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Thread: Today's poet

  1. #13541
    Senior Member Marco's Avatar
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    I am grateful for everyone who posts on the Today's poet thread, and also The Film Reviewer thread too; it is good to have something 'cultural' here, and for those who aren't interested it's easy to avoid. I read all the posts in all the threads, (unless it's one of those dreadful political rants we used to get), mainly for the useful and interesting things I have learnt - particularly from the off-thread comments.

    Personally, I don't think I'm tall enough for this thread as it goes straight over my head. I do persevere, and read every post, in the hope that enlightenment and wisdom will lower their sights and reach me, but alas it hasn't happened yet. I live in hope.

  2. #13542
    Moderator Mossdog's Avatar
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    A good old un'

    To Autumn
    BY JOHN KEATS

    Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
    Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
    With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
    To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
    And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
    And still more, later flowers for the bees,
    Until they think warm days will never cease,
    For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

    Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
    Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
    Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
    Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
    Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
    Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
    And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
    Steady thy laden head across a brook;
    Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
    Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

    Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
    Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
    While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
    And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
    Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
    Among the river sallows, borne aloft
    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
    And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
    Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
    The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
    Am Yisrael Chai

  3. #13543
    Moderator Mossdog's Avatar
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    Autumn
    John Clare

    I love the fitfull gusts that shakes
     The casement all the day
    And from the mossy elm tree takes
     The faded leaf away
    Twirling it by the window-pane
    With thousand others down the lane

    I love to see the shaking twig
     Dance till the shut of eve
    The sparrow on the cottage rig
     Whose chirp would make believe
    That spring was just now flirting by
    In summers lap with flowers to lie

    I love to see the cottage smoke
     Curl upwards through the naked trees
    The pigeons nestled round the coat
     On dull November days like these
    The cock upon the dung-hill crowing
    The mill sails on the heath a-going

    The feather from the ravens breast
     Falls on the stubble lea
    The acorns near the old crows nest
     Fall pattering down the tree
    The grunting pigs that wait for all
    Scramble and hurry where they fall
    Am Yisrael Chai

  4. #13544
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    With apologies to those of you born north of Chelmsford or west of Westminster, but this one needs to be recited in what has come to be known as "Estuary English".

    Cockles from Southend-on-Sea

    There’s all sorts of food in the world as you know
    But some just ain’t tasty to me
    Like pâté foie gras and black caviar
    And porridge!
    To name only three;
    And you don’t have to try no French cooking,
    To make up some delicacy,
    For my dearest wish
    Is to stand with a dish
    Eating cockles from Southend-on-Sea!

    Our history goes back to the Romans
    But one story to me is quite clear,
    How old Caesar got smitten
    With one gorgeous Briton
    The fellers called Queen Boadicea.
    He said that they ought to go roamin’
    She could even become ‘Mrs C’;
    When he said that he’d buy her
    Anything she’d desire
    She said “Cockles from Southend-on-Sea!”

    Doctor Livingstone out in the jungle
    Was carving his way through the bush,
    When up comes this feller called Stanley
    Who says to him “Afternoon Mush!”
    “I hear you’ve been out here for ages,
    So I’ve brought something nice for your tea;
    I’ll just ask the porter
    To pop ‘em in water
    They’re cockles from Southend-on-Sea!”

    Doctors the whole world over
    Are always trying to find
    A miracle cure, that’s certain and sure
    For the general good of mankind.
    Now I ain’t no blooming professor,
    And I don’t charge no Harley Street fee,
    But what I would say
    Is “Three times a day
    Take cockles from Southend-on-Sea!"

