Charlie Charlie, chuck, chuck, chuck
Went to bed with three white ducks
One died,
Charlie cried,
Poor little Charlie, chuck, chuck, chuck
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Charlie Charlie, chuck, chuck, chuck
Went to bed with three white ducks
One died,
Charlie cried,
Poor little Charlie, chuck, chuck, chuck
What a find! Really apposite given the weather forecasted too. Thanks for posting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Einar
Near
Far, we are near, meet in the rain
which falls here; gathered by light, air;
falls there where you are, I am; lips
to those drops now on yours, nearer …
absence the space we yearn in, clouds
drift, cluster, east to west, north, south;
your breath in them; they pour, baptise;
same sun burning through to harvest
rainfall on skin, there, far; my mouth
opening to spell your near name.
Carol Ann Duffy
Thanks for your comment Mossdog. For various reasons I'm a very infrequent visitor to these pages, but usually really enjoy all the contributions from all the regulars. Keep up the good work!
You can almost hear her shouting out that line "Little bloody skirts" :(Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
The Peace of Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Wendell Berry
This ones from a local lad Edwin Waugh. Its pretty wild up there at the moment.
Oh the Wild, Wild Moors
I.
My heart's away in the lonely hills,
Where I would gladly be—
On the rolling ridge of Blackstone Edge,
Where the wild wind whistles free!
There oft in careless youth I roved,
When summer days were fine;
And the meanest flower of the heathery waste
Delights this heart of mine!
Oh, the lonely moors, the breezy moors,
And the stormy hills so free;
Oh, the wild, wild moors; the wild, wild moors,
The sweet wild moors for me.
II.
I fain would stroll on lofty Knowl,
And Rooley Moor again;
Or wildly stray one long bright day
In Turvin's bonny glen!
The thought of Wardle's breezy height
Fills all my heart with glee,
And the distant view of the hills so blue
Bring tears into my e'e!
Oh, the lonely moors, the breezy moors,
And the stormy hills so free;
Oh, the wild, wild moors; the wild, wild moors,
The sweet wild moors for me.
III.
Oh, blessed sleep, that brings in dreams
My native hills to me;
The heathery wilds, the rushing streams,
Where once I wandered free!
'Tis a glimpse of life's sweet morning light,
A bright angelic ray,
That steals into the dusky night,
And fades with waking day!
Oh, the lonely moors, the breezy moors,
And the stormy hills so free;
Oh, the wild, wild moors; the wild, wild moors,
The sweet wild moors for me.
Edwin Waugh
Both of these poems resonant very strongly with my own sentiments Alf. Really a delight to read them.Quote:
Originally Posted by Alf
THE HUSH OF THE VERY GOOD
By Todd Boss
You can tell by how he lists
to let her
kiss him, that the getting, as he gets it,
is good.
It’s good in the sweetly salty,
deeply thirsty way that a sea-fogged
rain is good after a summer-long bout
of inland drought.
And you know it
when you see it, don’t you? How it
drenches what’s dry, how the having
of it quenches.
There is a grassy inlet
where your ocean meets your land, a slip
that needs a certain kind of vessel,
and
when that shapely skiff skims in at last,
trimmed bright, mast lightly flagging
left and right,
then the long, lush reeds
of your longing part, and soft against
the hull of that bent wood almost im-
perceptibly brushes a luscious hush
the heart heeds helplessly—
the hush
of the very good.
Lessons in the Orchard - Carol Ann Duffy
An apple’s soft thump on the grass, somewhen
in 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.
For nature lovers everywhere....(lengthy but it gets better and better)
Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Five years have past; five summers, with the length
Of five long winters! and again I hear
These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs
With a soft inland murmur.—Once again
Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,
That on a wild secluded scene impress
Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect
The landscape with the quiet of the sky.
The day is come when I again repose
Here, under this dark sycamore, and view
These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,
Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,
Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves
'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see
These hedge-rows, hardly hedge-rows, little lines
Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,
Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke
Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!
With some uncertain notice, as might seem
Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,
Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire
The Hermit sits alone.
These beauteous forms,
Through a long absence, have not been to me
As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:
But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din
Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,
In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,
Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind
With tranquil restoration:—feelings too
Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,
As have no slight or trivial influence
On that best portion of a good man's life,
His little, nameless, unremembered, acts
Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,
To them I may have owed another gift,
Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,
In which the burthen of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world,
Is lightened:—that serene and blessed mood,
In which the affections gently lead us on,—
Until, the breath of this corporeal frame
And even the motion of our human blood
Almost suspended, we are laid asleep
In body, and become a living soul:
While with an eye made quiet by the power
Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,
We see into the life of things.
