Today's poet

[Hes]

:thumbup: cheers Mossy!

spring has sprung
the grass is ris
I wonder where the birdies is
the birdies on the wing
but that's absurd
I always thought the wing
was on the bird

(from memory so probably wrong but it makes me laugh anyway!)

go Hes-power go!!

[Alf]

April

The sweetest thing, I thought
At one time, between earth and heaven
Was the first smile
When mist has been forgiven
And the sun has stolen out,
Peered, and resolved to shine at seven
On dabbled lengthening grasses,
Thick primroses and early leaves uneven,
When earth's breath, warm and humid, far surpasses
The richest oven's, and loudly rings 'cuckoo'
And sharply the nightingale's 'tsoo, tsoo, tsoo, tsoo':
To say 'God bless it' was all that I could do.

But now I know one sweeter
By far since the day Emily
Turned weeping back
To me, still happy me,
To ask forgiveness, -
Yet smiled with half a certainty
To be forgiven, - for what
She had never done; I knew not what it might be,
Nor could she tell me, having now forgot,
By rapture carried with me past all care
As to an isle in April lovelier
Than April's self. 'God bless you' I said to her.

Edward Thomas

[Hes]

Lovely choice Alf.

April

The sweetest thing, I thought
At one time, between earth and heaven
Was the first smile
When mist has been forgiven
And the sun has stolen out,
Peered, and resolved to shine at seven
On dabbled lengthening grasses,
Thick primroses and early leaves uneven,
When earth's breath, warm and humid, far surpasses
The richest oven's, and loudly rings 'cuckoo'
And sharply the nightingale's 'tsoo, tsoo, tsoo, tsoo':
To say 'God bless it' was all that I could do.

But now I know one sweeter
By far since the day Emily
Turned weeping back
To me, still happy me,
To ask forgiveness, -
Yet smiled with half a certainty
To be forgiven, - for what
She had never done; I knew not what it might be,
Nor could she tell me, having now forgot,
By rapture carried with me past all care
As to an isle in April lovelier
Than April's self. 'God bless you' I said to her.

Edward Thomas

[freckle]

Indeed a lovely choice Alf, I have really enjoyed all of the Spring inspired verse...

and now for something completely different...I have been looking up the poems of Anne Sexton, a contemporary of Slyvia Plath I believe and one who suffered the same sad fate...i really liked this poem which I thought gave a powerful insight into what it might be like to be in a psychiatric ward in the 1960s...ish

Anne Sexton - Lullaby

It is a summer evening.
The yellow moths sag
against the locked screens
and the faded curtains
suck over the window sills
and from another building
a goat calls in his dreams.

This is the TV parlor
in the best ward at Bedlam.
The night nurse is passing
out the evening pills.
She walks on two erasers,
padding by us one by one.
MY sleeping pill is white.
It is a splendid pearl;
it floats me out of myself,
my stung skin as alien
as a loose bolt of cloth.

I will ignore the bed.
I am linen on a shelf.
Let the others moan in secret;
let each lost butterfly go home.
Old woolen head,
take me like a yellow moth
while the goat calls hush-a-bye.

[freckle]

Late Fragment
Raymond Carver

And did you get what
you wanted from this life,even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

[Hes]

Ohh I had forgotten all about this Freckle and I love it. Thanks. I was interested in the Anne Sexton poem too.

Late Fragment
Raymond Carver

And did you get what
you wanted from this life,even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

[Hes]

Barn Owl

heart faced and silent
fluttering above its prey
the ghost hunter waits

[Hes]

Happy the Man

Happy the man, and happy he alone,
He who can call today his own:
He who, secure within, can say,
Tomorrow do thy worst, for I have lived today.
Be fair or foul or rain or shine
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate, are mine.
Not Heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been, has been, and I have had my hour.

John Dryden

[stevefoster]

Barn Owl

heart faced and silent
fluttering above its prey
the ghost hunter waits

Like that, makes me glad i'm not a vole

[freckle]

Barn Owl

heart faced and silent
fluttering above its prey
the ghost hunter waits

gorgeous Hes!!!!!!

night all x