Come on, folks, let’s celebrate the poetic muse!

One of my favourites;

As the team’s head-brass flashed out on the turn
The lovers disappeared into the wood.
I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm
That strewed the angle of the fallow, and
Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square
Of charlock. Every time the horses turned
Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned
Upon the handles to say or ask a word,
About the weather, next about the war.
Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,
And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed
Once more.

The blizzard felled the elm whose crest
I sat in, by a woodpecker’s round hole,
The ploughman said. ‘When will they take it away?’
‘When the war’s over.’ So the talk began –
One minute and an interval of ten,
A minute more and the same interval.
‘Have you been out?’ ‘No.’ ‘And don’t want to, perhaps?’
‘If I could only come back again, I should.
I could spare an arm, I shouldn’t want to lose
A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,
I should want nothing more…Have many gone
From here?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Many lost?’ ‘Yes, a good few.
Only two teams work on the farm this year.
One of my mates is dead. The second day
In France they killed him. It was back in March,
The very night of the blizzard, too. Now if
He had stayed here we should have moved the tree.’
‘And I should not have sat here. Everything
Would have been different. For it would have been
Another world.’ ‘Ay, and a better, though
If we could see all all might seem good.’ Then
The lovers came out of the wood again:
The horses started and for the last time
I watched the clods crumble and topple over
After the ploughshare and the stumbling team.

“As the Team’s Head-Brass”, by Edward Thomas

‘Is there anybody there?’ said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest’s ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller’s head:
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
‘Is there anybody there?’ he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller’s call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
’Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:—
‘Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,’ he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

The Listeners – Walther De La Mare

Ok so I’m a bit of a traditionalist when it comes to poetry

My two are:

Lake Isle of Innisfree by WB Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core

And by the late great Seamus Heaney, Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner’s bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I’ve no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

To dream the impossible dream
To fight the unbeatable foe
To bear with unbearable sorrow
To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong
To love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest
To follow that star
No matter how hopeless
No matter how far

To fight for the right
Without question or pause
To be willing to march into Hell
For a heavenly cause

And I know if I’ll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I’m laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this
That one man, scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England’s foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

And just for emphasis

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

DD, that Heaney one is lovely. Haven’t seen it in an age!

Oh freddled gruntbuggly,
Thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop, I implore thee, my foonting turlingdromes,
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts
With my blurglecruncheon, see if I don’t!

Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz

‘This be the verse’ – Philip Larkin. Look it up.

O, my little pup ten years ago
was arrogant and spry,
Her backbone was a bended bow
for arrows in her eye.
Her step was proud, her bark was loud,
her nose was in the sky,
But she was ten years younger then,
And so, by God, was I.

Small birds on stilts along the beach
rose up with piping cry.
And as they rose beyond her reach
I thought to see her fly.
If natural law refused her wings,
that law she would defy,
for she could do unheard-of things,
and so, at times, could I.

Ten years ago she split the air
to seize what she could spy;
Tonight she bumps against a chair,
betrayed by milky eye!
She seems to pant, Time up, time up!
My little dog must die,
And lie in dust with Hector’s pup;
So, presently, must I.

O Nash

On yonder hill there stood a coo
Its no there noo
It must have shifted

Truly inspired poetry….

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4B04eUmHag[/video]

Not like that Keith. No, Keith, NO! 😆

Pop and me
My dad had come along to watch me
the day I came last in the cub scout sack race;
the day my glasses fell off on to the running track
and somebody behind me
deliberately hopped on top of them
and damaged them really badly.
I was that
struggling runt at the back
laughed at by everyone,
everyone, except my dad.
And not because he had
a beating in mind
but because he felt for me.
And when he came to find me
and I was melting with tears
he said ‘You’re the one
they’ll remember in the years to come, son,
you were very funny.’
And he took me to the shop
and ordered me some pop
and we halved the humiliation
when he didn’t have the money.

