Today's poet

[Alf]

all which isn't singing is mere talking

all which isn't singing is mere talking
and all talking's talking to oneself
(whether that oneself be sought or seeking
master or disciple sheep or wolf)

gush to it as diety or devil
-toss in sobs and reasons threats and smiles
name it cruel fair or blessed evil-
it is you (ne i)nobody else

drive dumb mankind dizzy with haranguing
-you are deafened every mother's son-
all is merely talk which isn't singing
and all talking's to oneself alone

but the very song of(as mountains
feel and lovers)singing is silence

e.e. cummings

Nice selection Mossy

[Alf]

"MCMXIV"


Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day;

And the countryside not caring
The place-names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheats' restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word--the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

Philip Larkin

[L.F.F.]

Philip Larkin... another of my favourite poets. Nice to start the day with one of his poems. Good choice Alf!

[freckle]

I enjoyed that one freckle. Are you moving far ?

just around the corner...but miles away :closed:

here is a poem from a 2ww poet...quite stunning i think

How To Kill
Keith Douglas

Under the parabola of a ball,
a child turning into a man,
I looked into the air too long.
The ball fell in my hand,
it sang in the closed fist: Open Open
Behold a gift designed to kill.

Now in my dial of glass appears
the soldier who is going to die.
He smiles, and moves about in ways
his mother knows, habits of his.
The wires touch his face: I cry NOW.

Death, like a familiar, hears
And look, has made a man of dust
of a man of flesh. This sorcery I do.
Being damned, I am amused
to see the centre of love diffused
and the wave of love travel into vacancy.

How easy it is to make a ghost.
The weightless mosquito touches
her tiny shadow on the stone,
and with how like, how infinite
a lightness, man and shadow meet.
They fuse.
A shadow is a man
when the mosquito death approaches

I heard a really interesting fact on radio 5 yesterday (on the Richard Bacon show) that there were more soldiers committed suicide in the years following the falklands war than had actually died in combat, a very sad fact and food for thought.

[Stef F]

I found this; thought you might like it

Souls And Rain-Drops by Sidney Lanier

Light rain-drops fall and wrinkle the sea,
Then vanish, and die utterly.
One would not know that rain-drops fell
If the round sea-wrinkles did not tell.

So souls come down and wrinkle life
And vanish in the flesh-sea strife.
One might not know that souls had place
Were't not for the wrinkles in life's face.

[Mountain Goatess]

In Flanders Field

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae

[Mountain Goatess]

I found this; thought you might like it

Souls And Rain-Drops by Sidney Lanier

Light rain-drops fall and wrinkle the sea,
Then vanish, and die utterly.
One would not know that rain-drops fell
If the round sea-wrinkles did not tell.

So souls come down and wrinkle life
And vanish in the flesh-sea strife.
One might not know that souls had place
Were't not for the wrinkles in life's face.

That's really lovely Stef x

[Stef F]

Special
Birthday wishes
For the Mountain Goatess
Forty days passed to make her vet
God bless

[Mountain Goatess]

Special
Birthday wishes
For the Mountain Goatess
Forty YEARS passed to make her vet
God bless

Awwwww bless you Stef :love:

[XRunner]

The Faulty Bagnose

Softly, softly, treads the Mungle
Thinner thorn behaviour street.
Whorg canteel whorth bee asbin?
Cam we so all complete,
With all our faulty bagnose?

The Mungle family pilgriffs far awoy
Religeorge too thee worled.
Sam fells on the waysock-side
And somforbe on a gurled,
With all her faulty bagnose!

Our bungle speaks tonife at eight
He tell us wop to doo
And bless us cotten sods again
Oamnipple to our jew
(With all their faulty bagnose).

Bless our gurlished wramfeed
Me cursed cafe kname
And bless thee loaf he eating
With he golden teeth aflame
Give us OUR faulty bagnose!

Good Mungle blaith our meathalls
Woof mebble morn so green the wheel
Staggaboon undie some grapeload
To get a little feel
of my own faulty bagnose.

Is not OUR faulty bagnose now
Full lust and dirty hand
Whitehall the treble Mungle speak
We might as wealth be the band
Including your faulty bagnose

Give us thisbe our daily tit
Good Mungle on yer travelled
A goat of many coloureds
Wiberneath all beneath unravelled
And not so MUCH OF YER FAULTY BAGNOSE!

(by John Lennon):w00t: