Today's poet

[Mossdog]

Been a while since i've frequented these parts, here's some poetry relating to the Stainmore area around Brough/Kirkby Stephen.

Distant and high, the tower of Bowes
Like steel upon the anvil glows;
And Stainmore’s ridge, behind that lay,
Rich with the spoils of parting day,
In crimson and in gold array’d.

Sir Walter Scott, from ‘Rokeby’


Let those who rest more deeply sleep,
Let those awake their vigils keep.
O hand of glory shed thy light,
Direct us to our spoil to-night.
Flash out thy light, o skeleton hand
And guide the feet of our misty band

Spoken by a cloaked, mysterious old woman, holding the pickled hand of a dead criminal; upon entering a remote coaching inn. The hand carried a candle made from the fat of the dead criminal, and its light was supposed to guide robbers to their spoil


Of these Norwegian folks though long since passed away,
You see the kith and kin on Stainmore every day.
Tall men they are and fair with strong and well knit frame,
And their ways and habits you’ll find them just the same.
Firm and independent their necks, they are still free,
And to another man they never bow the knee.
And in the low deep tone we hear the Northman’s speech,
In spite of all the schools and what they try to teach.
The names of places too all link us with the past,
A house may tumble down yet will the name hold fast.

Rev. Thomas Westgarth.


High up on Barras side- I stand to view the scene
And ask can they be real, or is it just a dream?
For ‘tis here John Martin stood to paint ‘The Plains of Heaven’
And sure no grander scene to mortals ere was given.

Rev. Thomas Westgarth.


To future ages these lines will tell
Who built this structure o’er the dell
Gilkes Wilson with these eighty men
Raised Belah’s viaduct o’er the glen.

Poem placed in one of the columns supporting the viaduct at Belah.

Those are lovely Mr B. I've not read any of them before and they all refer to places very near to me too. Thanks for posting.

[Mossdog]

Saw my first Teesdale swallow of the summer yesterday evening - Hooorah they're back. Left the door of the byre open so hopefully I'll have some very welcomed, chirpy visitors again this year.

Bird

It was passed from one bird to another,
the whole gift of the day.
The day went from flute to flute,
went dressed in vegetation,
in flights which opened a tunnel
through the wind would pass
to where birds were breaking open
the dense blue air -
and there, night came in.

When I returned from so many journeys,
I stayed suspended and green
between sun and geography -
I saw how wings worked,
how perfumes are transmitted
by feathery telegraph,
and from above I saw the path,
the springs and the roof tiles,
the fishermen at their trades,
the trousers of the foam;
I saw it all from my green sky.
I had no more alphabet
than the swallows in their courses,
the tiny, shining water
of the small bird on fire
which dances out of the pollen.

Pablo Neruda

[Mossdog]

Everyone Sang

Everyone suddenly burst out singing:
And I was filled with such delight
As prisoned birds must find in freedom,
Winging wildly across the white
Orchards and dark-green fields: on--on--and out of sight.

Everyone's voice was suddenly lifted;
And beauty came like the setting sun;
My heart was shaken with tears: and horror
Drifted away. . .O, but Everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the singing will never be done.

Siegfried Sassoon

[corredor]

I found out today that yesterday would have been the birthday of the Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño. Bolaño was, in my opinion, a great novelist although he first wanted to be a poet and believed that poetry was probably the "highest calling" (although he would probably hate that phrase). His novel “The Savage Detectives” (Los detectivos salvages) is a partially autobiographical novel about the search for a pure literature that takes a group of young idealists around the world after they are forced to flee Mexico. Ultimately, they find that they have been searching for a poetry that attempts to leave words behind altogether.
Personally, I don’t like Bolaño’s poetry but as this thread is about poetry, there a piece from the New York Times on his poetry here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/bo...his-poems.html. He died awaiting a pancreas transplant and spent the end of his life dealing with illness. In his essay “Literature + Illness = Illness” (Literatura + Enfermedad = Enfermedad), published in “The Insufferable Groucho” he says:
"I guess I want to say that Kafka understood that travel, sex, and books are paths that lead nowhere except to the loss of the self, and yet they must be followed and the self must be lost, in order to find it again, or to find something, whatever it may be -- a book, an expression, a misplaced object -- in order to find anything at all, a method, perhaps, and with a bit of luck, the “new”, which has been there all along."
If anyone is interested, I really recommend his 1998 novel The Savage Detectives. It’s not easy going and plays with lots of different literary ideas from genre writing to the highest ideals of poetry without ever feeling like pseud’s corner. Those more intrepid may also want to read his masterpiece 2666, but to get through that you really need the Bolaño bug, and bug is the probably the right word for someone who felt that great art is not so much a search for a great aesthetic ideal but rather an illness from which you will never fully recover.

