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Sorry to hear about the cold Hes. Great to see you visiting the thread too.
I Think, ACHOO!, I Have the Flu
I think, ACHOO!, I have the flu.
I'm sneezing, and ACHOO! ACHOO!
I'm not sure what, ACHOO!, to do.
You say, ACHOO!, don't sneeze on you?
ACHOO! Whoops. Now you've got it too.
Kenn Nesbitt
:D
Like it. It reminds me of my favourite word which I learned from living in northern Namibia with the kwanyama for a few years....kondongolondongo meaning 'all used up" or "knackered". The word is almost a poem in itself !!:w00t:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
ha ha, brilliant!:thumbup:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
Bet you've got some good stories to tell from that time. The word is great, I'm going to jot it down in my book. I have a notebook where I like to put random and interesting things. I carried one on my travels round Asia and South America and one of my favourite pages has some verbs from a dictionary that a missionary created whilst living among the Yamana people in Tierra del Fuego. Here is an example: 'Ukwina - to surprise shags by suddenly drawing out and holding up a lighted torch, the effect of which is to cause the shags to fall as if shot'.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
:confused: Ahem!! I had to VERY carefully re-read your post to make sure I had correctly understood the topic. Ah yes, ornithology and not a reference to a highly unorthodox means of contraception ! :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
:thumbup:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
Good choice Mossy, I love Christmas Cake, always have, and it does provide a nostalgic connection with past Christmases (or is it Christmases past? ). I don't like the marzipan too thick though just a thin section between the icing and that rich cake :thumbup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
This is the poetry thread Mossy not 'Carry on Rhyming' :rolleyes::DQuote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
A Dream Within a Dream by Edgar Allan Poe Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow:
You are not wrong who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.
I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand--
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep--while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?
The Land of Nod by Robert Louis Stevenson From Breakfast on through all the day
At home among my friends I stay,
But every night I go abroad
Afar into the land of Nod.
All by myself I have to go,
With none to tell me what to do--
All alone beside the streams
And up the mountain-sides of dreams.
The strangest things are there for me,
Both things to eat and things to see,
And many frightening sights abroad
Till morning in the land of Nod.
Try as I like to find the way,
I never can get back by day,
Nor can remember plain and clear
The curious music that I hear.
Nocturne by Wayne Miller Tonight all the leaves are paper spoons in a broth of wind.
Last week they made a darker sky below the sky.
The houses have swallowed their colors,
and each car moves in the blind sack of its sound like the slipping of water.
Flowing means falling very slowly—
the river passing under the tracks,
the tracks then buried beneath the road.
When a knocking came in the night,
I rose violently toward my reflection hovering beneath this world.
And then the fluorescent kitchen in the window like a page
I was reading—a face coming into focus behind it:
my neighbor locked out of his own party, looking for a phone.
I gave him a beer and the lit pad of numbers through which he disappeared;
I found I was alone with the voices that bloomed as he opened the door.
It's time to slip my body beneath the covers,
let it fall down the increments of shale,
let the wind consume every spoon.
My voice unhinging itself from light,
my voice landing in its cradle—.
How terrifying a payphone is hanging at the end of its cord.
Which is not to be confused with sleep—
sleep gives the body back its mouth.
Late December by the Sound of Jura
Red bracken on the hills
rain snow hail and rain
the deer are coming down
the lochs gripped in ice
the stars blue and bright
I have tried to write to friends
but there is no continuing
I gaze out over the Sound
and see hills gleaming in the icy sun.
Kenneth White
The Stags
BY KATHLEEN JAMIE
This is the multitude, the beasts
you wanted to show me, drawing me
upstream, all morning up through wind-
scoured heather to the hillcrest.
Below us, in the next glen, is the grave
calm brotherhood, descended
out of winter, out of hunger, kneeling
like the signatories of a covenant;
their weighty, antique-polished antlers
rising above the vegetation
like masts in a harbor, or city spires.
We lie close together, and though the wind
whips away our man-and-woman smell, every
stag-face seems to look toward us, toward,
but not to us: we’re held, and hold them,
in civil regard. I suspect you’d
hoped to impress me, to lift to my sight
our shared country, lead me deeper
into what you know, but loath
to cause fear you’re already moving
quietly away, sure I’ll go with you,
as I would now, almost anywhere.
