Today's poet

Quiet around here!!!

Kissing

They are kissing, on a park bench,
on the edge of an old bed, in a doorway
or on the floor of a church. Kissing
as the streets fill with balloons
or soldiers, locusts or confetti, water
or fire or dust. Kissing down through
the centuries under sun or stars, a dead tree,
an umbrella, amid derelicts. Kissing
as Christ carries his cross, as Gandhi
sings his speeches, as a bullet
careens through the air toward a child’s
good heart. They are kissing,
long, deep, spacious kisses, exploring
the silence of the tongue, the mute
rungs of the upper palate, hungry
for the living flesh. They are still
kissing when the cars crash and the bombs
drop, when the babies are born crying
into the white air, when Mozart bends
to his bowl of soup and Stalin
bends to his garden. They are kissing
to begin the world again. Nothing
can stop them. They kiss until their lips
swell, their thick tongues quickening
to the budded touch, licking up
the sweet juices. I want to believe
they are kissing to save the world,
but they’re not. All they know
is this press and need, these two-legged
beasts, their faces like roses crushed
together and opening, they are covering
their teeth, they are doing what they have to do
to survive the worst, they are sealing
the hard words in, they are dying
for our sins. In a broken world they are
practising this simple and singular act
to perfection. They are holding
onto each other. They are kissing.

— Dorianne Laux

Part 2? Sorry for the smoochy theme, but reading both of these poems recently I wondered about the subtext. Any ideas? The first, above, seems quite harsh, while this one redeems the act. There's a tactile theme that seems to run through several of her poems too. I like them both.

Kissing Again
By Dorianne Laux

Kissing again, after a long drought of
not kissing—too many kids, bills, windows
needing repair. Sex, yes, though squeezed in
between the minor depths of anger, despair—
standing up amid the laundry
or fumbling onto the strip of rug between
the coffee table and the couch. Quick, furtive,
like birds. A dance on the wing, but no time
for kissing, the luxuriant tonguing of another
spongy tongue, the deft flicking and feral sucking,
that prolonged lapping that makes a smooth stone
of the brain. To be lost in it, your body tumbled
in sea waves, no up or down, just salt
and the liquid swells set in motion
by the moon, by a tremor in Istanbul, the waft
of a moth wing before it plows into a halo of light.
Praise the deep lustrous kiss that lasts minutes,
blossoms into what feels like days, fields of tulips
glossy with dew, low purple clouds piling in
beneath the distant arch of a bridge. One
after another they storm your lips, each kiss
a caress, autonomous and alive, spilling
into each other, streams into creeks into rivers
that grunt and break upon the gorge. Let the tongue,
in its wisdom, release its stores, let the mouth,
tired of talking, relax into its shapes of give
and receive, its plush swelling, its slick
round reveling, its primal reminiscence
that knows only the one robust world.

I've not come across Dorianne before and, as you can no doubt tell, I'm discovering that she's a quite a talent. Here's another that resonants so very much. Hope everyone's okay out there, this thread seems to have gone quiet. Busy lives, holidays, the turn of fate, or maybe just the natural evanescence of the thread as with all things (hope not ;) ).


For the Sake of Strangers

By Dorianne Laux

No matter what the grief, its weight,
we are obliged to carry it.
We rise and gather momentum, the dull strength
that pushes us through crowds.
And then the young boy gives me directions
so avidly. A woman holds the glass door open,
waiting patiently for my empty body to pass through.
All day it continues, each kindness
reaching toward another—a stranger
singing to no one as I pass on the path, trees
offering their blossoms, a retarded child
who lifts his almond eyes and smiles.
Somehow they always find me, seem even
to be waiting, determined to keep me
from myself, from the thing that calls to me
as it must have once called to them—
this temptation to step off the edge
and fall weightless, away from the world.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mossdog

Part 2? Sorry for the smoochy theme, but reading both of these poems recently I wondered about the subtext. Any ideas? The first, above, seems quite harsh, while this one redeems the act. There's a tactile theme that seems to run through several of her poems too. I like them both.