————

(and from memory)

My doggie don’t wear glasses
So they’re lying when they say
A dog looks like it’s owner
Aren’t they

(both John Hegley, of course)

You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge

[Verse One: Ice Cube]

Straight outta Compton, crazy **** named Ice Cube
From the gang called Niggaz With Attitudes
When I’m called off, I got a sawed off
Squeeze the trigger, and bodies are hauled off
You too, boy, if ya **** with me
The police are gonna hafta come and get me
Off yo ass, that’s how I’m goin out
For the punk **** that’s showin out
Niggaz start to mumble, they wanna rumble
Mix em and cook em in a pot like gumbo
Goin off on a **** like that
with a gat that’s pointed at yo ass
So give it up smooth
Ain’t no tellin when I’m down for a jack move
Here’s a murder rap to keep yo dancin
with a crime record like Charles Manson
AK-47 is the tool
Don’t make me act the motherfuckin fool
Me you can go toe to toe, no maybe
I’m knockin niggaz out tha box, daily
yo weekly, monthly and yearly
until them dumb **** see clearly
that I’m down with the capital C-P-T
Boy you can’t **** with me
So when I’m in your neighborhood, you better duck
Coz Ice Cube is crazy as ****
As I leave, believe I’m stompin
but when I come back, boy, I’m comin straight outta Compton

[Chorus:]

(City of Compton, City of Compton)

[Eazy E] Yo Ren
[MC Ren] Whassup?
[Eazy E] Tell em where you from!

[Verse Two: MC Ren]

Straight outta Compton, another crazy ass nigga
More punks I smoke, yo, my rep gets bigger
I’m a bad **** and you know this
But the pussy ass niggaz don’t show this
But I don’t give a ****, I’ma make my snaps
If not from the records, from jackin the crops
Just like burglary, the definition is ‘jackin’
And when illegally armed it’s called ‘packin’
Shoot a **** in a minute
I find a good piece o’ pussy, I go up in it
So if you’re at a show in the front row
I’m a call you a bitch or dirty-ass ho
You’ll probably get mad like a bitch is supposed to
But that shows me, slut, you’re composed to
a crazy muthafucker from tha street
Attitude legit cause I’m tearin up shit
MC Ren controls the automatic
For any dumb muthafucker that starts static
Not the right hand cause I’m the hand itself
every time I pull a AK off the shelf
The security is maximum and that’s a law
R-E-N spells Ren but I’m raw
See, coz I’m the motherfuckin villain
The definition is clear, you’re the witness of a killin
that’s takin place without a clue
And once you’re on the scope, your ass is through
Look, you might take it as a trip
but a nigga like Ren is on a gangsta tip
Straight outta Compton…

[Chorus:]

(City of Compton, City of Compton)

[Dr. Dre] Eazy is his name and the boy is comin…

[Verse Three: Eazy-E]

…straight outta Compton
is a brotha that’ll smother yo’ mother
and make ya sister think I love her
Dangerous **** raises hell
And if I ever get caught I make bail
See, I don’t give a ****, that’s the problem
I see a motherfuckin cop I don’t dodge him
But I’m smart, lay low, creep a while
And when I see a punk pass, I smile
To me it’s kinda funny, the attitude showin a nigga drivin
but don’t know where the **** he’s going, just rollin
lookin for the one they call Eazy
But here’s a flash, they never seize me
Ruthless! Never seen like a shadow in the dark
except when I unload, see I’ll get over the hesitation
and hear the scream of the one who got the last penetration
Give a little gust of wind and I’m jettin
But leave a memory no one’ll be forgettin
So what about the bitch who got shot? **** her!
You think I give a damn about a bitch? I ain’t a sucker!
This is the autobiography of the E, and if you ever **** with me
You’ll get taken by a stupid dope brotha who will smother
word to the ****, straight outta Compton

[Chorus:]

(City of Compton, City of Compton)

(Damn that shit was dope!)

Edit: hmm I thought the swear filter would take care of that.

