Today's poet

[Mossdog]

THE BUDDHAS LAST INSTRUCTION.

“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal-a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.

MARY OLIVER

[Mossdog]

Let the wax raise

green statues, let the honey

drip in infinite tongues, let the ocean be a big comb

and the Earth a tunic of flowers, let the World

be a cascade, magnificent hair, unceasing

growth of Beedom.


Pablo Neruda

[Alf]

Keeping up the summery theme that Mossy has introduced. Here is one by William Blake that could be very crudely translated as "its too hot for me" which those "southern swains" might well be quoting this weekend

To Summer


O thou who passest thro’ our valleys in
Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat
That flames from their large nostrils! thou, O Summer,
Oft pitchedst here thy golden tent, and oft
Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld
With joy, thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.

Beneath our thickest shades we oft have heard
Thy voice, when noon upon his fervid car
Rode o’er the deep of heaven: beside our springs
Sit down, and in our mossy valleys, on
Some bank beside a river clear, throw thy
Silk draperies off, and rush into the stream:
Our valleys love the Summer in his pride.

Our bards are famed who strike the silver wire:
Our youth are bolder than the southern swains:
Our maidens fairer in the sprightly dance:
We lack not songs, nor instruments of joy,
Nor echoes sweet, nor waters clear as heaven,
Nor laurel wreaths against the sultry heat.

William Blake

[Alf]

The excellent Norman MacCaig

Found guilty

To this day, poor swimmer as I am,
it grieves me
that I watched the little sandpiper drown.

When I passed the nest
shoulder high on a bank of Loch Lurgain
the young ones cheeped-cheeped out of it
to flop in the heather twenty yards away.

Except that one. It flew over the water.
lower and lower, then tried to fly in the water:
and drowned

I've watched friends, strong fliers among mountains,
who flew lower and lower
and drowned in the uncaring water
they had soared above.

Little sandpiper, you left me
accused of what
I have no defence against.

Friends, I ask your forgiveness.
I ask for something
I don't deserve. And I ask for it
too late.

Norman MacCaig

[Alf]

Fetching Cows

The black one, last as usual swings her head
And coils a black tongue round a grass-tuft. I
Watch her soft weight come down, her split feet spread.

In front, the others swing and slouch; they roll
Their great Greek eyes and breathe out milky gusts
From muzzles black and shiny as wet coal.

The collie trots, bored, at my heels, then plops
Into the ditch. The sea makes a tired sound
That's always stopping though it never stops.

A haycart squats prickeared agains the sky.
Hay breath and milk breath. Far out in the West
The wrecked sun founders though its colours fly.

The collie's bored. There's nothing to control . . .
The black cow is two native carriers
Bringing its belly home, slung from a pole.

Norman MacCaig

[Alf]

A Sparrow Hawk


Slips from your eye-corner – overtaking
Your First thought.

Through your mulling gaze over haphazard earth
The sun’s cooled carbon wing
Whets the eyebeam.

Those eyes in their helmet
Still wired direct
To the nuclear core – they’re alone

Laser the lark-shaped hole
In the lark’s song.

You find the fallen spurs, among soft ashes.

And maybe you find him

Materialized by twilight and dew
Still as a listener -

The warrior

Blue shoulder-cloak wrapped about him
Learning, hunched,
Among the oaks of harp.

Ted Hughes

[Richard Shlong]

A trip to Tesco's on a Friday Night

I better set the scene.

Picture me, Shlong, shopping on Tesco's late on Friday Night, and I for I do see a lovely lady, browsing the flowers. I walked over, let her have a good look at me, Shlong, before introducing myself. She said she loved the name Richard, and wanted to have my babies.

That night, whilst we gazed up at the stars; still at Tesco's' but in the Electrical department looking at electrical ceiling mounted stars on offer at 2 for 1, I made a mental note of the wonderful evening we had, and wrote this poem:

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.



R. Shlong (massive), 2014.

[alwaysinjured]

I reckon this is good poetry, can put it back in the national anthem soon...

Lord grant that Marshal Wade
May by thy mighty aid
Victory bring.
May he sedition hush,
And like a torrent rush,
Rebellious Scots to crush.
God save the King!

[Mossdog]

Valentine

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Carol Ann Duffy

[Alf]

Valentine

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Carol Ann Duffy

Lush the only word forrit Mossy!