Kissing Again
By Dorianne Laux

Kissing again, after a long drought of
not kissing—too many kids, bills, windows
needing repair. Sex, yes, though squeezed in
between the minor depths of anger, despair—
standing up amid the laundry
or fumbling onto the strip of rug between
the coffee table and the couch. Quick, furtive,
like birds. A dance on the wing, but no time
for kissing, the luxuriant tonguing of another
spongy tongue, the deft flicking and feral sucking,
that prolonged lapping that makes a smooth stone
of the brain. To be lost in it, your body tumbled
in sea waves, no up or down, just salt
and the liquid swells set in motion
by the moon, by a tremor in Istanbul, the waft
of a moth wing before it plows into a halo of light.
Praise the deep lustrous kiss that lasts minutes,
blossoms into what feels like days, fields of tulips
glossy with dew, low purple clouds piling in
beneath the distant arch of a bridge. One
after another they storm your lips, each kiss
a caress, autonomous and alive, spilling
into each other, streams into creeks into rivers
that grunt and break upon the gorge. Let the tongue,
in its wisdom, release its stores, let the mouth,
tired of talking, relax into its shapes of give
and receive, its plush swelling, its slick
round reveling, its primal reminiscence
that knows only the one robust world.

---

Hello again! .....I have been hectic with the summers hols hence my absence....these poems are beautiful, I really loved the idea of one's brain being turned into a smooth stone via the act of kissing! I am not sure what the subtext might be, perhaps two lovers are seperated in the first and observe the rest of the world enviously (hence the slight angry tinge, although this would be a literal interpretation) and reunited in the rather more joyous second poem? who knows I really enjoyed them though thank you!

After a fantastic summer break I am starting to think about what lies ahead in the autumn (hopefully some consistent training when the kids are back at school as I have been very lazy)...In September I will be visiting Poland for a few days and was hoping to get to Krakow and Auschwitz if at all possible though time constraints may get in the way. I had a quick look at some Polish poetry and found this very poignant poem written by a young polish poet and member of an underground organisation working against the Nazis. This poem was written 8 hours before her execution at the Ravensbrück concentration camp ...it has been translated and I wondered if that might account for the rather irregular word "inquietude"*...i didn't think however that it reduced the impact of the poem

The Inquietude

Grażyna Chrostowska

The day is like the inquietude of Chopin's music,
The birds, scared away from their nests are circling
Low above the earth,
They are listening, afraid…

Quietness in the nature, warmth is like before a storm.
From the West, low, dark clouds flow.
Waylaid fear strikes into the heart.
Homesickness, homesickness…

I want to walk on soggy roads,
Listen to the sound of wind,
Hunt the breath of spring time,
Feel the deepest feeling,
Find quietness in love.

I am walking, unable to find, keep changing and returning.
Somewhere far a way, village hamlets are left behind.

Clouds flew to the East,
And on the east side,
Lonely, leaning, dark trees endure,
In the wind, and in the quietness,
They are swung by the inquietude.




ps....*http://www.thefreedictionary.com/inquietude
turns out the word does exist! I just hadn't heard of it...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsDG6sICRq8

Just been watching the opening ceremony of the Paralympics which turned out to be moving, inspiring and entertaining and I loved 'The Tempest' bits as well :cool:

-----------------------------------------------------

Be not afeard. The isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming
The clouds methought would open and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again

--------------------------------------------

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve;
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Here is one from old "mad, bad and dangerous"

It Is the Hour

It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour -- when lover's vows
Seem sweet in every whisper'd word;
And gentle winds and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the Heaven that clear obscure
So softly dark, and darkly pure,
That follows the decline of day
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.


George Gordon Lord Byron

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alf

Here is one from old "mad, bad and dangerous"

It Is the Hour

It is the hour when from the boughs
The nightingale's high note is heard;
It is the hour -- when lover's vows
Seem sweet in every whisper'd word;
And gentle winds and waters near,
Make music to the lonely ear.
Each flower the dews have lightly wet,
And in the sky the stars are met,
And on the wave is deeper blue,
And on the leaf a browner hue,
And in the Heaven that clear obscure
So softly dark, and darkly pure,
That follows the decline of day
As twilight melts beneath the moon away.


