A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

Day Lewin · 24-02-2015 12:21pm

@biZrb
Wow. Stunning. Thank you.

Swiper the fox · 25-02-2015 9:24pm

Quarantine

In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking — they were both walking — north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

Eavan Boland

New Home · 25-02-2015 9:32pm

I love all these poems, they are all so touching, but I must admit they're not helping to keep the melancholy away, not at all...

marienbad · 25-02-2015 10:09pm

New Home wrote: »

I love all these poems, they are all so touching, but I must admit they're not helping to keep the melancholy away, not at all...

Here is one to cheer you up then ( though I may have posted it previously)

Pangur Ban

I and Pangur Ban my cat,
'Tis a like task we are at:
Hunting mice is his delight,
Hunting words I sit all night.
Better far than praise of men
'Tis to sit with book and pen;
Pangur bears me no ill-will,
He too plies his simple skill.
'Tis a merry task to see
At our tasks how glad are we,
When at home we sit and find
Entertainment to our mind.
Oftentimes a mouse will stray
In the hero Pangur's way;
Oftentimes my keen thought set
Takes a meaning in its net.
'Gainst the wall he sets his eye
Full and fierce and sharp and sly;
'Gainst the wall of knowledge I
All my little wisdom try.
When a mouse darts from its den,
O how glad is Pangur then!
O what gladness do I prove
When I solve the doubts I love!
So in peace our task we ply,
Pangur Ban, my cat, and I;
In our arts we find our bliss,
I have mine and he has his. Practice every day has made
Pangur perfect in his trade;
I get wisdom day and night
Turning darkness into light

From the 8the Cent.Irish Trans. Robin Flower

New Home · 25-02-2015 11:29pm

Thanks, that's much better... and it's about a cat, so that makes my inner cat lady very happy indeed.

Swiper the fox · 27-02-2015 6:37pm

We Real Cool

By Gwendolyn Brooks

The Pool Players.
Seven at the Golden Shovel.

We real cool. We

Left school. We

Lurk late. We

Strike straight. We

Sing sin. We

Thin gin. We

Jazz June. We

Die soon.

Day Lewin · 28-02-2015 10:38am

(Keeping to the Cats theme to cheer us all up even more)

The Galloping Cat
by Stevie Smith

Oh I am a cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good
So
One day when I was
Galloping about doing good, I saw
A Figure in the path; I said
Get off! (Be-
cause
I am a cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good)
But he did not move, instead
He raised his hand as if
To land me a cuff
So I made to dodge so as to
Prevent him bringing it orf,
Un-for-tune-ately I slid
On a banana skin
Some Ass had left instead
Of putting it in the bin. So
His hand caught me on the cheek
I tried
To lay his arm open from wrist to elbow
With my sharp teeth
Because I am
A cat that likes to gallop about doing good.
Would you believe it?
He wasn’t there
My teeth met nothing but air,
But a Voice said: Poor Cat
(Meaning me) and a soft stroke
Came on me head
Since when
I have been bald
I regard myself as
A martyr to doing good.
Also I heard a swoosh,
As of wings, and saw
A halo shining at the height of
Mrs Gubbins’s backyard fence,
So I thought: What’s the good
Of galloping about doing good
When angels stand in the path
And do not do as they should
Such as having an arm to be bitten off
All the same I
Intend to go on being
A cat that likes to
Gallop about doing good
So
Now with my bald head I go,
Chopping the untidy flowers down, to and fro,
An’ scooping up the grass to show
Underneath
The cinder path of wrath
Ha ha ha ha, ho,
Angels aren’t the only ones who do not know
What’s what and that
Galloping about doing good
Is a full-time job
That needs
An experienced eye of earthly
Sharpness, worth I dare say
(if you’ll forgive a personal note)
A good deal more
Than all that skyey stuff
Of angels that make so bold as
To pity a cat like me that
Gallops about doing good.

