Today's poet

[Mountain Goatess]

Oooh that is such an eerie poem....sends shivers!

This is a Photograph of Me

It was taken some time ago
At first it seems to be
a smeared
print: blurred lines and grey flecks
blended with the paper;

then, as you scan
it, you can see something in the left-hand corner
a thing that is like a branch: part of a tree
(balsam or spruce) emerging
and, to the right, halfway up
what ought to be a gentle
slope, a small frame house.

In the background there is a lake,
and beyond that, some low hills.

(The photograph was taken
the day after I drowned.

I am in the lake, in the center
of the picture, just under the surface.

It is difficult to say where
precisely, or to say
how large or how small I am:
the effect of water
on light is a distortion.

but if you look long enough
eventually
you will see me.)

Margaret Atwood

[freckle]

Evening Solace

THE human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed.
And days may pass in gay confusion,
And nights in rosy riot fly,
While, lost in Fame's or Wealth's illusion,
The memory of the Past may die.

But, there are hours of lonely musing,
Such as in evening silence come,
When, soft as birds their pinions closing,
The heart's best feelings gather home.
Then in our souls there seems to languish
A tender grief that is not woe;
And thoughts that once wrung groans of anguish,
Now cause but some mild tears to flow.

And feelings, once as strong as passions,
Float softly back a faded dream;
Our own sharp griefs and wild sensations,
The tale of others' sufferings seem.
Oh ! when the heart is freshly bleeding,
How longs it for that time to be,
When, through the mist of years receding,
Its woes but live in reverie !

And it can dwell on moonlight glimmer,
On evening shade and loneliness;
And, while the sky grows dim and dimmer,
Feel no untold and strange distress
Only a deeper impulse given
By lonely hour and darkened room,
To solemn thoughts that soar to heaven,
Seeking a life and world to come.

Charlotte Bronte

I love this...especially the red bits.....somehow quite soothing yet bit of a "monday night" feel...(ie a bit miserable but not quite as miserable as sunday!!!!!!)

[Hes]

There's been some great posts recently and I love Freckle's Atwood poem. Looking forward to the Armitage gig...it doesn't seem so far away now.

[Hes]

crashing woodland run
ghostly swans glimpsed through the trees
drifting silently

[Hes]

Ohhh I like this!:

Alive

I saw a landing gull
haul in his wings
from flight, and thought:

'There is a going out into the dark
and a coming in out of the dark
one finds oneself between.

As between the ringing
of the hammer in cold air,
and the actual hammer-blow, witnessed
at a distance.

Or between the object and the
extremity of its lengthened
evening shadow.

Or between the words that come
out of the mouth, and those
that were in the mind before.'

One hovers
between the whole egg
and its breaking.

Robyn Sarah

[Hes]

steadfast aloneness
a bitter response
to our histories unfair
against all odds
we met to connect
and began to share
night after day
cracks have appeared
in the shells that we wear
this slow awakening
a realisation that
two ones make a pair

[Harry H Howgill]

That is rather good.

I love the hammer blow line. Why does the fact that it is in cold air make it feel so much crisper a line?

Inspired.

Ohhh I like this!:

Alive

I saw a landing gull
haul in his wings
from flight, and thought:

'There is a going out into the dark
and a coming in out of the dark
one finds oneself between.

As between the ringing
of the hammer in cold air,
and the actual hammer-blow, witnessed
at a distance.

Or between the object and the
extremity of its lengthened
evening shadow.

Or between the words that come
out of the mouth, and those
that were in the mind before.'

One hovers
between the whole egg
and its breaking.

Robyn Sarah

[Harry H Howgill]

There's been some great posts recently and I love Freckle's Atwood poem. Looking forward to the Armitage gig...it doesn't seem so far away now.

Two months on Saturday. It'll fly by.

[Mountain Goatess]

All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Only the mountain and I.

[Mossdog]

All the birds have flown up and gone;
A lonely cloud floats leisurely by.
We never tire of looking at each other -
Only the mountain and I.

Oh MG that's just plain lovely, but may I also say, rather sad too