Today's poet

[Marco]

I am grateful for everyone who posts on the Today's poet thread, and also The Film Reviewer thread too; it is good to have something 'cultural' here, and for those who aren't interested it's easy to avoid. I read all the posts in all the threads, (unless it's one of those dreadful political rants we used to get), mainly for the useful and interesting things I have learnt - particularly from the off-thread comments.

Personally, I don't think I'm tall enough for this thread as it goes straight over my head. I do persevere, and read every post, in the hope that enlightenment and wisdom will lower their sights and reach me, but alas it hasn't happened yet. I live in hope.

[Mossdog]

A good old un'

To Autumn
BY JOHN KEATS

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

[Mossdog]

Autumn
John Clare

I love the fitfull gusts that shakes
 The casement all the day
And from the mossy elm tree takes
 The faded leaf away
Twirling it by the window-pane
With thousand others down the lane

I love to see the shaking twig
 Dance till the shut of eve
The sparrow on the cottage rig
 Whose chirp would make believe
That spring was just now flirting by
In summers lap with flowers to lie

I love to see the cottage smoke
 Curl upwards through the naked trees
The pigeons nestled round the coat
 On dull November days like these
The cock upon the dung-hill crowing
The mill sails on the heath a-going

The feather from the ravens breast
 Falls on the stubble lea
The acorns near the old crows nest
 Fall pattering down the tree
The grunting pigs that wait for all
Scramble and hurry where they fall

[anthonykay]

With apologies to those of you born north of Chelmsford or west of Westminster, but this one needs to be recited in what has come to be known as "Estuary English".

Cockles from Southend-on-Sea

There’s all sorts of food in the world as you know
But some just ain’t tasty to me
Like pâté foie gras and black caviar
And porridge!
To name only three;
And you don’t have to try no French cooking,
To make up some delicacy,
For my dearest wish
Is to stand with a dish
Eating cockles from Southend-on-Sea!

Our history goes back to the Romans
But one story to me is quite clear,
How old Caesar got smitten
With one gorgeous Briton
The fellers called Queen Boadicea.
He said that they ought to go roamin’
She could even become ‘Mrs C’;
When he said that he’d buy her
Anything she’d desire
She said “Cockles from Southend-on-Sea!”

Doctor Livingstone out in the jungle
Was carving his way through the bush,
When up comes this feller called Stanley
Who says to him “Afternoon Mush!”
“I hear you’ve been out here for ages,
So I’ve brought something nice for your tea;
I’ll just ask the porter
To pop ‘em in water
They’re cockles from Southend-on-Sea!”

Doctors the whole world over
Are always trying to find
A miracle cure, that’s certain and sure
For the general good of mankind.
Now I ain’t no blooming professor,
And I don’t charge no Harley Street fee,
But what I would say
Is “Three times a day
Take cockles from Southend-on-Sea!"

Frank Owens [16/5/1932 - 31/10/2022]

[Mossdog]

A Great Wagon

by Rumi


When I see your face, the stones start spinning!
You appear; all studying wanders.
I lose my place.
Water turns pearly.
Fire dies down and doesn't destroy.
In your presence I don't want what I thought
I wanted, those three little hanging lamps.
Inside your face the ancient manuscripts
Seem like rusty mirrors.
You breathe; new shapes appear,
and the music of a desire as widespread
as Spring begins to move
like a great wagon.
Drive slowly.
Some of us walking alongside
are lame!

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don't open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.
Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don't go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don't go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don't go back to sleep.
I would love to kiss you.
The price of kissing is your life.
Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,
What a bargain, let's buy it.

Daylight, full of small dancing particles
and the one great turning, our souls
are dancing with you, without feet, they dance.
Can you see them when I whisper in your ear?

They try to say what you are, spiritual or sexual?
They wonder about Solomon and all his wives.
In the body of the world, they say, there is a soul
and you are that.
But we have ways within each other
that will never be said by anyone.

Come to the orchard in Spring.
There is light and wine, and sweethearts
in the pomegranate flowers.
If you do not come, these do not matter.
If you do come, these do not matter.

[Llani Boy]

I don't really get poetry but enjoyed this. It was read at the funeral of a 90 year old lady that I attended on Friday.

Dust If You Must

Rose Milligan


Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better
To paint a picture, or write a letter,
Bake a cake,or plant a seed;
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there's not much time,
With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;
Music to hear, and books to read;
Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world's out there
With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must,but bear in mind,
Old age will come and its not kind.
And when you go (and go you must)
You, yourself, will make more dust.

[Mossdog]

I don't really get poetry but enjoyed this. It was read at the funeral of a 90 year old lady that I attended on Friday.

Dust If You Must

Rose Milligan


Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better
To paint a picture, or write a letter,
Bake a cake,or plant a seed;
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there's not much time,
With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;
Music to hear, and books to read;
Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world's out there
With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must,but bear in mind,
Old age will come and its not kind.
And when you go (and go you must)
You, yourself, will make more dust.

Excellent. Thanks for posting.

[Graham Breeze]

Can't you see that you were born to stand by my side
And I was born to be with you, I was born to be your bride
You're the other half of what I am, you're the missing piece
And I love you more than ever with that love that doesn't cease.



The widow of my best friend from school days put these words (from a song) on the Order of Service when he died suddenly aged 58.

[Mossdog]

The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls

BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW


The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.