George Gordon Lord Byron

---

Sheer brilliance. But then we all know that already. Thanks for posting Alf.

We Never Said Farewell

We never said farewell, nor even looked
Our last upon each other, for no sign
Was made when we the linkèd chain unhooked
And broke the level line.

And here we dwell together, side by side,
Our places fixed for life upon the chart.
Two islands that the roaring seas divide
Are not more far apart.

Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

This is sweet (not!)

The Arrival of the Bee Box

I ordered this, clean wood box
Square as a chair and almost too heavy to lift.
I would say it was the coffin of a midget
Or a square baby
Were there not such a din in it.

The box is locked, it is dangerous.
I have to live with it overnight
And I can't keep away from it.
There are no windows, so I can't see what is in there.
There is only a little grid, no exit.

I put my eye to the grid.
It is dark, dark,
With the swarmy feeling of African hands
Minute and shrunk for export,
Black on black, angrily clambering.

How can I let them out?
It is the noise that appalls me most of all,
The unintelligible syllables.
It is like a Roman mob,
Small, taken one by one, but my god, together!

I lay my ear to furious Latin.
I am not a Caesar.
I have simply ordered a box of maniacs.
They can be sent back.
They can die, I need feed them nothing, I am the owner.

I wonder how hungry they are.
I wonder if they would forget me
If I just undid the locks and stood back and turned into a tree.
There is the laburnum, its blond colonnades,
And the petticoats of the cherry.

They might ignore me immediately
In my moon suit and funeral veil.
I am no source of honey
So why should they turn on me?
Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free.

The box is only temporary.

Sylvia Plath

Had the most deliciously wonderful run up onto Wildboar and Swarth Fell today, with the colours of the blanket bog, radiant in their full acid hues. Looking to the north west the Hows were stunning - what a day.


Howgill

If you came this way
along a climbing path
you might sit awhile
with all kinds of human notions
until your mind eventually
slowed, senses awoke,
and took in that mammoth
mountain in front – bathed
into sunlight and darting
with swifts.
The wonder of it
could make you kneel and pray,
overwhelmed and tearful,
until nothing arises
and fear itself flies
with a tremulous influx
of Love.

John Lavan?

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mossdog

Had the most deliciously wonderful run up onto Wildboar and Swarth Fell today, with the colours of the blanket bog, radiant in their full acid hues. Looking to the north west the Hows were stunning - what a day.


Howgill

If you came this way
along a climbing path
you might sit awhile
with all kinds of human notions
until your mind eventually
slowed, senses awoke,
and took in that mammoth
mountain in front – bathed
into sunlight and darting
with swifts.
The wonder of it
could make you kneel and pray,
overwhelmed and tearful,
until nothing arises
and fear itself flies
with a tremulous influx
of Love.

John Lavan?

---

This is deliciously evocative and makes me wish I had some time in the hills this week instead of surburbia...thank you for posting mossy this mysterious John Lavan geezer sure is good ;-)

AND THE CITY STOOD IN ITS BRIGHTNESS
by Czesław Miłosz

And the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned,
And life was running out, Ruteboeuf’s or Villon’s,
Descendants already born were dancing their dances,
Women looked in their mirrors, made from a new metal,
What was it all for, if I cannot speak?
She stood above me, head like the earth on its axis,
My ashes were laid in a can under the bistro counter,
And the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned,
To my home in the display case of a granite museum
Beside eyelash mascara, alabaster vials, and menstruation girdles of an Egyptian princess,
There was only a sun forged out of gold plate,
On darkening parquetry the creep of unhurried steps,
And the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned,
My face covered with a coat though now no one was left
Of those who could have remembered my debts never paid,
My shames not forever, base deeds to be forgiven.
And the city stood in its brightness when years later I returned.