<Pam Ayres>
A cyclist with an attitude superior
Thought fixies with brakes quite inferior
‘Til on course to collide
He ended his ride
With his head up the next guy’s posterior.
</Pam Ayres>

Meanwhile, somewhere in the state of Colorado, armed to the teeth
with thousands of flowers,
two boys entered the front door of their own high school
and for almost two hours
gave floral tributes to fellow students and members of staff
beginning with red roses
strewn amongst unsuspecting pupils during their lunch hour,
followed by posies
of peace lilies and wild orchids. Most thought the whole show
was one elaborate hoax
using silk replicas of the real thing, plastic imitations,
exquisite practical jokes,
but the flowers were no more fake than you or I,
and were handed out
as compliments returned, favours repaid, in good faith,
straight from the heart.
No would not be taken for an answer. Therefore a daffodil
was tucked behind the ear
of a boy in a baseball hat, and marigolds and peonies
threaded through the hair
of those caught on the stairs or spotted along corridors
until every pupil
who looked up from behind a desk could expect to be met
with at least a petal
or a dusting of pollen, if not an entire daisy chain,
or the colour-burst
of a dozen foxgloves, flowering for all their worth,
on a buttonhole to the breast.
Upstairs in the school library, individuals were singled out for special attention:
some were showered with blossom, others wore their blooms
like brooches or medallions;
even those who turned their backs or refused point-blank
to accept such honours
were decorated with buds, unseasonable fruits and rosettes
the same as the others.
By which time a crowd had gathered outside the school,
drawn through surburbia
by the rumour of flowers in full bloom, drawn through the air
like butterflies to buddleia,
like honey bees to honeysuckle, like hummingbirds
dipping their tongues in,
some to soak up such over exuberance of thought, others
to savour the goings-on.
Finally, overcome by their own munificence or hay fever,
the flower boys pinned
the last blooms on themselves, somewhat selfishly perhaps,
but had also planned
further surprises for those who swept through the aftermath
of broom and buttercup:
garlands and bouquets were planted in lockers and cupboards,
timed to erupt
like the first day of spring into the arms of those
who, during the first bout,
either by fate or chance had somehow been overlooked
and missed out.
Experts are now trying to say how two apparently quiet kids
from an apple-pie town
could get their hands on a veritable rain-forest of plants
and bring down
a whole botanical digest of one species or another onto the
heads of classmates and teachers,
and where such fascination began, and why it should lead
to such an outpouring of nature.
And even though many believe that flowers should be kept
in expert hands
only, or left to specialists in the field such as florists,
the law of the land
dictates that God, guts and gardening made the country
what it is today
and for as long as the flower industry can see to it
things are staying that way.
What they reckon is this: deny a person the right to carry
flowers of his own
and he’s liable to wind up on the business end of a flower
someone else has grown.
As for the two boys, it’s back to the same old debate:
is it something in the mind
that grows from birth, like a seed, or is it society
makes a person that kind?

Appolinaire: Le Pont Mirabeau

Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l’onde si lasse

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

L’amour s’en va comme cette eau courante
L’amour s’en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l’Espérance est violente

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine

Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure

fleas

Adam,
Had’um.

[part]

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness ? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet ;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

And Ted Hughes, of course:

I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

High Flight by John Magee

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunwards I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds – and done a thousand things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hovering there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air,
Up, up the long delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace,
Where never lark, or even eagle, flew;
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of god.

Nice one DezzieBee

Another Ted Hughes offering – I always think of it when riding in the winter!

The tractor stands frozen – an agony
To think of. All night
Snow packed its open entrails. Now a head-pincering gale,
A spill of molten ice, smoking snow,
Pours into its steel.
At white heat of numbness it stands
In the aimed hosing of ground-level fieriness.

It defied flesh and won’t start.
Hands are like wounds already
Inside armour gloves, and feet are unbelievable
As if the toe-nails were all just torn off.
I stare at it in hatred. Beyond it
The copse hisses – capitulates miserably
In the fleeing, failing light. Starlings,
A dirtier sleetier snow, blow smokily, unendingly, over
Towards plantations Eastward.
All the time the tractor is sinking
Through the degrees, deepening
Into its hell of ice.

