This is just soooo lovely, hadn't come across him before :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
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This is just soooo lovely, hadn't come across him before :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Magnificent - thank you for finding that one Freckle.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
That's really moving, and captures that gnawing sense of retrospective regrets perfectly, Alf.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Far, we are near, meet in the rain
which falls here; gathered by light, air;
falls there where you are, I am; lips
to those drops now on yours, nearer....
absence the space we yearn in, clouds
drift, cluster, east to west, north, south;
your breath in them; they pour, baptise;
same sun burning through to harvest
rainfall on skin, there, far; my mouth
opening to spell your near name.
Carol Ann Duffy
Er... less cerebrally and for the hemispherically challenged !!
Sweet Valentine
Ah! So chocs and I do combatively vie
For my love's affections and her luscious lips
The loser will be thrown to remorsefully sigh
And suffer such a sad and cruel eclipse
I wonder to win my Valentine's loving gaze
Yet she dreams of more than Quality Street
Is this just a passing cacao induced phase
Or will my love languish at her dainty feet
I'll pen a poem to her fragrant blonde hair
And post her roses, a deep crimson for her delight
Lo! No, this surely cannot be so cruelly unfair
She has a Cadbury's Flake in sight!
How can I coax her and enjoy that Bounty-ful bliss
Perhaps I'll become a full fledged Chocolateir
And then I can taste her living, loving kiss
And across the Milky Way we both may steer
We'll fly pass Mars and across Heaven's Galaxy
And sample life's chocolate fondue ebb and flow
And Love's question is will she still give up for me
Her Tolberone from her grasp and see it go?
But alas amongst the wrappers and discarded foils I lay
And weep at all my sweet bound troubles
For what I erred and forgot to say
She Loves the most those handmade truffles x
Brilliant! Is this yours Mossy? I love it, it made me laugh a lot.:thumbup:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
I read this at the weekend and really liked it. Thanks for posting it and reminding me how good it is. I really tried to write something myself yesterday but it just sounded so corny...being happy has ruined my poetry mojo!;)
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
I'm afraid to say it was and it would have been much 'kinder' not to have inflicted that troubles-truffles rhyming attempt too :wink:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Ah, so you can tell then that I must be deliriously happy! But while I (we) miss you verse Hes on this thread, it's also wonderful to know you're enjoying a flurry of smiles too:):):)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
This is utterly briiliant! Loved the whimsical style and tone of the language especially the use of "Lo!!" ...made me laugh out loud, especially the last line.....nice one Mossy!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
Been checking into verse daily regularly for a year or so now and there are invariably some gems on there. I really like the fact that a poem about love and heartbreak (or should I say kneecapping) mentions shinsplints:thumbup:
Words, what is the word, matter
"You broke my kneecaps" makes more sense
than "You broke my heart." The jilted
would recognize each other at the bus stop
on crutches and gather their sniffling woe
like a herd of tripods off to the side
and smoke a communal smoke while writing
country songs in their thoughts
that begin with lines such as "Love
is like shin splints." My calling here's
to save the heart from poets
who've troped it to death. Personally
my heart is like the thing I least
want to give away or have stepped on, OK
it's my second least popular organ
to consider being stomped, number one,
according to the accordion of my brain
is my brain. The last time
someone told me he was a sucker
for romance, I licked his face and he
was very much not happy about it.
I was expecting a hint of strawberry
but people taste so much like regret
that cannibalism, notwithstanding
what seems to be the chicken flavor
of all flesh, would be the saddest diet
on the planet. "Honey, who's for dinner"
aren't words I want to say
anymore than "My heart beats only for you."
"My heart beats only for a while"
is a sadder poem anyway so why make this
an anatomy class with cadavers
who were probably inmates to gauge
by the tattoos as I recall them
from college, when I was in love with a woman
who turned to me with a heart in her hand
and said, and I'll never forget this,
"Yuck." Yet I found it beautiful
in how refused and shriveled and stupid
it looked out of context
and wanted to but couldn't
put it back to work and there
it was, failure to be of use
on a scale that to this day makes hope
seem a limping, broken word I love.
by Bob Hicok
Sonnet 48
Now by the path I climbed, I journey back.
The oaks have grown; I have been long away.
Taking with me your memory and your lack
I now descend into a milder day;
Stripped of your love, unburdened of my hope,
Descend the path I mounted from the plain;
Yet steeper than I fancied seems the slope
And stonier, now that I go down again.
Warm falls the dusk; the clanking of a bell
Faintly ascends upon this heavier air;
I do recall those grassy pastures well:
In early spring they drove the cattle there.