Some Like Poetry

Some -
thus not all. Not even the majority of all but the minority.
Not counting schools, where one has to,
and the poets themselves,
there might be two people per thousand.

Like -
but one also likes chicken soup with noodles,
one likes compliments and the color blue,
one likes an old scarf,
one likes having the upper hand,
one likes stroking a dog.

Poetry -
but what is poetry.
Many shaky answers
have been given to this question.
But I don't know and don't know and hold on to it
like to a sustaining railing.


Wislawa Szymborska

Morning all (well the two people out of a thousand who read this thread :rolleyes: )


At a Window


Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.
In the dusk of day-shapes
Blurring the sunset,
One little wandering, western star
Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.
Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.

Carl Sandburg

Probably a week too early for Yeats 'Wild swans at Coole' but this one will do nicely.

Wild Swans

I looked in my heart while the wild swans went over.
And what did I see I had not seen before?
Only a question less or a question more;
Nothing to match the flight of wild birds flying.
Tiresome heart, forever living and dying,
House without air, I leave you and lock your door.
Wild swans, come over the town, come over
The town again, trailing your legs and crying!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

I was reading 'Black Roses' by Simon Armitage tonight. Its written from the point of view of Sophie Lancaster the young woman who was brutally beaten and later died trying to protect her boyfriend in a park in Bacup in 2007. It’s a short poetic narrative and really hard going as its very upsetting considering the subject.

“Had we only known....

that this was a place
where shadows waited,
where wolves ran wild
where alcohol poisoned
the watering hole”

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alf

Morning all (well the two people out of a thousand who read this thread :rolleyes: )


At a Window


Give me hunger,
O you gods that sit and give
The world its orders.
Give me hunger, pain and want,
Shut me out with shame and failure
From your doors of gold and fame,
Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger!

But leave me a little love,
A voice to speak to me in the day end,
A hand to touch me in the dark room
Breaking the long loneliness.
In the dusk of day-shapes
Blurring the sunset,
One little wandering, western star
Thrust out from the changing shores of shadow.
Let me go to the window,
Watch there the day-shapes of dusk
And wait and know the coming
Of a little love.

Carl Sandburg

---

Oh this is very lovely Alf thank you for posting ...by the way is that you with your cat?

Pigtail by Tadeusz Rozewicz

When all the women in the transport
had their heads shaved
four workmen with brooms made of birch twigs
swept up
and gathered up the hair

Behind clean glass
the stiff hair lies
of those suffocated in gas chambers
there are pins and side combs
in this hair

The hair is not shot through with light
is not parted by the breeze
is not touched by any hand
or rain or lips

In huge chests
clouds of dry hair
of those suffocated
and a faded plait
a pigtail with a ribbon
pulled at school
by naughty boys.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alf

I was reading 'Black Roses' by Simon Armitage tonight. Its written from the point of view of Sophie Lancaster the young woman who was brutally beaten and later died trying to protect her boyfriend in a park in Bacup in 2007. It’s a short poetic narrative and really hard going as its very upsetting considering the subject.

“Had we only known....

that this was a place
where shadows waited,
where wolves ran wild
where alcohol poisoned
the watering hole”

---

very poignant

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by freckle

Pigtail by Tadeusz Rozewicz

When all the women in the transport
had their heads shaved
four workmen with brooms made of birch twigs
swept up
and gathered up the hair

Behind clean glass
the stiff hair lies
of those suffocated in gas chambers
there are pins and side combs
in this hair

The hair is not shot through with light
is not parted by the breeze
is not touched by any hand
or rain or lips

In huge chests
clouds of dry hair
of those suffocated
and a faded plait
a pigtail with a ribbon
pulled at school
by naughty boys.

---

Poignant as well freckle. Another difficult poem to read and the triplet at the end doesn't seem to fit at first.....but then it does!

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by freckle

Oh this is very lovely Alf thank you for posting ...by the way is that you with your cat?