Lovely two choices hes very atmospheric the stag one transported me which is handy on a monday morning !
That's wonderful Freckle - thank you. I think I may have read it some time ago, but this morning it has had a much more special resonance and encapsulated some of my recent thoughts exactly. Isn't it marvellous when you read a text, prose or poem, and it somehow seems to speak of your direct personal experiences so intimately and vividly? It's reassuring by breaking down ideas of spiritual/aesthetic isolation to know that the inner world of others' is not so very foreign and we really do share common concerns with at least a few other souls so exactly. But hey, isn't that just the same as knowing, for example, that other's also enjoy the esoteric joys of fell running.:DQuote:
Originally Posted by freckle
Apologies Alf (and others) for my gratuitous crudities, but I was genuinely, momentarily, discombobulated! :oQuote:
Originally Posted by Alf
There are really no better Christmas cards than those conjured in our imaginations by reading such beautiful poems. Thank you.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Here is the poem that was recited at the Sport Personality of the Year awards programme:
It Couldn't Be Done
By Edgar Guest
Somebody said that it couldn't be done,
But he with a chuckle replied
That "maybe it couldn't," but he would be one
Who wouldn't say so till he'd tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.
Somebody scoffed: "Oh, you'll never do that;
At least no one ever has done it";
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he'd begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
Without any doubting or quidit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
That couldn't be done, and he did it.
There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you, one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start to sing as you tackle the thing
That "cannot be done," and you'll do it.
Thanks for posting that XRunner I didn't stay up to watch it so I missed this.Quote:
Originally Posted by XRunner
Good selections from freckle and Hes. I was a bit confused with "the stars blue and bright" alongside "hills gleaming in the icy sun" ?Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
Or is "the icy sun" meant to mean a full moon ?
Maybe the 'stars' are the sparkles that the ice makes as opposed to celestial stars? That would explain why they are blue too. I'm not sure.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Yep that works as well :thumbup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
This Living Hand
This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold
And in the icy silence of the tomb,
So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights
That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood
So in my veins red life might stream again,
And thou be conscience-calmed - see here it is -
I hold it towards you.
John Keats
Winter Conversation
I listen to you explain the difference
between a right brain thought and a left.
I am distracted by the smell
of cold on your face.
I lick it away like a child
with an ice cream cone
sticky fingers and sweet tongue.
Aware that I have been here before
I pause in your words.
I have slept in this flesh,
dreamed these winter bones.
Waking in the darkness between us
I hear frost sweeping the porch,
edging toward the morning.
I reach for your hand.
What, you whisper, voice hoarse with dream.
My lips, swollen with you, cold,
are silent.
Joyce Wakefield
Have to say that my first reaction to this was "Yuk. Gross. What a weirdo!" Almost a curse. However, having reflected on my repulsion I decided to do some research and came up with this interpretation.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
"The relationship of the writer and reader to endings is a major theme in Keats' "This living hand, now warm and capable." Ends are often viewed as final, like death, but a poetic work is a beginning for a reader; and only that final death for the poet. In John Keats' poem "This living hand, now warm and capable" Keats is contemplating on the integral part of literature, the relation of the writer and reader to a piece of literature and to each other. For a writer, the finishing of a piece is likened to death, death of the piece and the writer writing that particular piece. For the reader, the end of a piece of literature is the beginning, the beginning of their interpretation and thought. And the relationship between the writer and reader is the basis of literatures appeal: the grasping for expression and understanding. After all, what is a piece of literature without the reader, writer, and the dynamic they create? In discussing these connections I try to show how Keats works to defy death, defy the reader, and yet still attempts to make the connection between reader and writer, but fails, and what's more knows it."
Quite brilliant if seen through that perceptive. I expect he'll go far that Keats fellah :D
Wonder if the rather sombre choices recently of the thread reflects the approaching end of this year. If so, hurry up Spring :wink:
Wondeful Alf. And like the way you manage to squeeze in another hand reference too!Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
It reminds me of his sonnet "When I have fears" when he also contemplated his own death. The TB must have concentrated his mind a lot I suppose.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
When I Have Fears
When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.
