Today's poet

[freckle]

271 days

I kissed goodbye to the yellow suit of youth
When the moon and stars did collide
One morning o’er the hilly Georgian pleasure grounds.

Bounding up replete
with a nervous disposition
A sideways glance and wet through
I looked at you and I knew that
Something
Was going to change.

Having taken the disclosing tablet
It was clear that the teeth of my existence
Needed a bit of attention
Else they would be forever stained
With the longing for something different.

And so, pain after pain,
Here we are,
Transported some 271 days
In your kitchen near the forest

Your arms slipped around my waist
I stir the wine as it evaporates
Into the creaminess of a risotto
As you try and resist telling me how to cook!

Momentarily at least, I think
The circle is complete.

[freckle]

Cuttings
by Theodore Roethke

This urge, wrestle, resurrection of dry sticks,
Cut stems struggling to put down feet,
What saint strained so much,
Rose on such lopped limbs to a new life?
I can hear, underground, that sucking and sobbing,
In my veins, in my bones I feel it --
The small waters seeping upward,
The tight grains parting at last.
When sprouts break out,
Slippery as fish,
I quail, lean to beginnings, sheath-wet.

[Alf]

271 days

I kissed goodbye to the yellow suit of youth
When the moon and stars did collide
One morning o’er the hilly Georgian pleasure grounds.

Bounding up replete
with a nervous disposition
A sideways glance and wet through
A looked at you and I knew that
Something
Was going to change.

Having taken the disclosing tablet
It was clear that the teeth of my existence
Needed a bit of attention
Else they would be forever stained
With the longing for something different.

And so, pain after pain,
Here we are,
Transported some 271 days
In your kitchen near the forest

Your arms slipped around my waist
I stir the wine as it evaporates
Into the creaminess of a risotto
As you try and resist telling me how to cook!

Momentarily at least, I think
The circle is complete.

This is very good freckle and a little enigmatic which you have a real talent for.

[freckle]

This is very good freckle and a little enigmatic which you have a real talent for.

You are sweet Alf how did your race go? i have just ran about 16 miles and feel suitably shabby! :-) x

[IanDarkpeak]

You are sweet Alf how did your race go? i have just ran about 16 miles and feel suitably shabby! :-) x

Freckle what has happened to Herakles?? he seems to have fallen off the radar?

[freckle]

Freckle what has happened to Herakles?? he seems to have fallen off the radar?

I am not sure Ian, I PMed him quite some time ago now but didn't receive a reply. Lets hope he is back again soon and is OK. We are also missing NDubya too.

ps i assume you realised he changed his name to Leonidas a while back

[IanDarkpeak]

I am not sure Ian, I PMed him quite some time ago now but didn't receive a reply. Lets hope he is back again soon and is OK. We are also missing NDubya too.

ps i assume you realised he changed his name to Leonidas a while back

I guessed as much.

[Alf]

You are sweet Alf how did your race go? i have just ran about 16 miles and feel suitably shabby! :-) x

Well the distance was only about half what you did so well done

The Turnslack race (for the last couple of years) has one of the most bizarrest finishes on the fell running circuit. It ends by the runners ascending some steps and running up the path finishing just outside the entrance to a church. Sort of a new take on "get me to the church on time"

Its also a bit surreal really with all these runners full of life, pumped up on endorphins and now surrounded by gravestones. I found myself muttering an apology to the occupants of one plot as I used their headstone to prop myself up at the finish.

I like this one

The Cool Web

Children are dumb to say how hot the day is,
How hot the scent is of the summer rose,
How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky,
How dreadful the tall soldiers drumming by,

But we have speech, to chill the angry day,
And speech, to dull the roses's cruel scent,
We spell away the overhanging night,
We spell away the soldiers and the fright.

There's a cool web of language winds us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too much fear:
We grow sea-green at last and coldly die
In brininess and volubility.

But if we let our tongues lose self-possession,
Throwing off language and its watery clasp
Before our death, instead of when death comes,
Facing the wide glare of the children's day,
Facing the rose, the dark sky and the drums,
We shall go mad, no doubt, and die that way.


Robert Graves

[freckle]

Well the distance was only about half what you did so well done

The Turnslack race (for the last couple of years) has one of the most bizarrest finishes on the fell running circuit. It ends by the runners ascending some steps and running up the path finishing just outside the entrance to a church. Sort of a new take on "get me to the church on time"

Its also a bit surreal really with all these runners full of life, pumped up on endorphins and now surrounded by gravestones. I found myself muttering an apology to the occupants of one plot as I used their headstone to prop myself up at the finish.

I like this one

The Cool Web

Children are dumb to say how hot the day is,
How hot the scent is of the summer rose,
How dreadful the black wastes of evening sky,
How dreadful the tall soldiers drumming by,

But we have speech, to chill the angry day,
And speech, to dull the roses's cruel scent,
We spell away the overhanging night,
We spell away the soldiers and the fright.

There's a cool web of language winds us in,
Retreat from too much joy or too much fear:
We grow sea-green at last and coldly die
In brininess and volubility.

But if we let our tongues lose self-possession,
Throwing off language and its watery clasp
Before our death, instead of when death comes,
Facing the wide glare of the children's day,
Facing the rose, the dark sky and the drums,
We shall go mad, no doubt, and die that way.


Robert Graves

That sounds a pretty awesome race and I love your description of it which conjures up some fantastic imagery! :wink:

This poem is really wonderful, it made me think about how important language is in expressing, transforming and moderating our emotions and how we can take it for granted in every day life, but imagine where we would be without it?....a humbling thought....

[freckle]

Simon Armitage completes his final leg of the Pennine Way today, from Crowden to Edale, reaching his home tonight...I would imagine by now he is feeling very tired and emotional...here is one of the poems he read at the Dufton gig...he noted in his preamble that the dogs in this poem could be thought of as a metaphor for those things in life (or yourself) which you might seek to escape but keep returning!


Before You Cut Loose,

put dogs on the list
of difficult things to lose. Those dogs ditched
on the North York Moors or the Sussex Downs
or hurled like bags of sand from rented cars
have followed their noses to market towns
and bounced like balls into their owners' arms.
I heard one story of a dog that swam
to the English coast from the Isle of Man,
and a dog that carried eggs and bacon
and a morning paper from the village
surfaced umpteen leagues and two years later,
bacon eaten but the eggs unbroken,
newsprint dry as tinder, to the letter.
A dog might wander the width of the map
to bury its head in its owner's lap,
crawl the last mile to dab a bleeding paw
against its own front door. To die at home,
a dog might walk its four legs to the bone.
You can take off the tag and the collar
but a dog wears one coat and one colour.
A dog got rid of--that's a dog for life.
No dog howls like a dog kicked out at night.
Try looking a dog like that in the eye.