Today's poet

[Harry H Howgill]

This could have been about me this morning as I lay like a dormouse not wanting to get up! (another Housman)

XI

Yonder see the morning blink:
The sun is up, and up must I,
To wash and dress and eat and drink
And look at things and talk and think
And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed
And what's to show for all my pain?
Let me lie abed and rest:
Ten thousand times I've done my best
And all's to do again.

That reminded me of this. I know it doesn't quite work if you are self-employed, but hey ho. :-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lB2G...eature=related

Six in the morning don’t want to wake
Sun laying low and the world sleeping late
Hate like the river runs heavy and deep
Oh I wish that they’d sack me and leave me to sleep

Five days from seven the week’s hardly mine
The alarm clock’s gone over to enemy lines
Waste my time working for cowards and creeps
Oh I wish that they’d sack me and leave me to sleep

Rain strikes the window heralds the day
Rain won’t you wash these eight hours away?
Rain feeds the river runs heavy and deep
Oh I wish that they’d sack me and leave me to sleep

Birds on the windowsill sing in the dawn
By the time that I’m home all this day will be gone
Spend my life sowing what others will reap
Oh I wish that they’d sack me and leave me to sleep

Rain strikes the window heralds the day
Rain won’t you wash these eight hours away?
Rain feeds the river runs heavy and deep
Oh I wish that they’d sack me and leave me to sleep.

[XRunner]

Fell Runners

I took her for my kind of person
And it was something of a shock
When my new friend revealed
That, once upon a time,
She was a fell running Champion.

How could that happen?
How could I accidentally
Make friends with a fell runner?
How could a fell runner
Make friends with me?

Fell runners can be OK –
Of course they can.
Later on, I met fell poets
Who ran on fells. It's still hard
To get my head round that.

(With thanks to Wendy Cope for inspiration)

[Harry H Howgill]

Ha ha. I'm sure it is what Wendy would have wanted.

Fell Runners

I took her for my kind of person
And it was something of a shock
When my new friend revealed
That, once upon a time,
She was a fell running Champion.

How could that happen?
How could I accidentally
Make friends with a fell runner?
How could a fell runner
Make friends with me?

Fell runners can be OK –
Of course they can.
Later on, I met fell poets
Who ran on fells. It's still hard
To get my head round that.

(With thanks to Wendy Cope for inspiration)

[freckle]

This could have been about me this morning as I lay like a dormouse not wanting to get up! (another Housman)

XI

Yonder see the morning blink:
The sun is up, and up must I,
To wash and dress and eat and drink
And look at things and talk and think
And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed
And what's to show for all my pain?
Let me lie abed and rest:
Ten thousand times I've done my best
And all's to do again.

Evening all...

I loved this Hes, know the feeling!

Ian- i do hope that you are better now!

I was reminded of this poem today....

Love After Love
Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

[stevefoster]

I'm back like the preverbial bad penny

Man Flu

Feeling blue, caught the flu, head like glue, what to do.
Feel the chill, feel quite ill, take a pill
Bed is best, have a rest, what a pest
Miss the game, what a shame.

Can’t watch telly, aching belly, feet are smelly, ate some jelly
Made me worse, what a curse, throat like furze.
Drank some coke, what a joke, made me choke
Feel so weak, can hardly speak.

Think I’m dying, feel like crying, friends are sighing. WIFE”S not buying
“Stop the moaning, give up groaning, no more conning,
Just be glad, you’re not as bad, as poor old Brad,
He’s got piles." Hides her smiles

Counted sheep, fell asleep, in a heap, nice and deep.
Woke up fine, after nine, drank some wine,
What a day, I have to say, come what may,
I’m still alive, I’ll survive.

Margaret Foster

Think my Auntie Margaret's taking the mick, she's never been close to manflu

[stevefoster]

This could have been about me this morning as I lay like a dormouse not wanting to get up! (another Housman)

XI

Yonder see the morning blink:
The sun is up, and up must I,
To wash and dress and eat and drink
And look at things and talk and think
And work, and God knows why.

Oh often have I washed and dressed
And what's to show for all my pain?
Let me lie abed and rest:
Ten thousand times I've done my best
And all's to do again.

Like that Hes, know the feeling well!

[Solomon]

A little bit more from Housman.

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market place;
Man and boy stood cheering by
And home we brought you shoulder high
To-day, the road all runners come
Shoulder high we bring you home
And set you at your threshold down
Townsmen of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set before the echoes fade
The fleet foot on the sill of shade
And hold to the low lintel up
The still defended challenge cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's

[XRunner]

I'm back with Man Flu

Here is a variant edition of Man Flu from last year.

[Alf]

A little bit more from Housman.

The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market place;
Man and boy stood cheering by
And home we brought you shoulder high
To-day, the road all runners come
Shoulder high we bring you home
And set you at your threshold down
Townsmen of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears.

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.

So set before the echoes fade
The fleet foot on the sill of shade
And hold to the low lintel up
The still defended challenge cup.

And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's

You can never have enough of Housman

[Alf]

Evening all...

I loved this Hes, know the feeling!

Ian- i do hope that you are better now!

I was reminded of this poem today....

Love After Love
Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Good choice freckle. It reminds me of another poem which I am now trying to remember. I think its about fish