barney4001 · 01-03-2015 1:30am

RENDEZOUS

In a quaint old chateau garden
stood a shepherdess of carven stone
and over by the sleeping fountain
stood a little shepherd all alone
but when moonlight floods the alleys
and the nightingale sings all night through
they waken and they meet together
in a sentimental rendezvous
ah,ma belle,at last we meet!
Oshepherd mine,speak lower i entreat
theres none to hear ,my own,my sweet!
how the nightingale above
is singing dearest,of our love!
will you dance with me my love?
softly plays moonlight fountain
making music in the lonly spot

as the shephedess and shepherd mingle
in the places of an old gavotte
and the little marble cupid
laughs to see the lovers dancing so
and keeping to the quaint old measure
he is beating with his broken bow!
and now the night is still
the fountain waves into silince
the bird has ceased her trill
the shepherds pair can murmer what they will
when one oclock is tolled
their hour of magic life is over their arms must now unfold
and love turns marble cold
through the garden goes the shepherd
stepping ever where the shadows fall
his shepherdress is left all lonely
on her little marble pedestal
and the gardener on the morrow
passes by the two and never knows
the little shepherd now is holding fast
the sherpherdess'smarble rose

lockman · 12-03-2015 6:42pm

I hadn't ever read this until I saw that it had topped some recent poll on being Ireland's favourite poem of the last 100 years:

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/when-all-the-others-were-away-at-mass-tops-favourite-poem-poll-1.2135284

So, apologies if this has already been posted. Reading this has certainly lifted my spirits today.

‘When all the others were away at Mass’

[from Clearances in memoriam M.K.H., 1911-1984]

by Seamus Heaney

When all the others were away at Mass

I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.

They broke the silence, let fall one by one

Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:

Cold comforts set between us, things to share

Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.

And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes

From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside

Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying

And some were responding and some crying

I remembered her head bent towards my head,

Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives–

Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

From New Selected Poems 1966-1987, Faber and Faber Ltd.

Dave! · 14-03-2015 3:22pm

I love the rhythm of this one

The Destruction of Sennacherib
BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

Dave! · 14-03-2015 9:51pm

The White Feather

Joseph Mary Plunkett

I’ve watched with Death a dreadful year
Nor flinched until you plucked apart
A feather from the wings of Fear—
Your innocence has stabbed my heart.

I took your terrible trust to keep,
Deep in my heart it flames and sears,
And what I’ve sown I dare not reap
For bitterness of blinding tears.

I have not scattered starry seed
On windy ridges of the skies,
But I have ploughed my heart indeed
And sown the secrets of your eyes.

And now I cannot reap the grain
Growing above that stony sod
Because a shining plume lies plain
Fallen from following wings of God.

Earthhorse · 15-03-2015 12:02am

Very Like a Whale by Ogden Nash

One thing that literature would be greatly the better for
Would be a more restricted employment by the authors of simile and metaphor.
Authors of all races, be they Greeks, Romans, Teutons or Celts,
Can't seem just to say that anything is the thing it is but have to go out of their way to say that it is like something else.
What does it mean when we are told
That that Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold?
In the first place, George Gordon Byron had enough experience
To know that it probably wasn't just one Assyrian, it was a lot of Assyrians.
However, as too many arguments are apt to induce apoplexy and thus hinder longevity.
We'll let it pass as one Assyrian for the sake of brevity.
Now then, this particular Assyrian, the one whose cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold,
Just what does the poet mean when he says he came down like a wolf on the fold?
In heaven and earth more than is dreamed of in our philosophy there are great many things.
But I don't imagine that among them there is a wolf with purple and gold cohorts or purple and gold anythings.
No, no, Lord Byron, before I'll believe that this Assyrian was actually like a wolf I must have some kind of proof;
Did he run on all fours and did he have a hairy tail and a big red mouth and big white teeth and did he say Woof Woof?
Frankly I think it is very unlikely, and all you were entitled to say, at the very most,
Was that the Assyrian cohorts came down like a lot of Assyrian cohorts about to destroy the Hebrew host.
But that wasn't fancy enough for Lord Byron, oh dear me no, he had to invent a lot of figures of speech and then interpolate them,
With the result that whenever you mention Old Testament soldiers to people they say Oh yes, they're the ones that a lot of wolves dressed up in gold and purple ate them.
That's the kind of thing that's being done all the time by poets, from Homer to Tennyson;
They're always comparing ladies to lilies and veal to venison,
And they always say things like that the snow is a white blanket after a winter storm.
Oh it is, is it, all right then, you sleep under a six-inch blanket of snow and I'll sleep under a half-inch blanket of unpoetical blanket material and we'll see which one keeps warm,
And after that maybe you'll begin to comprehend dimly
What I mean by too much metaphor and simile.

barney4001 · 15-03-2015 10:08am

the Locket - John Montague

Sing a last song
for the lady who has gone,
fertile source of guilt and pain.
The worst birth in the annals of Brooklyn,
that was my cue to come on,
my first claim to fame.

