Today's poet

[Stef F]

A Baby Running Barefoot

When the bare feet of the baby beat across the grass
The little white feet nod like white flowers in the wind,
They poise and run like ripples lapping across the water;
And the sight of their white play among the grass
Is like a little robin's song, winsome,
Or as two white butterflies settle in the cup of one flower
For a moment, then away with a flutter of wings.

I long for the baby to wander hither to me
Like a wind-shadow wandering over the water,
So that she can stand on my knee
With her little bare feet in my hands,
Cool like syringa buds,
Firm and silken like pink young peony flowers.

By: D. H. Lawrence

[Mossdog]

Since Thou Hast Given Me This Good Hope, O God

Since thou hast given me this good hope, O God,
That while my footsteps tread the flowery sod
And the great woods embower me, and white dawn
And purple even sweetly lead me on
From day to day, and night to night, O God,
My life shall no wise miss the light of love;
But ever climbing, climb above
Man's one poor star, man's supine lands,
Into the azure steadfastness of death,
My life shall no wise lack the light of love,
My hands not lack the loving touch of hands;
But day by day, while yet I draw my breath,
And day by day, unto my last of years,
I shall be one that has a perfect friend.
Her heart shall taste my laughter and my tears,
And her kind eyes shall lead me to the end.


Robert Louis Stevenson

[Alf]

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

I hit the sack too early last night and missed all this poetry from the two night owls

I will have to catch the new Woody Allen film as well, it sounds good !

[Alf]

The Cenotaph

Not yet will those measureless fields be green again
Where only yesterday the wild sweet blood of wonderful youth was shed;
There is a grave whose earth must hold too long, too deep a stain,
Though for ever over it we may speak as proudly as we may tread.
But here, where the watchers by lonely hearths from the thrust of an inward sword have more slowly bled,
We shall build the Cenotaph: Victory, winged, with Peace, winged too, at the column's head.
And over the stairway, at the foot---oh! here, leave desolate, passionate hands to spread
Violets, roses, and laurel with the small sweet twinkling country things
Speaking so wistfully of other Springs
From the little gardens of little places where son or sweetheart was born and bred.
In splendid sleep, with a thousand brothers
To lovers---to mothers
Here, too, lies he:
Under the purple, the green, the red,
It is all young life: it must break some women's hearts to see
Such a brave, gay coverlet to such a bed!
Only, when all is done and said,
God is not mocked and neither are the dead.
For this will stand in our Market-place---
Who'll sell, who'll buy
(Will you or I
Lie each to each with the better grace)?
While looking into every busy whore's and huckster's face
As they drive their bargains, is the Face
Of God: and some young, piteous, murdered face.

Charlotte Mew

[Alf]

The Poet as Hero


You've heard me, scornful, harsh, and discontented,
Mocking and loathing War: you've asked me why
Of my old, silly sweetness I've repented--
My ecstasies changed to an ugly cry.

You are aware that once I sought the Grail,
Riding in armour bright, serene and strong;
And it was told that through my infant wail
There rose immortal semblances of song.

But now I've said good-bye to Galahad,
And am no more the knight of dreams and show:
For lust and senseless hatred make me glad,
And my killed friends are with me where I go.
Wound for red wound I burn to smite their wrongs;
And there is absolution in my songs.

Siegfried Sassoon
December 1916

[Alf]

Soft and Silent


Everything I love is soft and silent
My cat, the morning, the end of the day,
Even the moon in its way.

Everything I love is soft and silent,
The water, the forest, the snow at play,
Even the mountain in its way.

Everything I love is soft and silent,
The sun on the sand, a rainy day,
Even the wind in it's way.

Everything I love is soft and silent,
The grass, the brook, the leaves at play,
Even you in your way.


James Kavanaugh

[Alf]

Another James Kavanaugh


The Quiet Mornings

I like the quiet mornings
When the waves have washed the footprints from the shore,
When even the gulls are just beginning to stir
And the heat of the day has not yet aroused the flies
to search the seaweed for breakfast,
When the waves laugh at the rocks
And playfully wash the night from their eyes.

Soon enough the hungry gulls will dive for fish
And the waves will beat shape in to the rocks.
Feet will pound on the beach
And ladies will snatch the driftwood for lamps,
And I will face the day's demands,
Trampled like the sand,
Wounded like the rocks,
Torn up like the driftwood,
Living for another quiet morning!


James Kavanaugh

[Stef F]

I'm loving these last two Alf - I must look for some more of his work

[Hes]

I really really like this Alf. You've posted some beautiful poems. I have been thinking a lot (and its the thought that counts ) about how to write a poem about love and peace...not in a hippy way, but the peace that comes from when you love the right person. Pondering the nature of relationships, I think relationships that aren't right often have a feeling of disquiet that one deludes oneself is passion but is, more often than not, dysfunction! Anyway...I am still not able to write any decent poems so I'll go back and make some pretty pictures instead

Soft and Silent


Everything I love is soft and silent
My cat, the morning, the end of the day,
Even the moon in its way.

Everything I love is soft and silent,
The water, the forest, the snow at play,
Even the mountain in its way.

Everything I love is soft and silent,
The sun on the sand, a rainy day,
Even the wind in it's way.

Everything I love is soft and silent,
The grass, the brook, the leaves at play,
Even you in your way.


James Kavanaugh

[Stevie]

Here is a poem by David Gascoyne, expressing his optimism and hopes for the future as the world recovers from the second world war.

September Sun: 1947

Magnificent strong sun! In these last days
So prodigally generous of pristine light
That’s wasted only man’s sight who will not see
And by self-darkened spirits from whose night
Can rise no longer prison or praise:

Let us consume in fire unfed like yours
And may the quickened gold within me come
To mintage in due season, and not be
Transmuted to no better end than dumb
And self-sufficient usury. These days and years

May bring the sudden call to harvesting,
When in the fields man’s labours only yield
Glitter and husks, then with an angrier sun may He
Who first with His gold seed the sightless field
Of Chaos planted, all our trash to cinders bring.