Today's poet

[Alf]

I have my tickets now for Ian McMillan and Jackie Kay attending out local lit. festival in October

Me and Ian have a lot in common, both born in the West Riding of Yorkshire, both like pies, beer and of course Poetry (he writes it and I read it)

[Mossdog]

I have my tickets now for Ian McMillan and Jackie Kay attending out local lit. festival in October

Me and Ian have a lot in common, both born in the West Riding of Yorkshire, both like pies, beer and of course Poetry (he writes it and I read it)

Even I, a committed veggie, had to smile at that one. What a brilliant voice he has too. I always enjoys listening to him (usually on R4). Thanks for posting Alf. That's cheered me up.

[Mossdog]

'vermillion, round big, splendid'

An apple's soft thump on the grass, somewhen
in this place. What was it? Beauty of Bath.
What was it? Yellow, vermillion, round, big, splendid;
already escaping the edge of itself,
                               like the mantra of bees,
like the notes of rosemary, tarragon, thyme.
Poppies scumble their colour onto the air,
now and there, here, then and again.

                                 Alive-alive-oh,
the heart's impulse to cherish; thus,
a woman petalling paint onto a plate –
cornflower blue –
as the years pressed out her own violet ghost;
that slow brush of vanishing cloud on the sky.

And the dragonfly's talent for turquoise.
And the goldfish art of the pond.
And the open windows calling the garden in.

This bowl, life, that we fill and fill.


from Carol Ann Duffy's Lessons in the Orchard

[Mossdog]

All You Need


The feeling he thinks of as love
is liking the sound of her voice

or how she considers laughing
before she smiles,

and though the words he speaks are learned
from radio and 50s musicals

he isn’t that far wrong in thinking
love is like the story he has longed

for years to tell, on such a night as this,
clumsy, no doubt, his fingers

tangled in her shirt, her kiss
so close it feels like someplace in his mind

he hasn’t found till now, a borderland
of rain and firs, some distance from the town

he never quite grew up in, lacking her:
and so he says it, loyal to events

he knows enough to trust – this film, that song –
love you he says, though now it seems for show,

a line that runs so far from what he meant,
it frightens him that thinking made it so.

John Burnside

[Old Whippet]

Had to shift this over from the general fell running section! Rather lovely I think. For all the (us) grey beards out there.....
http://vimeo.com/52222410

[Alf]

All You Need


The feeling he thinks of as love
is liking the sound of her voice

or how she considers laughing
before she smiles,

and though the words he speaks are learned
from radio and 50s musicals

he isn’t that far wrong in thinking
love is like the story he has longed

for years to tell, on such a night as this,
clumsy, no doubt, his fingers

tangled in her shirt, her kiss
so close it feels like someplace in his mind

he hasn’t found till now, a borderland
of rain and firs, some distance from the town

he never quite grew up in, lacking her:
and so he says it, loyal to events

he knows enough to trust – this film, that song –
love you he says, though now it seems for show,

a line that runs so far from what he meant,
it frightens him that thinking made it so.

John Burnside

He is very good isn't he, thanks for posting Mossy

[Alf]

Had to shift this over from the general fell running section! Rather lovely I think. For all the (us) grey beards out there.....
http://vimeo.com/52222410

Lush and a bit too close to home

[Alf]

A 14-Year-Old Convalescent Cat in Winter

I want him to have another living summer,
to lie in the sun and enjoy the douceur de vivre -
because the sun, like golden rum in a rummer,
is what makes an idle cat un tout petit peu ivre -

I want him to lie stretched out, contented,
revelling in the heat, his fur all dry and warm,
an Old Age Pensioner, retired, resented
by no one, and happinesses in a beelike swarm

to settle on him - postponed for another season
that last fated hateful journey to the vet
from which there is no return (and age the reason),
which must come soon - as I cannot forget.

Gavin Ewart (1916-95)

[Hes]

What a treat! I've been giving the forum a miss for a while but the poetry on here and that lovely film have tempted me back. I've unpacked all of my poetry books and found a space for them in my new house. Just need time to read now

All You Need


The feeling he thinks of as love
is liking the sound of her voice

or how she considers laughing
before she smiles,

and though the words he speaks are learned
from radio and 50s musicals

he isn’t that far wrong in thinking
love is like the story he has longed

for years to tell, on such a night as this,
clumsy, no doubt, his fingers

tangled in her shirt, her kiss
so close it feels like someplace in his mind

he hasn’t found till now, a borderland
of rain and firs, some distance from the town

he never quite grew up in, lacking her:
and so he says it, loyal to events

he knows enough to trust – this film, that song –
love you he says, though now it seems for show,

a line that runs so far from what he meant,
it frightens him that thinking made it so.

John Burnside

[Mossdog]

What a treat! I've been giving the forum a miss for a while but the poetry on here and that lovely film have tempted me back. I've unpacked all of my poetry books and found a space for them in my new house. Just need time to read now

Glad you're keeping well Hes.

Afterlife

When we are gone
our lives will continue without us

– or so we believe and,
at times, we have tried to imagine

the gaps we will leave being filled
with the brilliance of others:

someone else gathering plums
from this tree in the garden,

someone else thinking this thought
in a room filled with stars

and coming to no conclusion
other than this –

this bungled joy, this inarticulate
conviction that the future cannot come

without the grace
of setting things aside,

of giving up
the phantom of a soul

that only seemed to be
while it was passing.

John Burnside