Naturally, she longed for a girl,
and all my infant curls of brown
couldn�t excuse my double blunder
coming out the wrong sex,
and the wrong way around.
Not readily forgiven,

So you never nursed me
and when all my father�s songs
couldn�t sweeten the lack of money,
�when poverty comes throught the door
love flies up your chimney�,
your favourite saying,

Then you gave me away,
might never have known me,
if I had not cycled down
to court you like a young man,
teasingly untying your apron,
drinking by the fire, yarning

Of your wild, young days
which didn�t last long, for you,
lovely Molly, the belle of your small town,
landed up mournful and chill
as the constant rain that lashes it
wound into your cocoon of pain.

Standing in that same hallway,
�Don�t come again.� you say, roughly,
�I start to get fond of you, John,
and then you are up and gone�;
the harsh logic of a forlorn woman
resigned to being alone.

And still, mysterious blessing,
I never knew, until you were gone,
that, always around your neck
you wore an oval locket
with an old picture in it,
of a child in Brooklyn.

tomasocarthaigh · 23-03-2015 1:04am

First up best dressed! Good morning... here's a little offering from yours truly to keep the melancholy away...

A friend of mine and fellow Tullamore Rhymer Anthony Sullivan has a quotation that goes something along the lines of “Never mind the heartache, always get the song”. As a writer I have to agree… and in my latest outbreak of unrequited love… I have got the poem if nothing else!

She of the wild heart, free spirit, did not intend
To capture the heart of a man like me
She did, unknowing, of this romantic fool
I fell , quick and full, for her, the dawsie.

It was not to be, she desires not me
But others, rougher and tougher, I the inverse!
Being the writer, the lover, poet and fool
At least from the heartache got the verse!

Reference
* Dawsie is a phonetic spelling of a Longford dialect phrase for a Jezebelesque character, a temptress. Origin unknown, it has been suggested its a form of description of a young jackdaw, a mischievous playful; character.

Awaiting the Eclipse
Engaging with Art in Longford Providers
She Walks Not the Paths I Find Familiar
Fleeting Shadows Confuse the Walker

29-03-2015 10:18am

As a prologue to the main poem, this short, anonymous piece can remind us that poetry doesn't have to be terribly abstruse to be brilliant

There was a man, and he was mad
And he ran up the steeple,
And there he cut his nose off,
And flung it at the people

(Anon)

With that in mind, this poem by Adrian Mitchell is called, 'Watch Your Step – I'm Drenched'

In Manchester there are a thousand puddles.
Bus-queue puddles poised on slanting paving stones,
Railway puddles slouching outside stations,
Cinema puddles in ambush at the exits,
Zebra-crossing puddles in dips of the dark stripes --
They lurk in the murk
Of the north-western evening
For the sake of their notorious joke,
Their only joke -- to soak
The tights or trousers of the citizens.
Each splash and consequent curse is echoed by
One thousand dark Mancunian puddle chuckles.

In Manchester there lives the King of Puddles,
Master of Miniature Muck Lakes,
The Shah of Slosh, Splendifero of Splash,
Prince, Pasha and Pope of Puddledom.
Where? Somewhere. The rain-headed ruler
Lies doggo, incognito,
Disguised as an average, accidental mini-pool.
He is as scared as any other emperor,
For one night, all his soiled and soggy victims
Might storm his streets, assassination in their minds,
A thousand rolls of blotting paper in their hands,
And drink his shadowed, one-joke life away.

barney4001 · 29-03-2015 8:23pm

Simple Minds – Belfast Child Lyrics
When my love said to me
Meet me down by the gallow tree
For it's sad news I bring
About this old town and all that it's offering
Some say troubles abound
Some day soon they're gonna pull the old town down

One day we'll return here,
When the Belfast Child sings again

Brothers, sisters where are you now
As I look for you right through the crowd
All my life here I've spent
With my faith in God, the Church and the Government
But there's sadness abound
Some day soon they're gonna pull the old town down

One day we'll return here,
When the Belfast Child sings again
When the Belfast Child sings again

