Today's poet

[Hes]

There's been some amazing new poems written on here in the last week or so. Work and life has got in the way of me posting for a while but I can feel some poems brewing and I do hope to contribute again soon. Until then I'll post something I just found on the Canadian poetry site:

The One Before

The one before
walked in these rooms
gazed in these mirrors
and searched her thighs for flaws

opening his cupboard
pouring this decanter
her mind set sail for landscapes
where you might stop
to choose a gift for her

a snowdrop pressed inside a book
birds frozen in a cage

the hours filled with
preservation of her flesh
her hair and face and muscle
till laying down her brush
she felt your absence speak

as though you hadn't nodded when
you passed her in the garden
or kept a place
beside you at the table

now I fill these rooms
and search the mirrors
I listen to the sound of strings
caressed by fountains

those imperfections in the glass
her face thighs
lost in silver

the ghost travels with me
to your chamber

Jane Urquhart

[freckle]

Mistress of the Fells

She strokes as I stride the Gable
Guides me away from tourtured fables
Her soft touch raising spirits and knees
My mistress of the fells

Her lure a summer dawn from the cairn
Like eyes transfixed on an endless gain
I beckon to her long reaching embrace
My mistress of the fells

Shes on you mind from rise to fall
Hazy focus the sight of dusk cruel
I wish this day would never end
My mistress of the fells

Gifts of hydration an ever lasting flow
Vistas of beauty, a mind seed to sow
A lustful take of her curves and warmth
My mistress of the fells

I drift away, back to the grind
A loosening of our precious bind
But ill be back swift and sure
My mistress of the fells

By Roy Scott

I really like this in particular the second line and also the repetition of the same phrase gives it a rhythmic and somewhat soothing quality...nice one :-)

Hes good to see you back with a lovely choice, glad life treating you well at the minute x

[Mountain Goatess]

That's absolutely lovely Roy.

Mistress of the Fells

She strokes as I stride the Gable
Guides me away from tourtured fables
Her soft touch raising spirits and knees
My mistress of the fells

Her lure a summer dawn from the cairn
Like eyes transfixed on an endless gain
I beckon to her long reaching embrace
My mistress of the fells

Shes on you mind from rise to fall
Hazy focus the sight of dusk cruel
I wish this day would never end
My mistress of the fells

Gifts of hydration an ever lasting flow
Vistas of beauty, a mind seed to sow
A lustful take of her curves and warmth
My mistress of the fells

I drift away, back to the grind
A loosening of our precious bind
But ill be back swift and sure
My mistress of the fells

By Roy Scott

[freckle]

I am hankering for the sea today...

Beeny Cliff


I
O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free-
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.

I I
The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.

III
A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.

IV
-Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?

V
What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,
The woman now is-elsewhere-whom the ambling pony bore,
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.

Thomas Hardy

[Alf]

I am hankering for the sea today...

Beeny Cliff


I
O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free-
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.

I I
The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.

III
A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.

IV
-Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?

V
What if still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,
The woman now is-elsewhere-whom the ambling pony bore,
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will laugh there nevermore.

Thomas Hardy

Another of his poems about the loss of his wife and the guilt he felt I suspect freckle. Thanks for posting it

[Alf]

Mistress of the Fells

She strokes as I stride the Gable
Guides me away from tourtured fables
Her soft touch raising spirits and knees
My mistress of the fells

Her lure a summer dawn from the cairn
Like eyes transfixed on an endless gain
I beckon to her long reaching embrace
My mistress of the fells

Shes on you mind from rise to fall
Hazy focus the sight of dusk cruel
I wish this day would never end
My mistress of the fells

Gifts of hydration an ever lasting flow
Vistas of beauty, a mind seed to sow
A lustful take of her curves and warmth
My mistress of the fells

I drift away, back to the grind
A loosening of our precious bind
But ill be back swift and sure
My mistress of the fells

By Roy Scott

Very good poem Roy, I liked the part time lover analogy

[Al Fowler]

Once upon a time...

[Multiterrainer]

Once upon a time...

Getting your poems mixed up with Fairy Tales Al?

[Al Fowler]

Getting your poems mixed up with Fairy Tales Al?

That took alot of thought and effort to come up with that. I think I should publish it and retire early off the earnings.

[Multiterrainer]

Pen-y-Ghent (1)
So to the nab of Pen-y-Ghent
where moor’s impounded in a maze of walls
and landscape speaks in accents that I know -
a tongue of scars and rakes and becks
straight from the Norse. A land of spur and knoll,

rough pasture on the valley side,
a cold wind scouring over scarp
from Ribblehead. Here is my own;
my latitude and dialect,
my discourse and parole.

From this bleak Sinai the moors roll out
austere and puritan and fall
in tussock, stone and reed
sodden to the valley floors
down gill and swallow-hole.

If there’s illusion here,
it’s deeply rooted in the bone
and ineradicable.
This is native heath and home,
meridian and pole.

Pen-y-Ghent (2)
Up the gritstone steps of Pen-y-Ghent,
moorland impounded in a maze of walls.
On the horizon stand the other
high places of the Pennine trinity –
uncrowned Whernside; Ingleborough helm -
and down below, a great quarry-scar –
a five-tiered Epidaurus, limestone-grey –
gouged out of Horton hill.

This is my territory. This is where
landscape speaks in an accent that I know
in every clough and thwaite and settlement;
in the high rakes and dry scars of the moor;
in the beck that trickles out of Browgill Cave;
in the dark shafts of the swallow-holes;
in the rough pastures of the valley sides;
in the cold rain siling down on Pen-y-Ghent.

David Morphet (http://www.dentdale.com/Poems/poems.HTM)