The starting lever
Cracks its action, like a snapping knuckle.
The battery is alive – but like a lamb
Trying to nudge its solid-frozen mother –
While the seat claims my buttock-bones, bites
With the space-cold of earth, which it has joined
In one solid lump.

I squirt commercial sure-fire
Down the black throat – it just coughs.
It ridicules me – a trap of iron stupidity
I’ve stepped into. I drive the battery
As if I were hammering and hammering
The frozen arrangement to pieces with a hammer
And it jabbers laughing pain-crying mockingly
Into happy life.

And stands
Shuddering itself full of heat, seeming to enlarge slowly
Like a demon demonstrating
A more-than-usually-complete materialization –
Suddenly it jerks from its solidarity
With the concrete, and lurches towards a stanchion
Bursting with superhuman well-being and abandon
Shouting Where Where?

Worse iron is waiting. Power-lift kneels
Levers awake imprisoned deadweight,
Shackle-pins bedded in cast-iron cow-shit.
The blind and vibrating condemned obedience
Of iron to the cruelty of iron,
Wheels screeched out of their night-locks –

Fingers
Among the tormented
Tonnage and burning of iron

Eyes
Weeping in the wind of chloroform

And the tractor, streaming with sweat,
Raging and trembling and rejoicing.

After Apple Picking

My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still.
And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples; I am drowsing off.
I cannot shake the shimmer from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the water-trough,
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and reappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
And I keep hearing from the cellar-bin
That rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking; I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall,
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised, or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.
Robert Frost

Amy Lowell one of my favs ( the other one if her’s is called Decade, but look that up yourself 😳 )

Madonna of the Flowers
All day long I have been working,
Now I am tired
I call: “Where are you?”
But there is only the oak-tree rustling in the wind.
The house is very quiet,
The sun shines in on your books,
On your scissors and thimble just put down,
But you are not there.
Suddenly I am lonely:
Where are you? I go about searching.

Then I see you,
Standing under a spire of pale blue larkspur,
With a basket of roses on your arm.
You are cool, like silver,
And you smile.
I think the Canterbury bells are playing little tunes.

You tell me that the peonies need spraying,
That the columbines have overrun all bounds,
That the pyrus japonica should be cut back and rounded.
You tell me all these things.
But I look at you, heart of silver,
White heart-flame of polished silver,
Burning beneath the blue steeples of the larkspur,
And I long to kneel instantly at your feet,
While all about us peal the loud, sweet, Te Deums of the Canterbury bells.

Loving this thread so far, people! Wonderful stuff, bringing smiles and sadness in equal measure.

If we’re allowed lyrical poetry, this always stuns me in to silence;

Iron-clad feather-feet pounding the dust
An October’s day, towards evening
Sweat embossed veins standing proud to the plough
Salt on a deep chest seasoning
Last of the line at an honest day’s toil
Turning the deep sod under
Flint at the fetlock, chasing the bone
Flies at the nostrils plunder.

The Suffolk, the Clydesdale, the Percheron vie
With the Shire on his feathers floating
Hauling soft timber into the dusk
To bed on a warm straw coating.

Heavy Horses, move the land under me
Behind the plough gliding — slipping and sliding free
Now you’re down to the few
And there’s no work to do
The tractor’s on it’s way.

Let me find you a filly for your proud stallion seed
To keep the old line going.
And we’ll stand you abreast at the back of the wood
Behind the young trees growing
To hide you from eyes that mock at your girth,
And your eighteen hands at the shoulder
And one day when the oil barons have all dripped dry
And the nights are seen to draw colder
They’ll beg for your strength, your gentle power
Your noble grace and your bearing
And you’ll strain once again to the sound of the gulls
In the wake of the deep plough, sharing.

Standing like tanks on the brow of the hill
Up into the cold wind facing
In stiff battle harness, chained to the world
Against the low sun racing
Bring me a wheel of oaken wood
A rein of polished leather
A Heavy Horse and a tumbling sky
Brewing heavy weather.

