Today's poet

[Hes]

On a different note:

raindrop encrusted
once invisible cobwebs
grace the bloomless gorse

[Hes]

Love it DT!!!

inky black corvids
wheel, arcing overhead
paired for life

[Derby Tup]

raindrop encrusted
once invisible cobwebs
grace the bloomless gorse

Lovely Hes

How's your curlew project progressing?

[freckle]

some beautifully sad and evocative poetry tonight from one and all and some top notch haiku from the masters tonight....which i will name "melancholy night" and by some strange coincidence I am drinking a rather large G and T ( to celebrate the end of a major piece of work today) .....i'll be weeping soon...but hey thats cool!

[freckle]

for jo shapcott fans check out the podcast on this website, an interesting insight into how the poet writes..

http://www.faber.co.uk/author/jo-shapcott/

[Einar]

Really wonderful stuff on here tonight, from all of you. Alf's choice - top notch. Hope you like this Freckle, DT and Hes. It's kind of melancholy.

Rain

I love all films that start with rain:
rain, braiding a windowpane
or darkening a hung-out dress
or streaming down her upturned face;

one big thundering downpour
right through the empty script and score
before the act, before the blame,
before the lens pulls through the frame

to where the woman sits alone
beside a silent telephone
or the dress lies ruined on the grass
or the girl walks off the overpass,

and all things flow out from that source
along their fatal watercourse.
However bad or overlong
such a film can do no wrong,

so when his native twang shows through
or when the boom dips into view
or when her speech starts to betray
its adaptation from the play,

I think to when we opened cold
on a starlit gutter, running gold
with the neon of a drugstore sign
and I'd read into its blazing line:

forget the ink, the milk, the blood –
all was washed clean with the flood
we rose up from the falling waters
the fallen rain's own sons and daughters

and none of this, none of this matters.

Don Paterson

[Alf]

this is so very moving Alf.......brought a tear to my eye, thank you for posting

I think it might be a metaphor for our own "journeys in the dark" in life and the decisions we take.

I did find the comparison of the car and the dead deer with the fawn inside very poignant "under the hood purred the steady engine"

Anyway something a bit lighter from Jo Shapcott

Lies

In reality, sheep are brave, enlightened
and sassy. They are walking clouds
and like clouds have forgotten
how to jump. As lambs they knew.
Lambs jump because in their innocence
they still find grass exciting.
Some turf is better for tiptoeing
say lambs. Springy meadows
have curves which invite fits
of bouncing and heel-kicking
to turn flocks of lambs
into demented white spuds boiling in the pot.
Then there is a French style of being a lamb
which involves show and a special touch
at angling the bucking legs. Watch carefully
next time: Lambs love to demonstrate -
you wont have to inveigle.
Eventually, of course, lambs grow trousers
and a blast of wool
which keeps them anchored to the sward.
Then grass is first and foremost
savoury, not palatable.
I prefer the grown sheep: even when damp
she is brave, enlightened and sassy,
her eye a kaleidoscope of hail and farewell,
her tail her most eloquent organ of gesture.
When she speaks, it is to tell me
that she is under a spell, polluted.
Her footwear has been stolen
and the earth rots her feet.
In reality she walks across the sky
upside down in special pumps.

I love that line "into demented white spuds boiling in the pot."

[Mossdog]

On a different note:

raindrop encrusted
once invisible cobwebs
grace the bloomless gorse

That's a lovely autumnal haiku Hes, and again, so well observed. I think there's an old saying which goes something like....'the kissing will stop when the gorse stops flowering...' meaning never!

[Derby Tup]

That's a lovely autumnal haiku Hes, and again, so well observed. I think there's an old saying which goes something like....'the kissing will stop when the gorse stops flowering...' meaning never!

A friend of mine used to say her mother and father joked often that when the gorse was in bloom it was 'kissing time'. They were happily married for many many years :love:

[IanDarkpeak]

Rab Mountains conquered
Though bitter was the night
Joy at the finish