wells within your heart.
Some fill with each good rain.
Others are far too deep for that.
In one well you have just a few precious cups of water,
That "love" is literally something of yourself,
It can grow as slow as a diamond
If it is lost.
Your love
Should never be offered to the mouth of a
Stranger.
Only to someone
Who has the valor and daring
To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife
Then weave them into a blanket
To protect you.
There are different wells within us,
Some fill with each good rain,
Others are far too deep
For that.
Haviz - translated by D.Ladinsky !
Machgirl that poem is fab...surely it should be a requirement of any potential suitor to carve off a bit of their soul and weave it into a protective blanket ? If they don t tick that box put them out on their ear i say !!!!!.....x
Ps nee bother will check out that tune later
Do not stand at my grave and weep; I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain. I am the autumn's rain. When you awaken in the morning's hush, I am the swift uplifting rush of birds in circled flight. I am the soft stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die.
- Author Unknown
Freckle thanks , reading your message made me smile ( and laugh too ) x Reading through the poems I've missed and
well ....... just this thread generally , makes you feel better !
Anyway I don't know if this will be to everyone's taste , but I think it's lovely .
ABSOLUTE LOVE
was defined by the Scholastics
(caritas perfecta) and Pascal
was good on the subject but for
me it is purely personal & con-
crete it has to do with you &
the way you are with me that's
the whole of it and it is as
absolute as anything can be
J.Laughlin
Its definitely to my taste! I really like it Machgirl.:)
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Originally Posted by MachGirl
Sumptious...is the word I reckon!, lovely choice machgirl thank you xQuote:
Originally Posted by MachGirl
A Book Of Music by Jack Spicer Coming at an end, the lovers
Are exhausted like two swimmers.
Where
Did it end? There is no telling.
No love is
Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the waves' boundaries
From which two can emerge exhausted, nor long goodbye
Like death.Coming at an end.
Rather, I would say, like a length
Of coiled rope
Which does not disguise in the final twists of its lengths
Its endings.
But, you will say, we loved
And some parts of us loved
And the rest of us will remain
Two persons.
Yes,
Poetry ends like a rope.
Good choice freckle and a couple of killer lines in a very good poem. :cool:Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
I have been reading a bit of Philip Larkin recently and this famous one of his in particular.
Ambulances
Closed like confessionals, they thread
Loud noons of cities, giving back
None of the glances they absorb.
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,
They come to rest at any kerb:
All streets in time are visited.
Then children strewn on steps or road,
Or women coming from the shops
Past smells of different dinners, see
A wild white face that overtops
Red stretcher-blankets momently
As it is carried in and stowed,
And sense the solving emptiness
That lies just under all we do,
And for a second get it whole,
So permanent and blank and true.
The fastened doors recede. Poor soul,
They whisper at their own distress;
For borne away in deadened air
May go the sudden shut of loss
Round something nearly at an end,
And what cohered in it across
The years, the unique random blend
Of families and fashions, there
At last begin to loosen. Far
From the exchange of love to lie
Unreachable insided a room
The trafic parts to let go by
Brings closer what is left to come,
And dulls to distance all we are.
Philip Larkin
Now someone post a happy one :o:rolleyes:
sometimes i can be a real ass...
Late Fragment
Raymond Carver
And did you get what you wanted from this life,
even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
philip larkin is a cheery soul isn't he? ....i like this, tis clever !Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Touch Wood
Touch wood, be humble, never dare to say
That this is joy lest satisfaction throw
A shade on love which now (while roots still grow)
Stands like the proudest chestnut tree in May
With all its candles burning. Passions sway:
This has no tide nor any ebb and flow;
It has no evening, no red afterglow,
And needs no moon to keep the night at bay.
But since most lovers falter or contend,
And all their promises and all their powers
Drift towards a common grave, what chance have we?
Poets keep the past and priests eternity;
Only the day, the flying day is ours,
But while we hold it fast it cannot end.
Helen Foley
Love Song
There is a strong wall about me to protect me:
It is built of the words you have said to me.
There are swords about me to keep me safe:
They are the kisses of your lips.
Before me goes a shield to guard me from harm:
It is the shadow of your arms between me and danger.
All the wishes of my mind know your name,
And the white desires of my heart
They are acquainted with you.
The cry of my body for completeness,
That is a cry to you.
My blood beats out your name to me, unceasing, pitiless
Your name, your name.
Mary Carolyn Davies
Posted before on this thread but as it was read by Judi Dench at the remembrance service in Grosvenor Square today for 9/11.