---

Nope and my cat is now feeling insulted :rolleyes::D

Creek Walk

Wading in the river current
pulling me in like
sliding under covers—
I become part of the riverbed, sediment
blending with my skin. I am woven
with wild grasses on banks,
molded to the surface of earth
in perfect curves, body fluid, rooted.
I could be washed away with a little rain.
What trickles harmless around me now
exposes roots of ancient trees
that lean toward light,
grow sideways to keep from sliding.
They will join the rapid flow,
deteriorate with me and we will deposit
in a delta with every other swallowed figure
from upriver. I dip my fingers in,
feel the stream make room for me.
I will share in this shifting
of earth—dirt loosened
until the roots give way.

Sarah M. Wells

Its Autumn outside and inside :D


The Autumn

Go, sit upon the lofty hill,
And turn your eyes around,
Where waving woods and waters wild
Do hymn an autumn sound.
The summer sun is faint on them --
The summer flowers depart --
Sit still -- as all transform'd to stone,
Except your musing heart.

How there you sat in summer-time,
May yet be in your mind;
And how you heard the green woods sing
Beneath the freshening wind.
Though the same wind now blows around,
You would its blast recall;
For every breath that stirs the trees,
Doth cause a leaf to fall.

Oh! like that wind, is all the mirth
That flesh and dust impart:
We cannot bear its visitings,
When change is on the heart.
Gay words and jests may make us smile,
When Sorrow is asleep;
But other things must make us smile,
When Sorrow bids us weep!

The dearest hands that clasp our hands, --
Their presence may be o'er;
The dearest voice that meets our ear,
That tone may come no more!
Youth fades; and then, the joys of youth,
Which once refresh'd our mind,
Shall come -- as, on those sighing woods,
The chilling autumn wind.

Hear not the wind -- view not the woods;
Look out o'er vale and hill-
In spring, the sky encircled them --
The sky is round them still.
Come autumn's scathe -- come winter's cold --
Come change -- and human fate!
Whatever prospect Heaven doth bound,
Can ne'er be desolate.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

All quiet on the Poetry front ? I was running in Linacre Woods just outside Chesterfield yesterday lunchtime on a cool Autumnal day kicking dead leaves and scattering grey squirrels as I followed an old route I hadn't been on for a good while. In fact it was probably Autumn 2011 the last time I was round that way.

Fall, leaves, fall

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

EMILY JANE BRONTË

In the Season of Green Gowns

Summer will take from you everything I desire
It will pluck at your sleeve, quietly undo
A handful of buttons, seeking no disclosure
That wasn't first fully consented to,
As you walked and turned in your mirror's candid gaze
And wouldn't be rushed. Summer, shyly approving,
Will lead you from chaste decision to easy living.

Summer will tell me what I could never enquire:
The pale length of your arm, sleeved in its years,
The freckled blush at the wrist. Summer confirms
The less-than-perfect as our most tender haunting.
It pours my desire into the depth of the mould
Like a conception. But, like a man or a child,
I simply can't tell if you are willing or wanting.

Carol Rumens

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Alf

All quiet on the Poetry front ? I was running in Linacre Woods just outside Chesterfield yesterday lunchtime on a cool Autumnal day kicking dead leaves and scattering grey squirrels as I followed an old route I hadn't been on for a good while. In fact it was probably Autumn 2011 the last time I was round that way.

Fall, leaves, fall

Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away;
Lengthen night and shorten day;
Every leaf speaks bliss to me
Fluttering from the autumn tree.
I shall smile when wreaths of snow
Blossom where the rose should grow;
I shall sing when night’s decay
Ushers in a drearier day.

EMILY JANE BRONTË

---

Hi Alf

Stalwart of the poem thread these days. What delight these posts of your's have been - keep em coming. Was in the Hows today on my favourite run. Swatches of sunshine racing over the muted greens, grey and yellows of the hills. Had the place to myself as is usual, but abit like you, was just kicking around as I plodding up over and down...brilliant.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Mossdog

Hi Alf

Stalwart of the poem thread these days. What delight these posts of your's have been - keep em coming. Was in the Hows today on my favourite run. Swatches of sunshine racing over the muted greens, grey and yellows of the hills. Had the place to myself as is usual, but abit like you, was just kicking around as I plodding up over and down...brilliant.

