Today's poet

[XRunner]

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

by A.E. Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

(only another XLI poems to recite from A Shropshire Lad)

[freckle]

To an athlete dying young

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.

Alfred Edward Housman

I sat watching Out of Africa with Stef this afternoon and this is featured in the film. It's the first time I've seen it since its release in 1985 and it was much better than I remembered

this is really moving DT...thanx for posting :-)

[freckle]

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now

by A.E. Housman

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

(only another XLI poems to recite from A Shropshire Lad)

nice choice x runner.....by the same author

XVIII


Oh, when I was in love with you
Then I was clean and brave,
And miles around the wonder grew
How well did I behave.
And now the fancy passes by
And nothing will remain,
And miles around they'll say that
I Am quite myself again.

[Alf]

51.

Today unsuspectingly
I stumbled upon an old race number
Deep in the cavity of last year’s handbag...
In the dried up lipstick and billion receipts
Ah yes, number 51,
I remember you.
A by accident,
A for the very first.
A walk in the rain, not the best race preparation
A whole lot of fear and history in the making
and the ending and the creating.
Number 51,
the random embodiment of
Inevitability, rain, cold, the hills and
You.

I keep finding race numbers, down the sides of my car seats, holding places in my fixtures book or reading book. Some have been reused this time as scrap paper to hold race travel information. I try and remember which race and how I did but often I can't . Its a good subject for a poem

I enjoyed the Housman poems and DTs selection (I like the new avatar by the way DT)


I have just been informed my laptop is being replaced as my manager wants us all to have a better spec one. So I will be saying goodbye to this one in a couple of weeks:


Good little laptop

As your screen began to fade & flicker
And I shut you down & closed your cover
I knew all you needed was a little rest
I am so sorry for putting you to the test
But I cannot get through a day without you
You know how much I need you in all I do
You knew I would just die without your light
Good little laptop you gave me such a fright

Tia Maria

[Alf]

This always reminds me of my next door neighbour who is a bit of a keen mower but there the comparison ends

The Man Into Whose Yard You Should Not Hit Your Ball

each day mowed
and mowed his lawn, his dry quarter acre,
the machine slicing a wisp
from each blade's tip. Dust storms rose
around the roar: 6:00 P.M., every day,
spring, summer, fall. If he could mow
the snow he would.
On one side, his neighbors the cows
turned their backs to him
and did what they do to the grass.
Where he worked, I don't know
but it sets his jaw to: tight.
His wife a cipher, shoebox tissue,
a shattered apron. As if
into her head he drove a wedge of shale.
Years later his daughter goes to jail.

Mow, mow, mow his lawn
gently down a decade's summers.
On his other side lived mine and me,
across a narrow pasture, often fallow;
a field of fly balls, the best part of childhood
and baseball, but one could not cross his line
and if it did,
as one did in 1956
and another in 1958,
it came back coleslaw -- his lawn mower
ate it up, happy
to cut something, no matter
what the manual said
about foreign objects,
stones, or sticks.

Thomas Lux

[Alf]

Don't Let's Talk About Being in Love

Don't let's talk about being in love, OK?
- about me being in love, in fact, OK?
about your bloated face, like a magnolia;
about marsupials,
whose little blunted pouches
I'd like to crawl inside, lips first;
about the crashing of a million waterfalls
- as if LOVE were a dome of glass beneath a lake
entered through a maze of dripping tunnels
I hoped and prayed I'd never be found inside.

At night I dream that your bedroom's crammed with ducks.
You smell of mashed-up meal and scrambled egg.
Some of the ducks are broody, and won't stand up.
And I dream of the fingers of your various wives
reaching into your private parts like beaks.
And you're lying across the bed like a man shouldn't be.
And I'm startled awake by the sound of creaking glass
as if the whole affair's about to collapse
and water come pouring in with a rush of fishes
going slurpetty-slurpetty-slurp with their low-slung mouths

Selima Hill


Or in the words of the Everly Brothers/Nazareth "Love Hurts" !

[freckle]

Don't Let's Talk About Being in Love

Don't let's talk about being in love, OK?
- about me being in love, in fact, OK?
about your bloated face, like a magnolia;
about marsupials,
whose little blunted pouches
I'd like to crawl inside, lips first;
about the crashing of a million waterfalls
- as if LOVE were a dome of glass beneath a lake
entered through a maze of dripping tunnels
I hoped and prayed I'd never be found inside.

At night I dream that your bedroom's crammed with ducks.
You smell of mashed-up meal and scrambled egg.
Some of the ducks are broody, and won't stand up.
And I dream of the fingers of your various wives
reaching into your private parts like beaks.
And you're lying across the bed like a man shouldn't be.
And I'm startled awake by the sound of creaking glass
as if the whole affair's about to collapse
and water come pouring in with a rush of fishes
going slurpetty-slurpetty-slurp with their low-slung mouths

Selima Hill


Or in the words of the Everly Brothers/Nazareth "Love Hurts" !

Oooooo gosh Alf I do like this, very dark and brilliant! the imagery of the waterfalls crashing and passing through a maze of dripping tunnels....then the slupperty slurp fish.....an uncomfortable but brilliant read!

[freckle]

Poem written in the street on a rainy evening
Brain Pattern

Everything I lost was found again.
I tasted wine in my mouth.
My heart was like a firefly; it moved
Through the darkest objects laughing.

There were enough reasons why this was happening
But I never stopped to think about them.
I could have said it was your face,
Could have said I'd drunk something idiotic,

But no one reason was sufficient,
No one reason was relevant;
My joy was gobbled up by dull surroundings
But there was enough of it.

A feast was spread; a world
Was suddenly made edible.
And there was forever to taste it.

[Mountain Goatess]

Poem written in the street on a rainy evening
Brain Pattern

Everything I lost was found again.
I tasted wine in my mouth.
My heart was like a firefly; it moved
Through the darkest objects laughing.

There were enough reasons why this was happening
But I never stopped to think about them.
I could have said it was your face,
Could have said I'd drunk something idiotic,

But no one reason was sufficient,
No one reason was relevant;
My joy was gobbled up by dull surroundings
But there was enough of it.

A feast was spread; a world
Was suddenly made edible.
And there was forever to taste it.

That's lovely Freckle. How are you doing? x

[freckle]

That's lovely Freckle. How are you doing? x

Aw thanx for asking..i am ok surviving! running not so good and life crazy with good and bad bits abound...but overall the future is bright the future is freckled!...sooooooo glad to hear that the MG s on the up, you doin simonside again this year?