Remember
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Christina Rossetti
Spared
‘That Love is all there is,
Is all we know of Love…’
— Emily Dickinson
It wasn’t you, it wasn’t me,
Up there, two thousand feet above
A New York street. We’re safe and free,
A little while, to live and love,
Imagining what might have been –
The phone call from the blazing tower,
A last farewell on the machine,
While someone sleeps another hour,
Or worse, perhaps, to say goodbye
And listen to each other’s pain,
Send helpless love across the sky,
Knowing we’ll never meet again,
Or jump together, hand in hand,
To certain death. Spared all of this
For now, how well I understand
That love is all, is all there is.
Wendy Cope
That's a really poignant poem and a good choice for today on many levels. Love is the most important thing in the world, whoever/whatever the love is for.
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Originally Posted by Alf
walking through some beautiful woodland today i got the sense that autumn is well and truly here...anyway i would really love to see an owl in the wild one day, haven't had the pleasure yet...
Scops Owl
At night I lie without you
under a pelt of darkness
heavy with cypress
ragged with goat-cries.
Under the white moon's Roman coin
dogs are barking from distant farms
with little rips of sound
that stone walls catch, throw back.
All this he draws like silk
through a gold ring
into a single woodwind note.
tongued and sweet-
A true and level fluting
I picture travelling
through night's horizons
north, to where you sleep.
By Anna Crowe
what a poignant poem indeed alf, i saw a programme tonight about the children of 9/11 who had all lost a parent...very moving indeed to see the impact it has had upon themQuote:
Originally Posted by Alf
very passionate, two great romantic and powerful choices Hes, love it! makes me almost forget I have to get up for work tomorrow! xQuote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Some good poem choices yesterday from Hes and freckle :cool:
With the remnants of Hurricane Irene bending the trees in the garden and sending my recyclables bin crashing against the garage door I thought I would post this poem. (I tied the bin to the gate in the end :thumbup: ) My daughter remarked, a little sarcastically, that in America people dive into storm shelters, leave town or increase their insurance and I tie my waste bin up :o
Problems with Hurricanes
A campesino looked at the air
And told me:
With hurricanes it's not the wind
or the noise or the water.
I'll tell you he said:
it's the mangoes, avocados
Green plantains and bananas
flying into town like projectiles.
How would your family
feel if they had to tell
The generations that you
got killed by a flying
Banana.
Death by drowning has honor
If the wind picked you up
and slammed you
Against a mountain boulder
This would not carry shame
But
to suffer a mango smashing
Your skull
or a plantain hitting your
Temple at 70 miles per hour
is the ultimate disgrace.
The campesino takes off his hat—
As a sign of respect
toward the fury of the wind
And says:
Don't worry about the noise
Don't worry about the water
Don't worry about the wind—
If you are going out
beware of mangoes
And all such beautiful
sweet things.
Victor Hernández Cruz
I enjoyed this alf it made me smile and it is even more appropriate at this minute as i have all the doors and windows open in my little flat which is acting as some kind of wind tunnel at present!....(my carbon monoxide monitor went off earlier and I am waiting for the gas board to arrive....eeeek!) ah well i may not be able to turn on and off any electrical switches but at least I can browse the poetry thread while i wait!Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Wind
Ted Hughes
This house has been far out at sea all night,
The woods crashing through darkness, the booming hills,
Winds stampeding the fields under the window
Floundering black astride and blinding wet
Till day rose; then under an orange sky
The hills had new places, and wind wielded
Blade-light, luminous black and emerald,
Flexing like the lens of a mad eye.
At noon I scaled along the house-side as far as
The coal-house door. Once I looked up -
Through the brunt wind that dented the balls of my eyes
The tent of the hills drummed and strained its guyrope,
The fields quivering, the skyline a grimace,
At any second to bang and vanish with a flap;
The wind flung a magpie away and a black-
Back gull bent like an iron bar slowly. The house
Rang like some fine green goblet in the note
That any second would shatter it. Now deep
In chairs, in front of the great fire, we grip
Our hearts and cannot entertain book, thought,
Or each other. We watch the fire blazing,
And feel the roots of the house move, but sit on,
Seeing the window tremble to come in,
Hearing the stones cry out under the horizons.
13th March 2011
Running better than id ever been since 2007
Out on a run in the dark peak
When I turned my ankle and picked up a tweak
Hours out, rolled in days, into weeks and even to September
Such a low point I cant remember
But slowly and surely my ankle is healing
Even if im not sure what the increased calcification is concealing
Surgery beckons and Il be honest it is that I fear
As I know I will be out for at least another year
But worry not folks because what im trying to say
Is that eventually, the doctor will allow me back out to play
Aw kep the faith Turbo Tom must be hard but you will be back stronger than ever and appreciating it even more given your break! very nice verse by the way!Quote:
Originally Posted by TurboTom
Must be a bit drafty in the flat freckle, you don't seem to have much luck with your utilities. I hope it was sorted out today ?Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle