Today's poet

[Hes]

Well I can't beat an eagle owl

So a poem about a place we would all like to go if only for a break now and then

Where the Sidewalk Ends

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins,
And there the grass grows soft and white,
And there the sun burns crimson bright,
And there the moon-bird rests from his flight
To cool in the peppermint wind.

Let us leave this place where the smoke blows black
And the dark street winds and bends.
Past the pits where the asphalt flowers grow
We shall walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And watch where the chalk-white arrows go
To the place where the sidewalk ends.

Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Shel Silverstein

That's gorgeous Alf, what a find.

[Harry H Howgill]

Spring is definately in the air this morning. The first Oystercatchers have returned here and are already looking amorous.

Fresh Oystercatchers share
The sun-warmed morning mist.
Wing against soft wing,
Like a pair of coy teenage lovers
Snuggling surreptitiously
Yet willing you to notice
Their proud happiness.

[Harry H Howgill]

There is a great article in the Guardian about writing today. Most of this will apply to poetry too....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010...ction-part-one

• • Write. No amount of self-inflicted misery, altered states, black pullovers or being publicly obnoxious will ever add up to your being a writer. Writers write. On you go.

  
  

  • Read. As much as you can. As deeply and widely and nourishingly and ­irritatingly as you can. And the good things will make you remember them, so you won't need to take notes.

  
  

  • Be without fear. This is impossible, but let the small fears drive your rewriting and set aside the large ones ­until they behave – then use them, maybe even write them. Too much fear and all you'll get is silence.

[Alf]

Spring is definately in the air this morning. The first Oystercatchers have returned here and are already looking amorous.

Fresh Oystercatchers share
The sun-warmed morning mist.
Wing against soft wing,
Like a pair of coy teenage lovers
Snuggling surreptitiously
Yet willing you to notice
Their proud happiness.

Loved that poem Harry
"Snuggling surreptitiously" nice bit of alliteration

[Harry H Howgill]

Loved that poem Harry
"Snuggling surreptitiously" nice bit of alliteration

Afternoon Alf! I appreciate the alliterative admiration.

[Mossdog]

Spring is definately in the air this morning. The first Oystercatchers have returned here and are already looking amorous.

Fresh Oystercatchers share
The sun-warmed morning mist.
Wing against soft wing,
Like a pair of coy teenage lovers
Snuggling surreptitiously
Yet willing you to notice
Their proud happiness.

Gosh you 'old' romantic HHH - v. good one though, thanks

[Mossdog]

'Sylvia Time' again...

Among the Narcissi

Spry, wry, and gray as these March sticks,
Percy bows, in his blue peajacket, among the narcissi.
He is recuperating from something on the lung.

The narcissi, too, are bowing to some big thing :
It rattles their stars on the green hill where Percy
Nurses the hardship of his stitches, and walks and walks.

There is a dignity to this; there is a formality-
The flowers vivid as bandages, and the man mending.
They bow and stand : they suffer such attacks!

And the octogenarian loves the little flocks.
He is quite blue; the terrible wind tries his breathing.
The narcissi look up like children, quickly and whitely.


I felt a bit like aged Percy after 'screwing-up' at HC Nick last w/e

[N-dubya]

Spring is definately in the air this morning. The first Oystercatchers have returned here and are already looking amorous.

Fresh Oystercatchers share
The sun-warmed morning mist.
Wing against soft wing,
Like a pair of coy teenage lovers
Snuggling surreptitiously
Yet willing you to notice
Their proud happiness.

Nice one hhh

I beg to differ with the Guardian I reckon being publicly obnoxious is a pre-requisite of any self respecting writer/poet

[Mossdog]

A Howgill Run

Bowderdale farmsteads,
hushed by grey, clamouring mist,
stare sullen, as a neighbour's scorn.
Baleful hounds raise alarm -
an interloper,
uninvited, synthetic,
antithesis to this world of flax, wool,
the earth and solitary secrets.

Laces tightened, straps pulled, watch glanced,
The Ritual begins.
Final check, and head for West Fell,
dirty snow prised of it's grip,
a gravel spewed trench,
an Eton mess of peat, soil, sheep piss.

Trudge forward,
seeking the metronome of pace-pulse,
an inner equilibrium of effort.
Predictably, doubts descend,
as winter midges,
sirens of despondency;
but I know better,
cultivated refusal to relent,
fuelled, at first, by petite conceits,

The squelch of sodden fell,
steeper ground,
the taunting begins,
the first skirmish with pain.
Yet, entranced by strands of yellowed grass,
a twist of peat,
a subtle shift!
That loosening of identity,
no longer runner,
an impress on the air,
an exhalation of warm, moist breath,
a studded imprint,
allowing the Moment to pull forward.

The Calf, unsuckled, rears,
mist shrouded, then passes;
and the Moment surges onwards,
shedding identity,
a fragmented wake,
black as minums,
singing the efflorescence of spirit
a quiet unity, achieved at last!

[Nathaniel Lee]

Excellent Mossdog.