Today's poet

[XRunner]

It's good to have a "real" poet in our midst.
The Song of Ungirt Runners
Charles Hamilton Sorley

I was interested to read on Wikipedia that cross country running in the rain was a favourite activity of Sorley.

I have just obtained an excellent biography about Charles Sorley called, most appropriately "The Ungirt Runner" by T.B.Swann (Archon books, 1965). It contains this marvellous poem:

Sorley's Weather

When outside the icy rain
Comes leaping helter-skelter,
Shall I tie my restive brain
Snugly under shelter?

Shall I make a gentle song
Here in my firelit study,
When outside the winds blow strong
And the lanes are muddy?

With old wine and drowsy meats
Am I to fill my belly?
Shall I glutton here with Keats?
Shall I drink with Shelley?

Tobacco's pleasant, firelight's good:
Poetry makes both better.
Clay is wet and so is mud,
Winter rains are wetter.

Yet rest there, Shelley, on the sill,
For though the winds come frorley
I'm away to the rain-blown hill
And the ghost of Sorley.

by Robert Graves

[Mountain Goatess]

I do like this one...

Expectans Expectavi

From morn to midnight, all day through,
I laugh and play as others do,
I sin and chatter, just the same
As others with a different name.

And all year long upon the stage
I dance and tumble and do rage
So vehemently, I scarcely see
The inner and eternal me.

I have a temple I do not
Visit, a heart I have forgot,
A self that I have never met,
A secret shrine -- and yet, and yet

This sanctuary of my soul
Unwitting I keep white and whole,
Unlatched and lit, if Thou should'st care
To enter or to tarry there.

With parted lips and outstretched hands
And listening ears Thy servant stands,
Call Thou early, call Thou late,
To Thy great service dedicate.

Charles Hamilton Sorley

[Nathaniel Lee]

Alone.

We all die alone even the most popular of us,
I can feel the fates even now,
Sharpening their blade to cut the string,
That is my life,
Why is there nothing but emptiness,
In the pit of my soul,
That turns my heart to stone,
No-one ever knew me,
And no-one ever will,
Gone forgotten not even a footnote,
In the tragi-comic poem,
That was my life,
Hades calls.

By Herakles

[Nathaniel Lee]

Pandora's Box.

Pandora's box is open to me,
To be touched by madness is my curse,
Uncontrollable despair, anguish, fear,
The place where all hope is gone,
And then for some divine sick joke,
I get to touch the stars,
Feel ecstasy only others can dream of,
What have i done to upset the gods,
And be made to suffer in this way.

By Herakles.

[freckle]

I have just obtained an excellent biography about Charles Sorley called, most appropriately "The Ungirt Runner" by T.B.Swann (Archon books, 1965). It contains this marvellous poem:

Sorley's Weather

When outside the icy rain
Comes leaping helter-skelter,
Shall I tie my restive brain
Snugly under shelter?

Shall I make a gentle song
Here in my firelit study,
When outside the winds blow strong
And the lanes are muddy?

With old wine and drowsy meats
Am I to fill my belly?
Shall I glutton here with Keats?
Shall I drink with Shelley?

Tobacco's pleasant, firelight's good:
Poetry makes both better.
Clay is wet and so is mud,
Winter rains are wetter.

Yet rest there, Shelley, on the sill,
For though the winds come frorley
I'm away to the rain-blown hill
And the ghost of Sorley.

by Robert Graves

This is lush X runner, really liked "Tobacco's pleasant, firelight's good:
Poetry makes both better."....

[Nathaniel Lee]

Peace.

Here i am the bastard child of hope and fear,
Cursed to spend half my time with each parent,
Did they really think they should bring me into the world,
Or is it some sick cosmic joke on their part,
Either way i'm stuck with it,
The only way out is to kill them both,
I walk up to place we are meeting,
Knife in hand i wait until,
They are equally apart of me,
I plunge the knife in it's over.

By Herakles.

[freckle]

I do like this one...

Expectans Expectavi

From morn to midnight, all day through,
I laugh and play as others do,
I sin and chatter, just the same
As others with a different name.

And all year long upon the stage
I dance and tumble and do rage
So vehemently, I scarcely see
The inner and eternal me.

I have a temple I do not
Visit, a heart I have forgot,
A self that I have never met,
A secret shrine -- and yet, and yet

This sanctuary of my soul
Unwitting I keep white and whole,
Unlatched and lit, if Thou should'st care
To enter or to tarry there.

With parted lips and outstretched hands
And listening ears Thy servant stands,
Call Thou early, call Thou late,
To Thy great service dedicate.

Charles Hamilton Sorley

This is also really inspiring...there is something really interesting about the concept of a real self, concealed by layers of persona

[freckle]

Alone.

We all die alone even the most popular of us,
I can feel the fates even now,
Sharpening their blade to cut the string,
That is my life,
Why is there nothing but emptiness,
In the pit of my soul,
That turns my heart to stone,
No-one ever knew me,
And no-one ever will,
Gone forgotten not even a footnote,
In the tragi-comic poem,
That was my life,
Hades calls.

By Herakles

some dark stuff from you tonight herakles you are on a roll i see, how is the running going? got any thing planned ? not long now til dufton

[Nathaniel Lee]

Inhuman beings.

Over 90% of the universe is void,
The clues there for you all trying to find deeper meaning,
We kid ourselves about our importance,
When all we're doing is wasting oxygen,
That could be put to much better use,
We destroy and defile everything,
Hideous creatures who should be thrown in the pit,
Give something else a chance,
The end game is upon us.

By Herakles.

[Mountain Goatess]

The Fly

Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink, and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength and breath
And the want
Of thought is death;

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

William Blake