Today's poet

[Alf]

this is to redress the balance a bit vis a vis the "today's bollock scratching thread!" .......
no doubt all of this will go down like a lead balloon, oh well...sod it!

And with these simple but very memorable words the thread was started

For freckle

The Lady of the Poets

O Lady of the lonely and unloved,
You are unmoved
By the lean anguish of a poet's cry -
You have heard so many greater than I.

You I have long known
In tree and stone
And in all sealed tongues
Of sympathy. How many songs
Of secret self have you heard -
Pitiful prayers that dared
Not turn to High
Heaven for mercy?

You have listened to the great,
And yet you wait
To comfort me
In my lone house of poetry.

Patrick Kavanagh

[Hes]

Sounds like a boyfriend I had once.....only joking.....I don't think he had a dog costume

In the spirit of the thread. Here's not a poem...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2TuohSsw4k

I’m a loner alone with neuroses and hate
Anger is a permanent character trait
My letter bombs are primed and ready to send
Would you like to add me as a friend?
I’m a wound-up whiner with a fetish for guns
I’m almost 50 and I live with my Mum
I hope my nude picture doesn’t offend
Would you like to add me as a friend?

Add me. Add me
Me Mum says she wished she’d never had me
Add me. Add me
Would you like to add me as a friend?

I’m a recovering alcoholic I rarely leave my room
Peeping through the curtains in my dog costume
The voices in my head aah they’ll get me in the end
Would you like to add me as a friend?
I’d really like to mail you the picture that I drew
It’s Kylie’s body but the head is you
I’ve asked you fifty times before I’m asking you again –
Would you like to add me as a friend?

Add me. Add me
Me Mum says she wished she’d never had me
Add me. Add me
Would you like to add me as a friend?

Here’s a picture of me in my Nazi uniform
doing a trick with an egg that I like to perform
at a monster truck rally that my Mum and me attend
Would you like to add me as a friend?

I’ve added Britney and Paris and you and Tom
I’m going to find your address so I can visit you at home
I don’t like people but I like to pretend
Would you like to add me as a friend?
Add me. Add me
Me Mum says she wished she’d never had me
Add me. Add me
Would you like to add me as a friend?

[Hes]

Good call HHH, that has to be one of the highlights of the year. I was listening to SA today on Iplayer, talking to Radcliffe & Macconie about his Pennine adventure. He didn't mention the fell poets but I am sure he was thinking of us.

Blimey! A great summary. What a busy time it has been. How different would things have been if that first speculative post had never been posted. I can certainly tick a few of those boxes. The top emotional moment highlight for me must be the meeting of Simon Armitage up that stormyy hill. The change from dispondancy, to utter relief in the space of about 10 yards.

[Harry H Howgill]

Good call HHH, that has to be one of the highlights of the year. I was listening to SA today on Iplayer, talking to Radcliffe & Macconie about his Pennine adventure. He didn't mention the fell poets but I am sure he was thinking of us.

I can't wait to see his book. Hopefully we'll get a mention.

[Old Whippet]

back from afar just in time to wish all fell poets a happy birthday. Some cracking stuff tonight and reflections that made me smile inwardly and outwardly.
This was my first contribution. A poem that beguiled me as a teenager, and I can still fantasize over the scene unfolding somewhere near Sprinkling Tarn as I drop to the grass exhausted. And a poem that exploded like a grenade in my life 30+ years on......

Original version of La Belle Dame Sans Merci, 1819

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

Oh what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.

I see a lily on thy brow,
With anguish moist and fever-dew,
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too.

I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful - a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She looked at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.

I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long,
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.

She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild, and manna-dew,
And sure in language strange she said -
'I love thee true'.

She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sighed full sore,
And there I shut her wild wild eyes
With kisses four.

And there she lulled me asleep
And there I dreamed - Ah! woe betide! -
The latest dream I ever dreamt
On the cold hill side.

I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried - 'La Belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'

I saw their starved lips in the gloam,
With horrid warning gaped wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
On the cold hill's side.

And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is withered from the lake,
And no birds sing.

I do hope we'll all still be hanging around here in a years time.
x

[freckle]

I am late to the thread...having had a really hectic day for one reason or another, not least because the trials, tribulations and dreams of the last year may be coming to a fruitful conclusion (fingers crossed)......but oh my gosh I feel so moved by all of the wonderful choices and thoughts regarding the first anniversary of the thread, as usual the choices and writing made my feel so many different emotions...

Mossy- I was particularly pleased to read the e e cummings post- I loved the image of brushing "the mischief from her eyes.... and fold(ing) her mouth, the new flower with thy unimagineable wings, where dwells the breath of all persisting stars"- I hadn't realised quite how much I had missed cummings until I read your contribution...

Alf- I loved your latest choice just fab! and isn't it so typical that i would mark the start of something so momentous with reference to "bo****ks".....

Hes I couldn't agree more with your synopsis of the thread...there have been so many wonderful pieces of work, it has been fab to be introduced to new poets and also to read some utterly inspiring orginal work.....(within the context of our ever evolving emotional worlds!!!!)

Harry I agree that meeting Simon Armitage was pretty special and a large part of that was down to your hard work!

some fab choices and haiku from DT, MG and X Runner....(your adaptation took me right back!!!!!!!)

Well not sure what else to say, except a big fat THANK YOU...

oh and here's my final choice tonight....dedicated to one particular victim of poetry carnage.......lets hope this year's a little more on the mundane side eh?.... well not TOO mundane........


A NIGHT IN

Darling, tonight I want to celebrate
not your birthday, no, nor mine.
It's not the anniversary of when we met,
first went to bed or got married, and the wine
is supermarket plonk. I'm just about to grate
rat-trap cheddar on the veggie bake that'll do us fine.

But it's far from the feast that -- knowing you'll be soon,
and suddenly so glad to just be me and here,
now, in our bright kitchen -- I wish I'd stopped and gone
and shopped for, planned and savoured earlier.
Come home! It's been a long day. Now the perfect moon
through our high windows rises round and clear.

x


Liz Lochhead

[Derby Tup]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=min5Wrw1eV4

Coney Island by Van Morrison. Not sure if it qualifies as poetry but it's certainly poetic

[Alf]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=min5Wrw1eV4

Coney Island by Van Morrison. Not sure if it qualifies as poetry but it's certainly poetic

I have always liked that track DT. Thanks for posting it.

[Alf]

Sympathy

I know what the caged bird feels, alas!
When the sun is bright on the upland slopes;
When the wind stirs soft through the springing grass,
And the river flows like a stream of glass;
When the first bird sings and the first bud opes,
And the faint perfume from its chalice steals –
I know what the caged bird feels!

I know why the caged bird beats his wing
Till its blood is red on the cruel bars;
For he must fly back to his perch and cling
When he fain would be on the bough a-swing;
And a pain still throbs in the old, old scars
And they pulse again with a keener sting –
I know why he beats his wing!

I know why the caged bird sings, ah me,
When his wing is bruised and his bosom sore, –
When he beats his bars and he would be free;
It is not a carol of joy or glee,
But a prayer that he sends from his heart's deep core,
But a plea, that upward to Heaven he flings –
I know why the caged bird sings!

Laurence Dunbar

(Maya Angelou used "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" for the title of her autobiography)

[freckle]

(Maya Angelou used "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" for the title of her autobiography) ...now thats a book I would like to read, is it good? thank you for the poem its gorgeous :-)