Today's poet

[freckle]

I came across Billie Holiday's version of this and it is so moving...and sad...and melancholy


Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

[Harry H Howgill]

i liked it actually and think i will start singing it regular! )

harry i liked your shakespeare too, lush!

anyway have you seen how early I rise these days, flippin eck!

Well impressed with the early morning posts. It is great this time of year with the early sun. Some bright spark pointed out to me today that the nights start drawing in next week!!!!!

[Hes]

Wow...that's wierd Freckle, I was discussing this song on Monday night. It is really upsetting but so important.

I came across Billie Holiday's version of this and it is so moving...and sad...and melancholy


Strange Fruit

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4ZyuULy9zs

[Hes]

Going to have to go to bed but I'll be back with details of the campsite at Dufton asap. Some great choices today guys and thanks HHH for your replies to my post!!

[Hes]

Here's one I liked from the newspaper on Saturday:

Poems

When he met her it was as if he could see
his poems moving around below her skin
like fish in an aquarium. To attract them
he tapped the glass of the tank -
some were pretty big fish. They loomed
close, shadowing her face like a birthmark.
He saw their luminous scales, the frills
of their fins, their mouths, fat and defenceless,
without natural predators, begging
to be caught, mounted and nailed to the wall.

Sam Riviere

Not sure how to interpret it...over to you guys.x

[Hes]

and a senryu from me....

chatty crocodile
around the pond two by two
children and ducklings

[Duncan R]

Some lovely poems lately, thank you. Big thanks to Alf for Henley's Invictus, I only ever seem to hear the last 2 lines, it was so good to read it in full, cheers mate.

[freckle]

and a senryu from me....

chatty crocodile
around the pond two by two
children and ducklings

interesting and lovely x

[freckle]

Well impressed with the early morning posts. It is great this time of year with the early sun. Some bright spark pointed out to me today that the nights start drawing in next week!!!!!

Noooooooooooooo! ah well we had better make the most of it by scampering up hills and rowing across lakes a bit then? :-)


Summer
John Clare

Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come,
For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom,
And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest,
And love is burning diamonds in my true lover’s breast;
She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair,
And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair;
I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest,
And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast.

The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of May,
The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads all day,
And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest
In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon my lover’s breast;
I’ll lean upon her breast and I’ll whisper in her ear
That I cannot get a wink o’sleep for thinking of my dear;
I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away
Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day.

[Harry H Howgill]

I've taken tomorrow off to fully prepare myself for Saturday's rowing and running extravaganza. Tebay is purely the warm up to the main event of the day.

Love the Clare as ever.

Noooooooooooooo! ah well we had better make the most of it by scampering up hills and rowing across lakes a bit then? :-)


Summer
John Clare

Come we to the summer, to the summer we will come,
For the woods are full of bluebells and the hedges full of bloom,
And the crow is on the oak a-building of her nest,
And love is burning diamonds in my true lover’s breast;
She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of her hair,
And I will to my true lover with a fond request repair;
I will look upon her face, I will in her beauty rest,
And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely breast.

The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom of May,
The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads all day,
And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey mossy nest
In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon my lover’s breast;
I’ll lean upon her breast and I’ll whisper in her ear
That I cannot get a wink o’sleep for thinking of my dear;
I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away
Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat of the day.