If this
Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft—
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart—
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to thee!
And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,
With many recognitions dim and faint,
And somewhat of a sad perplexity,
The picture of the mind revives again:
While here I stand, not only with the sense
Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts
That in this moment there is life and food
For future years. And so I dare to hope,
Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first
I came among these hills; when like a roe
I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sides
Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,
Wherever nature led: more like a man
Flying from something that he dreads, than one
Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then
(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days
And their glad animal movements all gone by)
To me was all in all.—I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetite; a feeling and a love,
That had no need of a remoter charm,
By thought supplied, not any interest
Unborrowed from the eye.—That time is past,
And all its aching joys are now no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still sad music of humanity,
Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power
To chasten and subdue.—And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still
A lover of the meadows and the woods
And mountains; and of all that we behold
From this green earth; of all the mighty world
Of eye, and ear,—both what they half create,
And what perceive; well pleased to recognise
In nature and the language of the sense
The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,
The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul
Of all my moral being.
Nor perchance,
If I were not thus taught, should I the more
Suffer my genial spirits to decay:
For thou art with me here upon the banks
Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,
My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch
The language of my former heart, and read
My former pleasures in the shooting lights
Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while
May I behold in thee what I was once,
My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,
Knowing that Nature never did betray
The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy: for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress
With quietness and beauty, and so feed
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold
Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;
And let the misty mountain-winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place
For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,
If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,
Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me,
And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance—
If I should be where I no more can hear
Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams
Of past existence—wilt thou then forget
That on the banks of this delightful stream
We stood together; and that I, so long
A worshipper of Nature, hither came
Unwearied in that service: rather say
With warmer love—oh! with far deeper zeal
Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,
That after many wanderings, many years
Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,
And this green pastoral landscape, were to me
More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!
(Sorry for the long post)
I'm just back from a trip to see the in-laws in Spain and seeing this thread reminded me of a poem that I often turn to when I feel nostalgic for my adopted second homeland: Aragon, Spain.
The poem is by the late, great José Antonio Labordeta, known to the people of Aragon simply as "El Abuelo" (Grandfather). He was at one point or another a poet, writer, singer, political campaigner, member of parliament, tv presenter, and defender of all of Spain's regional life and diversity. The Poet in the title refers to his brother, who died young and was a marked influence on him.
If anyone is interested, I have the poem below for any Spanish speakers and my (poor, often literal) translation.
El Poeta
José Antonio Labordeta
Él quiso ser
palabra sobre el río al amanecer,
y caminó
por viejas esperanzas que nadie entendió.
Dejó después
la mano entre las manos y se nos marchó
con un suave silencio
que el viento rompió.
Su gesto fue
dolido por el caminar
entre yerbas y piedras
y un extenso erial.
Su voz se ató
al yermo del paisaje y a la sangre en flor.
Se hizo pared
allí donde los muros cayeron tras él.
Su soledad
abrió por los caminos la necesidad
que levanta a los hombres
a la libertad.
Caminos son
abiertos por su fuerte voz
lanzada contra cierzo y sol
y contra tantos siglos de dolor.
///////////////////////////////////////
The Poet
José Antonio Labordeta
He wanted to be
the word above the river at dawn
and he travelled
by old hopes that no one understood.
He left after
his hand in our hands and departed from us
with a soft silence
that the wind broke.
His expression was
marked with pain from the journey
between grass and rocks
and a vast wasteland.
His voice was tied
to the barren landscape and blood in bloom.
He built walls
there where the battlements fell behind him.
His loneliness
opened paths the necessity
that raises men
towards liberty.
Paths are
cleared by his strong voice
fought against wind and sun
and against so many centuries of pain.