[OneOffPoet]

First one for aaaaaages. Hope it makes some kind of sense.

Run To Rest

I run to rest, the mountains an unlikely couch
But what form of meditation is this?
Dancing feet, a pounding heart
The terrain contorting my body
Into countless, never repeated poses
Yet thankfully, mostly upright

The mountains move me, more so for their stillness
Problems hitherto unsolved, dissolved
Rocks as pixels, summits are icons
Never a truer perspective gained
Fashioned as an escape
It is, in truth, a homecoming

I run to grow, dwarfed by the peaks
Winning and losing, yet always gaining
Leaving energy, blood and studmarks
Taking intangible succour
Standing taller for being worn down
Such is the runner's pact with the fells

[mr brightside]

Those are lovely Mr B. I've not read any of them before and they all refer to places very near to me too. Thanks for posting.

I like the Sir Walter Scott one. Poetry never makes sense to me because it's mostly abstract riddles to my eyes and ears, but that one is spot on.

[Mossdog]

First one for aaaaaages. Hope it makes some kind of sense.

Run To Rest

I run to rest, the mountains an unlikely couch
But what form of meditation is this?
Dancing feet, a pounding heart
The terrain contorting my body
Into countless, never repeated poses
Yet thankfully, mostly upright

The mountains move me, more so for their stillness
Problems hitherto unsolved, dissolved
Rocks as pixels, summits are icons
Never a truer perspective gained
Fashioned as an escape
It is, in truth, a homecoming

I run to grow, dwarfed by the peaks
Winning and losing, yet always gaining
Leaving energy, blood and studmarks
Taking intangible succour
Standing taller for being worn down
Such is the runner's pact with the fells

Well it might be your first poem for ages OOP, but it was certainly well worth the wait. You've captured and conveyed in a quite wonderful way the multitude of inherent paradoxes many of us find ourselves wrapped up in when fell running.

[Mossdog]

The Song of Wandering Aengus

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

[Hes]

Nice to see some Neruda and Yeats and a great original piece from OneOff!

I had the good fortune of seeing Simon Armitage reciting poems at Yorkshire Sculpture Park last night. He's written some new ones to coincide with the Henry Moore exhibition. He signed my book afterwards and I am so chuffed that he remembered me from when Freckle, Old Whippet, HHH & I rescued him from Cross Fell whilst he was on his Pennine adventure. He sent his regards to the fell poets Anyway, here's a lovely poem inspired by Moore's 'Mother and Child'

Mother and Child

As if from the deep well of myself
I'd hauled him out, little albino cub
with his blank thumb of a face
as nude as the moon.

My infant yeti, alien pup;
with his paws at my neck
his plump marzipan arms
made a watertight bowl at my breast

where he could wash
where he could lap at the seawater I'd wept.
O he was mine alright, pillow-case smooth
but marsupial, strange, papoosed

in otherness, his cheeks
not yet pummelled by lies,
his lips not yet peeled by lies,
his tongue still unborn.

My locked hands made a sling, cupping
his boneless weight,
and I knew without looking
that shadows moved like fish

under his mottled skin,
that his cute birthmarks were my stains.
Soft thoughts idled and nudged
in the globe of his head.

I turned to one side, saying
look art us, joined in the flesh,
formed as a single piece.
Carve us like this.

Simon Armitage

[Mossdog]

Ah for a bit of peace and quiet!!!!


SILENTIUM! or Molchanie

Speak not, lie hidden, and conceal
the way you dream, the things you feel.
Deep in your spirit let them rise
akin to stars in crystal skies
that set before the night is blurred:
delight in them and speak no word.


How can a heart expression find?
How should another know your mind?
Will he discern what quickens you?
A thought once uttered is untrue.
Dimmed is the fountainhead when stirred:
drink at the source and speak no word.


Live in your inner self alone
within your soul a world has grown,
the magic of veiled thoughts that might
be blinded by the outer light,
drowned in the noise of day, unheard...
take in their song and speak no word.

-- Fyodor Tyutchev (trans. Vladimir Nabokov)