Today's poet

[Hes]

I think he had an incredible way of creating evocative images and I suspect that in his short lifetime he absorbed more of the world than many people appreciate in five times as many years. I loved this poem when I was younger as it reminded me of the hours I would spend in my local woods digging about in the earth and finding remnants of past lives. I did a painting based on it.

A Tale

There once the walls
Of the ruined cottage stood.
The periwinkle crawls
With flowers in its hair into the wood.

In flowerless hours
Never will the bank fail,
With everlasting flowers
On fragments of blue plates, to tell the tale.

[XRunner]

A news article on the Dark Peak Fell Runners website lead me to the website: Companion Stones

and their modern poems carved on stones and placed in various locations throughout the Peak District.

Here is an example of a poem:

Beeley Moor

Split the block
prize words apart
find poetry carved
in the stones heart
unlock yourself
say ‘here I start

by Noel Conner

[Hes]

That's a good find XRunner. I really like the idea and the website is great. One day I'll have to go and see the stones for real.

A news article on the Dark Peak Fell Runners website lead me to the website: Companion Stones

and their modern poems carved on stones and placed in various locations throughout the Peak District.

Here is an example of a poem:

Beeley Moor

Split the block
prize words apart
find poetry carved
in the stones heart
unlock yourself
say ‘here I start

by Noel Conner

[Harry H Howgill]

A good site XR. Lots of nice little short and sweet poems.

A news article on the Dark Peak Fell Runners website lead me to the website: Companion Stones

and their modern poems carved on stones and placed in various locations throughout the Peak District.

Here is an example of a poem:

Beeley Moor

Split the block
prize words apart
find poetry carved
in the stones heart
unlock yourself
say ‘here I start

by Noel Conner

[Harry H Howgill]

Sad maybe, but beautiful too.

RAIN

Rain, midnight rain, nothing but the wild rain
On this bleak hut, and solitude, and me
Remembering again that I shall die
And neither hear the rain nor give it thanks
For washing me cleaner than I have been
Since I was born into this solitude.
Blessed are the dead that the rain rains upon:
But here I pray that none whom once I loved
Is dying tonight or lying still awake
Solitary, listening to the rain,
Either in pain or thus in sympathy
Helpless among the living and the dead,
Like a cold water among broken reeds,
Myriads of broken reeds all still and stiff,
Like me who have no love which this wild rain
Has not dissolved except the love of death,
If love it be for what is perfect and
Cannot, the tempest tells me, disappoint.

[Alf]

The Word

There are so many things I have forgot,
That once were much to me, or that were not,
All lost, as is a childless woman's child
And its child's children, in the undefiled
Abyss of what can never be again.
I have forgot, too, names of the mighty men
That fought and lost or won in the old wars,
Of kings and fiends and gods, and most of the stars.
Some things I have forgot that I forget.
But lesser things there are, remembered yet,
Than all the others. One name that I have not --
Though 'tis an empty thingless name -- forgot
Never can die because Spring after Spring
Some thrushes learn to say it as they sing.
There is always one at midday saying it clear
And tart -- the name, only the name I hear.
While perhaps I am thinking of the elder scent
That is like food, or while I am content
With the wild rose scent that is like memory,
This name suddenly is cried out to me
From somewhere in the bushes by a bird
Over and over again, a pure thrush word.

Edward Thomas

[Alf]

Weakness

Old mare whose eyes
are like cracked marbles,
drools blood in her mash,
shivers in her jute blanket.

My father hates weakness worse than hail;
in the morning
without haste
he will shoot her in the ear, once,
shovel her under in the north pasture.

Tonight
leaving the stables
he stands his lantern on an overturned water pail,
turns,
cursing her for a bad bargain,
and spreads his coat
carefully over her sick shoulders.

Alden Nowlan

[Alf]

When I was out running today I passed a reservoir and saw a dead Mallard under the ice. Whether he had drowned after being trapped under the ice or had died from some other cause and then been covered by the ice I don't know.

THE WILD DUCK

Twilight. Red in the West.
Dimness. A glow on the wood.
The teams plod home to rest.
The wild duck come to glean.
O souls not understood,
What a wild cry in the pool;
What things have the farm ducks seen
That they cry so--huddle and cry?
Only the soul that goes.
Eager. Eager. Flying.
Over the globe of the moon,
Over the wood that glows.
Wings linked. Necks a-strain,
A rush and a wild crying.

A cry of the long pain
In the reeds of a steel lagoon,
In a land that no man knows.

John Masefield

[Hes]

You've posted some really great poems Alf, thanks! The one about the sick mare was really sad. Poor old mallard, it makes you wonder doesn't it? The idea of it creates a strong image.

When I was out running today I passed a reservoir and saw a dead Mallard under the ice. Whether he had drowned after being trapped under the ice or had died from some other cause and then been covered by the ice I don't know.

THE WILD DUCK

Twilight. Red in the West.
Dimness. A glow on the wood.
The teams plod home to rest.
The wild duck come to glean.
O souls not understood,
What a wild cry in the pool;
What things have the farm ducks seen
That they cry so--huddle and cry?
Only the soul that goes.
Eager. Eager. Flying.
Over the globe of the moon,
Over the wood that glows.
Wings linked. Necks a-strain,
A rush and a wild crying.

A cry of the long pain
In the reeds of a steel lagoon,
In a land that no man knows.

John Masefield

[freckle]

When I was out running today I passed a reservoir and saw a dead Mallard under the ice. Whether he had drowned after being trapped under the ice or had died from some other cause and then been covered by the ice I don't know.

THE WILD DUCK

Twilight. Red in the West.
Dimness. A glow on the wood.
The teams plod home to rest.
The wild duck come to glean.
O souls not understood,
What a wild cry in the pool;
What things have the farm ducks seen
That they cry so--huddle and cry?
Only the soul that goes.
Eager. Eager. Flying.
Over the globe of the moon,
Over the wood that glows.
Wings linked. Necks a-strain,
A rush and a wild crying.

A cry of the long pain
In the reeds of a steel lagoon,
In a land that no man knows.

John Masefield

poor thing..told you january man...its got its fair share of bleak!!!!! some great choices of late alfster

hes....loved the rain poem