///////////////////////////////////////////////////
This is a bad translation. The Spanish word "camino" implies a journey -- it can also mean "to walk" -- as well as a path but I didn't know how to translate it otherwise. It is a path with purpose. It's also a poem best understood by the landscape it is tied to. Vast expanses of dry and empty countryside, speckled by olive groves and villages ("where there is water there is an orchard", wrote the José Antonio Labordeta in another poem). The poem is also tied to the history of the place, the struggle for freedom in the Civil War, the harshness of life under Franco, and the silence during which very few tried to speak out.\
Sadly, my grasp of Spanish, never great, has deteriorated to a few phrases which allow me to ask some directions, exchange simple pleasantries, comment upon the weather, and buy a few provisions - all the basics for spending some summer months wild camping and stravaiging the high Pyrenees. So I really appreciate your translation.Quote:
Originally Posted by corredor
I was captured by the very opening sentence of this poem. It made me pause and reflect and recognise a certain meaning, a new meaning, of something I have experienced myself many times but never fully formed in that manner. This poem is a sheer delight. Thank you so very much for posting. A good start to a day off from work :cool:
Thanks Mossdog! I am happy that you were able to get something out of it!Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
I like his poetry because it is very Aragonese, his use of the word "cierzo" refers to an Aragonese word for a bitter Northern wind that blows during the winter and he often linked the language of the people of Aragon to how they live in a hostile climate. I am interested in how our language is bound to the landscape and tradition.
Interestingly, Labordeta frequently performed this as a song and there are two studio recordings that I know of. One was recorded in the early 70s, in Franco's Spain. It is sad but angry, sounding like a call to arms for artists. The second recording was made later in the 2000s long after Franco and is much more melancholic. It is as if Labordeta is wondering whether the poem is no longer about his brother but rather himself and whether he had achieved anything in his years of writing, singing, and campaigning. In this sense the use of the preterite past tense rather than the imperfect that you would normally expect ("He wanted to be..") has an almost haunting ambiguity as I wonder whether his is refering to a life that has physically ended or to the person that Labordeta aspired to be.
First Love
In the dreary Girona of my seven-year-old self,
where postwar shop-windows
wore the greyish hue of scarcity,
the knife-shop was a glitter
of light in small steel mirrors.
Pressing my forehead against the glass,
I gazed at a long, slender clasp-knife,
beautiful as a marble statue.
Since no one at home approved of weapons,
I bought it secretly, and, as I walked along,
I felt the heavy weight of it, inside my pocket.
From time to time I would open it slowly,
and the blade would spring out, slim and straight,
with the convent chill that a weapon has.
Hushed presence of danger:
I hid it, the first thirty years,
behind books of poetry and, later,
inside a drawer, in amongst your knickers
and amongst your stockings.
Now, almost fifty-four,
I look at it again, lying open in my palm,
just as dangerous as when I was a child.
Sensual, cold. Nearer my neck.
Joan Margarit
Sunny Thursday
It’s England’s North West and the sun’s warmth is radiating
Terraced row occupants drag their finest wooden stand chairs to the flags outside the front door
For those sans chairs a cushion suffices
All soaking up the vitamin D and Carling with eyes closed as if in ecstasy
Carbon monoxide mixes freely with the duty free Amber Leaf and subtle hints of dog excrement from the corner of the backstreet
Temperatures rise to the low 60’s and onesie sleeves are rolled up high and dressing gown cords relaxed from bulging waistlines
Passers-by nod and mumble ‘grand as owt’
The Chinese on the corner prepares to open and greasy odours compete with the burgeoning cloud of exhaled roll ups
The occasional passing car blasts its horn as the driver shout out ‘wankers’ from his untaxed ’94 Audi
Music from the ice cream van attempts to muffle the fire engine sirens on their way to a grass fire at the top of the ginnel
A three year old solos her way across the main road for a ’99 to the screeches of passing cars
Shouts of abuse and hand gestures from the now pinkish front door dwellers fall on deaf ears as the youngster stretches up for her ice cream from Tariq
The sun dips below the roofline of the houses opposite to sighs of ‘****s sake’ from the pavement gathering
Fag ends are tossed into the gutter as chairs and cushions are manoeuvred back through the door and back into the front room
The red man in the vest orders the woman with the limp up to the chippy for 6 lots of sausage chips and gravy – and be quick, as the door slams shut on that street in the North West
Bye eck lad. Thou paints a pretty Spring picture!Quote:
Originally Posted by Ady In Accy
We all live in our own little worlds. Some through choice, some through ignorance and some through coercion. But the world in itself is wholly neutral, it's all how we see it, make meaning of it, that gives it it's certain colour - dark or light.
SONNET 98
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April dress'd in all his trim
Hath put a spirit of youth in every thing,
That heavy Saturn laugh'd and leap'd with him.
