Today's poet

[freckle]

ohhh, came across the above poet on Words and Music Radio 3 Iplayer. Then discovered this:

Persephone at the Farmer's Market

Even now, I cannot lose the memory of scent.
It leads me to pomegranates, halved, lying on a table,
the globes of puckered skin are red as my own lips.
This is the season of abduction — fruit pulled
from branches and vines. The dense perfumes
of fresh jams and pies slice the slow dawn.
The maples and oaks turn thin and gray
with their testimony of bruised and bloodied leaves.
Drawn to the sanguine, tart sweet, ripe aroma,
hundreds of lusting eyes, I touch the dark
texture and remember my love's rough hands,
the frantic tear and pull of desire.
I hand my money to the farm boy, grab
the pomegranate —no, I don't need a bag—
and rush away to home. Pulling it apart,
the ruby juice bleeding out on my fingers and dress,
I close my lips around the flesh
and dream of the man my husband used to be.

J.P.Dancing Bear

Gosh.....

Well, my lord, this is really something! Welcome back Hes, I enjoyed your haiku very much. Sounds like you have your work cut out for you now! Good luck with the exhibition :-)

[freckle]

How's mini freckle getting on? is she up and around showing off her wounds to her friends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nql1_RKwQt0

Stay close to Mum and do what she says is the moral of the story

Aw thanks Alf this brought a smile to my face when I watched this morning eating my brekkie...the little un seems fine now thank you just a minor scrape but one that required stitches of a sort! Some fine choices by you and the tupster nice to see the thread lively :-)

[XRunner]

Here is a poem to warm yourself before another day of hill running in Scotland (by Robert Bird):

Scotch Porridge

Ower Scotland's corn the laverocks whustle,
Amang the rigs the corncraiks rustle,
Frae gowden taps the millstanes jostle
And hoop wi' health,
Auld Scotland's cog o' grit an' gristle -
A nation's wealth.

Ye wha wad ken life's pleasures sweet,
Wad haud the doctor in the street,
Wad mak' the tichtest twa en's meet
Whan scant o' siller,
Taste parritch fine! and thy glad feet
Will chase the miller.

In boilin' water, salted weel,
'Tween fingers rins the ruchsome meal,
While the brisk spurtle gars them wheel
In jaups an' rings -
Ae guid half-hour, syne bowls may reel
Wi' food for kings.

Nae butter, syrup, sugar brown,
For him wha sups, shall creesh thy crown,
But milk alane, maun isle thee roun',
Till thou dost soom,
Then a' man needs is ae lang spoon
And elbow room.

Gie France her puddocks and ragouts,
Gie England puddings, beefs, and stews,
Gie Ireland taties, shamrocks, soos,
And land sae bogie,
True Scotsmen still will scaud their mou's
Ower Scotland's cogie.

Puir parritch! here thou'rt scant respeckit,
For frizzled fare, thou'rt aft negleckit;
But Grecian Sparta sune was wreckit
'Mang drinkin' horns,
And Scotia's thristle may be sneckit
Whan thee she scorns.

But, mark the Scot ayont the sea
Welcome his meal, wi' dewy e'e,
He gars the first made parritch flee
Frae oot the dish,
While, that his pock ne'er toom may be,
Is a' his wish.

Proud Scotland's sons, o' hill and glen,
Ha'e round the world frae en' tae en'
Wi' doughty deeds o' tongue and pen,
Coal, steam, and steel -
O! what has made those mighty men,
But Scotland's meal?

On Bannockburn, and freedom's day,
When Britons met in war's array,
E'en though the Northmen knelt to say
Their creed or carritch,
What made the differ' in that fray
Was Scotland's parritch.

For makin' flesh and buildin' banes,
There ne'er was siccan food for weans,
It knits their muscles steeve as stanes,
And teuch as brasses;
Fills hooses fu' o' boys wi' brains,
And rosy lassies.

My blessing on the dusty miller
Wha gi'es me gowden health for siller!
My blessing on each honest tiller,
Wha breaks the clod,
And gars green corn, Death's foe and killer,
Spring frae the sod!

