I think the clean and beautiful comment might have referred to me and the Old Whippet!Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
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I think the clean and beautiful comment might have referred to me and the Old Whippet!Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveler hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveler to the shore.
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
How bizarre, I commented on this poem but the comment has disappeared, nevermind, it might have happened when the forum became the home page for Keighley and Craven running club just now! I just wanted to say that I love this classic and the repetition makes you feel like you are rocked on the sea. Great the way it really emphasises the never ending cycle of the tides too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
I've been making books and also working on new prints which puts me in a generally creative mood when I'm out and about. I'm pleased to say that I'm writing haiku again. They aren't masterpieces but I am just happy to write anything at the moment:
raindrops ricochet
swallows seesaw on wires
weathering the storm
Very good Hes, any previews on the type of prints you will be doing?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Heavy blackened skies
Blackbird’s song brightens briefly
Rain silences all
i love the word richochet! this is lovely as is alf's offering, i don't seem to have much head space for writing these days...perhaps it'll return eventually! likewise HHH I would love to organise another fell poet event but I am waiting for inspiration to hit me! :-) perhaps we could persuade armitage to take up a series of fell running challenges under your wing and get some fell poets to write accompanying haiku ...hell we might even get a book /documentary out of it! (if only)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
This is lovely!
Re the prints, I'm doing a bird themed exhibition in September and so all the prints are to do with that. So far I've been concentrating on curlews and lapwings but I've got some other ideas up my sleeve. I've made some handmade books based on the crow family and one has my haiku in it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
ha ha, great idea Freckle! :thumbup:
Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Drenched yesterday fun,
Sunburnt today fun,
Summer on this planet:confused:
Bald runner passes,
Lamb baa's for mum,
Mum, lamb and baldy, fun in the sun:thumbup:
Singin' in the rain
What a glorious feeling!
I'm happy again.
I have really enjoyed the recent haiku steve you are on a roll and grouse...what can I say?
I have come to the conclusion that I can't fit everything into my hectic life, after consistently training for the edinburgh marathon now that it is all over i have realised that my flat is in desperate need of decoration and so my mileage is way down. Never mind there are some bonuses...
memories of 26.2 fade
DIY tasks call
tile paint the new high
In a low,
Need a lift
Paint yourself a new life;)
thats uncanny...i think you read my mind! :-)Quote:
Originally Posted by stevefoster
Lift Not The Painted Veil Which Those Who Live
Lift not the painted veil which those who live
Call Life: though unreal shapes be pictured there,
And it but mimic all we would believe
With colours idly spread,—behind, lurk Fear
And Hope, twin Destinies; who ever weave
Their shadows, o’er the chasm, sightless and drear.
I knew one who had lifted it—he sought,
For his lost heart was tender, things to love,
But found them not, alas! nor was there aught
The world contains, the which he could approve.
Through the unheeding many he did move,
A splendour among shadows, a bright blot
Upon this gloomy scene, a Spirit that strove
For truth, and like the Preacher found it not.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
For those climbers who lost their lives in the avalanche near Chamonix.
Shelley was comparing human imagination with the grandeur of Mont Blanc but it is also man's imagination that makes them want to climb a mountain.
MONT BLANC: LINES WRITTEN IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNI
I
The everlasting universe of things
Flows through the mind, and rolls its rapid waves,
Now dark--now glittering--now reflecting gloom--
Now lending splendour, where from secret springs
The source of human thought its tribute brings
Of waters--with a sound but half its own,
Such as a feeble brook will oft assume,
In the wild woods, among the mountains lone,
Where waterfalls around it leap for ever,
Where woods and winds contend, and a vast river
Over its rocks ceaselessly bursts and raves.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
Great choice Alf. Really appropriate and well said.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Apologies to Rudyard. Nicked from the 'To Bob or not to Bob' thread :)
Quote:
If you can find Ill Crag when all about you
Are losing it in the clag and blaming it on you
If you can go for it when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too
If you can not fanny about and not be tired by running
Or being slowed down, eating too many pies
Or being knackered, don't give way to legs cramping
And yet don't look too good, or never ever walk downwise
If you can dream of sub 24 hours - and not make dreams your master
If you can think of Moot Hall - and make not spewing up your aim
If you can meet with Scafell and Blencathra
And treat those two impostors just the same
If you can bear to hear the rubbish you've spoken
Twisted by pacers to have a laugh with the mules
Or watch your Walshes, you gave Pete Bland sixty quid for, broken
And stoop and gaffer 'em up, using worn-out tools
If you can make a fricking good go of 42 peak grabbings
And risk going for it one night and not give a toss
And lose first time, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word (apart from on the FRA forum) about your loss
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your Bob Graham Round long after they are gone
And so hold on when, other than jelly babies, there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them “Don’t chuck up and hold on"
If you can walk up Yewbarrow and keep your jam sandwich down
Or run down Seat Sandal and not fall head over heels too much
If neither Bowfell nor Dollywaggon Pike can make you groan
If at least one witness counts peaks with you, and keeps in touch
If you can fill every unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of flipping boulders, bogs, rubble and still run
Yours is the Bob Graham Round and everything that's in it
And - which is more - you'll be a right pain in the arse, my son!
i love that first line...lift not the painted veil...his technique is awe inspiringQuote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Chockstone
I brought gifts, a dream,
above the edge of an escarpement,
unfathomable drop,
I felt the fear and the desire to fall.
