Saharah Blue Posted December 18, 2012 Report Share Posted December 18, 2012 The Waking I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go. We think by feeling. What is there to know? I hear my being dance from ear to ear. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Of those so close beside me, which are you? God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there, And learn by going where I have to go. Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how? The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair; I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. Great Nature has another thing to do To you and me; so take the lively air, And, lovely, learn by going where to go. This shaking keeps me steady. I should know. What falls away is always. And is near. I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. I learn by going where I have to go. by Theodore Roethke Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitsune Posted December 19, 2012 Report Share Posted December 19, 2012 Going Places Another cigarette ash television serial filled advert analysing cupboard starving front room filling tea slurping mind chewing brain burping carpet picking pots watching room gleaning toilet flushing night, with nothing to do I think I'll paint roads on my front room walls to convince myself that I'm going places. By Lemn Sissay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benway Posted December 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2012 I studied this poem at school, and my son is studying it now. Felix Randal by Gerard Manley Hopkins Felix Randal the farrier, O is he dead then? my duty all ended, Who have watched his mould of man, big-boned and hardy-handsome Pining, pining, till time when reason rambled in it, and some Fatal four disorders, fleshed there, all contended? Sickness broke him. Impatient, he cursed at first, but mended Being anointed and all; though a heavenlier heart began some Months earlier, since I had our sweet reprieve and ransom Tendered to him. Ah well, God rest him all road ever he offended! This seeing the sick endears them to us, us too it endears. My tongue had taught thee comfort, touch had quenched thy tears, Thy tears that touched my heart, child, Felix, poor Felix Randal; How far from then forethought of, all thy more boisterous years, When thou at the random grim forge, powerful amidst peers, Didst fettle for the great grey drayhorse his bright and battering sandal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benway Posted December 19, 2012 Author Report Share Posted December 19, 2012 Thank you Kitsune for introducing me to Lemn Sissay. xx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 Kitsune, thanks for coming a adding to the thread, I enjoyed your contribution, Going Places. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maddy harper Posted December 21, 2012 Report Share Posted December 21, 2012 i sit and wait, for the sound of your voice, the tutch of your hand on mine, the feel of you in my arms, i sit and wait... maddy harper x Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted December 23, 2012 Report Share Posted December 23, 2012 The Year What can be said in New Year rhymes, That's not been said a thousand times? The new years come, the old years go, We know we dream, we dream we know. We rise up laughing with the light, We lie down weeping with the night. We hug the world until it stings, We curse it then and sigh for wings. We live, we love, we woo, we wed, We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead. We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear, And that's the burden of a year. by Ella Wheeler Wilcox I thought this fitting for the season and the ending and soon to be beginning of a new one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted January 2, 2013 Report Share Posted January 2, 2013 Ring out the old, ring in the new, Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; Ring out the false, ring in the true. by Alfred, Lord Tennyson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted January 11, 2013 Report Share Posted January 11, 2013 On Problems Our choicest plans have fallen through our airiest castles tumbled over because of lines we neatly drew and later neatly stumbled over. by Piet Hein Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted January 28, 2013 Report Share Posted January 28, 2013 Threnody Lilacs blossom just as sweet Now my heart is shattered. If I bowled it down the street, Who's to say it mattered? If there's one that rode away What would I be missing? Lips that taste of tears, they say, Are the best for kissing. Eyes that watch the morning star Seem a little brighter; Arms held out to darkness are Usually whiter. Shall I bar the strolling guest, Bind my brow with willow, When, they say, the empty breast Is the softer pillow? That a heart falls tinkling down, Never think it ceases. Every likely lad in town Gathers up the pieces. If there's one gone whistling by Would I let it grieve me? Let him wonder if I lie; Let him half believe me. by Dorothy Parker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitsune Posted February 14, 2013 Report Share Posted February 14, 2013 My two faves from GCSE English "Little Boy Crying" By Mervyn Morris Your mouth contorting in brief spite and Hurt, your laughter metamorphosed into howls, Your frame so recently relaxed now tight With three-year-old frustration, your bright eyes Swimming tears, splashing your bare feet, You stand there angling for a moment's hint Of guilt or sorrow for the quick slap struck. The ogre towers above you, that grim giant, Empty of feeling, a colossal cruel, Soon victim of the tale's conclusion, dead At last. You hate him, you imagine Chopping clean the tree he's scrambling down Or plotting deeper pits to trap him in. You cannot understand, not yet, The hurt your easy tears can scald him with, Nor guess the wavering hidden behind that mask. This fierce man longs to lift you, curb your sadness With piggy-back or bull-fight, anything, But dare not ruin the lessons you should learn. You must not make a plaything of the rain. Rising Five- Norman Nicholson "I'm rising five" he said "Not four" and the little coils of hair Un-clicked themselves upon his head. His spectacles, brimful of eyes to stare At me