Today's poet

[Dynamo Dan]

Here's one I remember from university by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I never understood it properly until I saw raptors hovering over Bleaklow years later.

The Windhover

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

[Hes]

I love this poem about the kestrel DD, its good to read it again. I based one of my prints on it.

Here's one I remember from university by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I never understood it properly until I saw raptors hovering over Bleaklow years later.

The Windhover

I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermillion.

[Dynamo Dan]

I love this poem about the kestrel DD, its good to read it again. I based one of my prints on it.

It's a wonderful poem and this is a wonderful thread! I haven't read much poetry since I graduated seven years ago, but I'm feeling inspired now.

[Mossdog]

ever and only

Be with me ever and only,
No other in thought with you;
Only without me lonely,
Ever in this way true.
So will I be yours only,
Whatever I dream or do,
Only without you lonely,
Ever in this way true.

Robert Crawford

Oh dear. Not sure about that one Hes. It makes me feel rather claustrophobic in it's implied possessiveness. Kinda creepy?

[Mossdog]

This is an interesting poem (imo).

I Foresee the Breaking of All That Is Breakable

Perhaps after all it is, merely, a desire
to use the word thanatopsical—
but if you can wash or handle
artifacts like this blue
tea mug, carried from Crete as a gift
from a friend, or this nacreous
orange bowl,
a honeymoon souvenir
bought in a now-defunct artists'
shop in Colorado, or
this antique Chinese mudman
carrying his sponges
and fish from a day at the pier,
without a pathological
fixation on the day you will stumble
and drop it, or smack it
against the sink divider or brush
it with a hand reaching
for the letter opener, you are junzi:
a superior person, as Confucius had it.
You probably make love
to your spouse without imagining
betrayal and pay taxes
without complaint
because you think nothing
in truth belongs to you.

They invented the earth for people
like you, and then salted it.

John Estes

Blimmey! That is interesting - thanks. I've googled him and found this one too. Poetry, philosophy and humour all in one - I like it , especially the last verse:

Cafe Rotavirus

Last time we all
ate here, a Sunday, after
the baby played with
—chewed on—
their toys: six
days and nights
of puke and diarrhea.
This stuff kills
starving kids in Africa,
underdeveloped as
electrolyte industries
are there.

But I cannot stop
returning and returning.
What pathogenesis
makes me weak
for, so consoled by,
this biscuits and gravy—
though I cannot
stop imagining
trillions of rotifer-driven
microbes racing
around this apparent
locus amoenus
like, but not like,
animated soap
bubbles scrubbing up
bathtub scum?

To believe in history,
now that fixed
stars are not so fixed,
might be to believe
each instant struggles—
fatally, hopefully—
to loose itself from
some unoriginate whole.
But, and this makes
instinctual sense
so long as instinct is
nothing but undigested
experience, it may also,
or maybe instead,
be the collective orgy
clearing its gorge,
suffusing each instant
with the particles
of every other
but in tastier order,
because nothing is real
until it means
and nothing means
until it returns,
returns like a dog returns,
as it will with verve,
to a baby’s vomit.

[Hes]

Yes, I can see your point Mossy!! Better the bird that flies free and comes back of its own free will and I do believe that loneliness is an inevitable part of being human regardless of whether we love and are loved seeing as we come into this life alone and will leave it alone. I liked it when I first read it and it seemed pertinent but I have second thoughts about it now.

Oh dear. Not sure about that one Hes. It makes me feel rather claustrophobic in it's implied possessiveness. Kinda creepy?

[Hes]

That one takes a few readings (well, for me anyway).

Blimmey! That is interesting - thanks. I've googled him and found this one too. Poetry, philosophy and humour all in one - I like it , especially the last verse:

[Mossdog]

Yes, I can see your point Mossy!! Better the bird that flies free and comes back of its own free will and I do believe that loneliness is an inevitable part of being human regardless of whether we love and are loved seeing as we come into this life alone and will leave it alone. I liked it when I first read it and it seemed pertinent but I have second thoughts about it now.

Sorry Hes - didn't mean to spoil it for you, it was just my take on it. Can I sense the possible emerging theme for a poem on the human condition viz. the tangled relationship between love loss and loneliness? Erm, not necessarily in that order of course - gulp!

[Hes]

You didn't spoil it at all Mossy. I read it quickly the other day and it summed up something that I was feeling at the time but having read it a few times since, it makes me feel uncomfortable. Its almost as if the narrator is trying to strike a bargain with the person they love that they each focus solely on each other at the expense of all else. Having had a negative experience in the not too distant past of something along those lines...I would definitely say that love should never be about possession and all about encouraging dreams. I like this thread for the fact that you can get a different perspective on poems days later and hear other people's opinions.

I don't know about you, but my poetry writing skills (if that's what you could call them) have really diminished lately. Its a shame because I would really like to express myself better.:closed:

Sorry Hes - didn't mean to spoil it for you, it was just my take on it. Can I sense the possible emerging theme for a poem on the human condition viz. the tangled relationship between love loss and loneliness? Erm, not necessarily in that order of course - gulp!

[Hes]

I've posted this at least twice before but I love it so I'm posting it again for the benefit of the new people on the thread...just you try and stop me!:thumbup:

FLOWERS
Anne Michaels

There's another skin inside my skin
that gathers to your touch, a lake to the light;
that looses its memory, its lost language
into your tongue,
erasing me into newness.

Just when the body thinks it knows
the ways of knowing itself,
this second skin continues to answer.

In the street - café chairs abandoned
on terraces; market stalls emptied
of their solid light,
though pavement still breathes
summer grapes and peaches.
Like the light of anything that grows
from this newly-turned earth,
every tip of me gathers under your touch,
wind wrapping my dress around our legs,
your shirt twisting to flowers in my fists.