[freckle]

That is a really interesting choice X Runner....nice one !

[freckle]

I can't cut and paste this poem...but it is well worth the click...


http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetrya...o?poemId=12415

[freckle]

Listening to raised voices
What my parents never realized
Was, that every night
When I had “gone to bed”
I would listen at the top of the stairs
To the raised voices about nothing
And everything.
I didn’t know it then,
but they were sounds
Of relentless emptiness,
of a couple trapped by decency,
economy and “Keeping Up Appearances”.
Of not knowing what was possible
Or daring to dream.
How arrogant to think
That the timeless part of my brain
Populated by these figures of the past
Would not re-enact
A version of their puppet show
And lead to a similar fate
Only this time
By virtue of luck, love
and a generational shift
The strings have been cut.
There will be the sting of separation
but not...
Listening to raised voices.

[Alf]

Listening to raised voices
What my parents never realized
Was, that every night
When I had “gone to bed”
I would listen at the top of the stairs
To the raised voices about nothing
And everything.
I didn’t know it then,
but they were sounds
Of relentless emptiness,
of a couple trapped by decency,
economy and “Keeping Up Appearances”.
Of not knowing what was possible
Or daring to dream.
How arrogant to think
That the timeless part of my brain
Populated by these figures of the past
Would not re-enact
A version of their puppet show
And lead to a similar fate
Only this time
By virtue of luck, love
and a generational shift
The strings have been cut.
There will be the sting of separation
but not...
Listening to raised voices.

Very good poem again freckle

[freckle]

Cotton Grass
Simon Armitage

Hand-maiden, humble courtiers,
yes-men in silver wigs,
they stoop at the path's edge,
bend low to the emperor's feet,
to the military parade
of boots and sticks.

Then its back to work,
to the acid acres,
to wade barefoot through
water logged peat,
trawling the mist,
carding the air
for threads of sheep wool
snagged on the breeze,

letting time blaze through their
ageless hair like the wind.

according to the Sunday Times News Review this poem was composed by Simon whilst walking the Pennine way. (21st August 10)

[freckle]

For those of you with easy access to the lakes and an interest in poetry...

poetry reading this tuesday and list of events...

http://www.wordsworth.org.uk/events/...asp?pageid=316

[Alf]

Cotton Grass
Simon Armitage

Hand-maiden, humble courtiers,
yes-men in silver wigs,
they stoop at the path's edge,
bend low to the emperor's feet,
to the military parade
of boots and sticks.

Then its back to work,
to the acid acres,
to wade barefoot through
water logged peat,
trawling the mist,
carding the air
for threads of sheep wool
snagged on the breeze,

letting time blaze through their
ageless hair like the wind.

according to the Sunday Times News Review this poem was composed by Simon whilst walking the Pennine way. (21st August 10)

Hand-maiden, humble courtiers, ? No surely not :wink:



The Sea-Limits

Consider the sea's listless chime:
Time's self it is, made audible,--
The murmur of the earth's own shell.
Secret continuance sublime
Is the sea's end: our sight may pass
No furlong farther. Since time was,
This sound hath told the lapse of time.

No quiet, which is death's,--it hath
The mournfulness of ancient life,
Enduring always at dull strife.
As the world's heart of rest and wrath,
Its painful pulse is in the sands.
Last utterly, the whole sky stands,
Grey and not known, along its path.

Listen alone beside the sea,
Listen alone among the woods;
Those voices of twin solitudes
Shall have one sound alike to thee:
Hark where the murmurs of thronged men
Surge and sink back and surge again,--
Still the one voice of wave and tree.

Gather a shell from the strown beach
And listen at its lips: they sigh
The same desire and mystery,
The echo of the whole sea's speech
And all mankind is thus at heart
Not anything but what thou art:
And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each.

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

I found a reference to a TV series 'Desperate Romantics' covering the lives of Rossetti (as an artist) and the other pre-Raphaelites which was on last year and passed me right by at the time but I managed to find an episode the other day and it looks quite good so I will try and find the rest of the episodes now.