and the meadow, reflected cones of light Above his toffee-buckled cheeks. He'd been alive Fifty-six months or perhaps a week more; Not four But rising five. Around him in the field, the cells of spring Bubbled and doubled; buds unbuttoned; shoot And stem shook out the creases from their frills, And every tree was swilled with green. It was the season after blossoming, Before the forming of the fruit: Not May But rising June. And in the sky The dust dissected the tangential light: Not day But rising night; Not now But rising soon. The new buds push the old leaves from the bough. We drop our youth behind us like a boy Throwing away his toffee-wrappers. We never see the flower, But only the fruit in the flower; never the fruit, But only the rot in the fruit. We look for the marriage bed In the baby's cradle; we look for the grave in the bed; Not livingBut rising dead. I don't know why they struck such a chord with me, maybe because these were the ones we covered, but they hold a special place. I think the first is important to me because it shows the difference between a child and it's guardian's view on something. It shows how the child reacts to being told off and just why the parent has done so -and how the parents feels to have told their child off. The second one I like because it shows what a rush we are often in to 'grow up', we never seem to appreciate the present, always carelessly looking for the next step. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted April 16, 2013 Report Share Posted April 16, 2013 Your Feet When I cannot look at your face I look at your feet. Your feet of arched bone, your hard little feet. I know that they support you, and that your sweet weight rises upon them. Your waist and your breasts, the doubled purple of your nipples, the sockets of your eyes that have just flown away, your wide fruit mouth, your red tresses, my little tower. But I love your feet only because they walked upon the earth and upon the wind and upon the waters, until they found me. by Pablo Neruda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 Love Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring. I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands; how did your lips feel on mine? Because of you, I love the white statues drowsing in the parks, the white statues that have neither voice nor sight. I have forgotten your voice, your happy voice; I have forgotten your eyes. Like a flower to its perfume, I am bound to my vague memory of you. I live with pain that is like a wound; if you touch me, you will do me irreparable harm. Your caresses enfold me, like climbing vines on melancholy walls. I have forgotten your love, yet I seem to glimpse you in every window. by Pablo Neruda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted April 21, 2013 Report Share Posted April 21, 2013 (continued). . . Because of you, the heady perfumes of summer pain me; because of you, I again seek out the signs that precipitate desires: shooting stars, falling objects. by Pablo Neruda Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benway Posted April 23, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 23, 2013 Memory of my Father by Patrick Kavanagh Every old man I see Reminds me of my father When he had fallen in love with death One time when sheaves were gathered. That man I saw in Gardner Street Stumbled on the kerb was one, He stared at me half-eyed, I might have been his son. And I remember the musician Faltering over his fiddle In Bayswater, London, He too set me the riddle. Every old man I see In October-coloured weather Seems to say to me: "I was once your father." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benway Posted April 23, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 23, 2013 September 1913 by William Butler Yeats What need you, being come to sense, But fumble in a greasy till And add the halfpence to the pence And prayer to shivering prayer, until You have dried the marrow from the bone? For men were born to pray and save: Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave. Yet they were of a different kind, The names that stilled your childish play, They have gone about the world like wind, But little time had they to pray For whom the hangman's rope was spun, And what, God help us, could they save? Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave. Was it for this the wild geese spread The grey wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave. Yet could we turn the years again, And call those exiles as they were In all their loneliness and pain, You'd cry, 'Some woman's yellow hair Has maddened every mother's son': They weighed so lightly what they gave. But let them be, they're dead and gone, They're with O'Leary in the grave. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted June 19, 2013 Report Share Posted June 19, 2013 Tricks with Mirrors i It's no coincidence this is a used furniture warehouse. I enter with you and become a mirror. Mirrors are the perfect lovers, that's it, carry me up the stairs by the edges, don't drop me, that would be back luck, throw me on the bed reflecting side up, fall into me, it will be your own mouth you hit, firm and glassy, your own eyes you find you are up against closed closed ii There is more to a mirror than you looking at your full-length body flawless but reversed, there is more than this dead blue oblong eye turned outwards to you. Think about the frame. The frame is carved, it is important, it exists, it does not reflect you, it does not recede and recede, it has limits and reflections of its own. There's a nail in the back to hang it with; there are several nails, think about the nails, pay attention to the nail marks in the wood, they are important too. iii Don't assume it is passive or easy, this clarity with which I give you yourself. Consider what restraint it takes: breath withheld, no anger or joy disturbing the surface of the ice. You are suspended in me beautiful and frozen, I preserve you, in me you are safe. It is not a trick either, it is a craft: mirrors are crafty. iv I wanted to stop this, this life flattened against the wall, mute and devoid of colour, built of pure light, this life of vision only, split and remote, a lucid impasse. I confess: this is not a mirror, it is a door I am trapped behind. I wanted