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I have written a poem about my experiences living in a cave close to the Tibetan border.
Wifi signal is poor, so please bare with me if I don't manage to get it all typed out before signal goes.
Title: Pancakes - Tibetan Border Cave. (R.Shlong 2014)
- 100g plain flour
- 2 eggs
- 300ml semi-skimmed milk
- 1 tbsp sunflower oil or vegetable, plus extra for frying
- pinch salt
November
This is the treacherous month when autumn days
With summer’s voice come bearing summer’s gifts.
Beguiled, the pale down-trodden aster lifts
Her head and blooms again. The soft, warm haze
Makes moist once more the sere and dusty ways,
And, creeping through where dead leaves lie in drifts,
The violet returns. Snow noiseless sifts
Ere night, an icy shroud, which morning’s rays
Will idly shine upon and slowly melt,
Too late to bid the violet live again.
The treachery, at last, too late, is plain;
Bare are the places where the sweet flowers dwelt.
What joy sufficient hath November felt?
What profit from the violet’s day of pain?
Helen Hunt Jackson
Dämmerung
In later life I retired from poetry,
ploughed the profits
into a family restaurant
in the town of Holzminden, in lower Saxony.
It was small and traditional:
dark wood panelling, deer antlers,
linen tablecloths and red candles,
one beer tap on the bar
and a dish of the day, usually
Bauernschnitzel. Weekends were busy,
pensioners wanting the set meal, though
year on year takings were falling.
Some nights the old gang came in—
Jackie, Max, Lavinia,
Mike not looking at all himself,
and I’d close the kitchen,
hang up my striped apron,
take a bottle of peach schnapps
from the top shelf and say,
“Mind if I join you?”
“Are we dead yet?” someone would ask.
Then with a plastic toothpick
I’d draw blood from my little finger
to prove we were still among the living.
From the veranda we’d breathe new scents
from the perfume distillery over the river,
or watch the skyline
for the nuclear twilight.
Simon Armitage
That's really wonderful Alf. Particularly apt given this long and sauntering autumn.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
I was thumbing through 'The Pleasures of the Damned: Selected poems of Charles Bukowski' in Waterstones today while waiting to meet my son and his girlfriend for some lunch. I will have to drop a hint about it for a crimbo present :D
Trashcan Lives
the wind blows hard tonight
and it's a cold wind
and I think about
the boys on the row.
I hope some of them have a bottle of
red.
it's when you're on the row
that you notice that
everything
is owned
and that there are locks on
everything.
this is the way a democracy
works:
you get what you can,
try to keep that
and add to it
if possible.
this is the way a dictatorship
works too
only they either enslave or
destroy their
derelicts.
we just forgot ours.
in either case
it's a hard
cold
wind.
Charles Bukowski
millionaires
you
no faces
no faces
at all
laughing at nothing—
let me tell you
I have drunk in skid row rooms with
imbecile winos
whose cause was better
whose eyes still held some light
whose voices retained some sensibility,
and when the morning came
we were sick but not ill,
poor but not deluded,
and we stretched in our beds and rose
in the late afternoons
like millionaires.
Charles Bukowski
'The Catch'
For you, the catch wasn't something caught:
not word or contender, attention or fire.
Not the almost-missed train, or the sort
of wave surfers might wait an entire
lifetime for. Not the promise that leaves
the old man adrift for days, his boat
creaking, miles offshore. Nor what cleaves
the heart in two, that left your throat
parched and mute for taking pill
after yellow-green pill, the black-blue
taste the price you paid to kill
the two-parts sadness to one-part anger.
No. The catch was what you could never
let go. It's what you carried, and still do.
Ben Wilkinson
The 'Darkling Thrush'
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.
The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.
At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.
So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.
Thomas Hardy
Very good that Mossy. Ben Wilkinson is a very talented young poet.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
The Puzzled Game-Birds
They are not those who used to feed us
When we were young--they cannot be -
These shapes that now bereave and bleed us?
They are not those who used to feed us, -
For would they not fair terms concede us?
- If hearts can house such treachery
They are not those who used to feed us
When we were young--they cannot be!
Thomas Hardy
Brilliant poem and a smashing new avatar!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
More Bukowski needed AlfQuote:
Originally Posted by Alf
This thread is a total treasure trove! Being newish, I still haven't sifted through everything on here but am going to post this anyway because it's lovely, and fell-ish if not running-ish. Apologies if it's here already and I've missed it...
Weathering
Literally thin-skinned, I suppose, my face
catches the wind off the snow-line and flushes
with a flush that will never wholly settle. Well:
that was a metropolitan vanity,
wanting to look young for ever, to pass.