Bring a song for the evening
Clean brass to flash the dawn
Across these acres glistening
Like dew on a carpet lawn
In these dark towns folk lie sleeping
As the heavy horses thunder by
To wake the dying city
With the living horseman’s cry
At once the old hands quicken —
Bring pick and wisp and curry comb —
Thrill to the sound of all
The heavy horses coming home.

Heavy Horses, Ian Anderson writing for Jethro Tull.

Poems by William Carlos Williams : 39 / 114 « prev. poemnext poem » User Rating: 5.8 / 10
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Report Poem Landscape With The Fall Of Icarus
According to Brueghel
when Icarus fell
it was spring

a farmer was ploughing
his field
the whole pageantry

of the year was
awake tingling
near

the edge of the sea
concerned
with itself

sweating in the sun
that melted
the wings’ wax

unsignificantly
off the coast
there was

a splash quite unnoticed
this was
Icarus drowning

William Carlos Williams

…like wandering into an episode of poetry please. no bike poems tho.

you could do worse than get jenny swann’s ten poems about bicycles which is both good and available (if it’s still in print) from candlestick press down in that there englandshire.

or, if you’re north of the border, you could get the rather fabulous flying scot by rab wilson. if it doesn’t fulfil yr handmade, restoring bikes etc etc niche there’s something wrong with you. but buy one roncadora press thing and you’ll want more. hugh bryden – a kind of legend.

Is it already?? Jeeze that passed me by.

No good posting other Authors stuff.. pen yer own…

Another seasonal fruit poem 😉

Blackberry-Picking

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.

Seamus Heaney ( RIP )

Brown and agile child, the sun which forms the fruit
And ripens the grain and twists the seaweed
Has made your happy body and your luminous eyes
And given your mouth the smile of water.

A black and anguished sun is entangled in the twigs
Of your black mane when you hold out your arms.
You play in the sun as in a tidal river
And it leaves two dark pools in your eyes.

Brown and agile child, nothing draws me to you,
Everything pulls away from me here in the noon.
You are the delirious youth of bee,
The drunkedness of the wave, the power of the wheat.

My somber heart seeks you always
I love your happy body, your rich, soft voice.
Dusky butterfly, sweet and sure
Like the wheatfiled, the sun, the poppy, and the water.

Pablo Neruda

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

William Henry Davies

Sonnet 17 by Neruda from the best day this year

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, ?
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. ?
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, ?
in secret, between the shadow and the soul. ??
I love you as the plant that never blooms ?
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; ?
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, ?
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body. ??
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. ?
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; ?
so I love you because I know no other way ??
than this: where I does not exist, nor you, ?
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, ?
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

From one of my heroes:

A Silly Poem

Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
I’ll draw a sketch of thee,
What kind of pencil shall I use?
2B or not 2B?

I Must Go Down To The Sea Again

I must go down to the sea again,
to the lonely sea and the sky;
I left my shoes and socks there –
I wonder if they’re dry?

There Are Holes In The Sky

There are holes in the sky
Where the rain gets in
But they’re ever so small
That’s why the rain is thin.

Spike Milligan

Making it a slightly international poetry day, the only piece of foreign poetry I’ve ever memorised:

Kinderhymne
Bertolt Brecht

Anmut sparet nicht noch Mühe
Leidenschaft nicht noch Verstand
Daß ein gutes Deutschland blühe
Wie ein andres gutes Land.

Daß die Völker nicht erbleichen
Wie vor einer Räuberin
Sondern ihre Hände reichen
Uns wie andern Völkern hin.

Und nicht über und nicht unter
Andern Völkern wolln wir sein
Von der See bis zu den Alpen
Von der Oder bis zum Rhein

Und weil wir dies Land verbessern
Lieben und beschirmen wir’s
Und das liebste mag’s uns scheinen
So wie andern Völkern ihrs.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I’ll dig with it.

Excellent choice, only poem I can remember from school days.

I always post this, in this sort of thread, love it… The feeling of claustrophobia and desperation through it. I’m told it flows better in norwegian mind, there’s some clonky rhymes and phrases in the english translation.

