Today's poet

[freckle]

Atavism

Sometimes in the open you look up
where birds go by, or just nothing,
and wait. A dim feeling comes
you were like this once, there was air,
and quiet; it was by a lake, or
maybe a river you were alert
as an otter and were suddenly born
like the evening star into wide
still worlds like this one you have found
again, for a moment, in the open.


Something is being told in the woods: aisles of
shadow lead away; a branch waves;
a pencil of sunlight slowly travels its
path. A withheld presence almost
speaks, but then retreats, rustles
a patch of brush. You can feel
the centuries ripple generations
of wandering, discovering, being lost
and found, eating, dying, being born.
A walk through the forest strokes your fur,
the fur you no longer have. And your gaze
down a forest aisle is a strange, long
plunge, dark eyes looking for home.
For delicious minutes you can feel your whiskers
wider than your mind, away out over everything.

William Stafford

just gorgeous mossy.....thank you

[freckle]

Summer in the Mountains
by Li Po

Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-tree trickles on my bare head.

[Mossdog]

Summer in the Mountains
by Li Po

Gently I stir a white feather fan,
With open shirt sitting in a green wood.
I take off my cap and hang it on a jutting stone;
A wind from the pine-tree trickles on my bare head.

Nice and simple - that's how we like em. Very refreshing poem - thanks Frecks.

Here's something somewhat less refreshing...sorry...

Fast Food

Big mac, small mac, burger and fries
Shove 'em in boxes all the same size
Easy on the mustard, heavy on the sauce
Double for the fat boy, eats like a horse.
Fry them patties and send 'em right through
Microwave oven going to fry me too
Can't lose my job by getting in a rage
Got to get my hands on that minimum wage.

Shove it in their faces, give 'em what they want
Got to make it fast, it's a Fast Food Restaurant.

Shake's full of plastic, meat's full of worms
Everything's zapped so you won't get germs
Water down the ketchup, easier to pour on
Pictures on the register in case you're a moron.
Keep your uniform clean, don't talk back
Blood down your shirt going to get you the sack
Sugar, grease, fats and starches
Fine to dine at the golden arches.

Shove it in their faces, give 'em what they want
Got to make it fast, it's a Fast Food Restaurant.

Baby thrown up, booth number 9
Wash it down, hose it down, happens all the time
Cigarettes in the coffee, contact lens in the tea
I'd rather feed pigs than humanity.

Shove it in their faces, give 'em what they want
Got to make it fast, it's a Fast Food Restaurant.

Richard Thompson

[Mossdog]

The Hug

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who'd showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.


Thom Gunn

[freckle]

The Hug

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
Half of the night with our old friend
Who'd showed us in the end
To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
Your instep to my heel,
My shoulder-blades against your chest.
It was not sex, but I could feel
The whole strength of your body set,
Or braced, to mine,
And locking me to you
As if we were still twenty-two
When our grand passion had not yet
Become familial.
My quick sleep had deleted all
Of intervening time and place.
I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.


Thom Gunn

i like this, has a real soothing feel to it...what is it about love and that sense of timelessness?

also liked the macdonalds one too, thought it was such a good observation of life's little inhumanities and the insataibility of this fast world we live in

[Mountain Goatess]

Summer Sun

Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.

Robert Louis Stevenson

[freckle]

Summer Sun

Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Ooooo I like that MG...i have just got back from a 6 miler in a right lather, it is well hot! i really feel for those doing the edinburgh marathon again in these conditions, can't be easy!....anyhoo when is your next race did you do pier to pier in the end? I am doing gummers how, then probs windy gyle if i can swing it (but oh dear looks like navigation is involved...yikes!) oh and in a moment of madness i have entered the moray marathon in September...thought it might give me a training focus over the summer months! hope your well anyway MG

[Nathaniel Lee]

Splintered

As it come to this ?,
We target our oral barbs,
With pinpoint accuracy,
Is there a way back ?,
Do you still love me ?,
I know this much i need you,
But i don't think my fragile mind,
Is capable of taking much more,
It hurts too much,
And i'm splintered,
Ready to crack,
Find me a bed in a secure unit,
Where i can be forgotten,
Playing chequers with the others.

By Matt Harmston

[freckle]

Splintered

As it come to this ?,
We target our oral barbs,
With pinpoint accuracy,
Is there a way back ?,
Do you still love me ?,
I know this much i need you,
But i don't think my fragile mind,
Is capable of taking much more,
It hurts too much,
And i'm splintered,
Ready to crack,
Find me a bed in a secure unit,
Where i can be forgotten,
Playing chequers with the others.

By Matt Harmston

Mmmm playing chequers with the others makes me think of one flew over the cuckoos nest, cracking film.

[freckle]

Before Summer Rain

Suddenly, from all the green around you,
something-you don't know what-has disappeared;
you feel it creeping closer to the window,
in total silence. From the nearby wood

you hear the urgent whistling of a plover,
reminding you of someone's Saint Jerome:
so much solitude and passion come
from that one voice, whose fierce request the downpour

will grant. The walls, with their ancient portraits, glide
away from us, cautiously, as though
they weren't supposed to hear what we are saying.

And reflected on the faded tapestries now;
the chill, uncertain sunlight of those long
childhood hours when you were so afraid.

Rainer Maria Rilke