Today's poet

[Grouse]

Life is just a bowl of All-bran
You wake up every mornng and it's there.
So live as only you can
It's all about enjoy it
Cos ever since you saw it
There ain't no-one can take it away.

[XRunner]

I Am A Runner
(base on the Ewan MacColl song)

I'm a runner, I'm a runner from Manchester way
I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way
I may be a wage slave on Monday
But I am a free man on Sunday

So I run where I will over mountain and hill
and I run where the bracken is deep
I belong to the mountains, the clear-running fountains
Where the grey rocks rise rugged and steep
I've seen the white hare in the gulley
And the curlew fly high over head
And sooner than part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

[Mossdog]

Thanks Xrunner for helping to shift the tone. By eck i didn't expect to start such a barrage of gloom last night. Perhaps we need to have the ubiquitous helpline number associated with this thread .

Anyway to make amends I found this lovely, lifting poem. Have a great Sunday Formites (and birthday parties for little ones too).


The Tuft of Flowers by Robert Frost

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.
The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene.
I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.
But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been -- alone,
'As all must be,' I said within my heart,
'Whether they work together or apart.'
But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,
Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night
Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.
And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.
And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.
I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;
But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,
A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.
The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,
Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.
The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,
That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,
And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;
But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;
And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.
'Men work together,' I told him from the heart,
'Whether they work together or apart.'

[Harry H Howgill]

Look! This is supposed to be a poetry thread.

I'm detecting a distinct lack of moroseness. Too ruddy cheerful by half. So let me throw in our Sylvia again - there's always a sting factor somewhere in her verse - even the ones that you think are going to be happy.

Maybe if Sylvia had done a few more hill reps the endorphines would have cheered her up a bit.

[Harry H Howgill]

Just catching up with the threads offerings, fab! I now look forward to getting on the forum and seeing what new things you guys have posted.

Thanks for the link Hes, some lovely things there!

And now for a poet whom I think is most definitely on a par with Betjeman:

Being Boring

If you ask me 'What's new?', I have nothing to say
Except that the garden is growing.
I had a slight cold but it's better today.
I'm content with the way things are going.
Yes, he is the same as he usually is,
Still eating and sleeping and snoring.
I get on with my work. He gets on with his.
I know this is all very boring.

There was drama enough in my turbulent past:
Tears and passion-I've used up a tankful.
No news is good news, and long may it last,
If nothing much happens, I'm thankful.
A happier cabbage you never did see,
My vegetable spirits are soaring.
If you're after excitement, steer well clear of me.
I want to go on being boring.

I don't go to parties. Well, what are they for,
If you don't need to find a new lover?
You drink and you listen and drink a bit more
And you take the next day to recover.
Someone to stay home with was all my desire
And, now that I've found a safe mooring,
I've just one ambition in life: I aspire
To go on and on being boring.

-- Wendy Cope

I quite agree. It's great seeing what new delights have been posted each day. I've read more new poetry this week than all year. Thanks to all for the great postings.

I've only discovered Wendy Cope recently, but she is great. I'm happy being boring too!

Here's a bit of John Clare that feels right for today.

The roaring of the woods is like the sea
All thunder and commotion to the shore
The old oaks toss their branches to be free
And urge the fury of the storm the more
Louder then thunder is the sobbing roar
Of leafy billows to their shore, the sky,
Round which the bloodshot clouds like fields of gore
In angry silence did at anchor lie
As if the battle's roar was not yet bye

[Mossdog]

Maybe if Sylvia had done a few more hill reps the endorphines would have cheered her up a bit.

Too true. And if she'd tucked into a stash of jelly babies for that sugar high.

[Harry H Howgill]

Too true. And if she'd tucked into a stash of jelly babies for that sugar high.

Oh what she might have been for a pair of inov-8s and sup of lucozade sport.

[Harry H Howgill]

i love SS he spoke for a great swathe of powerless and forgotten young men, no joke at all.....

Not always nice to contemplate, but should never be forgotten.

The soldiers at Lauro

Young are our dead
Like babies they lie
The wombs they blest once
Not healed dry
And yet - too soon
Into each space
A cold earth falls
On colder face.
Quite still they lie
These fresh-cut reeds
Clutched in earth
Like winter seeds
But they will not bloom
When called by spring
To burst with leaf
And blossoming
They sleep on
In silent dust
As crosses rot
And helmets rust.

Spike Milligan

[Derby Tup]

Couple of haiku inspired by this morning's stormy run:

Calderdale leg four
Hard work in November rain
"Fish and chips please!"

Heptonstall churchyard
Passed on Sunday recce run
Didn't see Plath grave

[stevefoster]

Stoodley Pike in wind and rain
Blown sideways and struggling to get up
At least there's a Guinness waiting for me in t'pub

Japanese wi a Yorkshire accent