Another dream, my naked torso,
huge cavernous omission
sans stomach,
the wind howling through.
After that I saw holes everywhere,
In the numbness of his gaze,
In our ever dwindling bank balance,
The constantly mediocre landscape.
A pleasant vertigo followed.
At the theatre constructed of bamboo
I gazed at the distance
between my seat and the stage
My cells dizzied with the prospect,
of descending into multiplicity
buffered by a hitherto unknown ally
Resilience.
Dreams were becoming reality
A luminous hood in november rain
Began to unpeel a tender carapace
Which gathering momentum
Sent me, crashing and banging
reeling with awareness.
Landing with a bump into uncertainty
The chockstone unlodged,
it got ugly, I think...
I got ugly.
I wasn’t expecting that.
But now, after the machinations,
I catch glimpses,
here is the centre of myself,
a stillness forgotten.
Tonight my mother found some poems
written for her when I was a child
“you were always writing poems”,
I had forgotten completely,
it was a relief to remember.
Freckle, that's a great piece of writing. I can't believe you have the headspace to produce something so meaningful when your life is as hectic as it is. It's beautiful.xx
Gorgeous that poem freckle :cool: When I got to the end I wanted seconds :DQuote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Thanks Hes and Alf for your generous comments, it felt nice to be writing again today
Conjures up so many images and emotions, just like a great poem should, I salute you freckle, brilliant.
"this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you"
Sudden Shower
Black grows the southern sky, betokening rain,
And humming hive-bees homeward hurry bye:
They feel the change; so let us shun the grain,
And take the broad road while our feet are dry.
Ay, there some dropples moistened on my face,
And pattered on my hat--tis coming nigh!
Let's look about, and find a sheltering place.
The little things around, like you and I,
Are hurrying through the grass to shun the shower.
Here stoops an ash-tree--hark! the wind gets high,
But never mind; this ivy, for an hour,
Rain as it may, will keep us dryly here:
That little wren knows well his sheltering bower,
Nor leaves his dry house though we come so near.
John Clare
We'll have to get him over Kinder Scout to Edale. Just finished the book and he'd had enough by the Snake Pass. The end took me by surprise. I really enjoyed the read. Good memories.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Whenever I begin to think, an English area comes to mind.
I see the nature of my kind as a locality I love.
Those limestone moors that stretch from Brough
To Hexham and the Roman Wall
These are the symbols of us all.
There where the Eden leisures through its sandstone valley
Is my view of a green and civil life that dwells
Below a cliff of savage fells
From which original address
Man faulted into consciousness
Along the line of lapse the fire
Of life’s impersonal desire
Burst through his sedentary rock
And, as at Dufton and at Knock
Thrust up between his mind and heart
Enormous cones of myth and art
W.H. Auden
Just checkin in...alf I enjoyed the clare choice very much (appropriate with all of the rain) and HHH i am still reading simon's book will get back to it tonight i think with a well overdue early night...steve than you for your thoughts on my poem very kind :-)
I have found a nice poetry resource...podcasts with some great live readings from poets...
http://www.thepoetrytrust.org/poetry-channel/archive/
I liked no 8 which has the lovely poem by Jo Shapcott "Somewhat Unravelled" about her aunty with dementia which is both poignant and whimsical...worth a listen
Will check out your link Freckle, thanks. I listened to a couple good programmes on R4. One was about the Stanza Stones and the other was with Cerys Matthews and she read out this poem:
Severn Song
The Severn was brown and the Severn was blue –
not this-then-that, not either-or,
no mixture. Two things can be true.
The hills were clouds and the mist was a shore.
The Severn was water, the water was mud
whose eddies stood and did not fill,
the kind of water that’s thicker than blood.
The river was flowing, the flowing was still,
the tide-rip the sound of dry fluttering wings
with waves that did not break or fall.
We were two of the world’s small particular things.
We were old, we were young, we were no age at all,
for a moment not doing, nor coming undone –
words gained, words lost, till who’s to say
which was the father, which was the son,
a week, or fifty years, away.
But the water said earth and the water said sky.
We were everyone we’d ever been or would be,
every angle of light that says You, that says I,
and the sea was the river, the river the sea.
by Philip Gross
Excellent that freckle thanks for the pointer and I liked the Philip Gross poem Hes. I read a line the other day about light hitting the water *"Plumbed by the sun’s kingfisher rod," which I thought was pretty good!Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
*Sailing to an island - Richard Murphy (also check out his poem 'Seals at High Island')
Possibilities
I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.
