Today's poet

[freckle]

Now Winter Nights Enlarge

Thomas Campion (1617)

Now winter nights enlarge The number of their hours, And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze, And cups o’erflow with wine; Let well-tuned words amaze With harmony divine. Now yellow waxen lights Shall wait on honey love, While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights Sleep’s leaden spells remove. This time doth well dispense With lovers’ long discourse; Much speech hath some defence, Though beauty no remorse. All do not all things well; Some measures comely tread, Some knotted riddles tell, Some poems smoothly read. The summer hath his joys And winter his delights; Though love and all his pleasures are but toys, They shorten tedious nights.

[Alf]

Now Winter Nights Enlarge

Thomas Campion (1617)

Now winter nights enlarge The number of their hours, And clouds their storms discharge Upon the airy towers. Let now the chimneys blaze, And cups o’erflow with wine; Let well-tuned words amaze With harmony divine. Now yellow waxen lights Shall wait on honey love, While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights Sleep’s leaden spells remove. This time doth well dispense With lovers’ long discourse; Much speech hath some defence, Though beauty no remorse. All do not all things well; Some measures comely tread, Some knotted riddles tell, Some poems smoothly read. The summer hath his joys And winter his delights; Though love and all his pleasures are but toys, They shorten tedious nights.

A Jacobean poem freckle . A well filled glass of wine/beer and a bit of poetry and some "nibbles". That's living alright

[Alf]

Must be time to give this John Clare Sonnet an airing again.

Emmonsail's Heath in Winter


I love to see the old heath's withered brake
Mingle its crimpled leaves with furze and ling,
While the old heron from the lonely lake
Starts slow and flaps its melancholy wing,
An oddling crow in idle motion swing
On the half-rotten ash-tree's topmost twig,
Beside whose trunk the gypsy makes his bed.
Up flies the bouncing woodcock from the brig
Where a black quagmire quakes beneath the tread;
The fieldfares chatter in the whistling thorn
And for the haw round fields and closen rove,
And coy bumbarrels, twenty in a drove,
Flit down the hedgerows in the frozen plain
And hang on little twigs and start again.


John Clare

[crowhill]

Ode to Speedo

The radio the news that broke
- That made my blood run cold
With hushen tones the voice that spoke
- Recalling days of old
When mighty whites were on the move
- Accepting no defeat
The barmy army in the groove
- To Sergeant Wilko's beat

Macca, Strachan, Speedo, Batts
- The quartet pulling strings
Brains and brawn and class and brass
- Rampaging on the wings
Eric's collar then was white
- With Chapman striker ace
And Sterland steaming down the right
- Dorigo, poise and pace
Whyte and Fairclough tracking back
- Sinews strained to block
Wallace probing in attack
- Defences run amok
In steel city victory won
- The Blades put to the sword
And Man United lose again
- As Leeds and Anfield roared

The top gun in a top man top
- Eleven on his back
His runs from deep they couldn't stop
- Defence into attack
From box to box with strength and stealth
- Accomplished with both feet
"Go on Speed, get one yourself"
- The ball was struck so sweet
Dependable and debonair
- A broad grin cross his face
Soaring high into the air
- And heading home with pace
The radio the news decreed
- A sense of disbelief
The football world lost Gary Speed
- United in its grief

[Muddy Retriever]

Ode to Speedo

The radio the news that broke
- That made my blood run cold
With hushen tones the voice that spoke
- Recalling days of old
When mighty whites were on the move
- Accepting no defeat
The barmy army in the groove
- To Sergeant Wilko's beat

Macca, Strachan, Speedo, Batts
- The quartet pulling strings
Brains and brawn and class and brass
- Rampaging on the wings
Eric's collar then was white
- With Chapman striker ace
And Sterland steaming down the right
- Dorigo, poise and pace
Whyte and Fairclough tracking back
- Sinews strained to block
Wallace probing in attack
- Defences run amok
In steel city victory won
- The Blades put to the sword
And Man United lose again
- As Leeds and Anfield roared

The top gun in a top man top
- Eleven on his back
His runs from deep they couldn't stop
- Defence into attack
From box to box with strength and stealth
- Accomplished with both feet
"Go on Speed, get one yourself"
- The ball was struck so sweet
Dependable and debonair
- A broad grin cross his face
Soaring high into the air
- And heading home with pace
The radio the news decreed
- A sense of disbelief
The football world lost Gary Speed
- United in its grief

I liked that very much. A fitting ode.

