Today's poet

[Alf]

I have been reading a lot of Ruth Stone recently. I am not running at the moment so plenty of time on my hands

The Wound

The shock comes slowly
as an afterthought.

First you hear the words
and they are like all other words,

ordinary, breathing out of lips,
moving toward you in a straight line.

Later they shatter
and rearrange themselves. They spell

something else hidden in the muscles
of the face, something the throat wanted to say.

Decoded, the message etches itself in acid
so every syllable becomes a sore.

The shock blooms into a carbuncle.
The body bends to accommodate it.

A special scarf has to be worn to conceal it.
It is now the size of a head.

The next time you look,
it has grown two eyes and a mouth.

It is difficult to know which to use.
Now you are seeing everything twice.

After a while it becomes an old friend.
It reminds you every day of how it came to be.

Ruth Stone

[Alf]

I like this one as well. Einstein and the art of hanging out your washing

Things I Say to Myself While Hanging Laundry

If an ant, crossing on the clothesline
from apple tree to apple tree,
would think and think,
it probably could not dream up Albert Einstein.
Or even his sloppy moustache;
or the wrinkled skin bags under his eyes
that puffed out years later,
after he dreamed up that maddening relativity.
Even laundry is three-dimensional.
The ants cross its great fibrous forests
from clothespin to clothespin
carrying the very heart of life in their sacs or mandibles,
the very heart of the universe in their formic acid molecules.
And how refreshing the linens are,
lying in the clean sheets at night,
when you seem to be the only one on the mountain,
and your body feels the smooth touch of the bed
like love against your skin;
and the heavy sac of yourself relaxes into its embrace.
When you turn out the light,
you are blind in the dark
as perhaps the ants are blind,
with the same abstract leap out of this limiting dimension.
So that the very curve of light,
as it is pulled in the dimple of space,
is relative to your own blind pathway across the abyss.
And there in the dark is Albert Einstein
with his clever formula that looks like little mandibles
digging tunnels into the earth
and bringing it up, grain by grain,
the crystals of sand exploding
into white-hot radiant turbulence,
smiling at you, his shy bushy smile,
along an imaginary line from here to there.

Ruth Stone

[Mossdog]

I like this one as well. Einstein and the art of hanging out your washing

Things I Say to Myself While Hanging Laundry

If an ant, crossing on the clothesline
from apple tree to apple tree,
would think and think,
it probably could not dream up Albert Einstein.
Or even his sloppy moustache;
or the wrinkled skin bags under his eyes
that puffed out years later,
after he dreamed up that maddening relativity.
Even laundry is three-dimensional.
The ants cross its great fibrous forests
from clothespin to clothespin
carrying the very heart of life in their sacs or mandibles,
the very heart of the universe in their formic acid molecules.
And how refreshing the linens are,
lying in the clean sheets at night,
when you seem to be the only one on the mountain,
and your body feels the smooth touch of the bed
like love against your skin;
and the heavy sac of yourself relaxes into its embrace.
When you turn out the light,
you are blind in the dark
as perhaps the ants are blind,
with the same abstract leap out of this limiting dimension.
So that the very curve of light,
as it is pulled in the dimple of space,
is relative to your own blind pathway across the abyss.
And there in the dark is Albert Einstein
with his clever formula that looks like little mandibles
digging tunnels into the earth
and bringing it up, grain by grain,
the crystals of sand exploding
into white-hot radiant turbulence,
smiling at you, his shy bushy smile,
along an imaginary line from here to there.

Ruth Stone

That really made me smile Alf. Thank you. Sorry to hear you're not running at the moment, hope the situation rectifies itself soon. Keep those poems coming please. I've been remise recently and have't created enough time for enough reading so your recent poems have been a healthy reminder that i need to reset my priorities again.

[Hes]

Sorry to hear that you are not running at the moment Alf. Always a very frustrating time, I do hope that you are up and at'em soon.

I haven't been on here much lately but I'm reading quite a bit of poetry at home. A friend just sent me a lovely volume of poems about Britain's native trees called 'Into the Forest' and, slightly racier, I've just bought 'The Poetry of Sex' after hearing a very funny poem from it on R4. Here's a poem a friend emailed me having seen it in a newspaper:


"Two thousand years ago the great Roman poet Ovid posed the very sensible question below.
Here is part of his eloquent argument (translation by A.S. Kline).

SHOULDN'T THE NEW YEAR START IN SPRING?
Tell me why the new-year begins with cold,
When it would be better started in the spring?
Then all's in flower, then time renews its youth,
And the new buds swell on the fertile vines:
The trees are covered in newly formed leaves,
And grass springs from the surface of the soil:
Birds delight the warm air with their melodies,
And the herds frisk and gambol in the fields.
Then the sun's sweet, and brings the swallow, unseen,
To build her clay nest under the highest roof beam.
Then the land's cultivated, renewed by the plough.
That time rightly should have been called New Year."

[Alf]

Sorry to hear that you are not running at the moment Alf. Always a very frustrating time, I do hope that you are up and at'em soon.

I haven't been on here much lately but I'm reading quite a bit of poetry at home. A friend just sent me a lovely volume of poems about Britain's native trees called 'Into the Forest' and, slightly racier, I've just bought 'The Poetry of Sex' after hearing a very funny poem from it on R4. Here's a poem a friend emailed me having seen it in a newspaper:


"Two thousand years ago the great Roman poet Ovid posed the very sensible question below.
Here is part of his eloquent argument (translation by A.S. Kline).

SHOULDN'T THE NEW YEAR START IN SPRING?
Tell me why the new-year begins with cold,
When it would be better started in the spring?
Then all's in flower, then time renews its youth,
And the new buds swell on the fertile vines:
The trees are covered in newly formed leaves,
And grass springs from the surface of the soil:
Birds delight the warm air with their melodies,
And the herds frisk and gambol in the fields.
Then the sun's sweet, and brings the swallow, unseen,
To build her clay nest under the highest roof beam.
Then the land's cultivated, renewed by the plough.
That time rightly should have been called New Year."

I thought ALL poetry was "sexy"
Starting again running (slowly) next week Hes, thanks

[Alf]

I have never been a big fan of Walt Whitman but another American giant of poetry, Robert Frost, I have always liked.

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Robert Frost

[Hes]

That was a real treat. I do like Robert Frost very much. I'm ashamed to day that I am not really that familiar with Walt Whitman's work although a friend has just got a publishing deal from Routledge to write a book about him so I will have to read it and be educated.

To paraphrase 'I don't know much about poetry but I know what I like'.

I have never been a big fan of Walt Whitman but another American giant of poetry, Robert Frost, I have always liked.

Reluctance

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Robert Frost

[Hes]

A friend showed me this last night. His girlfriend saw Robin do a reading of this in London last week. I've always found the Selkie myth compelling and this poem blew me away (warning - it isn't cheery!)

[Mossdog]

A friend showed me this last night. His girlfriend saw Robin do a reading of this in London last week. I've always found the Selkie myth compelling and this poem blew me away (warning - it isn't cheery!)

Blimey! Hide all the sharp implements. Gulp

[Mossdog]

A Greeting

GOOD morning, Life--and all
Things glad and beautiful.
My pockets nothing hold,
But he that owns the gold,
The Sun, is my great friend--
His spending has no end.
Hail to the morning sky,
Which bright clouds measure high;
Hail to you birds whose throats
Would number leaves by notes;
Hail to you shady bowers,
And you green field of flowers.
Hail to you women fair,
That make a show so rare
In cloth as white as milk--
Be't calico or silk:
Good morning, Life--and all
Things glad and beautiful.

W.H. Davies

Now that's more like it