Today's poet

[Alf]

Lights Out

I have come to the borders of sleep,
The unfathomable deep
Forest where all must lose
Their way, however straight,
Or winding, soon or late;
They cannot choose.

Many a road and track
That, since the dawn's first crack,
Up to the forest brink,
Deceived the travellers,
Suddenly now blurs,
And in they sink.

Here love ends,
Despair, ambition ends,
All pleasure and all trouble,
Although most sweet or bitter,
Here ends in sleep that is sweeter
Than tasks most noble.

There is not any book
Or face of dearest look
That I would not turn from now
To go into the unknown
I must enter and leave alone
I know not how.

The tall forest towers;
Its cloudy foliage lowers
Ahead, shelf above shelf;
Its silence I hear and obey
That I may lose my way
And myself.


Edward Thomas

[Hes]

I do love Edward Thomas's poems. Thanks for posting that Alf.

[freckle]

I do love Edward Thomas's poems. Thanks for posting that Alf.

me too, a lovely choice alf, tho i hope its doesn't mean you are on your last legs, i shall weep!

still working my way through "Being Human", liked this one...

I drew a line

A line.
I drew a line:
this far and no further.
I will never cross this line.

When I crossed the line
I drew another line
and another line.

The sun was shining
and everywhere I could see people
drawing lines,
in a hurry and decidedly,
and everybody crossed them.

TOON TELLEGEN

[Hes]

Lovely choice Freckle. I have Being Human and it has some really great poems in it.xx

me too, a lovely choice alf, tho i hope its doesn't mean you are on your last legs, i shall weep!

still working my way through "Being Human", liked this one...

I drew a line

A line.
I drew a line:
this far and no further.
I will never cross this line.

When I crossed the line
I drew another line
and another line.

The sun was shining
and everywhere I could see people
drawing lines,
in a hurry and decidedly,
and everybody crossed them.

TOON TELLEGEN

[Hes]

This has been posted a few times before but my mum gave me a copy of this poem when I really needed it and I'd like to post it for a friend.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

[freckle]

just love that poem, i hope your friend gains strength from it x

[Alf]

me too, a lovely choice alf, tho i hope its doesn't mean you are on your last legs, i shall weep!

still working my way through "Being Human", liked this one...

I drew a line

A line.
I drew a line:
this far and no further.
I will never cross this line.

When I crossed the line
I drew another line
and another line.

The sun was shining
and everywhere I could see people
drawing lines,
in a hurry and decidedly,
and everybody crossed them.

TOON TELLEGEN

Shed not a tear
for I will be here
for many a year
my dear


I think Edward Thomas was a fellrunner at heart

When First I Came Here

WHEN first I came here I had hope,
Hope for I knew not what. Fast beat
My heart at the sight of the tall slope
Or grass and yews, as if my feet

Only by scaling its steps of chalk
Would see something no other hill
Ever disclosed. And now I walk
Down it the last time. Never will

My heart beat so again at sight
Of any hill although as fair
And loftier. For infinite
The change, late unperceived, this year,

The twelfth, suddenly, shows me plain.
Hope now,--not health nor cheerfulness,
Since they can come and go again,
As often one brief hour witnesses,--

Just hope has gone forever. Perhaps
I may love other hills yet more
Than this: the future and the maps
Hide something I was waiting for.

One thing I know, that love with chance
And use and time and necessity
Will grow, and louder the heart's dance
At parting than at meeting be.

Edward Thomas

[freckle]

a dove has been spotted
dropping this poem o-er the ionian sea
to lap at the limbs
of a lesser spotted fell runner
who shall remain anonymous.....

--------------------------------

Love, Like Water ~ Julia Copus

Love, like water
tumbling from some far-flung cloud
into your bathroom alone, to sleeve
a toe, five toes, a metatarsal arch,
it does its best to feign indifference
to the body, but will go on creeping
up to the neck till its reading the skin
like Braille, though you’re certain it sees
under the surface of things and knows
the routes your nerves take as they branch
from the mind, which lately has been curling
in on itself like the spine of a dog
as it circles a patch of ground to sleep.
Now through the dappled window,
propped open slightly for the heat,
a light rain is composing
the lake it falls into, the way a lover’s hand
composes the body it touches - Love,
like water! How it gives and gives,
wearing the deepest of grooves in our sides
and filling them up again, ever so gently
wounding us, making us whole.

[freckle]

"Shed not a tear
for I will be here
for many a year
my dear "


aw aint that sweet! thank goodness alfster! , nice thomas choice again, you just bought a collection or something?

[freckle]

This Room
Imtiaz Dharker

This room is breaking out
of itself, cracking through
its own walls
in search of space, light,
empty air.

The bed is lifting out of
its nightmares.
From dark corners, chairs
are rising up to crash through clouds.

This is the time and place
to be alive:
when the daily furniture of our lives
stirs, when the improbable arrives.
Pots and pans bang together
in celebration, clang
past the crowd of garlic, onions, spices,
fly by the ceiling fan.
No one is looking for the door.

In all this excitement
I'm wondering where
I've left my feet, and why

my hands are outside, clapping