Wislawa Szymborska
I've not been such a frequent visitor to this thread recently and reading such wonderfully well crafted and meaningful words leaves me regretting how I've been distracted by other 'life events'. Thank you for reminding me of what I've been missing Freckle. I'll try my best to redress the balance of priorities.Quote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Chief Tecumseh's words of wisdom
So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about their religion;
respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,
even a stranger, when in a lonely place.
Show respect to all people and grovel to none.
When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself.
Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools
and robs the spirit of its vision.
When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled
with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep
and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.
NINETY-FIVE REASONS
By Renita Boyle
To exceed our limit
To pick up pace
To lose ourselves
To win the race
Blood pump – pumping through our veins
Warm sun
Hot sweat
Refreshing rain
*
To tone the body
Hone the mind
Get ahead
And leave behind
To never be an also ran
Ultra runner
Ultra man
*
To exhale angst
To inhale air
To ponder love
To live in prayer
The peace
The pride
The surge of power
To split the seconds
And reap the hours
*
To pound the ground
To beat the clock
Go the distance
Stop take stock
Who wins dares
Who dares wins
To pay the price
To purge our sins
*
To prove a point
To point the way
To live to run another day
To inspire
Invest
Improve
Impress
To better our worst
To be our best
*
To join the club
To be alone
The cloud of witnesses cheering us home
To keep the faith
To win the prize
To look at heaven in the eyes
*
No pain, no gain
No guts, no glory
To be the hero in our own story
*
To know where sacrifice begins
Believe
Achieve *
Just do it again
*
To keep our cool
To feel the burn
Fall down
Get up
Go on
And learn
*
To maintain our focus
To hope and cling
To find a different way to sing
*
Total commitment
Test of will
Enjoyment
Excitement
The thirst
The thrill
*
To smell success
Taste victory
Analyse our strategy
To champion a cause
To strive and survive
An ancient urge
A primal drive
*
To face our fears
Be tough enough
For reasons we know nothing of
To answer questions
and ask some more
To honour those who’ve gone before
*
We run to become
Step into our stride
Measure ourselves by what’s inside
To enlarge our vision of what can be
To see both the woods and the trees
*
Rustling leaves
Ripple of wind
The whisper of God upon our skin
To press on to the goal
To never look back
To meet the challenge of what we lack
*
To chase the moon
To catch the sun
Ninety-five reasons why we run
These warm muggy nghts are keeping me awake so I have joined temporarily the:
Night Workers
All you who are awake in the dark of the night,
all you companions of the one lit window
in the knuckled-down row of sleeping houses,
all you who think nothing of the midnight hour
but by three or four have done your work
and are on the way home, stopping
at traffic lights, even though there is no one
but you in either direction. How different the dark is
when day is coming; you know all this.
All you who have kept awake through the dark of the night
and now go homeward; you, charged with the hospital's
vending-machine coffee; you working all night at Tesco,
you cleaners and night-club toilet attendants,
all you wearily waiting for buses
driven by more of you, men who paint lines
in the quiet of night, women with babies
roused out of their sleep so often
they've given up and stand by their windows
watching the fog of pure neon
weaken at the rainy dawn's coming.
Helen Dunmore
Static
When you pulled the t-shirt
over your stooped head
I heard the crackle of static
and imagined the soft,
invisible fur
of charged atmosphere
over the TV's
translucent imagery.
Lights out, my blind
and all-believing hands
discover the ghost
of a smile
on your invisible face;
here you are
in your skin,
shocking against mine.
Nick Drake
Good choice Mossy :cool:
Now something I can't do at the present time except read about it :rolleyes:
Training Run
Linear. Beyond lines. Path swallowed
by the mare's tail flick of cow parsley.
Your feet pound out the hollowed
laughter of this discarded canal. A sparse lee
in the woods jolts you awake,
out of the hammered dream of the run;
it writhes with the scent of rain, aches
under a blanket of wild garlic, sun.
You have bitten, sharp as an arrow,
into the low heat of the dusk,
the deep focus, the valley's marrow.
The world is a husk
until you run it, until you find your way
over nettle creep, cow dung, hard-trodden clay.
Adam Horovitz
Long time no post but have been lurking I'm almost ashamed to say. Have had major writer's block as work has taken over and the urge to write has been suffocated :-(
However a recent return to fitness saw a spectacular return to the dizzy heights of halfway down the field at Borrowdale and I released how much I'd missed being amongst the throng at major races (as opposed to at the back feeling lonely!). I missed all the mid pack goings on more than I'd reliaed and this is the resulting ode. Hope it makes sense to my fellow mid packers...
Ode to the Mid Pack
Where mortals tread
With limited talent
but no less endeavour than those ahead
The middle pack
CVs replete with what we've done
not what we've won
The blunter end?
Less sharp here but
loose laces lose you twenty places
It's no less hard
No fewer miles, feet ascended
No less done-in than prize contenders
The chattering class
As likely to be chewing the fat
than burning it as people pass
There's no less love
From first to last
All out of bed on race day with as springier a step