And close at hand should be a shelter, too,
From which the mountain peaks are not in view.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
"Like"Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
To A Mountain Daisy (standard English translation)
Small, modest, crimson-tipped flower,
You have met me in an evil hour;
For I must crush among the dust
Your slender stem:
To spare you now is past my power,
You lovely gem.
Alas it is not your neighbour sweet,
The bonny lark, companion meet,
Bending you among the dewy wet,
With speckled breast!
When upward springing, blithe, to greet
The purpling east.
Cold blew the bitter-biting north
Upon your early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully you sparkled forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce reared above the parent-earth
Your tender form.
The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods and walls must shield;
But you, beneath the random shelter
Of clod or stone,
Adorns the bare stubble field,
Unseen, alone.
There, in your scanty mantle clad,
Your snowy bosom sun-ward spread,
You lift your unassuming head
In humble guise;
But now the plough-share tears up your bed,
And low you lie!
Such is the fate of artless maid,
Sweet floweret of the rural shade!
By loves simplicity betrayed,
And guileless trust;
Until she, like you, all soiled, is laid
Low in the dust.
Such is the fate of simple Bard,
On Life's rough ocean luckless starred!
Unskilled he to note the card
Of prudent lore,
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,
And whelm him over'.
Such fate to suffering Worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven
To miseries brink;
Till, wretched of every stay but Heaven,
He, ruined, sink!
Even you who mourns the Daisy's fate,
That fate is yours - no distant date;
Stern Ruin's plough-share drives elate,
Full on your bloom,
Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight
Shall be your doom!
Robbie Burns
Just heard this on Poetry Please....
And Nothing Is Ever As You Want To Be
You lose your love for her and then
It is her who is lost,
And then it is both who are lost,
And nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.
In a very ordinary world
A most extraordinary pain mingles with the small routines,
The loss seems huge and yet
Nothing can be pinned down or fully explained.
You are afraid.
If you found the perfect love
It would scald your hands,
Rip the skin from your nerves,
Cause havoc with a computered heart.
You lose your love for her and then it is her who is lost.
You tried not to hurt and yet
Everything you touched became a wound.
You tried to mend what cannot be mended,
You tried, neither foolish nor clumsy,
To rescue what cannot be rescued.
You failed,
And now she is elsewhere
And her night and your night
Are both utterly drained.
How easy it would be
If love could be brought home like a lost kitten
Or gathered in like strawberries,
How lovely it would be;
But nothing is ever as perfect as you want it to be.
Brian Patten
....and I liked this one too. Quite profound in it's apparent simpleness, if rather sad as well. Sorry, I've got the Sunday pm blues...
A blade of grass
You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.
I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.
You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.
You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,
And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.
Brian Patton
ah mossy you reminded me of brian patten...thank you! ...i like this one especially....he must have written it on a monday night!
Poem written in the street on a rainy evening
Everything I lost was found again
I tasted wine in my mouth
My heart was like a firefly; it moved
Through the darkest objects laughing
There were enough reasons why this was happening
But I never stopped to think about them
I could have said it was your face,
Could have said I’d drunk something idiotic,
But no one reason was sufficient
No one reason was relevant;
My joy was gobbled up by dull surroundings
But there was enough of it
A feast was spread; a world
Was suddenly made edible
And there was forever to taste it........
Brian Pattern
Eh that's Luvly - :)Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Quarantine
In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking-they were both walking-north.
She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.
In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.
Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:
Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and a woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.
Eavan Boland
Snow White's Acne
At first she was sure it was just a bit of dried strawberry juice,
or a fleck of her mother's red nail polish that had flaked off
when she'd patted her daughter to sleep the night before.
But as she scrubbed, Snow felt a bump, something festering
under the surface, like a tapeworm curled up and living
in her left cheek.
Doc the Dwarf was no dermatologist
and besides Snow doesn't get to meet him in this version
because the mint leaves the tall doctor puts over her face
only make matters worse. Snow and the Queen hope
against hope for chicken pox, measles, something
that would be gone quickly and not plague Snow's whole
adolescence.
If only freckles were red, she cried, if only
concealer really worked. Soon came the pus, the yellow dots,
multiplying like pins in a pin cushion. Soon came
the greasy hair. The Queen gave her daughter a razor
for her legs and a stick of underarm deodorant.
Snow
doodled through her teenage years—"Snow + ?" in Magic
Markered hearts all over her notebooks. She was an average
student, a daydreamer who might have been a scholar
if she'd only applied herself. She liked sappy music
and romance novels. She liked pies and cake
instead of fruit.