John Keats
this is a really interesting, enigmatic choice i really enjoyed reading it and keep returning to it to ponder, which for me is a sign of a very good poem!Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Mossy I love your thoughtful responses to contributions and was interested in your comment about the sombre tone of recent posts. I wonder if the latter is the poetry thread's juxtaxposition to the enforced jolliness that is around at xmas which infact can be a time of great mixed feelings...that said i am beginning to look forward to the break now as it draws nearer! ...my brains is feeling somewhat numbed by a night of doing travel expenses ;-) looking forward to browsing some poetry and posting soon ...perhaps something more springlike who knows? :-)
26 browsers of this thread as I type and only 1 member...cool....
well its the start of my hols (get-in! as we say up north) and whilst I am not quite in the party spirit yet (think eons of xmas shopping still to do and a distinct lack of sherry in the house) I am gearing up...wonder if I could do this as my party piece? think it might get difficult after a few jars.. ah well..bottoms up!
My party piece:
Simon Armitage
I strike, then from the moment when the matchstick
conjures up its light, to when the brightness moves
beyond its means, and dies, I say the story
of my life -
dates and places, torches I carried,
a cast of names and faces, those
who showed me love, or came close,
the changes I made, the lessons I learnt -
then somehow still find time to stall and blush
before I'm bitten by the flame, and burnt.
A warning, though, to anyone nursing
an ounce of sadness, anyone alone:
don't try this on your own; it's dangerous,
madness.
another one from Armitage's book of Matches, posted before but so spine-tinglingly romantic I thought I'd offer it again...think it was written for and about his wife....love the last stanza..has a gentleness to it that you can almost touch
where's the mistletoe?
---------------------
“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
than make a scene
or bring you round.
There,
how does that sound?”
Sounds like you are having a Simon Armitage evening freckle :D
Now just to bring things back to the end of the world tomorrow when this chap will be run off his feet :rolleyes: I actually thought I saw one of the Four Horsemen in my kitchen earlier tonight but it turned out to be Mrs Alf annoyed at me leaving my fell shoes outside the back door because she nearly tripped over them in the dark.
Eyes Fastened With Pins
How much death works,
No one knows what a long
Day he puts in. The little
Wife always alone
Ironing death's laundry.
The beautiful daughters
Setting death's supper table.
The neighbors playing
Pinochle in the backyard
Or just sitting on the steps
Drinking beer. Death,
Meanwhile, in a strange
Part of town looking for
Someone with a bad cough,
But the address somehow wrong,
Even death can't figure it out
Among all the locked doors...
And the rain beginning to fall.
Long windy night ahead.
Death with not even a newspaper
To cover his head, not even
A dime to call the one pining away,
Undressing slowly, sleepily,
And stretching naked
On death's side of the bed.
Charles Simic
Time to be a little more optimistic :D
Optimistic Little Poem
Now and then it happens
that somebody shouts for help
and somebody else jumps in at once
and absolutely gratis.
Here in the thick of the grossest capitalism
round the corner comes the shining fire brigade
and extinguishes, or suddenly
there’s silver in the beggar’s hat.
Mornings the streets are full
of people hurrying here and there without
daggers in their hands, quite equably
after milk or radishes.
As though in a time of deepest peace.
A splendid sight.
H. M. Enzensberger
Apocalypse nigh
the end nears ever closer
best put kettle on
Not lost your old touch with the Haikus then DT :thumbup:Quote:
Originally Posted by Derby Tup
And because Love battles
And because love battles
not only in its burning agricultures
but also in the mouth of men and women,
I will finish off by taking the path away
to those who between my chest and your fragrance
want to interpose their obscure plant.
About me, nothing worse
they will tell you, my love,
than what I told you.
I lived in the prairies
before I got to know you
and I did not wait love but I was
laying in wait for and I jumped on the rose.
What more can they tell you?
I am neither good nor bad but a man,
and they will then associate the danger
of my life, which you know
and which with your passion you shared.
And good, this danger
is danger of love, of complete love
for all life,
for all lives,
and if this love brings us
the death and the prisons,
I am sure that your big eyes,
as when I kiss them,
will then close with pride,
into double pride, love,
with your pride and my pride.
But to my ears they will come before
to wear down the tour
of the sweet and hard love which binds us,
and they will say: “The one
you love,
is not a woman for you,
Why do you love her? I think
you could find one more beautiful,
more serious, more deep,
more other, you understand me, look how she’s light,
and what a head she has,
and look at how she dresses,
and etcetera and etcetera”.