---

Cheers Mossy :thumbup:

I was running round the hills above Mytholmroyd today flushing out Pheasant and Grouse and trotting round a few bogs. I didn't see any swans though :D

The Wild Swans at Coole


The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

William Butler Yeats

I didn't see a Ringed Plover today either :D

Ringed Plover By A Water's Edge

They sprint eight feet and -
stop. Like that. They
sprintayard (like that) and
stop.
They have no acceleration
and no brakes.
Top speed's their only one.

They're alive - put life
through a burning-glass, they're
its focus - but they share
the world of delicate clockwork.

In spasmodic
Indian file
they parallel the parallel ripples.

When they stop
they, suddenly, are
gravel.

Norman MacCaig

It's good to see that you are keeping the thread alive Alf, Mossy and Freckle! I'm ashamed by my absence on here but its been a busy few months and poetry seems to have taken a back seat. Having said that, I wrote a few haiku in Sweden. Here's a poem that a friend sent me from Iceland:

Answer,
by Ingibjorg Haraldsdottir

On the far side of the mountain
the silence is more tangible

There are other mountains
and other birds.

The shadows there are longer
and the stones softer.

It's up to you
whether you believe me.

The Avenue

Who has not seen their lover
Walking at ease,
Walking like any other,
A pavement under trees,
No singular, apart,
But footed, featured, dressed,
Approaching like the rest
In the same dapple of the summer caught;
Who has not suddenly thought,
With swift surprise:
There walks in cool disguise,
There comes, my heart.

Frances Cornford

Blackberry-Picking

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not.

Seamus Heaney

Another Heaney poem, both this one and the previous one can be read as they are or as metaphors for the loss of innocence.

There is no poetry in the Jimmy Savilles and Lance Armstrongs of this world.



Death of a naturalist

All year the flax-dam festered in the heart
Of the townland; green and heavy headed
Flax had rotted there, weighted down by huge sods.
Daily it sweltered in the punishing sun.
Bubbles gargled delicately, bluebottles
Wove a strong gauze of sound around the smell.
There were dragon-flies, spotted butterflies,
But best of all was the warm thick slobber
Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water
In the shade of the banks. Here, every spring
I would fill jampotfuls of the jellied
Specks to range on window-sills at home,
On shelves at school, and wait and watch until
The fattening dots burst into nimble-
Swimming tadpoles. Miss Walls would tell us how
The daddy frog was called a bullfrog
And how he croaked and how the mammy frog
Laid hundreds of little eggs and this was
Frogspawn. You could tell the weather by frogs too
For they were yellow in the sun and brown
In rain.
Then one hot day when fields were rank
With cowdung in the grass the angry frogs
Invaded the flax-dam; I ducked through hedges
To a coarse croaking that I had not heard
Before. The air was thick with a bass chorus.
Right down the dam gross-bellied frogs were cocked
On sods; their loose necks pulsed like sails. Some hopped:
The slap and plop were obscene threats. Some sat
Poised like mud grenades, their blunt heads farting.
I sickened, turned, and ran. The great slime kings
Were gathered there for vengeance and I knew
That if I dipped my hand the spawn would clutch it.

Seamus Heaney

"Of frogspawn that grew like clotted water" :cool:

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hes

The Avenue

Who has not seen their lover
Walking at ease,
Walking like any other,
A pavement under trees,
No singular, apart,
But footed, featured, dressed,
Approaching like the rest
In the same dapple of the summer caught;
Who has not suddenly thought,
With swift surprise:
There walks in cool disguise,
There comes, my heart.