Yet nor the lays of birds nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odour and in hue
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew;
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
Yet seem'd it winter still, and, you away,
As with your shadow I with these did play.
Billy Shakespeare
From another Billy...
Today
If ever there were a spring day so perfect,
so uplifted by a warm intermittent breeze
that it made you want to throw
open all the windows in the house
and unlatch the door to the canary's cage,
indeed, rip the little door from its jamb,
a day when the cool brick paths
and the garden bursting with peonies
seemed so etched in sunlight
that you felt like taking
a hammer to the glass paperweight
on the living room end table,
releasing the inhabitants
from their snow-covered cottage
so they could walk out,
holding hands and squinting
into this larger dome of blue and white,
well, today is just that kind of day.
BILLY COLLINS
Been a while since i've frequented these parts, here's some poetry relating to the Stainmore area around Brough/Kirkby Stephen.
Distant and high, the tower of Bowes
Like steel upon the anvil glows;
And Stainmore’s ridge, behind that lay,
Rich with the spoils of parting day,
In crimson and in gold array’d.
Sir Walter Scott, from ‘Rokeby’
Let those who rest more deeply sleep,
Let those awake their vigils keep.
O hand of glory shed thy light,
Direct us to our spoil to-night.
Flash out thy light, o skeleton hand
And guide the feet of our misty band
Spoken by a cloaked, mysterious old woman, holding the pickled hand of a dead criminal; upon entering a remote coaching inn. The hand carried a candle made from the fat of the dead criminal, and its light was supposed to guide robbers to their spoil
Of these Norwegian folks though long since passed away,
You see the kith and kin on Stainmore every day.
Tall men they are and fair with strong and well knit frame,
And their ways and habits you’ll find them just the same.
Firm and independent their necks, they are still free,
And to another man they never bow the knee.
And in the low deep tone we hear the Northman’s speech,
In spite of all the schools and what they try to teach.
The names of places too all link us with the past,
A house may tumble down yet will the name hold fast.
Rev. Thomas Westgarth.
High up on Barras side- I stand to view the scene
And ask can they be real, or is it just a dream?
For ‘tis here John Martin stood to paint ‘The Plains of Heaven’
And sure no grander scene to mortals ere was given.
Rev. Thomas Westgarth.
To future ages these lines will tell
Who built this structure o’er the dell
Gilkes Wilson with these eighty men
Raised Belah’s viaduct o’er the glen.
Poem placed in one of the columns supporting the viaduct at Belah.
Those are lovely Mr B. I've not read any of them before and they all refer to places very near to me too. Thanks for posting.Quote:
Originally Posted by mr brightside
Saw my first Teesdale swallow of the summer yesterday evening - Hooorah they're back. Left the door of the byre open so hopefully I'll have some very welcomed, chirpy visitors again this year.
Bird
It was passed from one bird to another,
the whole gift of the day.
The day went from flute to flute,
went dressed in vegetation,
in flights which opened a tunnel
through the wind would pass
to where birds were breaking open
the dense blue air -
and there, night came in.
When I returned from so many journeys,
I stayed suspended and green
between sun and geography -
I saw how wings worked,
how perfumes are transmitted
by feathery telegraph,
and from above I saw the path,
the springs and the roof tiles,
the fishermen at their trades,
the trousers of the foam;
I saw it all from my green sky.
I had no more alphabet
than the swallows in their courses,
the tiny, shining water
of the small bird on fire
which dances out of the pollen.
Pablo Neruda
Everyone Sang
Everyone suddenly burst out singing:
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields: on--on--and out of sight.
Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun;
My heart was shaken with tears: and horror
Drifted away. . .O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.
Siegfried Sassoon
I found out today that yesterday would have been the birthday of the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño. Bolaño was, in my opinion, a great novelist although he first wanted to be a poet and believed that poetry was probably the "highest calling" (although he would probably hate that phrase). His novel “The Savage Detectives” (Los detectivos salvages) is a partially autobiographical novel about the search for a pure literature that takes a group of young idealists around the world after they are forced to flee Mexico. Ultimately, they find that they have been searching for a poetry that attempts to leave words behind altogether.
