Today's poet

[Alf]

On the subject of dreams.

A Dream of Trees

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?

Mary Oliver

[freckle]

Pleasure is everything
Give in to happiness
Reject propriety
Embrace variety
Prudence is sooo 1658
Life is fleeting
Clasp it hard with both hands
Seek delight
Trust your impulses
Ordinary is pointless
Break free

Oh I like it MG! :-)

[freckle]

On the subject of dreams.

A Dream of Trees

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?

Mary Oliver

this is a bit.................intriguing................ alf!

[Mossdog]

Such a lovely poem and one to remember in times of uncertainty and stress...I haven't felt like writing much either lately but an emotional week changed that a bit, forgive me, I am a bit rusty....

The slip

You lieing in a hospital bed
Trying to give the unfathomable deep
The slip (in my head)
For the second time
I am struck...

A moment in time, highlights
The impermanence of a gift
Writ in your washed out face
Which keeps smiling and there look
Lithe limbs and oh so perfectly
Formed feet

I berate my memory at forgetting these facts
Or your nature which does not protest
at a mere canula
Nor the observations in the wee hours
They look at your fingers, write down numbers
With your love of calculation,
you would appreciate that.

Meanwhile, me with my secular praying
Wills your fine flaxen hair
the palest of blue eyes
Back and via elevated blood cell counts
To rollerblades and moshi monsters
causing havoc with your little sister
a razor sharp memory
and an overall reluctance to sleep

Willing you back
To your mothers arms.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnHoqHscTKE&ob=av3n

Now that's left me feeling a bit choked - in a good way. Lovely words Frecks.

[Mossdog]

thanks hes, she seems to be on the mend thankfully! good to hear you have been racing again today, bet you feel relieved to be back...

i was driving today and heard a bit of poetry please on radio 4...someone read "cradlesong for elaneour 2 by louis macneice which i really enjoyed.. here is another one of his...


Entirely

If we could get the hang of it entirely
It would take too long;
All we know is the splash of words in passing
And falling twigs of song,

And when we eavesdrop on the great
Presences it is rarely
That by a stroke of luck we can appropriate
Even a phrase entirely.

If we could find our happiness entirely
In somebody else’s arms
We should not fear the spears of spring nor the city’s
Yammering fire alarms

But, as it is, the spears each year go through
Our flesh and almost hourly
Bell or siren banishes the blue
Eyes of love entirely.

And if the world were black and white entirely
And all the charts were plain
Instead of a mad weir of tigerish waters,
A prism of delight and pain,
We might be surer where we wished to go
Or again we might be merely
Bored but in brute reality there is no
Road that is right entirely.

Hey good find Freckle.I like the theme of this, seems to embrace the inevitability (and some might reasonable argue beauty) of imperfection, and eschews and tempers the overly eager pursuit of the too lofty ideal. Or, put more succinctly, 'shit happens get used to it!':wink:

[Mossdog]

On the subject of dreams.

A Dream of Trees

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?

Mary Oliver

Ummm..point taken....but i still want/need a tree or two in my dreams just to breathe a little sometimes and an acre or two wouldn't go amiss either!

[Mossdog]

The Second Act

And now the evening settles like a giant body into a bath,
exhaling clouds and car-lights—coughing out birds.

After inspecting the windows for hours I tried the door.
Only boondocks grow here by the riverbank.

I will say it's cold. In the near dark
a dog makes a marvelous sound racing past.

One time I thought the things I love would fit inside a hatbox,
inside a quintet as they round a difficult corner

inside a T-shirt or a sentence.
They'd fit inside a station wagon then drive around for hours

just hoping for radio stations, hands like jibs out the windows.
One time it seemed as if our lives were shot from above

the shiny O's of our heads almost bumping
before rain edits out what's left of the evening.

Now it seems mostly landscape,
falling away like a parachutist in reverse

just the reliable stew of sky, something left by a plane.
That dot could be the companion I meant to know

it could be the Rockies or a kiss.
Once the world shrinks like this to a recognizable gesture,

a handshake, a pool-ball, it often slips out the door.
I'm trying to learn how to see this coming

that after someone says "bye" I'm supposed to hang up,
that once the lights go out there's not alway's a movie.

Michael Teig

[Alf]

this is a bit.................intriguing................ alf!

Just thought it was a good line especially to finish a poem on................................................ .....honest

[Alf]

I was watching one of my "making of Apocalypse Now extra DVDs" from the Apocalypse Now BlueRay edition last night (got them all ) and it had Marlon Brando reading the full version of T.S. Eliot's 'The Hollow Men'. I then found someone had posted it on YouTube so:

[Alf]

The Mower

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found
A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,
Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world
Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence
Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind
While there is still time.


Philip Larkin