Today's poet

[Alf]

Walking Away

It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day-
A sunny day with the leaves just turning,
The touch-lines new-ruled - since I watched you play
Your first game of football, then, like a satellite
Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away

Behind a scatter of boys. I can see
You walking away from me towards the school
with the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free
Into a wilderness, the gait of one
Who finds no path where the path should be.

That hesitant figure, eddying away
Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,
Has something I never quite grasp to convey
About nature's give-and-take - the small, the scorching
Ordeals which fire one's irresolute clay.

I had worse partings, but none that so
Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly
Saying what God alone could perfectly show-
How selfhood begins with a walking away,
And love is proved in the letting go.

C. Day Lewis

[Hes]

Some great choices as usual Alf and Machgirl. I've been theatening/promising (delete depending on your feelings about MacCaig) to post some Norman MacCaig for a week or so. I liked this:

Portrait

I draw you, so,
in the empty air before me.
The thin line goes unbrokenly
till it joins itself again and completes
the lineaments
of my ungratified desire.

[Hes]

More Norman..

Flirt

Before he met her
he was a fiddle bow
without a fiddle.
Now he's a part
of her string quartet.

[Hes]

I do love this book, there are so many gems. For anyone that's interested, its 'The Poems of Norman MacCaig' edited by Ewan MacCaig. He's written some wonderful poems about birds but I have just read this and like it's magical quality:

Song Without Music

I saw a hind (with time enough to stare).
I saw a trout flip up into the air.
I saw a flower whose name I wished I knew -
Outlined in white and shaded in with blue.

I heard a water sliding over stones.
I heard your voice in its sweet overtones.
I heard your voice, but saw you not at all,
Not even as ghost in the white waterfall.

[Mountain Goatess]

I really like those poems Hes...especially The Portrait. Thanks for those x

[freckle]

Hi everyone ! Hope everyone well , have so many things to things to comment on as a result of my me being preoccupied all week .

First of all ' On the question of Lard said the bard " , I really like the poem Freckle , it made me laugh ! Your kind comments acknowledging my dilemma with smoke alarm the other night and the above mentioned poem , made me feel less alone somehow !

" A farewell To Arms " , really like that Alf , so very sad though ...... haunting almost !
I seem to be magnetically pulled towards poems where ' time ' is the main theme ..... the value of time !

Hes & Mossdog, just to acknowledge your comments re : ' the art ' , thanks !

Harry , just wanted to thankyou for your comments regarding ' Haiku ' ! Although I've always loved poetry , I'm completely out of the loop on anything but the actual poems themselves , so at the risk of sounding mentally challenged I have to admit , had never even heard of ' Haiku ' until you mentioned ! Am now reading up on this though as we speak !


I was actually going to post some of my favourite Oscar Wilde poems , in view of Alf's post ......but decided to save them for another time .

I have a backlog of poems , spanning last 15 years I would like to share .... :0) having never really shared my thoughts on any of them with anyone , so forgive me for any that ones that have been posted before .

This is the first poem , I ever remember trying to learn as a child !


I carry your heart with me by E. E. Cummings


i carry your heart with me , i carry it in my heart
i am never without it ,
anywhere i go, you go , my dear;
and whatever is done
by only me is your doing ,my darling

i fear no fate, for you are my fate, my sweet
i want no world , for beautiful you are my world , my true
and it's you who are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever , a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

I love your enthuasism mach girl, its catching i reckon!

I am a big fan of e e cummings and really adore this poem, not sure if you saw the bb series a couple years ago called "my life in verse" which had various celebrities sharing their favourie poems...well anyhow Robert Webb (comedian from peep show) picked this poem and apparently read it out to his wife on their wedding day (how romantic is that?)

another one of my fave e e cummings poems (not this one as I orginally thought!) is featured in a woody allen film (hannah and her sisters i think) and is read out by michael caine....

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

....i am a huge woody allen fan as well so the two together is just priceless...anyway i am waffling big time!



here is another e e cummings choice...on the innocence of youth...

where are you, little i
(five or six years old)
peering from some high

window; at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling:that if day
has to become night

this is a beautiful way).

[freckle]

Some great choices as usual Alf and Machgirl. I've been theatening/promising (delete depending on your feelings about MacCaig) to post some Norman MacCaig for a week or so. I liked this:

Portrait

I draw you, so,
in the empty air before me.
The thin line goes unbrokenly
till it joins itself again and completes
the lineaments
of my ungratified desire.

This is gorgeous Hes thank you for posting x

Alf-the walking away poem )especially the last two lines) is beautiful but almost quite difficult to read. I can really relate to it, mychildren are so brilliant (albeit tiring!) at their current age i don't really wnt them to grow up but I know that in a blink of an eye they will be 18!

[Mountain Goatess]

This is gorgeous Hes thank you for posting x

Alf-the walking away poem )especially the last two lines) is beautiful but almost quite difficult to read. I can really relate to it, mychildren are so brilliant (albeit tiring!) at their current age i don't really wnt them to grow up but I know that in a blink of an eye they will be 18!

I can really relate to that too Freckle. My lil girl is soooo cute at the moment...I really don't want her to grow up!
It's a while since I posted on here, I've been reading though and there's been some gorgeous posts....hope you all like this little gem...

A MEMORY OF A SEASHELL

I had no past
I had no future
I was always now
rushing to its silent end
sea sheltered salt scented
infatuated murmur
dying in a wave
grain spelled I simply melted
within a sea blue grave
oblivion

Miroslava Odalovic

[freckle]

I can really relate to that too Freckle. My lil girl is soooo cute at the moment...I really don't want her to grow up!
It's a while since I posted on here, I've been reading though and there's been some gorgeous posts....hope you all like this little gem...

A MEMORY OF A SEASHELL

I had no past
I had no future
I was always now
rushing to its silent end
sea sheltered salt scented
infatuated murmur
dying in a wave
grain spelled I simply melted
within a sea blue grave
oblivion

Miroslava Odalovic

this is so elegant, lovely stuff! ....please tell me you are doin simonside, i am so unfit ots untrue but stil going to try and get around, be good to see you there a year on!

[Mountain Goatess]

this is so elegant, lovely stuff! ....please tell me you are doin simonside, i am so unfit ots untrue but stil going to try and get around, be good to see you there a year on!

Awwww I'm not hun....simply because I'm not fit enough!
Would love to do it again...and get some more choccies!! What a fluke that was! :thumbup: Also I am now a Vet Category!!! So I could even be promoted to a bottle of vino :w00t:
Perhaps 2012? x