Personally, I don’t like Bolaño’s poetry but as this thread is about poetry, there a piece from the New York Times on his poetry here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/bo...his-poems.html. He died awaiting a pancreas transplant and spent the end of his life dealing with illness. In his essay “Literature + Illness = Illness” (Literatura + Enfermedad = Enfermedad), published in “The Insufferable Groucho” he says:
"I guess I want to say that Kafka understood that travel, sex, and books are paths that lead nowhere except to the loss of the self, and yet they must be followed and the self must be lost, in order to find it again, or to find something, whatever it may be -- a book, an expression, a misplaced object -- in order to find anything at all, a method, perhaps, and with a bit of luck, the “new”, which has been there all along."
If anyone is interested, I really recommend his 1998 novel The Savage Detectives. It’s not easy going and plays with lots of different literary ideas from genre writing to the highest ideals of poetry without ever feeling like pseud’s corner. Those more intrepid may also want to read his masterpiece 2666, but to get through that you really need the Bolaño bug, and bug is the probably the right word for someone who felt that great art is not so much a search for a great aesthetic ideal but rather an illness from which you will never fully recover.
First one for aaaaaages. Hope it makes some kind of sense. :)
Run To Rest
I run to rest, the mountains an unlikely couch
But what form of meditation is this?
Dancing feet, a pounding heart
The terrain contorting my body
Into countless, never repeated poses
Yet thankfully, mostly upright
The mountains move me, more so for their stillness
Problems hitherto unsolved, dissolved
Rocks as pixels, summits are icons
Never a truer perspective gained
Fashioned as an escape
It is, in truth, a homecoming
I run to grow, dwarfed by the peaks
Winning and losing, yet always gaining
Leaving energy, blood and studmarks
Taking intangible succour
Standing taller for being worn down
Such is the runner's pact with the fells
I like the Sir Walter Scott one. Poetry never makes sense to me because it's mostly abstract riddles to my eyes and ears, but that one is spot on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mossdog
Well it might be your first poem for ages OOP, but it was certainly well worth the wait. You've captured and conveyed in a quite wonderful way the multitude of inherent paradoxes many of us find ourselves wrapped up in when fell running.Quote:
Originally Posted by OneOffPoet
The Song of Wandering Aengus
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
Nice to see some Neruda and Yeats and a great original piece from OneOff!
I had the good fortune of seeing Simon Armitage reciting poems at Yorkshire Sculpture Park last night. He's written some new ones to coincide with the Henry Moore exhibition. He signed my book afterwards and I am so chuffed that he remembered me from when Freckle, Old Whippet, HHH & I rescued him from Cross Fell whilst he was on his Pennine adventure. He sent his regards to the fell poets :) Anyway, here's a lovely poem inspired by Moore's 'Mother and Child'
Mother and Child
As if from the deep well of myself
I'd hauled him out, little albino cub
with his blank thumb of a face
as nude as the moon.
My infant yeti, alien pup;
with his paws at my neck
his plump marzipan arms
made a watertight bowl at my breast
where he could wash
where he could lap at the seawater I'd wept.
O he was mine alright, pillow-case smooth
but marsupial, strange, papoosed
in otherness, his cheeks
not yet pummelled by lies,
his lips not yet peeled by lies,
his tongue still unborn.
My locked hands made a sling, cupping
his boneless weight,
and I knew without looking
that shadows moved like fish
under his mottled skin,
that his cute birthmarks were my stains.
Soft thoughts idled and nudged
in the globe of his head.
I turned to one side, saying
look art us, joined in the flesh,
formed as a single piece.
Carve us like this.
Simon Armitage
Ah for a bit of peace and quiet!!!!
SILENTIUM! or Molchanie
Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
the way you dream, the things you feel.
Deep in your spirit let them rise
akin to stars in crystal skies
that set before the night is blurred:
delight in them and speak no word.
How can a heart expression find?
How should another know your mind?
Will he discern what quickens you?
A thought once uttered is untrue.
Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
drink at the source and speak no word.
Live in your inner self alone
within your soul a world has grown,
the magic of veiled thoughts that might
be blinded by the outer light,
drowned in the noise of day, unheard...
take in their song and speak no word.
-- Fyodor Tyutchev (trans. Vladimir Nabokov)
Superb.Quote:
Originally Posted by OneOffPoet
For Desire
Give me the strongest cheese, the one that stinks best;
and I want the good wine, the swirl in crystal
surrendering the bruised scent of blackberries,
or cherries, the rich spurt in the back
of the throat, the holding it there before swallowing.
