Today's poet

[Mossdog]

Celebration for June 24
Thomas McGrath
For Marian

Before you, I was living on an island
.........I have lived it all.
—And love is never love, that cannot give love up.

Oh dear..now look what you've started Freckle! Been thinking about this on-and-off all day now! Is it true do you think? What does he really mean?:w00t:

[freckle]

Oh dear..now look what you've started Freckle! Been thinking about this on-and-off all day now! Is it true do you think? What does he really mean?:w00t:

I am really not sure now you mention it! Like you I thought this poem reflects the pain involved attaching to someone (letting oneself go to the extent that the boundaries between what is "you" and "I" becomes blurred to "us") and that he was saying that with such love there is inevitably the fear of loss...but this last line...i'm not sure... perhaps he is saying that if you really love someone you have to be prepared to let them go? but...mmm...that sounds cheesy and oversimplistic like the line of a song and i think i am more than likely missing something a lot more subtle....not sure mossy, but i shall embrace the uncertainty and ponder further!

an after thought....i wonder if he means can it really be love if when it is lost you are so melancholic you feel unloved?

[Mossdog]

I am really not sure now you mention it! Like you I thought this poem reflects the pain involved attaching to someone (letting oneself go to the extent that the boundaries between what is "you" and "I" becomes blurred to "us") and that he was saying that with such love there is inevitably the fear of loss...but this last line...i'm not sure... perhaps he is saying that if you really love someone you have to be prepared to let them go? but...mmm...that sounds cheesy and oversimplistic like the line of a song and i think i am more than likely missing something a lot more subtle....not sure mossy, but i shall embrace the uncertainty and ponder further!

an after thought....i wonder if he means can it really be love if when it is lost you are so melancholic you feel unloved?

Aye, tis a conundrum! And letting someone go isn't quite the some as waving goodbye to your love for them either, which I would of thought you'd never let go as it, well, just is - but hey whadda I know! Heading up Crossfell tomorrow (yikes today!) so I'll ponder some more on route. Night night.

[Mossdog]

Mad Girl's Love Song

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Sylvia P

[freckle]

brilliant plath choice mossy...hope no "arbritary blackness" gallops in today!

[freckle]

The White Room
charles-simic

The obvious is difficult
To prove. Many prefer
The hidden. I did, too.
I listened to the trees.

They had a secret
Which they were about to
Make known to me,
And then didn’t.

Summer came. Each tree
On my street had its own
Scheherazade. My nights
Were a part of their wild

Storytelling. We were
Entering dark houses,
More and more dark houses
Hushed and abandoned.

There was someone with eyes closed
On the upper floors.
The thought of it, and the wonder,
Kept me sleepless.

The truth is bald and cold,
Said the woman
Who always wore white.
She didn’t leave her room much.

The sun pointed to one or two
Things that had survived
The long night intact,
The simplest things,

Difficult in their obviousness.
They made no noise.
It was the kind of day
People describe as “perfect.”

Gods disguising themselves
As black hairpins? A hand-mirror?
A comb with a tooth missing?
No! That wasn’t it.

Just things as they are,
Unblinking, lying mute
In that bright light,
And the trees waiting for the night





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheherazade

[Alf]

Mad Girl's Love Song

"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red,
And arbitrary blackness gallops in:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade:
Exit seraphim and Satan's men:
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.

I fancied you'd return the way you said,
But I grow old and I forget your name.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

I should have loved a thunderbird instead;
At least when spring comes they roar back again.
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead.
(I think I made you up inside my head.)"

Sylvia P

Good choice that Mossy, they had her picture on University Challenge last night and noone could identify her :thunbdown: (apart from me )

[Alf]

The White Room
charles-simic

The obvious is difficult
To prove. Many prefer
The hidden. I did, too.
I listened to the trees.

They had a secret
Which they were about to
Make known to me,
And then didn’t.

Summer came. Each tree
On my street had its own
Scheherazade. My nights
Were a part of their wild

Storytelling. We were
Entering dark houses,
More and more dark houses
Hushed and abandoned.

There was someone with eyes closed
On the upper floors.
The thought of it, and the wonder,
Kept me sleepless.

The truth is bald and cold,
Said the woman
Who always wore white.
She didn’t leave her room much.

The sun pointed to one or two
Things that had survived
The long night intact,
The simplest things,

Difficult in their obviousness.
They made no noise.
It was the kind of day
People describe as “perfect.”

Gods disguising themselves
As black hairpins? A hand-mirror?
A comb with a tooth missing?
No! That wasn’t it.

Just things as they are,
Unblinking, lying mute
In that bright light,
And the trees waiting for the night

Great image that freckle

[Alf]

The Happiness


There's a happiness, a joy
in one soul, that's been
buried alive in everyone
and forgotten.

It isn't your barroom joke
or tender, intimate humor
or affections of friendliness
or big, bright pun.

They're the surviving survivors
of what happened when happiness
was buried alive, when
it no longer looked out

of today's eyes, and doesn't
even manifest when one
of us dies, we just walk away
from everything, alone

with what's left of us,
going on being human beings
without being human,
without that happiness.

Jack Hirschman

[Stevie]

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