Dare not to sleep!
By Arnulf Øverland
Translated from Norwegian by Lars-Toralf Storstrand

I was awakened one morning, by the quaintest of dreams
‘twas like a voice, spoken to me
It sounded afar – like an underground stream,
I rose and said: Why do you call me?

Dare not to slumber! Dare not to sleep!
Dare not believe, it was merely a dream!
Yore I was judged.
The gallows were built in the court this evening,
They’ll come for me — 5’ in the morning

This dungeon is teeming,
And barracks stand dungeon by dungeon
we lie here, awaiting, in cold cells of stone,
We lie here, we rot, in these murky holes.

We know not ourselves, what does lie ahead
Who will be the next one they’ll reach for.
We moan and we shriek: But do you take heed?
Is there none among you who’ll hearken?

No one can see us,
None know what befalls us.
Yet more:
None will believe – what the day will bring us!

And then You defy: This dare not be true!
That men can be utterly evil.
There has to be some one with merits pure
Oh, brother, you still have a great deal to learn

They said: You will give your life, if commanded
We’ve given it now, for naught it was handed
The world has forgotten, we’ve all been deceived
Dare not to sleep in this hour – this eve.

You oughtn’t go to your business hence,
Or think: What’s your loss – or what is your gain?
You oughtn’t attribute your fields and your kine,
Nor say you’ve enough – with all that is thine.

You oughn’t abide, sitting calm in your home
Saying: Dismal it is, poor they are, and alone
You cannot permit it! You dare not, at all.
Accepting that outrage on all else may fall!
I cry with the final gasps of my breath:
You dare not repose, nor stand and forget

Pardon them not – they know what they do!
They breathe on hate-glows, and evil pursue,
They fancy to slay, they revel with cries,
Their desire is to gloat, when our world is at fire!
In blood they are yearning to drown one and all!
Don’t you believe it? You’ve heard the call!

You know how infants will soldiers remain,
While dashing through streets, fields, chanting ‘bout pain
Aroused by their mothers‘ assurance of glory
They’ll shelter their land – and they’ll never worry

You know the fatality of the lies,
that glory and faith and honor abides
You discern the dauntless dreams of a child,
A saber, a banner, he’ll flaunt them so wild,

And then they’ll leave home for a rainfall of steel,
‘Till last they hang ragged on barbed wire will,
Decaying for Hitler’s Aryan call,
That is what a man’s for – after all…

I couldn’t imagine – too late now it is
My sentence is just: The verdict’s no miss
I believed in prosperity, dreamt about peace
In labor and fellowship; love’s fragrant kiss
Yet those who don’t die on the battlefield,
Their heads for the axeman, will certainly yield

I cry in the gloom – if only you’d knew
There is but one thing – befitting to do
Defend yourself, while your hands are still yearning,
Protect your offspring – Europe is burning.

***

I shook from the chill. To dress, up I rose
Without stars were shining, so far, yet so close
‘twere simply a brilliant ray in the east,
Admonishing warning from the dream that just ceased

The day that soared up from earths furthermost strand
Augmenting with blood — and with firebrand
It grew with terror – like a breath that was lost
It seemed like the starlight – was slain by the frost.

I weighed: Something is imminent – and it’s dire
Our era is over — Europe’s on fire!

If we’re “allowed” William Carlos Williams, hardly national…

This Is Just To Say
by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

National entry, Betjeman:

Slough

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn’t fit for humans now,
There isn’t grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!
Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town-
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who’ll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women’s tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It’s not their fault that they are mad,
They’ve tasted Hell.

It’s not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It’s not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren’t look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

see me
wan time
ah wis a fox
ah wis ah sleekit! ah
gaed slinkin
                 heh
an snappin
yeh
the blokes
aa sayed ah wis a GREAT fox
aw nae kiddin
ah wis pretty good
had a whole damn wood
in them days
hen

Ian Hamilton Finlay

O pointy birds,
o pointy pointy,
anoint my head,
anointy-nointy

‘Pointy Birds’ by John Lillison, ‘England’s greatest one-armed poet’

Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom,
Boom, Boom, Boom,
Boom, Boom, Boom, Boom,
Boom, Boom, Boom

😉