The Queen remained the fairest in the land.
It was hard on Snow, having such a glamorous mom.
She rebelled by wearing torn shawls and baggy gowns.
Her mother would sometimes say, "Snow darling,
why don't you pull back your hair? Show those pretty eyes?"
or "Come on, I'll take you shopping."
Snow preferred
staying in her safe room, looking out of her window
at the deer leaping across the lawn. Or she'd practice
her dance moves with invisible princes. And the Queen,
busy being Queen, didn't like to push it.
Denise Duhamel
Wow! what an amazing poem Alf and the next one you posted too both certainly made me pay attention! :-) have you got a new book or something? where did you find them?Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
No new book freckle, I was just browsing for modern poets (still alive!) whose work I was not familiar with and I found Eavan Boland and Denise Duhamel and the two poems balanced each other out nicely. Boland's 'Anorexic' and Duhamel's 'Kinky' would have made a good pair of posts as well :cool:.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
I have been enjoying the poems you and Mossy have posted recently so keep them coming :D
I've been seeing dippers a lot lately and I hadn't realised they were related to the robin but if you listen to their beautiful song you can hear the connection:
The Dipper
It was winter, near freezing,
I'd walked through a forest of firs
when I saw issue out of the waterfall
a solitary bird.
It lit on a damp rock,
and, as water swept stupidly on,
wrung from its own throat
supple, undammable song.
It isn't mine to give.
I can't coax this bird to my hand
that knows the depth of the river
yet sings of it on land.
Kathleen Jamie
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
That's really sweet and charming - like it.
The innocence of any flesh sleeping
Sleeping beside you I dreamt
I woke beside you;
Waking beside you
I thought I was dreaming.
Have you ever slept beside an ocean?
Well yes,
It is like this.
The whole motion of landscapes, of oceans
Is within her.
She is
The innocence of any flesh sleeping,
So vulnerable
No protection is needed.
In such times
The heart opens,
Contains all there is,
There being no more than her.
In what country she is
I cannot tell.
But knowing – because there is love
And it blots out all demons –
She is safe,
I can turn,
Sleep well beside her.
Waking beside her I am dreaming.
Dreaming of such wakings
I am all love’s senses woken.
Brian Patten
Night... Night!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Now that's just really weird Alf!! :w00t:
On my dog walk today I watched some Rooks repairing their nests.
Across a dome of marbled grey
These messengers on high
Philosophise upon the day
And February's sky....
Invariably their time allows
A pause along the route
They gather in the poplar boughs
And look like blackened fruit;
Some may yearn for time and space
With scenes of babbling brooks
But give me dawning solace
With the coming of the rooks!
That's magnificent MM, really well written and captures the scene so vividly. I particularly thought the above lines were poignant. Thank you for sharing.Quote:
Originally Posted by Masham Man
The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven
(by Guy Wetmore Carryl)
A raven sat upon a tree,
And not a word he spoke, for
His beak contained a piece of Brie.
Or, maybe it was Roquefort.
We’ll make it any kind you please --
At all events it was a cheese.
Beneath the tree’s umbrageous limb
A hungry fox sat smiling;
He saw the raven watching him,
And spoke in words beguiling:
"J’admire," said he, "ton beau plumage!"
(The which was simply persiflage.)
Two things there are, no doubt you know,
To which a fox is used:
A rooster that is bound to crow,
A crow that’s bound to roost;
And whichsoever he espies
He tells the most unblushing lies.
"Sweet fowl," he said, "I understand
You’re more than merely natty;
I hear you sing to beat the band
And Adelina Patti.
Pray render with your liquid tongue
A bit from Götterdämmerung."
This subtle speech was aimed to please
The crow, and it succeeded;
He thought no bird in all the trees
Could sing as well as he did.
In flattery completely doused,
He gave the "Jewel Song" from Faust.
But gravitation’s law, of course,
As Isaac Newton showed it,
Exerted on the cheese its force,
And elsewhere soon bestowed it.
In fact, there is no need to tell
What happened when to earth it fell.
I blush to add that when the bird
Took in the situation
He said one brief, emphatic word,
Unfit for publication.
The fox was greatly startled, but
He only sighed and answered, "Tut."
THE MORAL is:
A fox is bound
To be a shameless sinner.
And also: When the cheese comes round
You know it’s after dinner.