I was never a pre-Raphaelite beauty
nor anything but pretty enough to satisfy
men who need to be seen with passable women.
But now that I am in love with a place
which doesn’t care how I look, or if I’m happy,
happy is how I look, and that’s all.
My hair will grow grey in any case,
my nails chip and flake, my waist thicken,
and the years work all their usual changes.
If my face is to be weather-beaten as well
that’s little enough lost, a fair bargain
for a year among the lakes and fells, when simply
to look out of my window at the high pass
makes me indifferent to mirrors and to what
my soul may wear over its new complexion.
–Fleur Adcock
And a big fat yes to Bukowski. There's a video of Tom Waits reading The Laughing Heart here that's perfect for a grey November http://youtu.be/bHOHi5ueo0A
Amy, great to see a new poster on the poetry thread! Don't worry about repeat posts. We've had many forum fave verses posted several times
River by Carol Ann Duffy
Down by the river, under the trees, love waits for me
to walk from the journeying years of my time and arrive.
I part the leaves and they toss me a blessing of rain.
The river stirs and turns consoling and fondling itself
with watery hands, its clear limbs parting and closing.
Grey as a secret, the heron bows its head on the bank.
I drop my past on the grass and open my arms, which ache
as though they held up this heavy sky, or had pressed
against window glass all night as my eyes sieved the stars;
open my mouth, wordless at last meeting love at last, dry
from travelling so long, shy of a prayer. You step from the shade,
and I feel love come to my arms and cover my mouth, feel
my soul swoop and ease itself into my skin, like a bird
threading a river. Then I can look love full in the face, see
who you are I have come this far to find, the love of my life.
Sonnet XVII - Pablo Neruda
I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
Haha, I know and love both of those. To continue the loved-up theme, here's what my mum read for my lovely husband and I at our wedding. Clare Pollard is well worth reading if you've not already.
THE CARAVAN by Clare Pollard
We were alive that evening, on the north Yorkshire moors,
in a valley of scuffed hills and smouldering gorse.
Pheasants strutted, their feathers as richly patterned
as Moroccan rugs, past the old Roma caravan –
candles, a rose-cushioned bed, etched glass –
that I'd hired to imagine us gipsies
as our bacon and bean stew bubbled,
as you built a fire, moustached, shirt-sleeves rolled.
It kindled and started to lick, and you laughed
in your muddy boots, there in the wild –
or as close as we can now get to the wild -
skinning up a joint with dirty hands, sloshing wine
into beakers, the sky turning heather with night,
the moon a huge cauldron of light,
the chill wind blasting away our mortgage,
emails, bills, TV, our broken washing machine.
Smoke and stars meant my thoughts loosened,
and took off like the owls that circled overhead,
and I knew your hands would later catch in my hair,
hoped the wedding ring on them never seemed a snare –
for if you were a traveller I would not make you settle,
but would have you follow your own weather,
and if you were a hawk I would not have you hooded,
but would watch, dry-mouthed, as you hung above the fields,
and if you were a rabbit I would not want you tame,
but would watch you gambolling through the bracken,
though there is dark meat packed around your ribs,
and the hawk hangs in the skies.
Hi AmyQuote:
Originally Posted by AmyK
What a wonderful poem to select as an introduction to the thread - many thanks for posting.
Blimmey! Ol' Pablo knew a catch-up line or two!! Who needs cheesy US misogynist imports :)Quote:
Originally Posted by Derby Tup
Haiku anyone?
The silent trail waits
steeped in gripping hungry mud,
bringing out the best.
Mudclaws slop slip slapQuote:
Originally Posted by Knightrunner
Peaty prints mark my moment
Hanging breath - I'm gone!
The very best poems will always be repeated:-
Quote:
Originally Posted by Old Whippet
I missed this gem Alf - sorry. Appeals to my veggy sensitivities. I often wonder about the thoughts of livestock who have been careful tended and then suddenly........Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
Absolutely agree.Quote:
Originally Posted by XRunner
The Tragedy of the Leaves
I awakened to dryness and the ferns were dead,
the potted plants yellow as corn;
my woman was gone
and the empty bottles like bled corpses
surrounded me with their uselessness;
the sun was still good, though,
and my landlady’s note cracked in fine and
undemanding yellowness; what was needed now
was a good comedian, ancient style, a jester
with jokes upon absurd pain; pain is absurd
because it exists, nothing more;
I shaved carefully with an old razor
the man who had once been young and
said to have genius; but
that’s the tragedy of the leaves,
the dead ferns, the dead plants;
and I walked into a dark hall
where the landlady stood
execrating and final,
sending me to hell,
waving her fat, sweaty arms
and screaming
screaming for rent
because the world has failed us
both.