    Frank Owens [16/5/1932 - 31/10/2022]
    In his lifetime he suffered from unreality, as do so many Englishmen.
    Jorge Luis Borges

  5. #13545
    Moderator Mossdog's Avatar
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    A Great Wagon

    by Rumi


    When I see your face, the stones start spinning!
    You appear; all studying wanders.
    I lose my place.
    Water turns pearly.
    Fire dies down and doesn't destroy.
    In your presence I don't want what I thought
    I wanted, those three little hanging lamps.
    Inside your face the ancient manuscripts
    Seem like rusty mirrors.
    You breathe; new shapes appear,
    and the music of a desire as widespread
    as Spring begins to move
    like a great wagon.
    Drive slowly.
    Some of us walking alongside
    are lame!

    Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
    and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
    and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
    Let the beauty we love be what we do.
    There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

    Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
    there is a field. I'll meet you there.
    When the soul lies down in that grass,
    the world is too full to talk about.
    Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
    doesn't make any sense.


    The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
    Don't go back to sleep.
    You must ask for what you really want.
    Don't go back to sleep.
    People are going back and forth across the doorsill
    where the two worlds touch.
    The door is round and open.
    Don't go back to sleep.
    I would love to kiss you.
    The price of kissing is your life.
    Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
    What a bargain, let's buy it.

    Daylight, full of small dancing particles
    and the one great turning, our souls
    are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
    Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?

    They try to say what you are, spiritual or sexual?
    They wonder about Solomon and all his wives.
    In the body of the world, they say, there is a soul
    and you are that.
    But we have ways within each other
    that will never be said by anyone.

    Come to the orchard in Spring.
    There is light and wine, and sweethearts
    in the pomegranate flowers.
    If you do not come, these do not matter.
    If you do come, these do not matter.
    Am Yisrael Chai

  6. #13546
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    I don't really get poetry but enjoyed this. It was read at the funeral of a 90 year old lady that I attended on Friday.

    Dust If You Must

    Rose Milligan


    Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better
    To paint a picture, or write a letter,
    Bake a cake,or plant a seed;
    Ponder the difference between want and need?

    Dust if you must, but there's not much time,
    With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;
    Music to hear, and books to read;
    Friends to cherish and life to lead.

    Dust if you must, but the world's out there
    With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;
    A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
    This day will not come around again.

    Dust if you must,but bear in mind,
    Old age will come and its not kind.
    And when you go (and go you must)
    You, yourself, will make more dust.
    Visibility good except in Hill Fog

  7. #13547
    Moderator Mossdog's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Llani Boy View Post
    I don't really get poetry but enjoyed this. It was read at the funeral of a 90 year old lady that I attended on Friday.

    Dust If You Must

    Rose Milligan


    Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better
    To paint a picture, or write a letter,
    Bake a cake,or plant a seed;
    Ponder the difference between want and need?

    Dust if you must, but there's not much time,
    With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;
    Music to hear, and books to read;
    Friends to cherish and life to lead.

    Dust if you must, but the world's out there
    With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;
    A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
    This day will not come around again.

    Dust if you must,but bear in mind,
    Old age will come and its not kind.
    And when you go (and go you must)
    You, yourself, will make more dust.
    Excellent. Thanks for posting.
    Am Yisrael Chai

  8. #13548
    Can't you see that you were born to stand by my side
    And I was born to be with you, I was born to be your bride
    You're the other half of what I am, you're the missing piece
    And I love you more than ever with that love that doesn't cease.



    The widow of my best friend from school days put these words (from a song) on the Order of Service when he died suddenly aged 58.
    Last edited by Graham Breeze; 13-02-2024 at 06:15 PM.
    "...as dry as the Atacama desert".

  9. #13549
    Moderator Mossdog's Avatar
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    The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls

    BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW


    The tide rises, the tide falls,
    The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
    Along the sea-sands damp and brown
    The traveller hastens toward the town,
    And the tide rises, the tide falls.

    Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
    But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
    The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
    Efface the footprints in the sands,
    And the tide rises, the tide falls.

    The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
    Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
    The day returns, but nevermore
    Returns the traveller to the shore,
    And the tide rises, the tide falls.
    Am Yisrael Chai

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