Today's poet

[Mossdog]

WARNING: Might need to hide all the sharp implements before you read this one - but, by God, she was a passionate lass was our Sylvia:


Winter Landscape, with Rooks

Water in the millrace, through a sluice of stone,
plunges headlong into that black pond
where, absurd and out-of-season, a single swan
floats chast as snow, taunting the clouded mind
which hungers to haul the white reflection down.

The austere sun descends above the fen,
an orange cyclops-eye, scorning to look
longer on this landscape of chagrin;
feathered dark in thought, I stalk like a rook,
brooding as the winter night comes on.

Last summer's reeds are all engraved in ice
as is your image in my eye; dry frost
glazes the window of my hurt; what solace
can be struck from rock to make heart's waste
grow green again? Who'd walk in this bleak place?

Gulp!

[Hanneke]

ps han you will be pleased to hear that as a direct result of joining FRF I am doing even less housework (if that's at all possible)...:-) tee hee

Hooray for less housework and more poetry

Who wants to do
the hoovering
if you can sit
in a quiet corner of the room,
with a book,
surrounded
by dust

[Mossdog]

Put away that mop and bucket,
And the hoover you can surely just chuck it,
Disregard the mountain of dirty dishes,
And clean windows are forlorn wishes.

And what's the pleasure of a polished floor?
To me it's just a dreadful bore.
Yes, it time to put ya feet up and say,
That muck'll keep for another day!

[Stevie]

Yes this is a good thread, I wish I had more time to appreciate it and had my bookshelves at work with me as I get precious little time to forumate at home. But tomorrow I may post a poem from the solitary Seamus Heaney book I have in my desk drawer.

Mossdog - I have a weakness for Sylvia Plath myself. One Plath poem that left a lasting impression is Tulips. Here is a link, it's too long to paste in, too many forum-inches...

[Hanneke]

Just the title, Tulips, reminded me of Wordsowrth's rather lovely Daffodils:

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine

And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line

Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they

Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,

In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie

In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye

Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

[freckle]

Brilliant!...Plath, running and an anti housework lobby all in the same place?...i think i just found my spritual home....

Loving all the poems today, especially Ms PLath's and the following lines....

Last summer's reeds are all engraved in ice
as is your image in my eye;

dry frost glazes the window of my hurt; what solace
can be struck from rock to make heart's waste
grow green again? Who'd walk in this bleak place?


like slyvia we are a passionate lot on this thread are we not?

[freckle]

Re: Tulips.....

Stevie this is such a moving poem i love the line about learning peacefulness and "my body is a pebble"...i think it describes so eloquently the loneliness and complexity of depression...there's just so many layers to it each time I look at it I see something else!...fab! :-) thank you :-)

ps just reading "the tender place", by ted hughes, (birthday letters)....interesting to see his interpretation of events....

http://poemaseningles.blogspot.com/2...der-place.html

pps han...i liked your poem ....

ppps have you read the bell jar? i have read most of it but can't quite get to the end...

[Hanneke]

Freckle, I love that bit of Plath...

I am going to see if I can make a decent transaltion of a favourite poem by a Dutch poet. In the meantime, have this:

I remember you as you were

I remember you as you were in the last autumn.
You were the grey beret and the still heart.
In your eyes the flames of the twilight fought on.
And the leaves fell in the water of your soul.

Clasping my arms as a climbing plant
the leaves garnered your voice, that was slow and at peace.
Bonfire of awe in which my thirst was burning.
Sweet blue hyacinth twisted over my soul.

I feel your eyes travelling, and the autumn is far off:
grey beret, voice of a bird, heart like a house
towards which my deepest longings migrated
and my kisses fell, happy as embers.

Sky from a ship. Field from the hills:
Your memory is made of light, of smoke, of a still pond!
Beyond your eyes, farther on, the evenings were blazing.
Dry autumn leaves revolved in your soul.

Pablo Neruda, translated from the original Spanish by W.S. Merwin

[Hanneke]

P.S. no, not read the Bell Jar... but I do have it somewhere...

[freckle]

"and the leaves fell in the water of your soul"...i am feeling nourished by this thread....just lovely, looking forward to that translation han :-)