Today's poet

[freckle]

bloody good choices SA and Einar....in fact Einar I reckon that last one was very "Friday night"....but hey guess what? Sunday night is the new Friday night in my world (of denial)!

repeat after me..."must go to bed earlier on a sunday, must go to bed earlier on a sunday!".......

The magic lights are still working


The magic lights are still working
At the end of that oh so steep bank
The cats eyes are all of a twinkle
Like eyes of a late blooming romance.


The next really bizarre thing to happen
On the journey back towards the sea
Gene Kelly is on the radio with
“You were meant for me”.


And as if it couldn’t get weirder
Bing Crosby pipes up some sounds
With the old crooners classic
“Love is better the second time around”.


And so I turn in on this clammy night
About as content (nearly) as a person can be
With the sights and sounds of coincidence
And a fatigue which will not see 3!

[Einar]

Freckle you should write a book! Well, that's it, another weekend bites the dust.

[Mossdog]

The last three poems have all been excellent choices. Is there no end? Here's an old one from across the water...

A White Rose

THE red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
O, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.

But I send you a cream-white rosebud
With a flush on its petal tips;
For the love that is purest and sweetest
Has a kiss of desire on the lips

John Boyle O'Reilly

Wow - that's a cracker. Thanks Einar.

[Mossdog]

bloody good choices SA and Einar....in fact Einar I reckon that last one was very "Friday night"....but hey guess what? Sunday night is the new Friday night in my world (of denial)!

repeat after me..."must go to bed earlier on a sunday, must go to bed earlier on a sunday!".......

The magic lights are still working


The magic lights are still working
At the end of that oh so steep bank
The cats eyes are all of a twinkle
Like eyes of a late blooming romance.


The next really bizarre thing to happen
On the journey back towards the sea
Gene Kelly is on the radio with
“You were meant for me”.


And as if it couldn’t get weirder
Bing Crosby pipes up some sounds
With the old crooners classic
“Love is better the second time around”.


And so I turn in on this clammy night
About as content (nearly) as a person can be
With the sights and sounds of coincidence
And a fatigue which will not see 3!

Oh yes. Glad to see you haven't lost any of that ol'magic Frecks - divine.

I can see that you've entered a particularly creative phase at this moment - keep it up gal, these are totally splendid.

[Einar]

Thanks Mossdog. Don't know if I can keep up to the standard on here though, so if I disappear without trace, you'll know why!

[freckle]

Evening all..

Mossy and Einar, you are both too kind...it was just a little slip of a verse! Einar please don't disappear, we are just getting to know you ; -)

well I hope you have all had a lovely day, I am shattered, as weary as a very weary thing with a jolly good reason to be weary....the level of weariness made me think of my mother and a little phrase she would say to me before bed as a child "Sleep perchance to dream"...at the time I thought it was a rather delightful and hopeful thing to think about, i hadn't realised it was a qoute from Hamlet, and that the content of the speech reflected a somewhat tortured theme about the pros and cons of suicide...anyhoo as I drop off tonight I am going to conjure the more positive associations to those few words but here's the original...in all its genius...

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep—
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep—
To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

[OneOffPoet]

It's been nice reading many of the poems on here, but also quite daunting as the quality has been so high. I haven't dared to write anything for a while since my last offering, and life's been a bit up and down (and not just the fellrunning!) but here's something...

Goat

Shaggy, scruffy mountain goat
Mud, shite and skin and hair, his coat
Impervious to Aeolus' blast
Capra's carapace holds fast

Tumult, disorder, rock and scree
is passed, no change in entropy
Nothing disturbed, all stones unturned
No sooner here, he's gone, adjourned

----

It's about someone who runs through the loosest, rockiest stuff and it barely registers (and then I follow and make a racket). He's also, apparently, weatherproof! I decided to write about him as he's returned to safety from some scary, dangerous places recently. It's good to have him back and safe. He's a tough mountain man, a great runner in the rough stuff and about 0.01% different to a Mountain Goat DNA-wise, probably. I've never written about a poem about someone before!

[freckle]

It's been nice reading many of the poems on here, but also quite daunting as the quality has been so high. I haven't dared to write anything for a while since my last offering, and life's been a bit up and down (and not just the fellrunning!) but here's something...

Goat

Shaggy, scruffy mountain goat
Mud, shite and skin and hair, his coat
Impervious to Aeolus' blast
Capra's carapace holds fast

Tumult, disorder, rock and scree
is passed, no change in entropy
Nothing disturbed, all stones unturned
No sooner here, he's gone, adjourned

----

It's about someone who runs through the loosest, rockiest stuff and it barely registers (and then I follow and make a racket). He's also, apparently, weatherproof! I decided to write about him as he's returned to safety from some scary, dangerous places recently. It's good to have him back and safe. He's a tough mountain man, a great runner in the rough stuff and about 0.01% different to a Mountain Goat DNA-wise, probably. I've never written about a poem about someone before!

Absolutely brilliant One Off!!!!!! this is a top notch poem, "no change in entropy" great line....thank you :-)

[Alf]

Evening all..

Mossy and Einar, you are both too kind...it was just a little slip of a verse! Einar please don't disappear, we are just getting to know you ; -)

well I hope you have all had a lovely day, I am shattered, as weary as a very weary thing with a jolly good reason to be weary....the level of weariness made me think of my mother and a little phrase she would say to me before bed as a child "Sleep perchance to dream"...at the time I thought it was a rather delightful and hopeful thing to think about, i hadn't realised it was a qoute from Hamlet, and that the content of the speech reflected a somewhat tortured theme about the pros and cons of suicide...anyhoo as I drop off tonight I am going to conjure the more positive associations to those few words but here's the original...in all its genius...

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them. To die, to sleep—
No more—and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to. 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep—
To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub!
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of disprized love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death
The undiscover'd country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action. Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remembered.

....and the rest is silence ! Good post freckle.

[Mossdog]

Sonnet IX: There where the waves shatter

There where the waves shatter on the restless rocks
the clear light bursts and enacts its rose,
and the sea-circle shrinks to a cluster of buds,
to one drop of blue salt, falling.

O bright magnolia bursting in the foam,
magnetic transient whose death blooms
and vanishes--being, nothingness--forever:
broken salt, dazzling lurch of the sea.

You & I, Love, together we ratify the silence,
while the sea destroys its perpetual statues,
collapses its towers of wild speed and whiteness:

because in the weavings of those invisible fabrics,
galloping water, incessant sand,
we make the only permanent tenderness.

P Neruda