Some come back, Billy, won't you come on home
Come back Mary, you've been away so long
The streets are empty, and your mother's gone
The girls are crying, it's been oh so long
And your father's calling, come on home
Won't you come on home, won't you come on home

Come back people, you've been gone a while
And the war is raging, in the Emerald Isle
That's flesh and blood man, that's flesh and blood
All the girls are crying but all's not lost

The streets are empty, the streets are cold
Won't you come on home, won't you come on home

The streets are empty
Life goes on

One day we'll return here
When the Belfast Child sings again
When the Belfast Child sings again
Songwriters: KERR, JAMES / BURCHILL, CHARLES / MACNEIL, MICHAEL JOSEPH
Belfast Child lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC

barney4001 · 31-03-2015 9:13pm

Where the Sídhe Dance
Posted on September 23, 2014 by Tomás Ó Cárthaigh

According to lore, a ring of mushrooms mark the spot where the faries have danced in the cover of the fog, in Irish folk stories.
According to lore, a ring of mushrooms mark the spot where the faeries have danced in the cover of the fog, in Irish folk stories.
The grass grows green where the Sídhe dance
Unseen by men in the fog
The mushroom circle is kissed by the dew
Round the trees at the edge of the bog…

The fool who walks the road at night
Misfortune on his kin does bring
Finds himself in the Underworld
A giant in front of the Faerie King

“Why do you walk the forest walk
When the fog it strikes the ground
The cloak for the Little Folk
Who neath it dancing are to be found?”

“I am but a fool my King”
Answers the terrified man, though tall,
I was drinking the health of my new born son,
Now I find myself in your hall…

I’d give anything to hold my wife again,
So see my new born son,
I never meant to spoil the merriment,
Woe the disturbance on it I put upon…

The king took on a look of delight
A titter rippled over the place
His queen, quite drunk, fell from her throne
Apologising for her lack of grace

Said the king, “I’ll trade you your infant son,
Should you wish to be free,
We will place a changling in his cot,
Your son will be raised by me…

“To my wife” begged the man, “say never a word,
Let me see my son once a year!”
“He will look on you as a proud stag”, the king said,
As such a beast he will appear”

So it went on for many years
His wife never took to the child
Supposedly theirs, that seemed so strange
With a wild look in his eyes…

One day out shooting in the woods
The man made at a shadow a quick shot
The shadow was a stag, that turned into a boy
“My son!” he cried! – “I hope its not”

But it was, as he buried his son in the darkened woods
From his wife he had to hold his grief
They had no more children in the family
The changeling made their happiness brief

Bad tempered and quarrelsome, he did not fit in
For he belonged to another word, it was true,
His mother never understood him or tried to at all
His friends they were very few…

One day angered, the father took the changeling to the woods
Anniversary of the stags shooting set him in fury wild,
He placed antlers on the boys head,
Then shot him dead, the Faerie Childe

But when walking home, a fog came down,
Covered him like a cape,
The more he ran, the more he was lost,
For him there was no escape!

He was back in front of the Faerie King
Who in anger, roaring before him shook…
He would never escape the Underworld now…
As the Changlelings life he had took!

So, should you yourself in the woods yourself find…
With a thick mist gathering there…
Run for your life from among the tree’s
Avoid such a fate as our friend was of unaware!

barney4001 · 07-04-2015 8:31pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvbBM_-Md0Y

barney4001 · 08-04-2015 8:59pm

Lost Memories.
As he walks along the windswept shore
watching waves break on the sand
slowly dandering through the storm
holding his true loves hand.
The memories of long ago
flood back to him galore,
of many sun drenched happy days
they spent upon this shore.
When they'd chase each other through the dunes
and make love in their secret place
then lie together in the sun
wrapped in a loving embrace.
They were happy carefree days
not a worry in the world
but sadly age has changed all that
as through time their lives unfurled
For although they seem so happy
walking side by side,
her memory is receding fast
just like the ebbing tide.
For he's losing her to Dementia
and it's breaking his heart
he's slowly losing the one he loves
and it's tearing him apart.
Most days she sits for hours now
just staring at the wall
ranting rambling sentences
that make no sense at all.
There's a sadness that descends on him
as he watches her decline,
for just a year or two ago
everything was fine.
Her mind is like a child's now
although she's old and grey,
she retreats back to her childhood more
with the passing of each day
But he'll be always by her side
though she barely knows him now,
for he promised to love and cherish her,
when they made their wedding vows
by jmac from belfast forum

