Today's poet

[freckle]

My Life.

I am there at the beginning,
I am there at the end,
I am the pain that fight with everyday of your life,
I am the part of you that cuts each day with a knife,
I am the scars that run down your wrist,
I am the siren call of death that you can't resist,
I am the relief that you feel as you start to fade,
I am the slow pooling blood in which you are laid,
I am wonderment as you are passing on,
I am the answer to the question now you are gone.

By Herakles

good to see you back! nice work

[freckle]

When you are old
Pierre de Ronsard

(1524-85)


When you are very old, at evening, by the fire,
spinning wool by candlelight and winding it in skeins,
you will say in wonderment as you recite my lines:
“Ronsard admired me in the days when I was fair.”

Then not one of your servants dozing gently there
hearing my name’s cadence break through your low repines
but will start into wakefulness out of her dreams
and bless your name — immortalised by my desire.

I’ll be underneath the ground, and a boneless shade
taking my long rest in the scented myrtle-glade,
and you’ll be an old woman, nodding towards life’s close,
regretting my love, and regretting your disdain.

Heed me, and live for now: this time won’t come again.
Come, pluck now — today — life’s so quickly-fading rose.

[Nathaniel Lee]

For the love of death.

Fear death i do not,
For he is my constant companion,
Sharing my deepest thoughts,
And whispering kind words in my ear,
To feel his love is to be in his thrall,
Such beauty in tempered violence,
I listen closely to my love,
To join him wandering,
The eternal planes,
And leave this fleeting existence.

By Herakles

[Mossdog]

oh dear...the devil makes work for idle hounds....

Funny old place
this poetry thread
where poems are crafted
presented and read

Tentative offerings
modestly proffered
generous responses
enocouragement offered

Days in the mountains
imagined or real
depicted in colour
with poetic zeal

Flora and fauna
moorland and hill
blood sweat and tears
all grist to the mill.

Yet scratching the surface
is there a subtext?
beneath the veneer
an emotional vortex

Of turmoil, longing,
frustration and yearning?
Sometimes this thread
is so hot it's burning

Closer inspection
suggests a dual purpose
for the purveyors
of fell running verses

It's clearly both playground
for rhymers and punners
but also a knocking shop
for frustrated fell runners

"A knocking shop" Define your term young whippet me lad!!!

Otherwise, smashing verse - really made me smile

[Mossdog]

A little bit of Rilke before bed:

Progress

And once again the depths of my life rush onward,
as if they were moving in wider channels now.
Things are becoming more close to me
and all images more thoroughly looked upon.
I feel more comfortable with that which is nameless,:
With my senses, as with birds, I reach up
into the windy heavens out of the oak,
and in those pools broken off from the day,
my feeling, as if standing on fishes, descends.

YES, YES, YES (no Old Whippet don't get the wrong idea!). I adore this Hes, and especially relate to...

"I feel more comfortable with that which is nameless,:"

[Mossdog]

Towards the End

She was like a dodgem car stuttering, low
on sparks, all stops and starts a walk of a
hundred yards or slightly less could test
her heart and all its gubbins. Smoking started

at the age of nine, she never
stopped or tried to quit ever. Even
when early on in her career, her dad,
my great grandad locked her in the cellar
or bogey hole, with a pack of fags and a
box of matches. Everyone was lit and
smoked in turn, till she was ill. After eightyone

years a full patina of nicotine
on the index and middle finger is no more
than a give away of a dirty habit. The real
trouble was the rattling in her shoes.
The body decaying; her very toes
had blackened and shook loose, like
those of a mishapped mountaineer.

Death itself is instantaneous, dying
can take, minutes or years. It took
six months of refusing food, developing
bedsores and fits whilst possessed
under the spell of morphine. The end
was not sudden, unexpected or unseen
and however much grief you bare it
does not compare to the relief.

I've read this twice already. It's really compelling and I find I've got this thread of admiration for her, running through each reading, despite the inevitable sadness of loss.

[freckle]

Love comes quietly
Robert Creeley

Love comes quietly,
finally, drops
about me, on me,
in the old ways.

What did I know
thinking myself
able to go
alone all the way.

[Mossdog]

For the love of death.

Fear death i do not,
For he is my constant companion,
Sharing my deepest thoughts,
And whispering kind words in my ear,
To feel his love is to be in his thrall,
Such beauty in tempered violence,
I listen closely to my love,
To join him wandering,
The eternal planes,
And leave this fleeting existence.

By Herakles

Don't leave just yet please Herakie - if only for my selfish wish to keep reading your verse. Anyway, as we're all gradually edging towards that door marked 'Exit' and as, like they say, 'eternity last for a bloody long time, so why rush into it?'

[Mossdog]

Love comes quietly
Robert Creeley

Love comes quietly,
finally, drops
about me, on me,
in the old ways.

What did I know
thinking myself
able to go
alone all the way.

Freckle, you devil you. I can see we're 'all aboard the Love Train, Love train' again (I bet that motown is before your'e time, eh!)

[freckle]

Freckle, you devil you. I can see we're 'all aboard the Love Train, Love train' again (I bet that motown is before your'e time, eh!)

Indeed! i think i prefer the love train idea to "knocking shop" although I have to give it to him, it was a mighty fine poem was it not......

here's a bittersweet one I wish I had written....

All you who sleep tonight
Far from the ones you love,
No hand to left or right
And emptiness above -

Know that you aren't alone
The whole world shares your tears,
Some for two nights or one,
And some for all their years.

Vikram Seth