Charles Bukowski
Sometimes I too feel just like that, especially on Sunday-back-to-work-the-next-day evenings :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
This has got to be one of CB finest...
The History Of One Tough Mother****er
he came to the door one night wet thin beaten and
terrorized
a white cross-eyed tailless cat
I took him in and fed him and he stayed
grew to trust me until a friend drove up the driveway
and ran him over
I took what was left to a vet who said,"not much
chance…give him these pills…his backbone
is crushed, but is was crushed before and somehow
mended, if he lives he'll never walk, look at
these x-rays, he's been shot, look here, the pellets
are still there…also, he once had a tail, somebody
cut it off…"
I took the cat back, it was a hot summer, one of the
hottest in decades, I put him on the bathroom
floor, gave him water and pills, he wouldn't eat, he
wouldn't touch the water, I dipped my finger into it
and wet his mouth and I talked to him, I didn't go any-
where, I put in a lot of bathroom time and talked to
him and gently touched him and he looked back at
me with those pale blue crossed eyes and as the days went
by he made his first move
dragging himself forward by his front legs
(the rear ones wouldn't work)
he made it to the litter box
crawled over and in,
it was like the trumpet of possible victory
blowing in that bathroom and into the city, I
related to that cat-I'd had it bad, not that
bad but bad enough
one morning he got up, stood up, fell back down and
just looked at me.
"you can make it," I said to him.
he kept trying, getting up falling down, finally
he walked a few steps, he was like a drunk, the
rear legs just didn't want to do it and he fell again, rested,
then got up.
you know the rest: now he's better than ever, cross-eyed
almost toothless, but the grace is back, and that look in
his eyes never left…
and now sometimes I'm interviewed, they want to hear about
life and literature and I get drunk and hold up my cross-eyed,
shot, runover de-tailed cat and I say,"look, look
at this!"
but they don't understand, they say something like,"you
say you've been influenced by Celine?"
"no," I hold the cat up,"by what happens, by
things like this, by this, by this!"
I shake the cat, hold him up in
the smoky and drunken light, he's relaxed he knows…
it's then that the interviews end
although I am proud sometimes when I see the pictures
later and there I am and there is the cat and we are photo-
graphed together.
he too knows it's bullshit but that somehow it all helps
There she was just a-walkin' down the street
singin' do-wah diddy-diddy down diddy-do
snappin' her fingers and shufflin' her feet
singin' do-wah diddy-diddy down diddy-do
She looked good, LOOKED GOOD - HOW!?
It's Christmas time, bring out the beer.
It's Christmas time, let us all cheer.
For peace to all, at this time of year,
Now take a seat by the fire, and down that beer.
R. Shlong. Christmas 2014.
#VoteShlongForFOTY
With days lengthening, here's to looking forward to the delights of Spring...ahhhhhh, yes please...
Lessons in the Orchard
An apple's soft thump on the grass, somewhen
this place. What was it? Beauty of Bath.
What was it? Yellow, vermillion, round, big, splendid;
already escaping the edge of itself,
like the mantra of bees,
like the notes of rosemary, tarragon, thyme.
Poppies scumble their colour onto the air,
now and there, here, then and again.
Alive-alive-oh,
the heart's impulse to cherish; thus,
a woman petalling paint onto a plate –
cornflower blue –
as the years pressed out her own violet ghost;
that slow brush of vanishing cloud on the sky.
And the dragonfly's talent for turquoise.
And the goldfish art of the pond.
And the open windows calling the garden in.
This bowl, life, that we fill and fill.
Carol Ann Duffy
Hello all. long time no speak...hope you are keeping well especially Alf and Mossdog :-)
I have just read a really good (and short) book called the Peculiar Life Of a Lonely Postman by Denis Theriault which tells the tale of a Canadian postman who accidentally finds himself immersed in the world of haiku...I'll not spoil it but its well worth a read!
Actually that last post was from me! Forgot to sign the old whippet out! x
A bit of tanka...
The mind for truth
Begins, like a stream, shallow
At first, but then
Adds more and more depth
While gaining greater clarity.
Saigyo
its funny I read this last year then played the game quite good fun I would say what happens next is the best bit but I will not spoil it but well worth playing and reading
Probably a bit long for this thread unless you are into narrative poems but stick with it :D John Betjeman pointed out Hardy had used a "railway meter" to emphasise the journey part of it. In the complete poems of Thomas Hardy it has a date of 182? which is strange as its 20 years before Hardy was born and around 20 years before the Great Western Railway was created anyway ? Good old Wiki says its 1903 which fits much better :rolleyes:
A Trampwoman's Tragedy
I
From Wynyard's Gap the livelong day,
The livelong day,
We beat afoot the northward way
We had travelled times before.