Day Lewin · 08-04-2015 10:12pm

@barney4001 - that is so sad :-(

barney4001 · 11-04-2015 11:35pm

katemarch wrote: »

@barney4001 - that is so sad :-(

It was written by jmac from belfast forum,yes very well done i thought

barney4001 · 14-04-2015 8:56pm

Tim Máirtin Jack

I left Bangor Erris though only a boy
With only one shirt on me back
Though leaving the land I was in good hands
I was with Tim Máirtin Jack
Now Tim was both older and bigger than me
Hard and as fit as a goat
Our mothers were cousins from below Pullathomas
And our fathers fished out of one boat.
Now Tim was the finest man ever I’d seen
Tanned with hair gleaming black
And mice could nest in the hair on his chest
Without bothering Tim Máirtin Jack
He loved the good things in life that were free
Hunting and fishing and handball,
And he’d go to the end of the earth for a friend
And be there when your back's to the wall
We got on the train in the cold driving rain
And d’you know that I never looked back
I left family behind but I didn’t mind
When I was with Tim Máirtin Jack.
The morning was dark when we looked for the start
And the Foreman said looking at me
"Now you’re a bit small to be here at all,
But we’ll start you off makin the tea!"
There was a lot of abuse and I found it hard to get used
To the cursin, the swearing’ and damnin’
The grub was OK, we had meat every day
But Lord how I longed for a salmon.
We worked hard and long and we motored along,
And our digs were a bit of a hovel,
We always ate well but I can still smell,
The steak Tim would fry on the shovel.
They said Tim was wild but he was more like a child
He was never the first to attack,
But when the chips they were down at night in the 'Crown’
Lord t'was great watching Tim Máirtin Jack.
There were good men from Kerry from Cork and from Clare,
And the Galway boys weren’t too slack,
But I wish ye had been with me the night up in Whitney
The night he flattened six blacks.
It's some time ago since I came back to Mayo
But there’s times when I'd love to be back
Sharing the rounds with the lads in the 'Crown'
And me arm around Tim Máirtin Jack.
He married a Geordie and they’re still hale and hearty
And in that house love never lacked,
They have a girl and a lad who won’t call him "Dad"
They just call him Tim Máirtin Jack.

Dave! · 15-04-2015 12:15am

https://soundcloud.com/brainpicker/the-disquieting-muses

THE DISQUIETING MUSES

Sylvia Plath

Mother, mother, what illbred aunt
Or what disfigured and unsightly
Cousin did you so unwisely keep
Unasked to my christening, that she
Sent these ladies in her stead
With heads like darning-eggs to nod
And nod and nod at foot and head
And at the left side of my crib?

Mother, who made to order stories
Of Mixie Blackshort the heroic bear,
Mother, whose witches always, always,
Got baked into gingerbread, I wonder
Whether you saw them, whether you said
Words to rid me of those three ladies
Nodding by night around my bed,
Mouthless, eyeless, with stitched bald head.

In the hurricane, when father’s twelve
Study windows bellied in
Like bubbles about to break, you fed
My brother and me cookies and Ovaltine
And helped the two of us to choir:
“Thor is angry: boom boom boom!
Thor is angry: we don’t care!”
But those ladies broke the panes.

When on tiptoe the schoolgirls danced,
Blinking flashlights like fireflies
And singing the glowworm song, I could
Not lift a foot in the twinkle-dress
But, heavy-footed, stood aside
In the shadow cast by my dismal-headed
Godmothers, and you cried and cried:
And the shadow stretched, the lights went out.

Mother, you sent me to piano lessons
And praised my arabesques and trills
Although each teacher found my touch
Oddly wooden in spite of scales
And the hours of practicing, my ear
Tone-deaf and yes, unteachable.
I learned, I learned, I learned elsewhere,
From muses unhired by you, dear mother,

I woke one day to see you, mother,
Floating above me in bluest air
On a green balloon bright with a million
Flowers and bluebirds that never were
Never, never, found anywhere.
But the little planet bobbed away
Like a soap-bubble as you called: Come here!
And I faced my traveling companions.

Day now, night now, at head, side, feet,
They stand their vigil in gowns of stone,
Faces blank as the day I was born,
Their shadows long in the setting sun
That never brightens or goes down.
And this is the kingdom you bore me to,
Mother, mother. But no frown of mine
Will betray the company I keep.

