Today's poet

[Alf]

A great winter poem especially for those of us getting a bit long in the tooth and watching that bus pass in the distance creeping inexorably towards us

An Old Man's Winter Night

All out-of-doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon—such as she was,
So late-arising—to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can't keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It's thus he does it of a winter night.

Robert Frost

[freckle]

A great winter poem especially for those of us getting a bit long in the tooth and watching that bus pass in the distance creeping inexorably towards us

An Old Man's Winter Night

All out-of-doors looked darkly in at him
Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars,
That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.
What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze
Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand.
What kept him from remembering what it was
That brought him to that creaking room was age.
He stood with barrels round him—at a loss.
And having scared the cellar under him
In clomping there, he scared it once again
In clomping off;—and scared the outer night,
Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar
Of trees and crack of branches, common things,
But nothing so like beating on a box.
A light he was to no one but himself
Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what,
A quiet light, and then not even that.
He consigned to the moon—such as she was,
So late-arising—to the broken moon
As better than the sun in any case
For such a charge, his snow upon the roof,
His icicles along the wall to keep;
And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt
Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted,
And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept.
One aged man—one man—can't keep a house,
A farm, a countryside, or if he can,
It's thus he does it of a winter night.

Robert Frost

a nice Frost choice Alf...i also like this one..think it describes those times when we think we have grasped something significant only for it to leave us....

For Once, Then, Something
by Robert Frost
Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs Always wrong to the light, so never seeing Deeper down in the well than where the water Gives me back in a shining surface picture Me myself in the summer heaven godlike Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb, I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture, Through the picture, a something white, uncertain, Something more of the depths—and then I lost it. Water came to rebuke the too clear water. One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom, Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness? Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

[freckle]

I read today that Oliver Sacks the famous professor of neurology and author of Awakenings and "The Man who mistook his wife for a hat" has recently suffered from a tumour located behind his eye which left him with significant visual perceptual problems. In the article he also discussed the possible mechanisms behind visual hallucinatons in people who are blind and happened to mention Virginia Hamilton Adair, poet who published her first book of poems aged 83 (one might think there is hope for us all however i think she may have had a head start as her father was robert browning hamilton, poet and she is said to have penned her first poem aged two!). In her latter years she was blind and experienced several visual hallucinations but this seemed to act as a creative spur to the writing process. Anyhow I decided to look her up and found this rather macabre but brilliant verse about marriage...


Cutting the Cake
Virginia Hamilton Adair

Gowned and veiled for tribal ritual
in a maze of tulle and satin
with her eyes rimmed round in cat fur
and the stylish men about her
kissing kin and carefree suitors
long she looked unseeing past him
to her picture in the papers
print and photoflash embalming
the demise of the familiar
and he trembled as her fingers
took the dagger laid before them
for the ceremonial cutting
of the mounting tiers of sweetness
crowned with manikin and maiden
and her chop was so triumphant
that the groomlike little figure
from his lover at the apex
toppled over in the frosting
where a flower girl retrieved him
sucked him dry and bit his head off.

[Alf]

a nice Frost choice Alf...i also like this one..think it describes those times when we think we have grasped something significant only for it to leave us....

For Once, Then, Something
by Robert Frost
Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs Always wrong to the light, so never seeing Deeper down in the well than where the water Gives me back in a shining surface picture Me myself in the summer heaven godlike Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb, I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture, Through the picture, a something white, uncertain, Something more of the depths—and then I lost it. Water came to rebuke the too clear water. One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom, Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness? Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something.

Hinting at something spiritual in our lives? I like people who "look down wells" as long as they don't lose sight of what's outside the well itself
Nice choice freckle!

[Alf]

Going Down Hill on a Bicycle

With lifted feet, hands still,
I am poised, and down the hill
Dart, with heedful mind;
The air goes by in a wind.

Swifter and yet more swift,
Till the heart with a mighty lift
Makes the lungs laugh, the throat cry:—
"O bird, see; see, bird, I fly.

"Is this, is this your joy?
O bird, then I, though a boy,
For a golden moment share
Your feathery life in air!"

Say, heart, is there aught like this
In a world that is full of bliss?
'Tis more than skating, bound
Steel-shod to the level ground.

Speed slackens now, I float
Awhile in my airy boat;
Till, when the wheels scarce crawl,
My feet to the treadles fall.

Alas, that the longest hill
Must end in a vale; but still,
Who climbs with toil, wheresoe'er,
Shall find wings waiting there.

Henry Charles Beeching

[Alf]

I read today that Oliver Sacks the famous professor of neurology and author of Awakenings and "The Man who mistook his wife for a hat" has recently suffered from a tumour located behind his eye which left him with significant visual perceptual problems. In the article he also discussed the possible mechanisms behind visual hallucinatons in people who are blind and happened to mention Virginia Hamilton Adair, poet who published her first book of poems aged 83 (one might think there is hope for us all however i think she may have had a head start as her father was robert browning hamilton, poet and she is said to have penned her first poem aged two!). In her latter years she was blind and experienced several visual hallucinations but this seemed to act as a creative spur to the writing process. Anyhow I decided to look her up and found this rather macabre but brilliant verse about marriage...