you to see me here, say the releasing word, whatever that may be, open the wall. Instead you stand in front of me combing your hair. v You don't like these metaphors. All right: Perhaps I am not a mirror. Perhaps I am a pool. Think about pools. -- Margaret Atwood Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted July 29, 2013 Report Share Posted July 29, 2013 No Road Since we agreed to let the road between us Fall to disuse, And bricked our gates up, planted trees to screen us, And turned all time's eroding agents loose, Silence, and space, and strangers - our neglect Has not had much effect. Leaves drift unswept, perhaps; grass creeps unmown; No other change. So clear it stands, so little overgrown, Walking that way tonight would not seem strange, And still would be followed. A little longer, And time would be the stronger, Drafting a world where no such road will run From you to me; To watch that world come up like a cold sun, Rewarding others, is my liberty. Not to prevent it is my will's fulfillment. Willing it, my ailment. by Philip Larkin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted September 20, 2013 Report Share Posted September 20, 2013 Six Significant Landscapes I An old man sits In the shadow of a pine tree In China. He sees larkspur, Blue and white, At the edge of the shadow, Move in the wind. His beard moves in the wind. The pine tree moves in the wind. Thus water flows Over weeds. II The night is of the colour Of a woman's arm: Night, the female, Obscure, Fragrant and supple, Conceals herself. A pool shines, Like a bracelet Shaken in a dance. III I measure myself Against a tall tree. I find that I am much taller, For I reach right up to the sun, With my eye; And I reach to the shore of the sea With my ear. Nevertheless, I dislike The way ants crawl In and out of my shadow. IV When my dream was near the moon, The white folds of its gown Filled with yellow light. The soles of its feet Grew red. Its hair filled With certain blue crystallizations From stars, Not far off. V Not all the knives of the lamp-posts, Nor the chisels of the long streets, Nor the mallets of the domes And high towers, Can carve What one star can carve, Shining through the grape-leaves. VI Rationalists, wearing square hats, Think, in square rooms, Looking at the floor, Looking at the ceiling. They confine themselves To right-angled triangles. If they tried rhomboids, Cones, waving lines, ellipses -- As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon-- Rationalists would wear sombreros. by Wallace Stevens Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted September 27, 2013 Report Share Posted September 27, 2013 Separation Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color. by W.S. Merwin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pye Dog Posted October 2, 2013 Report Share Posted October 2, 2013 Prayer Before Birth I am not yet born; O hear me. Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul come near me. I am not yet born, console me. I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me. I am not yet born; provide me With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me. I am not yet born; forgive me For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me, my treason engendered by traitors beyond me, my life when they murder by means of my hands, my death when they live me. I am not yet born; rehearse me In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom and the beggar refuses my gift and my children curse me. I am not yet born; O hear me, Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God come near me. I am not yet born: O fill me With strength against those who would freeze my humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton, would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with one face, a thing, and against all those who would dissipate my entirety, would blow me like thistledown hither and thither or hither and thither like water held in the hands would spill me. Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me. Otherwise kill me. Louis MacNeice (1944) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apollo 13 Posted October 5, 2013 Report Share Posted October 5, 2013 Separation Your absence has gone through me Like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color. by W.S. Merwin WOW.....so few words, such great emotion!! Thank you for posting!! XX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saharah Blue Posted October 6, 2013 Report Share Posted October 6, 2013 The Life That I Have The life that I have Is all that I have And the life that I have Is yours The love that I have Of the life that I have Is yours and yours and yours. A sleep I shall have A rest I shall have Yet death will be but a pause For the peace of my years In the long green grass Will be yours and yours and yours. by Leo Marks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kitsune Posted October 7, 2013 Report Share Posted October 7, 2013 I Do Not Love Thee by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton I do not love thee!—no! I do not love thee! And yet when thou art absent I am sad; And envy even the bright blue sky above thee, Whose quiet stars may see thee and be glad. I do not love thee!—yet, I know not why, Whate’er thou dost seems still well done, to me: And often in my solitude I sigh That those I do love are not more like thee! I do not love thee!—yet, when thou art gone, I hate the sound (though those who speak be dear) Which breaks the lingering echo of the tone Thy voice of music leaves upon my ear. I do not love thee!—yet thy speaking eyes, With their deep, bright, and most expressive blue, Between me and the midnight heaven arise, Oftener than any eyes I ever knew. I know I do not love thee! yet, alas! Others will scarcely trust my candid heart; And oft I catch them smiling as they pass, Because they see me gazing where thou art. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pye Dog Posted October 12, 2013 Report Share Posted October 12, 2013 "Hope" is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm - I've heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet, never, in Extremity, It asked a Crumb - of Me. Emily Dickinson Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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