Frances Cornford

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This is just lovely hes...thanks to alf and mossy too for keeping the thread going with great contributions...i am typing this on my i phone as laptop died on me hopefully it will be restored soon ! In the meantime i enjoy reading all of your posts x

Hi Freckle, hope that your laptop is restored soon. I've been enjoying the posts too. I'm a bit frazzled at the moment and am trying to read a poem before bed each night for relaxation, I like this one:

Body Language

He loved her so he wrote
a long, passionate poem, melting
his heart’s wax on the page all night,
burning the wick of his words at all ends
to attract her.
She loved him and her little cries
opened and closed like night anemones,
scenting the empty air
with the witching words of her mouth
to call him to her.
Neither came to the other.
All night long he held himself spell-
bound in the small circle of his own light
until he was burnt out,
and she, mesmerized by her own charms,
entered the flower of herself
and drew in her arms.

Sylvia Kantaris

I like this but need to think about its meaning...

Winter Solstice

Slender moon a kind of scar or cicatrix
On the twilight sky
Harm's way

I remember there were stars on your wrist
One year ago
I counted them

A cavalcade

The world has a body and I have none
I go out walking and leave no mark
Out at twilight with the old moon
I leave no mark

A woman cannot know
The moment he is born
A man begins to disappear

Donald Revell

Autumn

They brought me a quilled, yellow dahlia,
Opulent, flaunting.
Round gold
Flung out of a pale green stalk.
Round, ripe gold
Of maturity,
Meticulously frilled and flaming,
A fire-ball of proclamation:
Fecundity decked in staring yellow
For all the world to see.
They brought a quilled, yellow dahlia,
To me who am barren
Shall I send it to you,
You who have taken with you
All I once possessed?

Amy Lowell

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hes

Hi Freckle, hope that your laptop is restored soon. I've been enjoying the posts too. I'm a bit frazzled at the moment and am trying to read a poem before bed each night for relaxation, I like this one:

Body Language

He loved her so he wrote
a long, passionate poem, melting
his heart’s wax on the page all night,
burning the wick of his words at all ends
to attract her.
She loved him and her little cries
opened and closed like night anemones,
scenting the empty air
with the witching words of her mouth
to call him to her.
Neither came to the other.
All night long he held himself spell-
bound in the small circle of his own light
until he was burnt out,
and she, mesmerized by her own charms,
entered the flower of herself
and drew in her arms.

Sylvia Kantaris

---

Sounds HOT!!!! (cue schoolboy snigger....sorry!) :wink:

My Love

It’s not the lover that we love, but love
itself, love as in nothing, as in O;
love is the lover’s coin, a coin of no country,
hence: the ring; hence: the moon—
no wonder that empty circle so often figures
in our intimate dark, our skin-trade,
that commerce so furious we often think
love’s something we share; but we’re always wrong.

When our lover mercifully departs
and lets us get back to the business of love again,
either we’ll slip it inside us like the host
or we’ll beat its gibbous drum that the whole world
might know who has it. Which was always more my style:

O the moon’s a bodhran, a skin gong
torn from the hide of Capricorn,
and many’s the time I’d lift it from its high peg,
grip it to my side, tight as a gun,
and whip the life out of it, just for the joy
of that huge heart under my ribs again.
A thousand blows I showered like meteors
down on that sweet-spot over Mare Imbrium
where I could make it sing its name, over and over.
While I have the moon, I cried, no ship will sink,
or woman bleed, or man lose his mind—
but truth told, I was terrible:
the idiot at the session spoiling it,
as they say, for everyone.
O kings petitioned me to pack it in.
The last time, I peeled off my shirt
and found a coffee bruise that ran from hip to wrist.
Two years passed before a soul could touch me.

Even in its lowest coin, it kills us to keep love,
kills us to give it away. All of which
brings us to Camille Flammarion,
signing the flyleaf of his Terres du Ciel
for a girl down from the sanatorium,
and his remark—the one he couldn’t help but make—
on the gorgeous candid pallor of her shoulders;
then two years later, unwrapping the same book
reinscribed in her clear hand, with my love,
and bound in her own lunar vellum.

Don Paterson