Day Lewin · 15-04-2015 12:52am

Crikey. Cold chills.

Mr.Nice Guy · 16-04-2015 7:30pm

A smile to remember

Charles Bukowski

We had goldfish
and they circled around and around
in the bowl on the table near the heavy drapes
covering the picture window and
my mother, always smiling, wanting us all
to be happy, told me, 'be happy Henry!'
and she was right: it's better to be happy if you can

but my father continued to beat her
and me several times a week while
raging inside his 6-foot-two frame
because he couldn't understand
what was attacking him from within.

my mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy,
beaten two or three times a week,
telling me to be happy:

'Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?'

and then she would smile,
to show me how,
and it was the saddest smile I ever saw.

one day the goldfish died,
all five of them,
they floated on the water,
on their sides,
their eyes still open,
and when my father got home
he threw them to the cat
there on the kitchen floor
and we watched
as my mother smiled.

marienbad · 18-04-2015 2:01am

The Isle of Lost dreams

T[SIZE=-1]HERE[/SIZE] is an Isle beyond our ken,
Haunted by Dreams of weary men.
Gray Hopes enshadow it with wings
Weary with burdens of old things:
There the insatiate water-springs
Rise with the tears of all who weep:
And deep within it,—deep, oh, deep!—
The furtive voice of Sorrow sings.
There evermore,
Till Time be o’er,
Sad, oh, so sad! the Dreams of men
Drift through the Isle beyond our ken.

William Sharp

kerry4sam · 22-04-2015 9:52pm

By Seamus Heaney

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.

We used to have blackberry bushes out in our back-garden growing up. Sweet, sweet berries!
kerry4sam

kerry4sam · 24-04-2015 10:40pm

by William Henry Davies

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 is if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

Simply Inspiring imo,
Hope you can take something from this poem,
kerry4sam

tomasocarthaigh · 29-04-2015 12:00am

Reboot Banagher Horse Fair…

Banagher Horse Fair will be held in 2015, to spite the fact it officially is illegal. Yes, there is talk of leagalizing cannabis, but horse fairs are illegal... You could not make it up... #onlyinireland

We will see you, as a sure thing, in September
On the Main Street among the proud horses there
We’ll walk among crowds, dogs, the shady folk and the shades
At the 2015 Banagher Horse Fair…
Make sure your car has no green diesel
And your horse is not on hormones as well
Bring cash to buy a nag and some naggins
The pubs may be shut, or open, who can tell?
What has become of a free nation
When to hold a horse fair is rebellious to do?
We had that freedom even under the British:
Was it for that Babser held guns with the brave few?
Reboot Ireland some say, stating with the rural
Ireland is nothing without its heart…
Its heart is here, kept alive by us, the activists
Rebooting Banagher Horse Fair will be a start!

More Than Just Another Memory

They Took from Us

Long May Horses **** the Streets

Just Doing Our Job

Day Lewin · 29-04-2015 1:59am

Brilliant.

Panic E · 30-04-2015 3:33am

By Charles Bukowski

The further away I am from the human race, the better I feel.
Even though I write about the human race, the further away from them I am the better I feel.
Two inches is great. Two miles is great. Two thousand miles is beautiful. As long as I’m able to eat.
They feed me because I feed them. I don’t like to be near them, when somebody even brushes against me with an elbow in a crowd I react.
I do not like the human race. I don’t like their heads. I don’t like their faces. I don’t like their feet. I don’t like their conversations.
I don’t like their hairdos. I don’t like their automobiles. I don’t like their dogs or their cats or their roses.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZGuMqKJ4rw

SmallTeapot · 30-04-2015 2:43pm

This is not a poem, but a song - so apologies if I'm breaking the rules of the thread

.....I just thought the lyrics were quite beautiful and read nicely

From Eden
By the ever excellent Hozier

Babe, there's something tragic about you
Something so magic about you
Don't you agree?

Babe, there's something lonesome about you
Something so wholesome about you
Get closer to me

No tired sighs, no rolling eyes, no irony
No 'who cares', no vacant stares, no time for me

Honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago
Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword
Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know
I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door

Babe, there's something wretched about this
Something so precious about this

Babe, there's something broken about this
But I might be hoping about this.]

