Today's poet

[Harry H Howgill]

That's lovely. Especially the last verse. It captures that moment of inspiration that sets a poem running.

Good morning all...there seems to be a sight recurring theme when we talk about a fell poets' meeting! We will have to do the running part before the pub bit I think...I do look forward to getting poetical and philosophical (or petotical and pisaphalical as the case may be) with you all though.

A quick poem for this morning:

A Riddle

Can you say in advance

Which petal
the butterfly
will choose to perch on

Which will be the first yellowing leaf
to sail its way
to the ground

Fom the gape vendor's
basket
which bunch awaits
your son's weekend snack

In which corner of your cheek will
the first grey grass sprout
to your utter dismay

Which little ripple
will kiss your mind's shore
and write
the anxious first line
in your next poem

kalyanji

[Harry H Howgill]

I'm half-way through typing up the haikus and I've uploaded all my photos to my portable hard drive (laptop couldn't cope). I'll finish typing up tonight and then start working on them. I would like to distil the ideas and capture the true essence of haiku and maybe write a few longer things. Lots of thoughts...let's hope my procrastinating tendencies don't get in the way too much!

It sounds like you are well on the way with it all. The procrastination will just add to the opportunities for that inspiration to ripple on your shore.

Ha ha - just looked at the post numbers and yours was our 4000th! Procrastination? Us lot? Never!

[Hes]

It sounds like you are well on the way with it all. The procrastination will just add to the opportunities for that inspiration to ripple on your shore.

Ha ha - just looked at the post numbers and yours was our 4000th! Procrastination? Us lot? Never!

Cheers HHH and good evening! I'm a bit chuffed to have posted the 4000th post although my logic tells me that it is just a number and no different in significance from 3999 or 4001. However, I'm not always logical (big surprise) and so I will remain pleased. I have just been looking up Rainer Maria Rilke...brilliant stuff. Here is one to whet your appetite:

Entrance

Whoever you are: step out in to the evening
out of your living room, where everything is so known;
your house stands as the last thing before great space:
Whoever you are.
With your eyes, which in their fatigue can just barely
free themselves from the worn-out thresholds,
very slowly, lift a single black tree
and place it against the sky, slender and alone.
With this you have made the world. And it is large
and like a word that is still ripening in silence.
And, just as your will grasps their meaning,
they in turn will let go, delicately, of your eyes . . .


they've been translated from German and the originals rhyme.

[Hes]

And another:

Evening

Slowly the evening changes into the clothes
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you look: and two worlds grow separate from you,
one ascending to heaven, another, that falls;

and leave you, belonging not wholly to either one,
not quite as dark as the house that remains silent,
not quite as certainly sworn to eternity
as that which becomes star each night and rises—

and leave you (unsayably to disentangle) your life
with all its immensity and fear and great ripening,
so that, all but bounded, all but understood,
it is by turns stone in you and star.


better nip off and do some more work. See ya later.

[Derby Tup]

Great choice

And another:

Evening

Slowly the evening changes into the clothes
held for it by a row of ancient trees;
you look: and two worlds grow separate from you,
one ascending to heaven, another, that falls;

and leave you, belonging not wholly to either one,
not quite as dark as the house that remains silent,
not quite as certainly sworn to eternity
as that which becomes star each night and rises—

and leave you (unsayably to disentangle) your life
with all its immensity and fear and great ripening,
so that, all but bounded, all but understood,
it is by turns stone in you and star.


better nip off and do some more work. See ya later.

[Harry H Howgill]

Cheers HHH and good evening! I'm a bit chuffed to have posted the 4000th post although my logic tells me that it is just a number and no different in significance from 3999 or 4001. However, I'm not always logical (big surprise) and so I will remain pleased. I have just been looking up Rainer Maria Rilke...brilliant stuff. Here is one to whet your appetite:

Entrance

Whoever you are: step out in to the evening
out of your living room, where everything is so known;
your house stands as the last thing before great space:
Whoever you are.
With your eyes, which in their fatigue can just barely
free themselves from the worn-out thresholds,
very slowly, lift a single black tree
and place it against the sky, slender and alone.
With this you have made the world. And it is large
and like a word that is still ripening in silence.
And, just as your will grasps their meaning,
they in turn will let go, delicately, of your eyes . . .


they've been translated from German and the originals rhyme.

Evening Hes, hope you've had a productive day. Logic is great, but it isn't always the most fun. So let's celebrate the 4000th post! Hurrah!

I love that. Another one that will benefit from reading again. Someone once said that you can read poetry too fast, but never too slow.

It has the feeling of heading out on a headtorch run on a cold night.

I'm shattered this week, but managed a good blast out in the snow tonight. It is amazing how many trees have had their bark stripped by deer and rabbit. They must have been getting desparate with all this snow.

[Hes]

Evening Hes, hope you've had a productive day. Logic is great, but it isn't always the most fun. So let's celebrate the 4000th post! Hurrah!

I love that. Another one that will benefit from reading again. Someone once said that you can read poetry too fast, but never too slow.

It has the feeling of heading out on a headtorch run on a cold night.

I'm shattered this week, but managed a good blast out in the snow tonight. It is amazing how many trees have had their bark stripped by deer and rabbit. They must have been getting desparate with all this snow.

Glad that you liked the poem HHH. Sounds like you've had a tiring week, I hope that you aren't overdoing it. Nothing like a snowy run to wake you up though, I'm off for one tomorrow morning. The poor animals must be having a hard time getting to food, they must wonder what's hit them!

[Harry H Howgill]

Glad that you liked the poem HHH. Sounds like you've had a tiring week, I hope that you aren't overdoing it. Nothing like a snowy run to wake you up though, I'm off for one tomorrow morning. The poor animals must be having a hard time getting to food, they must wonder what's hit them!

There was a bit on SnowWatch last night where they said that something like 90% of some bird species die out each winter anyhow, and that is just a normal winter! The grass is starting to come through now so some will be alright. (Apart from the one that the Buzzard got. That was quite spectacular!)

[Harry H Howgill]

I found this just now.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=C...age&q=&f=false

A whole book by Margaret Atwood. I was looking to post part of one of her poems and found it. Worth a look.

I especially liked the line in "The last rational man"....

The effort of saying nothing is wearing him down

[Hes]

There was a bit on SnowWatch last night where they said that something like 90% of some bird species die out each winter anyhow, and that is just a normal winter! The grass is starting to come through now so some will be alright. (Apart from the one that the Buzzard got. That was quite spectacular!)

SnowWatch? I am so out of touch! I've been printing most of the day (when I haven't been procrastinating on here) and was quite surprised to see how much snow had thawed when I finally ventured out to the co-op.