The sun-blaze burning on our backs,
Our shoulders sticking to our packs,
By fosseway, fields, and turnpike tracks
We skirted sad Sedge-Moor.
II
Full twenty miles we jaunted on,
We jaunted on, -
My fancy-man, and jeering John,
And Mother Lee, and I.
And, as the sun drew down to west,
We climbed the toilsome Poldon crest,
And saw, of landskip sights the best,
The inn that beamed thereby.
III
For months we had padded side by side,
Ay, side by side
Through the Great Forest, Blackmoor wide,
And where the Parret ran.
We'd faced the gusts on Mendip ridge,
Had crossed the Yeo unhelped by bridge,
Been stung by every Marshwood midge,
I and my fancy-man.
IV
Lone inns we loved, my man and I,
My man and I;
"King's Stag," "Windwhistle" high and dry,
"The Horse" on Hintock Green,
The cosy house at Wynyard's Gap,
"The Hut" renowned on Bredy Knap,
And many another wayside tap
Where folk might sit unseen.
V
Now as we trudged--O deadly day,
O deadly day! -
I teased my fancy-man in play
And wanton idleness.
I walked alongside jeering John,
I laid his hand my waist upon;
I would not bend my glances on
My lover's dark distress.
VI
Thus Poldon top at last we won,
At last we won,
And gained the inn at sink of sun
Far-famed as "Marshal's Elm."
Beneath us figured tor and lea,
From Mendip to the western sea -
I doubt if finer sight there be
Within this royal realm.
VII
Inside the settle all a-row -
All four a-row
We sat, I next to John, to show
That he had wooed and won.
And then he took me on his knee,
And swore it was his turn to be
My favoured mate, and Mother Lee
Passed to my former one.
VIII
Then in a voice I had never heard,
I had never heard,
My only Love to me: "One word,
My lady, if you please!
Whose is the child you are like to bear? -
HIS? After all my months o' care?"
God knows 'twas not! But, O despair!
I nodded--still to tease.
IX
Then up he sprung, and with his knife -
And with his knife
He let out jeering Johnny's life,
Yes; there, at set of sun.
The slant ray through the window nigh
Gilded John's blood and glazing eye,
Ere scarcely Mother Lee and I
Knew that the deed was done.
X
The taverns tell the gloomy tale,
The gloomy tale,
How that at Ivel-chester jail
My Love, my sweetheart swung;
Though stained till now by no misdeed
Save one horse ta'en in time o' need;
(Blue Jimmy stole right many a steed
Ere his last fling he flung.)
XI
Thereaft I walked the world alone,
Alone, alone!
On his death-day I gave my groan
And dropt his dead-born child.
'Twas nigh the jail, beneath a tree,
None tending me; for Mother Lee
Had died at Glaston, leaving me
Unfriended on the wild.
XII
And in the night as I lay weak,
As I lay weak,
The leaves a-falling on my cheek,
The red moon low declined -
The ghost of him I'd die to kiss
Rose up and said: "Ah, tell me this!
Was the child mine, or was it his?
Speak, that I rest may find!"
XIII
O doubt not but I told him then,
I told him then,
That I had kept me from all men
Since we joined lips and swore.
Whereat he smiled, and thinned away
As the wind stirred to call up day . . .
- 'Tis past! And here alone I stray
Haunting the Western Moor.
Thomas Hardy
Feel like we need a bit of Plath, with all that bloody sadness and the atrocious outrage in Paris yesterday.
Poppies In July
Little poppies, little hell flames,
Do you do no harm?
You flicker. I cannot touch you.
I put my hands among the flames. Nothing burns
And it exhausts me to watch you
Flickering like that, wrinkly and clear red, like the skin of a mouth.
A mouth just bloodied.
Little bloody skirts!
There are fumes I cannot touch.
Where are your opiates, your nauseous capsules?
If I could bleed, or sleep! -
If my mouth could marry a hurt like that!
Or your liquors seep to me, in this glass capsule,
Dulling and stilling.
But colorless. Colorless.
Two anonymous fragments from The Manyoshu, a compilation made for the imperial court by the master poet Yakamochi.
WAITING
I wait and wait. He does not come.
The wild geese coldly cry.
The night grows late and yet more late
And, from a freezing sky,
The wind blows hard. It turns to ice
The snow upon my sleeves,
And ground-frost hardens to a crust
Of frozen grass and leaves.
On such a night he'll never come.
How could he come? Instead,
Hoping at least I'll dream he came,
I shiver back to bed.
WINTER WAITING
Is he here? Is he back? I asked them:
No one seemed to know.
I ran outside to look for him
As fast as I could go,
Into an empty courtyard
And the sibilance of snow.