Oh, what a sin

To the strand a picnic plan for you and me
A rope in hand for your other man to hang from a tree

Honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago
Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword
Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know
I slithered here from Eden just to sit outside your door

Honey, you're familiar like my mirror years ago
Idealism sits in prison, chivalry fell on its sword
Innocence died screaming, honey, ask me I should know
I slithered here from Eden just to hide outside your door

Dave! · 30-04-2015 3:53pm

Hozier's lyrics are terrific

chasmcb · 30-04-2015 7:49pm

The Trees

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin

implausible · 01-05-2015 6:42pm

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

W.H. Auden

I rewatched "The History Boys" recently and it reminded me of some great poems, including this one. Great reading of it below (mind you, I'd listen to him reading the phone book):

Dave! · 12-05-2015 11:51pm

The Poet As Hero
BY SIEGFRIED SASSOON

You've heard me, scornful, harsh, and discontented,
Mocking and loathing War: you've asked me why
Of my old, silly sweetness I've repented—
My ecstasies changed to an ugly cry.

You are aware that once I sought the Grail,
Riding in armour bright, serene and strong;
And it was told that through my infant wail
There rose immortal semblances of song.

But now I've said good-bye to Galahad,
And am no more the knight of dreams and show:
For lust and senseless hatred make me glad,
And my killed friends are with me where I go.
Wound for red wound I burn to smite their wrongs;
And there is absolution in my songs.

barney4001 · 15-05-2015 8:30pm

Fern Hill ~ Dylan Thomas
May 15, 2015 at 3:48am
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.

And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.

And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace,

Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.

~ ~ ~ Dylan Thomas ~ ~ ~ ~

marienbad · 16-05-2015 3:09am

Prayer

The sea took into her depths a sailor's life -
Unaware, his mother goes and lights

a taper before the image of Our Lady
that the weather might be fair , and his return speedy

while at the wind she always strains her ears.
But as she prays the ikon hears ,

solemn and full of mourning,
knowing that the son she awaits won't be returning .

C.P Cavafy

(for the week that's in it )

marienbad · 17-05-2015 1:21am

The Ballad of Reading Gaol (excerpt)

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

Oscar Wilde

For the week that's in it , let us celebrate 'the love that dare not speak its name '

marienbad · 18-05-2015 12:23am

And continuing the LGBT week

Because I liked You Better

Because I liked you better
Than suits a man to say,
It irked you, and I promised
To throw the thought away.

To put the world between us
We parted, stiff and dry;
`Good-bye,' said you, `forget me.'
`I will, no fear', said I.

If here, where clover whitens
The dead man's knoll, you pass,
And no tall flower to meet you
Starts in the trefoiled grass,

Halt by the headstone naming
The heart no longer stirred,
And say the lad that loved you
Was one that kept his word.

A.E. Housman

marienbad · 19-05-2015 12:03am

The Look

The heron's the look of the river.
The moon's the look of the night.
The sky's the look of forever.
Snow is the look of white.

The bees are the look of the honey.
The wasp is the look of pain.
The clown is the look of funny.
Puddles are the look of rain.

The whale is the look of the ocean.
The grave is the look of the dead.
The wheel is the look of motion.
Blood is the look of red.

The rose is the look of the garden.
The girl is the look of the school.
The snake is the look of the Gorgon.
Ice is the look of cool.

The clouds are the look of the weather.
The hand is the look of the glove.
The bird is the look of the feather.
You are the look of love.

Carol Ann Duffy

The first openly gay Poet Laureate

marienbad · 20-05-2015 12:03am

Wild Nights

Wild nights - Wild nights!
Were I with thee
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile - the winds -
To a Heart in port -
Done with the Compass -
Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden -
Ah - the Sea!
Might I but moor - tonight -
In thee!

Emily Dickinson

marienbad · 21-05-2015 12:27am

Stop All The Clocks

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H Auden

Can we really deny fulfilment to such a love as this ?

Mr.Nice Guy · 21-05-2015 2:06am

A.E. Housman (1859-1936) has been mentioned, who lived during a time when to be gay was a criminal offence. With the week having the significance that it does, I found this poem by Housman to be particularly poignant...

The Laws of God, The Laws of Man

A.E. Housman

The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?

Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and God's?

I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly,
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.