But (what is only known to few)
The fox is after dinner, too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Masham Man
Good to see original work on the thread again recently. I enjoyed that MM. Any fell poets off to High Cup Nick tomorrow - after all, Dufton is the home of Fell Poetry?
I really enjoyed this MM very evocative and i particularly like the phrase "dawning solace"...nice to see X runner back on here again...Quote:
Originally Posted by Masham Man
I was reading a bit of Macneice today and found the following poem ....it made me think that its the type of poem I would like to give to my girls when they are old enough to understand its relevance in life...
Entirely
If we could get the hang of it entirely
It would take too long;
All we know is the splash of words in passing
and falling twigs of song,
And when we try to eavesdrop on the great
Presences it is rarely
That by a stroke of luck we can appropriate
Even a phrase entirely.
If we could find our happiness entirely
In somebody else's arms
We should not fear the spears of the spring nor the city's
Yammering fire alarms
But, as it is, the spears each year go through
Our flesh and almost hourly
Bell or siren banishes the blue
Eyes of Love entirely.
And if the world were black or white entirely
And all the charts were plain
Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters,
A prism of delight and pain,
We might be surer where we wished to go
Or again we might be merely
Bored but in the brute reality there is no
Road that is right entirely.
Glad you enjoyed the poem, I loved it too.Got to hold my hands up to not writing this and I don't know who did. There is a column in the Ripon gazette 'weather wise' and sometimes you get some poetry mixed in, so maybe it was the columnist (Gordon Currie) will have to ask him.
Writing poetry is a bit beyond me but I do enjoy reading it on this ere thread and finding the odd one to post.
Some good stuff posted today :thumbup:
The Secret
I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.
And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of thy name.
And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see
Are but the recollected choice
Of what I felt for thee.
John Clare
TOTALLY beautiful....Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
on the subject of High Cup Nick...."I'll get me coat"
One of her sonnets from 'Fatal Interview' to finish off.
Even in the moment of our earliest kiss,
When sighed the straitened bud into the flower,
Sat the dry seed of most unwelcome this;
And that I knew, though not the day and hour.
Too season-wise am I, being country-bred,
To tilt at autumn or defy the frost:
Snuffing the chill even as my fathers did,
I say with them, "What's out tonight is lost."
I only hoped, with the mild hope of all
Who watch the leaf take shape upon the tree,
A fairer summer and a later fall
Than in these parts a man is apt to see,
And sunny clusters ripened for the wine:
I tell you this across the blackened vine.
Edna St. Vincent Millay
depressing but brilliant!Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Hello Fell Poets
Long time no post - but that's life, training, kids, work etc...
Enjoyed catching up on this thread after yet another lapse and really enjoyed Masham Man's addition. Some lovely lines in there.
Been back fell running quite a bit after a string of injuries and life events last year. Time in exile has meant time to reflect on this thing we call fell running. I was asked what fellrunning feels like by my niece the other day, which is a really good question. I replied that it's like going back to being a kid when you can just fling off things that bother you and go places that move you, in the physical jolting sense as well as the emotional. That reignited the urge to write something after months of thinking i;d lost the urge to write forever. This is fell running for me, and I wonder if it's recognisable or merely a self-indulgent offering! Any comments welcome, honest!
Jump off the End
Childlike
Running free
Motion, no poetry
Convulsing spontaneity
Puppetlike
Moved by the land
Forced to its shape
Each jolt and shake
Trancelike
Moved by the land
And as much, the air
And what isn’t there
Childlike
Jump off the end
Into whatever hides
Behind downhill tears
this is lovely one off poet and to me conveys the sense of a reconnection to a more care free state sometimes possible in amongst the agony (for me!) when running in the hills something which is indeed reminiscent of the carefree ramblings of childhood thank you for postingQuote:
Originally Posted by OneOffPoet
It felt like spring running in the hills on saturday...hope I can hold onto that feeling throughout my largely surburban week
Snowdrops retort
The margins of an inchoate slate sky
Ambivalently caress the contours of
This car as we travel in mediocre grief
Out of the weekend.
Unlit lamps and nude silverbirch
Line the motorway as anthracite militia
Whispering in low inaudible tones
“Perhaps spring is not here
It may never come”.
And so with heavy heart
And even heavier limbs
The engine is stopped
The door locked
Perhaps resistance is futile?
Then a weary push of the gate
Reveals
A single snowdrop
Who with a finely tuned
Alabaster screech
Refutes the mob.
This is gorgeous Freckle, totally sums up that 'getting back to reality/normality' feeling after a weekend escape but the last lines are really hopeful and positive. Spring is definitely coming...:) xx
Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle