Today's poet

[Alf]

Silence

There is a silence where hath been no sound,
There is a silence where no sound may be,
In the cold grave—under the deep, deep sea,
Or in wide desert where no life is found,
Which hath been mute, and still must sleep profound;
No voice is hush’d—no life treads silently,
But clouds and cloudy shadows wander free,
That never spoke, over the idle ground:
But in green ruins, in the desolate walls
Of antique palaces, where Man hath been,
Though the dun fox or wild hyæna calls,
And owls, that flit continually between,
Shriek to the echo, and the low winds moan—
There the true Silence is, self-conscious and alone.

Thomas Hood

This is an excellent sonnet Hes. Silence where people have once been is more powerful than silence where no one has ever been

[Hes]

Yes, that's so true Alf and I too liked the last lines of Freckles poem choice. They got me thinking....

This is an excellent sonnet Hes. Silence where people have once been is more powerful than silence where no one has ever been

[Hes]

I was talking to a single friend recently and we both agreed that what we miss most when not in a relationship is not sex (although...who wouldn't miss that?:wink its intimacy and affection. A hug from a friend ends up feeling like a precious gift when you've been on your own for a long time. I just listened to a radio 4 play about a mother who has a surrogate baby for her daughter and she talks about the lack of physical contact in her life and there is a really moving scene where her daughter kisses her cheek after ten years of not touching her.

Absence

Separate in my solitude
how loud is this quiet!
The absence of your voice
deafens me and leaves
my untouched body restless.
arms folded, pacing familiar floors
I hug myself as if cold
hoping to recall the warmth
and ghost of your embrace.

[freckle]

I was talking to a single friend recently and we both agreed that what we miss most when not in a relationship is not sex (although...who wouldn't miss that?:wink its intimacy and affection. A hug from a friend ends up feeling like a precious gift when you've been on your own for a long time. I just listened to a radio 4 play about a mother who has a surrogate baby for her daughter and she talks about the lack of physical contact in her life and there is a really moving scene where her daughter kisses her cheek after ten years of not touching her.

Absence

Separate in my solitude
how loud is this quiet!
The absence of your voice
deafens me and leaves
my untouched body restless.
arms folded, pacing familiar floors
I hug myself as if cold
hoping to recall the warmth
and ghost of your embrace.

Wow! what a moving poem Hes...utterly beautiful and one I think we can all relate to at some level (single or not), it made me think about loss and the stark sense of absence and emptiness one can sometimes feel after the loss of a relationship....thank you so much for sharing x

[Hes]

Thanks Freckle.xx

Wow! what a moving poem Hes...utterly beautiful and one I think we can all relate to at some level (single or not), it made me think about loss and the stark sense of absence and emptiness one can sometimes feel after the loss of a relationship....thank you so much for sharing x

[Alf]

I was talking to a single friend recently and we both agreed that what we miss most when not in a relationship is not sex (although...who wouldn't miss that?:wink its intimacy and affection. A hug from a friend ends up feeling like a precious gift when you've been on your own for a long time. I just listened to a radio 4 play about a mother who has a surrogate baby for her daughter and she talks about the lack of physical contact in her life and there is a really moving scene where her daughter kisses her cheek after ten years of not touching her.

Absence

Separate in my solitude
how loud is this quiet!
The absence of your voice
deafens me and leaves
my untouched body restless.
arms folded, pacing familiar floors
I hug myself as if cold
hoping to recall the warmth
and ghost of your embrace.

Lovely little poem that Hes Touch is very important in all our lives and can often do more than a lot of well meant words

[Alf]

Well it definitely felt a bit "seasons of mists and mellow fruitfulness" this morning with the foggy weather highlighting all the spider's webs in the garden but Autumn is a month away yet officially so we will have to stay poetically in late summer


Tis the Last Rose of Summer

Tis the last rose of summer
Left blooming alone;
All her lovely companions
Are faded and gone:
No flower of her kindred,
No rose-bud is nigh,
To reflect back her blushes,
Or give sigh for sigh.

I'll not leave thee, thou lone one!
To pine on the stem;
Since the lovely are sleeping,
Go, sleep thou with them.
Thus kindly I scatter
Thy leaves o'er the bed,
Where thy mates of the garden
Lie scentless and dead.

So soon may I follow,
When friendships decay,
And from Love's shining circle
The gems drop away.
When true hearts lie wither'd,
And fond ones are flown,
Oh! who would inhabit
This bleak world alone?

Thomas Moore

[freckle]

cheery little number that alf ! :w00t:...but very charming nevertheless!

i love all the metaphors in the "end of summer"type poems......

here is my fave drama queen! in another life I think i might quite like to be christina rossetti.....


"Summer Is Ended"
Christina Georgina Rossetti

To think that this meaningless thing was ever a rose
Scentless, colorless, _this!_
Will it ever be thus (who knows?)
Thus with our bliss,
If we wait till the close?

Though we care not to wait for the end, there comes the end
Sooner, later, at last,
Which nothing can mar, nothing mend:
An end locked fast,
Bent we cannot re-bend.

[Old Whippet]

Absence

Separate in my solitude
how loud is this quiet!
The absence of your voice
deafens me and leaves
my untouched body restless.
arms folded, pacing familiar floors
I hug myself as if cold
hoping to recall the warmth
and ghost of your embrace.




Hes, That is very touching.
If it's any consolation, contentment can seriously damage your poetry skills. And though the jury is out (as they say) race times may suffer too from a lack of misery and angst.

Look at this, as proof. (not of the times. That evidence is elsewhere).

A hound with a penchant for booze-o(sorry)
Did go to the land of the ouzo
With a spot of Metaxa,
Became quite a relaxer (sorry again)
With very little in common with Robinson Crusoe (I know – unforgivable)


I did find a poem about the area where I am temporarily basking, but I reckon it's even worse than mine....on many levels!

Ionian




Just because we've torn their statues down,
and cast them from their temples,
doesn't for a moment mean the gods are dead.
Land of Ionia, they love you yet,

their spirits still remember you.
When an August morning breaks upon you
a vigour from their lives stabs through your air;
and sometimes an ethereal and youthful form
in swiftest passage, indistinct,

passes up above your hills.


Constantine P Cavafy

Now that really is crap

[freckle]

loving the incoherent ramblings of a fell runner on a greek holiday...made me laugh out loud...come home soon please! x