Give me the lover who yanks open the door
of his house and presses me to the wall
in the dim hallway, and keeps me there until I'm drenched
and shaking, whose kisses arrive by the boatload
and begin their delicious diaspora
through the cities and small towns of my body.
To hell with the saints, with martyrs
of my childhood meant to instruct me
in the power of endurance and faith,
to hell with the next world and its pallid angels
swooning and sighing like Victorian girls.
I want this world. I want to walk into
the ocean and feel it trying to drag me along
like I'm nothing but a broken bit of scratched glass,
and I want to resist it. I want to go
staggering and flailing my way
through the bars and back rooms,
through the gleaming hotels and weedy
lots of abandoned sunflowers and the parks
where dogs are let off their leashes
in spite of the signs, where they sniff each
other and roll together in the grass, I want to
lie down somewhere and suffer for love until
it nearly kills me, and then I want to get up again
and put on that little black dress and wait
for you, yes you, to come over here
and get down on your knees and tell me
just how ****ing good I look
- Kim Addonizio
One off I really enjoyed your latest offering superb!
Just came across this thread. Here's some of our Club's June Run in poetry. Its quite good if anyone wants a read. :D
Thanks for the BGR poems Adnan, evocative of a great day out:)
Was nice to read that my last offering went down well with some on here. Not why i write it but always lovely to get feedback, especially the good kind.
Had a bit of a battle with a club mate recently and this kind of popped in there. Hope it resonates...
The Vest
And then I saw the vest
picked it out amongst the line
that was filing up the fell side
Identical in detail but some way ahead of mine
From nowhere came a kick
At first only I noticed it
until I caught the next in line
Like lorries towards Shap,
an uncomfortable time of overlap
A gasped 'well done' and 'on you go'
The vest was closing, slow
It mattered, but it didn't
The only point was points
and club-wide pride, a small trophy perhaps?
Awarded over dinner, my picture beamed onto and beaming from a slide
Centre stage for a very short while...
I caught and passed the vest, our vest
We fought the fight; he lost, I won
But no-one liked him any less or me any the more
I was no more happy and he no more glum
for being second best, second vest
But our glee, collectively exceeded that of weary marshals
Injured perhaps, kind for sure and with itchy feet for certain
As vest pitted against vest
we loved our days and fights on the fell
Returned not just well, but better
More so for winning, losing and always gaining in life
Good evening long lost friends, its been a while! Hope you enjoy this as much as I do. A lovely find xxx
The Peace of Wild Things
WENDELL BERRY
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
Welcome back MG and what a lovely soothing post - just what I needed this morning. I had to double check the time you posted it yesterday as I was wondering if it arrived following England's utter mauling by the Wallabies last night. Prescient it was...:(Quote:
Originally Posted by Mountain Goatess
I really liked this from Radio 4's programme today. It is Murray Lachlan Young performing his own poetic take on the Shipping Forecast (one of my favourite things on the radio).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p034p321/player
Yes that was rather wonderful. Had to listen twice! Heard Lemn Sissay on Desert Island Discs today (compelling listening) and a quick search revealed ....Quote:
Originally Posted by Hes
INVISIBLE KISSES
written by Lemn Sissay
If there was ever one
Whom when you were sleeping
Would wipe your tears
When in dreams you were weeping;
Who would offer you time
When others demand;
Whose love lay more infinite
Than grains of sand.
If there was ever one
To whom you could cry;
Who would gather each tear
And blow it dry;
Who would offer help
On the mountains of time;
Who would stop to let each sunset
Soothe the jaded mind.
If there was ever one
To whom when you run
Will push back the clouds
So you are bathed in sun;
Who would open arms
If you would fall;
Who would show you everything
If you lost it all.
If there was ever one
Who when you achieve
Was there before the dream
And even then believed;
Who would clear the air
When it’s full of loss;
Who would count love
Before the cost.
If there was ever one
Who when you are cold
Will summon warm air
For your hands to hold;
Who would make peace
In pouring pain,
Make laughter fall
In falling rain.
If there was ever one
Who can offer you this and more;
Who in keyless rooms
Can open doors;
Who in open doors
Can see open fields
And in open fields
See harvests yield.
Then see only my face
In the reflection of these tides
Trough the clear water
Beyond the river side.
All I can send is love
In all that this is
A poem and a necklace
Of invisible kisses.