Today's poet

[IanDarkpeak]

alas I cannot claim this as my own but it made me chuckle

Most countries, states and still proud nations,
When trumpeting their reputations,
Will offer up their best locations,
To tempt the tourist population.

The tv films show gorgeous vistas,
City lights and pretty sisters.
This might get YOU off and packing,
But in my view there's something lacking.

The thing that has my full attention,
Those travel brochures never mention.
I need the lowdown, urgently,
On creatures with a taste for ME.

Exotic trippers know what's coming,
Long before they hear it humming,
A host of suckers, ticks and cleggs,
Snacking sweetly on their legs.

Back here at home we think we're sorted,
All our dangers are imported.
Yet in the woods there's something waiting,
Time to don your armour-plating.

In foolish youth, a bug that size,
Would have no status in my eyes,
But now I flee before the legions
Heading for my nether regions.

Now, some will decide to stay outdoors,
To flail about their campsite chores,
Or sit imprisoned in their cars
Scratching at their spots and scars.

Grown men will fill the air with screams
Or smear themselves with female creams.
But no-one can avoid the gaze
Of insect armies on warm days.

To those for whom this strikes a chord
Don't curse the Scottish Tourist Board
Just bow before the midge marauder
And slope back south down past the border.


How true...

[freckle]

Here is a more appropiate poem by W.H.Auden:

The Runner:

All visible visibly
Moving things
Spin or swing,
One of the two,
Move, as the limbs
Of a runner do,
To and fro,
Forward and back,
Or, as they swiftly
Carry him
In orbit go
Round an endless track:
So, everywhere, every
Creature disporting
Itself according
To the law of its making
In the rivals' dance
Of a balanced pair
Or the ring-dance
Round a common centre,
Delights the eye
By its symmetry
As it changes place
Blessing the unchangeable
Absolute rest
Of the space all share
The camera's eye
Does not lie
But it cannot show
The life within,
The life of a runner,
Of yours or mine,
That race which is neither
Fast nor slow,
For nothing can ever
Happen twice,
That story which moves
Like music when
Begotten notes
New notes beget
Making the flowing
Of time a growing
Till what it could be
At last it is,
Where Fate is Freedom,
Grace, and Surprise.

How wonderful especially "For nothing can ever happen twice"...mesmerising

also, nice one iandarkpeak....:-)

[stevefoster]

We are the Pilgrims, master: we shall go Always a little further: it may be beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, across that angry or that glimmering sea.

SAS memorial poem on the clock in Hereford.

[stevefoster]

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away ere break of day
To seek the pale enchanted gold.

The dwarves of yore made mighty spells,
While hammers fell like ringing bells
In places deep, where dark things sleep,
In hollow halls beneath the fells.

For ancient king and elvish lord
There many a gloaming golden hoard
They shaped and wrought, and light they caught
To hide in gems on hilt of sword.

On silver necklaces they strung
The flowering stars, on crowns they hung
The dragon-fire, in twisted wire
They meshed the light of moon and sun.

Far over the misty mountains cold
To dungeons deep and caverns old
We must away, ere break of day,
To claim our long-forgotten gold.

Goblets they carved there for themselves
And harps of gold; where no man delves
There lay they long, and many a song
Was sung unheard by men or elves.

The pines were roaring on the height,
The winds were moaning in the night.
The fire was red, it flaming spread;
The trees like torches biased with light,

The bells were ringing in the dale
And men looked up with faces pale;
The dragon's ire more fierce than fire
Laid low their towers and houses frail.

The mountain smoked beneath the moon;
The dwarves, they heard the tramp of doom.
They fled their hall to dying -fall
Beneath his feet, beneath the moon.

Far over the misty mountains grim
To dungeons deep and caverns dim
We must away, ere break of day,
To win our harps and gold from him!

From The Hobbit, remember junior school teacher reading this when i was a nipper

[XRunner]

Treble and double figure posters on this thread are:
Freckle 186
Harry H Howgill 118
Derby Tup 63
Hes 56
Mossdog 43
Merrylegs 34
Old Whippet 23
XRunner 23
Hanneke 22
Grouse 12
brett 12
GrahamB 11
southernsoftie 10

[Mossdog]

Ok. Watershed have just been passed. Time for a few 'romantic' verses eh? (But no more Auden smut...please...)

How about this for starters:

Power in Silence

BY MICHAEL FIELD

I

Though I sing high, and chaunt above her,
Praising my girl,
It were not right
To reckon her the poorer lover;
She does not love me less
For her royal, jewelled speechlessness,
She is the sapphire, she the light,
The music in the pearl.

II

Not from pert birds we learn the spring-tide
From open sky.
What speaks to us
Closer than far distances that hide
In woods, what is more dear
Than a cherry-bough, bees feeding near
In the soft, proffered blooms? Lo, I
Am fed and honoured thus.

III

She has the star’s own pulse; its throbbing
Is a quick light.
She is a dove
My soul draws to its breast; her sobbing
Is for the warm dark there!
In the heat of her wings I would not care
My close-housed bird should take her flight
To magnify our love.


So many lovely lines here...but all is not what it seems with 'Michael Field' (Freckle to note)

[XRunner]

Freckles

Brilliant shafts of sunlight,
once shadowed by blackened thunderheads,
now burst through openings in emptied brokenness
streaking sky with gleaming, vertical hue

each beam,
each golden shard of flaming magnificence,
falls tenderly upon basking, fairest flesh below
with lingering blush,

and conjures flecks of melanin,
aroused,
like assemblies of browning worshipers,
enshrined in ivory temple

so that longing eyes,
nearly blinded
by the strength of sun's glorious brilliance,
can reverence heated memory
at each reflection
upon soft, speckled skin
and can remember. . .

having known passion.

(Anon -Ten thousand cicadas )

[Harry H Howgill]

Freckles

Brilliant shafts of sunlight,
once shadowed by blackened thunderheads,
now burst through openings in emptied brokenness
streaking sky with gleaming, vertical hue

each beam,
each golden shard of flaming magnificence,
falls tenderly upon basking, fairest flesh below
with lingering blush,

and conjures flecks of melanin,
aroused,
like assemblies of browning worshipers,
enshrined in ivory temple

so that longing eyes,
nearly blinded
by the strength of sun's glorious brilliance,
can reverence heated memory
at each reflection
upon soft, speckled skin
and can remember. . .

having known passion.

(Anon -Ten thousand cicadas )

What a find! She'll love that!

[Al Fowler]

Head-torch tonight
Gave myself one hell of a fright
Mud and sh*te, boy whad'a night.

[Harry H Howgill]

Head-torch tonight
Gave myself one hell of a fright
Mud and sh*te, boy whad'a night.

Welcome to the thread AF.