And I in these lines say:
Like this I want you, love,
love, Like this I love you,
as you dress
and how your hair lifts up
and how your mouth smiles,
light as the water
of the spring upon the pure stones,
Like this I love you, beloved.
To bread I do not ask to teach me
but only not to lack during every day of life.
I don’t know anything about light, from where
it comes nor where it goes,
I only want the light to light up,
I do not ask to the night
explanations,
I wait for it and it envelops me,
And so you, bread and light
And shadow are.
You came to my life
with what you were bringing,
made
of light and bread and shadow I expected you,
and Like this I need you,
Like this I love you,
and to those who want to hear tomorrow
that which I will not tell them, let them read it here,
and let them back off today because it is early
for these arguments.
Tomorrow we will only give them
a leaf of the tree of our love, a leaf
which will fall on the earth
like if it had been made by our lips
like a kiss which falls
from our invincible heights
to show the fire and the tenderness
of a true love.
Pablo Neruda
What to Say Upon Being Asked to Be Friends
Why speak of hate, when I do bleed for love?
Not hate, my love, but Love doth bite my tongue
Till I taste stuff that makes my rhyming rough
So flatter I my fever for the one
For whom I inly mourn, though seem to shun.
A rose is arrows is eros, so what
If I confuse the shade that I’ve become
With winedark substance in a lover’s cup?
But stop my tonguely wound, I’ve bled enough.
If I be fair, or false, or freaked with fear
If I my tongue in lockèd box immure
Blame not me, for I am sick with love.
Yet would I be your friend most willingly
Since friendship would infect me killingly.
Julian Talamantez Brolaski
Not sure whether this one should have been posted in Today's Joke :D
The Shivering Beggar
Near Clapham village, where fields began,
Saint Edward met a beggar man.
It was Christmas morning, the church bells tolled,
The old man trembled for the fierce cold.
Saint Edward cried, "It is monstrous sin
A beggar to lie in rags so thin!
An old gray-beard and the frost so keen:
I shall give him my fur-lined gaberdine."
He stripped off his gaberdine of scarlet
And wrapped it round the aged varlet,
Who clutched at the folds with a muttered curse,
Quaking and chattering seven times worse.
Said Edward, "Sir, it would seem you freeze
Most bitter at your extremities.
Here are gloves and shoes and stockings also,
That warm upon your way you may go."
The man took stocking and shoe and glove,
Blaspheming Christ our Saviour’s love,
Yet seemed to find but little relief,
Shaking and shivering like a leaf.
Said the saint again, "I have no great riches,
Yet take this tunic, take these breeches,
My shirt and my vest, take everything,
And give due thanks to Jesus the King."
The saint stood naked upon the snow
Long miles from where he was lodged at Bowe,
Praying, "O God! my faith, it grows faint!
This would try the temper of any saint.
"Make clean my heart, Almighty, I pray,
And drive these sinful thoughts away.
Make clean my heart if it be Thy will,
This damned old rascal’s shivering still!"
He stooped, he touched the beggar man’s shoulder;
He asked him did the frost nip colder?
"Frost!" said the beggar, "no, stupid lad!
’Tis the palsy makes me shiver so bad."
Robert Graves
Maya Angelou's poem she read at President Clinton's inauguration.
On the Pulse of Morning
A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed,
Marked the mastodon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of their sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.
But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully,
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny,
But seek no haven in my shadow,
I will give you no hiding place down here.
You, created only a little lower than
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long
Facedown in ignorance,
Your mouths spilling words
Armed for slaughter.
The Rock cries out to us today,
You may stand upon me,
But do not hide your face.
Maya Angelou
Seasons greetings to all you fell poets out there I hope that are having/ have had a relaxing break. So far Xmas has been a lovely affair here. Highlights so far were watching the kids opening their presents, lazy times in front of the tv watching the Royle family and such like and a trip to see the Hobbit. Also I got a guitar and am enjoying struggling with it! Was hoping to get out today for a run but now have a sore throat so will perhaps have to wait a bit...getting decidedly out of shape with all this lack of running however there is always hope...and the new year !
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
By Emily Dickinson
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
beautiful I really like angelou...also enjoyed mossy's neruda's choiceQuote:
Originally Posted by Alf