Today's poet

[freckle]

Top of the morning to ya!...feeling a bit ropey?, know I am....here is a bit of dylan thomas to keep you going...

Clown in the Moon

My tears are like the quiet drift
Of petals from some magic rose;
And all my grief flows from the rift
Of unremembered skies and snows.

I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.

Dylan Thomas

[Hes]

just back from my run....

across sleeping fields
a clumsy totter
crunch after crunch

clarts into stone
fissured planes of winter glass
thoughts turn to spring

homeward bound
remenants of xmas
delicious cold!

These are great Freckle! I do hope I get a chance for some snowy runs when I return home. 'crunch after crunch'...perfect description! I liked DT's too.

[Hes]

Pipes burst ceiling down
Water, plaster, heartsink mess.
plumbing not running.

Oh no...poor you, sorry to hear that OW! I think it is blooming amazing that you have the ability to write a haiku about it too.

[Hes]

I started watching the film 'Into the wild' earlier - a fabulous quote from a poem by Byron is shown at the start....

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more

It is really good to read this again Stolly, it is a thought provoking film too.

[Hes]

Well...I seem to have the thread to myself and so I must post some poetry. Here are some haikus from Mamallapuram:

half way up the stairs
the geckos wait with intent
whilst Ganesh smiles down

women whirl before
a sandstone frieze of dancers
white goats sleep above

[Hes]

and one from Kamala Das, one of India's famous contemporary female poets:

Winter

It smelt of new rains and of tender
shoots of plants, and its warmth was the warmth
of earth groping for roots...Even my soul,
I thought, must send its roots somewhere,
and I loved his body without shame
on winter evenings as cold winds
chuckled against the window panes.

[Derby Tup]

rising temperatures
endanger smiling snowmen
as childeren groan

[Old Whippet]

All good stuff today! Freckle....good to read that. It occured to me the other day that there was precious little Dylan Thomas here - not that I'm particularly familiar with his work. A very touching piece.
Hes....this travelogue is just great to read. Haikus painting rich pictures for us back home. It'd be good to see all of them, and DT's recent Chinese offerings collated in one place.
And DT - like the kids, I groan too when the thaw arives.

And what of Harry? avalanches in the Howgills swept our once most prolific of laureates away?

[freckle]

Hi there Hes...this is another really wonderful poem, an inspired choice as many of your Indian ones have been...keep posting those haiku too I am enjoying the images they are painting in my mind.....

and one from Kamala Das, one of India's famous contemporary female poets:

Winter

It smelt of new rains and of tender
shoots of plants, and its warmth was the warmth
of earth groping for roots...Even my soul,
I thought, must send its roots somewhere,
and I loved his body without shame
on winter evenings as cold winds
chuckled against the window panes.

[freckle]

Thank you Hes for introducing me to this wonderful poet...i can feel a trip to amazon coming on!....

Love
Kamala Das

Until I found you,
I wrote verse, drew pictures,
And, went out with friends
For walks…
Now that I love you,
Curled like an old mongrel
My life lies, content,
In you….

(From Summer in Calcutta)