Today's poet

[Mossdog]

Dandelion

Resting in a necropolis of weeds
Naive hope writ in its parade of yellow
And the lion’s tooth of its leaves
Wondering if one day it will occupy
The affirmation of “flower”
Some say
an innocent vanity and conceit.

One morning you awake
To the cruellest of jokes
Pretty with tufts
Of white angelic fruit
you realise with great clarity
you contaminate and displace
Vital nutrients, from the proper buds.

Your days are numbered,
for in short, you are
a nuisance.

But wait, there is one thing.
You remain a fanciful game
and the children
making wishes with your parachutes
Blow you, without remorse,
Into a fractured state
To the only promise you have

A home unknown and away
From what you thought
was belonging.

Absolutely brilliant Frecks - what excellent metaphor, but I hope not too autobiographical. Anyway, you know that one definition of a weed is that it's just a plant whose virtue has yet to be realised, and no fears as your's my dear is apparent, and loved, by so many on this thread

[freckle]

Absolutely brilliant Frecks - what excellent metaphor, but I hope not too autobiographical. Anyway, you know that one definition of a weed is that it's just a plant whose virtue has yet to be realised, and no fears as your's my dear is apparent, and loved, by so many on this thread

Thank you Mossy, what a lovely thing to say, you are very good to me, and don't worry, I am fine, I just sometimes go off on imaginative tangents!

....funnily enough just as you were writing I found this poem by the boy Hopkins which echoes some of your thoughts about weeds....and made me think about the fells a bit!

Inversnaid

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

-- Gerard Manley Hopkins


*PS some nice background info on the author and the poem here...
http://www.buckingham.ac.uk/english/...nversnaid.html
this includes glossary of unusual words used by hopkins, apparently "braes" means hills I reckon we should start using it in our verse on this here thread to keep such language alive! wot do you think? X runner i bet you have come across that language in some of the poems you have re the fells?

[Hes]

Brilliant response NB. I have only just returned to the forum after daft working hours and am really upset to see the bickering on the depression thread. Luckily there are so many lovely people on here offering support and friendship and I hope that that will be what is felt above and beyond the bitchiness.

Please stop your fighting
and hurling the dirt.
You obviously don't care
about the folk you hurt!

With words of anger
and your posts of hate,
All the guys on here need
is the support of a mate.

So please my friends
do offer help and support,
but please before posting
give it some thought!

NB!!

[Hes]

Wow...Freckle, this is amazing! I love it. It works on so many levels and the imagery is wonderful. I didn't have time to weed my front garden so I picked all the dandelions and put them in a vase in my kitchen so that I could enjoy their sunny flowers but they wouldn't spread their seeds too much. I'm not sure what that is a metaphor for?!!!

Dandelion

Resting in a necropolis of weeds
Naive hope writ in its parade of yellow
And the lion’s tooth of its leaves
Wondering if one day it will occupy
The affirmation of “flower”
Some say
an innocent vanity and conceit.

One morning you awake
To the cruellest of jokes
Pretty with tufts
Of white angelic fruit
you realise with great clarity
you contaminate and displace
Vital nutrients, from the proper buds.

Your days are numbered,
for in short, you are
a NUISANCE.

But wait, there is one thing.
You remain a fanciful game
and the children
making wishes with your parachutes
Blow you, without remorse,
Into a fractured state
To the only promise you have

A home unknown and away
From what you thought
was belonging.

[Mossdog]

'bout time we heard from our Sylvia methinks......

The Death of Myth-Making

Two virtues ride, by stallion, by nag,
To grind our knives and scissors:
Lantern-jawed Reason, squat Common Sense,
One courting doctors of all sorts,
One, housewives and shopkeepers.

The trees are lopped, the poodles trim,
The laborer's nails pared level
Since those two civil servants set
Their whetstone to the blunted edge
And minced the muddling devil

Whose owl-eyes in the scraggly wood
Scared mothers to miscarry,
Drove the dogs to cringe and whine
And turned the farmboy's temper wolfish,
The housewife's, desultory.

[Harry H Howgill]

Fantastic stuff Freckle. You are feeling inspired.

Dandelion

Resting in a necropolis of weeds
Naive hope writ in its parade of yellow
And the lion’s tooth of its leaves
Wondering if one day it will occupy
The affirmation of “flower”
Some say
an innocent vanity and conceit.

One morning you awake
To the cruellest of jokes
Pretty with tufts
Of white angelic fruit
you realise with great clarity
you contaminate and displace
Vital nutrients, from the proper buds.

Your days are numbered,
for in short, you are
a NUISANCE.

But wait, there is one thing.
You remain a fanciful game
and the children
making wishes with your parachutes
Blow you, without remorse,
Into a fractured state
To the only promise you have

A home unknown and away
From what you thought
was belonging.

[Duncan R]

Hi, just returned from a beasting on Helm hill tonight & was thinking of this Hopkins poem as I staggered out the reps. I heard it read once & it felt like I had no idea what was going on, just bashing about, and yet it all made sense in the end. Bit like my hill session....


AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

(I find it helps if I shout this poem!)

[Harry H Howgill]

I didn't have time to weed my front garden so I picked all the dandelions and put them in a vase in my kitchen so that I could enjoy their sunny flowers but they wouldn't spread their seeds too much. I'm not sure what that is a metaphor for?!!!

I can't imagine! But it is a fine time of year for a little bit of propagation.

[stevefoster]

Please stop your fighting
and hurling the dirt.
You obviously don't care
about the folk you hurt!

With words of anger
and your posts of hate,
All the guys on here need
is the support of a mate.

So please my friends
do offer help and support,
but please before posting
give it some thought!

NB!!

Only just spotted this, bit slow, lot of negative posts on other threads these days

Glad to say this one by Auld Ken isn't one of them.

Top post, top bloke and a pleasure to be with out on the fells

[Harry H Howgill]

I spent tonight relaxing in the garden watching little dots going up and down the Helm. Sounds like I missed a good night. I like the Hopkins.

Hi, just returned from a beasting on Helm hill tonight & was thinking of this Hopkins poem as I staggered out the reps. I heard it read once & it felt like I had no idea what was going on, just bashing about, and yet it all made sense in the end. Bit like my hill session....


AS kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves—goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying What I do is me: for that I came.

(I find it helps if I shout this poem!)