[Alf]

Late Snow

An end. Or a beginning.
Snow had fallen again and covered
the old dredge and blackened mush
with a gleaming pelt; but high up there
in the sycamore top, Thaw
Thaw, the rooks cried,
sentinel by ruined nests.

Water was slacking into runnels
from drifts and pitted snowbacks
dripping from the gutter and ragged
icicle fringes. Snow paused
in the shining embrace of bushes
waiting in ledged curds and bluffs
to tumble into soft explosions.

And suddenly your absence
drove home its imperatives like frost,
and I ran to the high field
clumsily as a pregnant woman
to tread our names in blemished
brilliant drifts; because the time we have
is shrinking away like snow.

M.R. Peacocke

[Old Whippet]

Nice one Crowhill

He'll always be fondly remembered around these parts.

Ode to Speedo

The radio the news that broke
- That made my blood run cold
With hushen tones the voice that spoke
- Recalling days of old
When mighty whites were on the move
- Accepting no defeat
The barmy army in the groove
- To Sergeant Wilko's beat

Macca, Strachan, Speedo, Batts
- The quartet pulling strings
Brains and brawn and class and brass
- Rampaging on the wings
Eric's collar then was white
- With Chapman striker ace
And Sterland steaming down the right
- Dorigo, poise and pace
Whyte and Fairclough tracking back
- Sinews strained to block
Wallace probing in attack
- Defences run amok
In steel city victory won
- The Blades put to the sword
And Man United lose again
- As Leeds and Anfield roared

The top gun in a top man top
- Eleven on his back
His runs from deep they couldn't stop
- Defence into attack
From box to box with strength and stealth
- Accomplished with both feet
"Go on Speed, get one yourself"
- The ball was struck so sweet
Dependable and debonair
- A broad grin cross his face
Soaring high into the air
- And heading home with pace
The radio the news decreed
- A sense of disbelief
The football world lost Gary Speed
- United in its grief

[Mossdog]

Scoured Sylvia's goodies for something vaguely festive!

Sylvia Plath - Balloons

Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk

Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish ----
Such queer moons we live with

Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
And these traveling
Globes of thin air, red, green,
Delighting

The heart like wishes or free
Peacocks blessing
Old ground with a feather
Beaten in starry metals.
Your small

Brother is making
His balloon squeak like a cat.
Seeming to see
A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,
He bites,

Then sits
Back, fat jug
Contemplating a world clear as water.
A red
Shred in his little fist.

[Mossdog]

little tree

little tree
little silent Christmas tree
you are so little
you are more like a flower
who found you in the green forest
and were you very sorry to come away?
see i will comfort you
because you smell so sweetly
i will kiss your cool bark
and hug you safe and tight
just as your mother would,
only don't be afraid
look the spangles
that sleep all the year in a dark box
dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine,
the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads,
put up your little arms
and i'll give them all to you to hold
every finger shall have its ring
and there won't be a single place dark or unhappy
then when you're quite dressed
you'll stand in the window for everyone to see
and how they'll stare!
oh but you'll be very proud
and my little sister and i will take hands
and looking up at our beautiful tree
we'll dance and sing
"Noel Noel"

by: e.e. cummings

Merry Christmas everyone X

[Mossdog]

Next year's resolution?

Let's Live Suddenly Without Thinking


let’s live suddenly without thinking

under honest trees,
a stream
does.the brain of cleverly-crinkling
-water pursues the angry dream
of the shore. By midnight,
a moon
scratches the skin of the organised hills

an edged nothing begins to prune

let’s live like the light that kills
and let’s as silence,
because Whirl’s after all:
(after me)love,and after you.
I occasionally feel vague how
vague idon’t know tenuous Now-
spears and The Then-arrows making do
our mouths something red,something tall

E. E. Cummings