Today's poet

[Alf]

In Memoriam (1915)


The flowers left thick at nightfall in the wood
This Eastertide call into mind the men,
Now far from home, who, with their sweethearts, should
Have gathered them and will do never again.

Edward Thomas

[Hes]

Two Edward Thomas choices, what a treat, thanks Alf (although the second makes me want to cry!).

[Hes]

That sounds like a really nice evening Stef. Hope you get some good news on the job front soon.

Nice choice Hes.

Having returned to the south, I'm thinking this one fit's just nicely right now, and it's not just the trees that are fretful! Ho hum I'm off to research for a nice moist christmas cake recipe, and then maybe finish the evening off perusing my Essential Neruda.

[Hes]

Sleeping Together

Sleeping together... how tired you were...
How warm our room... how the firelight spread
On walls and ceiling and great white bed!
We spoke in whispers as children do,
And now it was I--and then it was you
Slept a moment, to wake--"My dear,
I'm not at all sleepy," one of us said....

Was it a thousand years ago?
I woke in your arms--you were sound asleep--
And heard the pattering sound of sheep.
Softly I slipped to the floor and crept
To the curtained window, then, while you slept,
I watched the sheep pass by in the snow.

O flock of thoughts with their shepherd Fear
Shivering, desolate, out in the cold,
That entered into my heart to fold!

A thousand years... was it yesterday
When we two children of far away,
Clinging close in the darkness, lay
Sleeping together?... How tired you were....


Katherine Mansfield

[Hes]

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way than this:

where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Pablo Neruda

[freckle]

Hand

Away from you, I hold hands with the air,
your imagined, untouchable hand. Not there,
your fingers braid with mine as I walk.
Far away in my heart, you start to talk.

I squeeze the air, kicking the auburn leaves,
everything suddenly gold. I half believe
your hand is holding mine, the way
it would if you were here. What do you say

in my heart? I bend my head to listen, then feel
your hand reach out and stroke my hair, as real
as the wind caressing the fretful trees above.
Now I can hear you clearly, speaking of love.

Carol Ann Duffy

Permission for bottom lip to wobble?...the first in a line of very lovely "love" poems, the perfect antidote to my stressy MONday! thank you Hes! :-) x

[freckle]

Thought I was on the wrong thread for a minute there

The Wind's Song


Dull-thoughted, walking among the nunneries
Of many a myriad anemones
In the close copses, I grew weary of Spring
Till I emerged and in my wandering
I climbed the down up to a lone pine clump
Of six, the tallest dead, one a mere stump.
On one long stem, branchless and flayed and prone,
I sat in the sun listening to the wind alone,
Thinking there could be no old song so sad
As the wind's song; but later none so glad
Could I remember as that same wind's song
All the time blowing the pine boughs among.
My heart that had been still as the dead tree
Awakened by the West wind was made free.

Edward Thomas

well ..i have a confession...

i too have made a christmas cake...and furthermore

it is nowhere near as sumptious as this lovely poem alfster!

[freckle]

where is my protestant work ethic when i need it? oh yer..its right there working til this god forsaken hour...

cue amy...

Fatigue
Amy Lowell

Stupefy my heart to every day's monotony,
Seal up my eyes, I would not look so far,
Chasten my steps to peaceful regularity,
Bow down my head lest I behold a star.

Fill my days with work, a thousand calm necessities
Leaving no moment to consecrate to hope,
Girdle my thoughts within the dull circumferences
Of facts which form the actual in one short hour's scope.

Give me dreamless sleep, and loose night's power over me,
Shut my ears to sounds only tumultuous then,
Bid Fancy slumber, and steal away its potency,
Or Nature wakes and strives to live again.

Let each day pass, well ordered in its usefulness,
Unlit by sunshine, unscarred by storm;
Dower me with strength and curb all foolish eagerness --
The law exacts obedience. Instruct, I will conform.


p.s. i won't really conform!

p.p.s isn't the word stupefy just great? i am going to try and use it at least 3 times tomorrow!

[freckle]

last post tonight (honest)...


went to see the new woody allen film on sat "midnight in paris" ...brilliant, v funny and has, as my better half put it "fuelled my trip to paris" dreams....

a clip from hannah and her sisters with ee cummings poem included...5 mins so probably only for the die hard woody/cummings fans!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieoFkuu_aNM

[Hes]

I went to see that too Freckle...loved it (although a few of the witty literary references were lost on me...must brush up on my classics) and it also made me want to go to Paris again. Think I might have to go for the weekend next year some time xx

last post tonight (honest)...


went to see the new woody allen film on sat "midnight in paris" ...brilliant, v funny and has, as my better half put it "fuelled my trip to paris" dreams....

a clip from hannah and her sisters with ee cummings poem included...5 mins so probably only for the die hard woody/cummings fans!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieoFkuu_aNM