Manach · 21-05-2015 10:47pm

The God Abandons Antony

When suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive—don’t mourn them uselessly.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
As one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who proved worthy of this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion, but not
with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen—your final delectation—to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard
(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992)

Dave! · 22-05-2015 12:09am

marienbad wrote: »

Stop All The Clocks

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

W.H Auden

Can we really deny fulfilment to such a love as this ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_a-eXIoyYA

marienbad · 22-05-2015 12:51am

And to finish this historic week of great Gay poets ( heads-up Manach for our 2nd C.P. Cavafy entry)( and to Mr Nice guy for another Housman) we have Auden's tribute to the great Voltaire and the notion that the struggle never ends and who surely is on the Yes side .

Voltaire At Ferney

Perfectly happy now, he looked at his estate.
An exile making watches glanced up as he passed
And went on working; where a hospital was rising fast,
A joiner touched his cap; an agent came to tell
Some of the trees he'd planted were progressing well.
The white alps glittered. It was summer. He was very great.
Far off in Paris where his enemies
Whsipered that he was wicked, in an upright chair
A blind old woman longed for death and letters. He would write,
"Nothing is better than life." But was it? Yes, the fight
Against the false and the unfair
Was always worth it. So was gardening. Civilize.
Cajoling, scolding, screaming, cleverest of them all,
He'd had the other children in a holy war
Against the infamous grown-ups; and, like a child, been sly
And humble, when there was occassion for
The two-faced answer or the plain protective lie,
But, patient like a peasant, waited for their fall.
And never doubted, like D'Alembert, he would win:
Only Pascal was a great enemy, the rest
Were rats already poisoned; there was much, though, to be done,
And only himself to count upon.
Dear Diderot was dull but did his best;
Rousseau, he'd always known, would blubber and give in.
Night fell and made him think of women: Lust
Was one of the great teachers; Pascal was a fool.
How Emilie had loved astronomy and bed;
Pimpette had loved him too, like scandal; he was glad.
He'd done his share of weeping for Jerusalem: As a rule,
It was the pleasure-haters who became unjust.
Yet, like a sentinel, he could not sleep. The night was full of wrong,
Earthquakes and executions: soon he would be dead,
And still all over Europe stood the horrible nurses
Itching to boil their children. Only his verses
Perhaps could stop them: He must go on working: Overhead,
The uncomplaining stars composed their lucid song.

W.H Auden

Vote Yes for equality , but most of all vote.

marienbad · 23-05-2015 11:16am

O this historic day a little bit of Wordsworth seems appropriate

from Thoughts on the French Revolution

Oh! pleasant exercise of hope and joy!
For mighty were the auxiliars which then stood
Upon our side, we who were strong in love!
Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive,
But to be young was very heaven!—Oh! times,
In which the meagre, stale, forbidding ways
Of custom, law, and statute, took at once
The attraction of a country in romance!
When Reason seemed the most to assert her rights,
When most intent on making of herself
A prime Enchantress—to assist the work
Which then was going forward in her name!
Not favoured spots alone, but the whole earth,
The beauty wore of promise,

We just had a little revolution of our own !

Mr.Nice Guy · 23-05-2015 1:04pm

I'd like to offer up one more by A.E. Housman (1859-1936) as I found it very powerful. In fact, I think they should teach this one in schools. It was believed to have been written following the trial of Oscar Wilde. Obviously the references to hair were necessary due to the laws against homosexuality at the time.

Oh Who is That Young Sinner?

A.E. Housman

Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists?
And what has he been after that they groan and shake their fists?
And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air?
Oh they're taking him to prison for the colour of his hair.

'Tis a shame to human nature such a head of hair as his;
In the good old times 'twas hanging for the colour that it is;
Though hanging isn't bad enough and flaying would be fair
For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair.

Oh a deal of pains he's taken and a pretty price he's paid
To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade;
But they've pulled the beggar's hat off for the world to see and stare,
And they're taking him to justice for the colour of his hair.

Now 'tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet,
And the quarry-gang of Portland in the cold and in the heat,
And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare
He can curse the God that made him for the colour of his hair.

implausible · 23-05-2015 1:52pm

Mr Nice Guy and Marienbad, thank you so much for the last few poems posted. I'm blown away by the Houseman poems, especially the last one and you're right, it's perfect for school.

A Poem a day keeps the melancholy away

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