Cutting the Cake
Virginia Hamilton Adair

Gowned and veiled for tribal ritual
in a maze of tulle and satin
with her eyes rimmed round in cat fur
and the stylish men about her
kissing kin and carefree suitors
long she looked unseeing past him
to her picture in the papers
print and photoflash embalming
the demise of the familiar
and he trembled as her fingers
took the dagger laid before them
for the ceremonial cutting
of the mounting tiers of sweetness
crowned with manikin and maiden
and her chop was so triumphant
that the groomlike little figure
from his lover at the apex
toppled over in the frosting
where a flower girl retrieved him
sucked him dry and bit his head off.

If that doesn't put a bloke off marriage I don't know what will?
Sort of the equivalent of a Black Widow spider eating its mate after the "ceremony"

[Mossdog]

If that doesn't put a bloke off marriage I don't know what will?
Sort of the equivalent of a Black Widow spider eating its mate after the "ceremony"

Mein Gott! You two seem to have a a dose of festive melancholia.

Ok. So now for something slightly more yummy...well sort of...

To Mrs K____, On Her Sending Me an English Christmas Plum-Cake at Paris

What crowding thoughts around me wake,
What marvels in a Christmas-cake!
Ah say, what strange enchantment dwells
Enclosed within its odorous cells?
Is there no small magician bound
Encrusted in its snowy round?
For magic surely lurks in this,
A cake that tells of vanished bliss;
A cake that conjures up to view
The early scenes, when life was new;
When memory knew no sorrows past,
And hope believed in joys that last! —
Mysterious cake, whose folds contain
Life’s calendar of bliss and pain;
That speaks of friends for ever fled,
And wakes the tears I love to shed.
Oft shall I breathe her cherished name
From whose fair hand the offering came:
For she recalls the artless smile
Of nymphs that deck my native isle;
Of beauty that we love to trace,
Allied with tender, modest grace;
Of those who, while abroad they roam,
Retain each charm that gladdens home,
And whose dear friendships can impart
A Christmas banquet for the heart!

HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS

[Hes]

I love this! i must do more cycling next year

Going Down Hill on a Bicycle

With lifted feet, hands still,
I am poised, and down the hill
Dart, with heedful mind;
The air goes by in a wind.

Swifter and yet more swift,
Till the heart with a mighty lift
Makes the lungs laugh, the throat cry:—
"O bird, see; see, bird, I fly.

"Is this, is this your joy?
O bird, then I, though a boy,
For a golden moment share
Your feathery life in air!"

Say, heart, is there aught like this
In a world that is full of bliss?
'Tis more than skating, bound
Steel-shod to the level ground.

Speed slackens now, I float
Awhile in my airy boat;
Till, when the wheels scarce crawl,
My feet to the treadles fall.

Alas, that the longest hill
Must end in a vale; but still,
Who climbs with toil, wheresoe'er,
Shall find wings waiting there.

Henry Charles Beeching

[Hes]

Saw this today and really liked it.

Winter Mantel
'Terar dum prosim' (a motto from Thomas Carlyle's home)

The copper vessel boasts its age
In the hand-hammered, tarnished sides.
The iron handle scrolls, then slides
Through hoops and crimps. Your fingers gauge

The vessel's volume, which you feed
With cones until you overflow
The brim. These wooden lilacs grow
Like blooms to shield ovules and seed

Beneath a shingled core. The winter
Winds and the snows won't break the spell
You stoke. Like conifers, we dwell
In timber towers. All might splinter

Like ornaments on loosened wire.
Beneath the clock you kindle love
For kids whose stockings hang above
Carlyle's creed and midnight's fire:

"Consumed in service" like the cones,
A hearth adorned to warm our bones.

by David Livewell

[Hes]

This made me smile too Mossy! feeling cheery despite my snotty cold. Had a totally beautiful run in the hoar frost. Am not really writing much poetry at the moment, just the occasional haiku but I've been reading a little and hope to have a bit more time to enjoy it now I'm out of work mayhem for a bit. I'm so glad that you are all keeping the thread going. Looking forward to reading some of the posts I've missed.

Mein Gott! You two seem to have a a dose of festive melancholia.

Ok. So now for something slightly more yummy...well sort of...

To Mrs K____, On Her Sending Me an English Christmas Plum-Cake at Paris

What crowding thoughts around me wake,
What marvels in a Christmas-cake!
Ah say, what strange enchantment dwells
Enclosed within its odorous cells?
Is there no small magician bound
Encrusted in its snowy round?
For magic surely lurks in this,
A cake that tells of vanished bliss;
A cake that conjures up to view
The early scenes, when life was new;
When memory knew no sorrows past,
And hope believed in joys that last! —
Mysterious cake, whose folds contain
Life’s calendar of bliss and pain;
That speaks of friends for ever fled,
And wakes the tears I love to shed.
Oft shall I breathe her cherished name
From whose fair hand the offering came:
For she recalls the artless smile
Of nymphs that deck my native isle;
Of beauty that we love to trace,
Allied with tender, modest grace;
Of those who, while abroad they roam,
Retain each charm that gladdens home,
And whose dear friendships can impart
A Christmas banquet for the heart!

HELEN MARIA WILLIAMS