Love the owl one Amanowl - remind me slightly of Hopkins in his rhythms.

These have brought back memories, especially the one about the rag doll - I had that in an English book at school. I love a lot of ee cummings, and this one has been a bit overdone at weddings, but the last line is perfect.

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond

by e. e. Cummings

somewhere i have never travelled,gladly beyond
any experience,your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously)her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully ,suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the color of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain,has such small hands

George Macbeth

Owl
is my favourite. Who flies
like a nothing through the night,
who whoing. Is a feather
duster in leafy corners ring-a-rosy-ing
boles of mice. Twice

you hear him call. Who
is he looking for? You hear him hoovering over the floor
of the wood. O would you be gold
rings in the driving skull

if you could? Hooded and
vulnerable by the winter suns
owl looks. Is the grain of bark
in the dark. Round beaks are at
work in the pellety nest,

resting. Owl is an eye
in the barn. For a hole
in the trunk owl's blood
is to blame. Black talons in the
petrified fur! Cold walnut hands

on the case of the brain! In the reign
of the chicken owl comes like
a god. Is a goad in
the rain to the pink eyes dripping. For a meal in the day

flew, killed, on the moor. Six
mouths are the seed of his
arc in the season. Torn meat
from the sky. Owl lives
by the claws of his brain. On the branch

in the sever of the hand's
twigs owl is a backward look.
Flown wind in the skin. Fine
rain in the bones. Owl breaks
like the day. Am an owl, am an owl.

Also Top twenty things parents never say. gervase Phinn

Of course you can have more pocket money
I bought those chocolate biscuits just for you.
No, it won't hurt to leave your bike out in the rain.
The telephone is free if you wish to use it.
Don't bother with the dishes, I'll do them later.
I do wish the school wouldn't give you so much homework.
I like your friend with the nose stud and the tattoos.
You're not coming home too early tonight are you?
Just leave your dirty underwear on the floor.
Don't worry, I came bottom of the class when I was your age.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the late night film.
Would you like any help sticking that poster on your bedroom wall?
These trainers are very cheap.
Would you like lots of greasy food at your party?
I don't think the dog is ready for a walk yet.
Why don't you stay in bed a little longer this morning.
I do hate a tidy room.
Leave all the lights on will you?
Don't bother cleaning out the bath
School holidays are a bit short this year.

From Kalhil Gibran The Prophet. I like the whole thing but the 'On children' part is my favourite

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

This is just music to the ears (and brings tears to my eyes!)
holliemcnish.bandcamp.com/track/wow

This is my favourite Yeats poem - although I love all his poems.

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE
By William Butler 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 honeybee,
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 gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Uncle Fester, thats one of my fave poems.... Chynnah, my ds is named after Wilfred Owen!! I love all Joyce Grenfells work and also these two are huge faves as well!!

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost.

The Scarecrow Walter De La Mere.
All winter through I bow my head
beneath the driving rain;
the North Wind powders me with snow
and blows me black again;
at midnight 'neath a maze of stars
I flame with glittering rime,
and stand above the stubble, stiff
as mail at morning-prime.
But when that child called Spring, and all
his host of children come,
scattering their buds and dew upon
these acres of my home,
some rapture in my rags awakes;
I lift void eyes and scan
the sky for crows, those ravening foes,
of my strange master, Man.
I watch him striding lank behind
his clashing team, and know
soon will the wheat swish body high
where once lay a sterile snow;
soon I shall gaze across a sea
of sun-begotten grain,
which my unflinching watch hath sealed
for harvest once again.

So many poems I love, especially some of the darker WWI poetry. A friend visited the war memorial where my uncle is commemorated recently, and this was the poem he took for me to rest by the memorial.

PEACE

Night is o'er England, and the winds are still;
Jasmine and honeysuckle steep the air;
Softly the stars that are all Europe's fill
Her heaven-wide dark with radiancy fair;
That shadowed moon now waxing in the west
Stirs not a rumour in her tranquil seas;
Mysterious sleep has lulled her heart to rest,
Deep even as theirs beneath her churchyard trees.

Secure, serene; dumb now the night-hawk's threat;
The guns' low thunder drumming o'er the tide;
The anguish pulsing in her stricken side....
All is at peace....But, never, heart, forget:
For this her younges, best, and bravest died,
These bright dews once were mixed with bloody sweat.

Walter de la Mare

There is so many, that it's hard to single one out. But here's one I love a lot:

Imperial by Don Patterson

Is it normal to get this wet? Baby, I'm frightened -

I covered her mouth with my own;

she lay in my arms till the storm-window

brightened

and stood at our heads like a stone

After months of jaw-jaw, determined that neither

win ground, or be handed the edge,

we gave ourselves up, one to the other

like prisoners over a bridge

and no trade was ever so fair or so tender;

so where was the flaw in the plan,

the night we lay down on the flag of surrender

and woke on the flag of Japan

Thank you for a beautiful thread. I often thought I don't like poetry - but it all depends on what is shown to you and by whom.
I've really enjoyed these. Thanks - please keep them coming!

Further to Larkin's "They fuck you up", posted by MarkMarkMark, how about Adrian Mitchell's reply to it, written when he heard that some innocent soul thought they must have mis-heard and surely Larkin had said "tuck you up"!

They tuck you up, your mum and dad,
They read you Peter Rabbit too;
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra just for you.

They were tucked up when they were small
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco smoke)
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.

Man hands on happiness to man,
It deepens like a coastal shelf,
So love your parents all you can
And have some cheerful kids yourself.

(Maybe reality lies somewhere between Larkin and Mitchell!)

Ok not quite so cheery but really how far have we gone in 90 years?

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! ? An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.?
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, ?
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

Thanks for starting this tread Ohhlaalaa - its just lovely!

Beannacht for Josie, my mother

On the day when the weight deadens
on your shoulders and you stumble,
may the clay dance to balance you.

And when your eyes freeze behind the grey window
and the ghost of loss gets in to you,
may a flock of colours, indigo, red, green and azure blue
come to awaken in you a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays in the curach of thought
and a stain of ocean blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow wind work these words of love around you,
an invisible cloak to mind your life.

John O'Donohue

The Donkey

When fishes flew and forests walked
and fig grew upon thorn
one moment when the moon was blood
then surely i was born

Bavarian Gentians

Not every man has gentians in his house
in soft September, at slow, sad Michaelmas.

Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening the daytime, torch-like, with the smoking blueness of Pluto's
gloom,
ribbed and torch-like, with their blaze of darkness spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto's dark-blue daze,
black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter's pale lamps give off
light,
lead me then, lead the way.

Reach me a gentian, give me a torch!
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September
to the sightless realm where darkness is awake upon the dark
and Persephone herself is but a voice
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,
among the splendor of torches of darkness, shedding darkness on
the lost bride and her groom.

-- D H Lawrence

This Is What I Wanted To Sign Off With.

You know what I?m
Like when I?m sick: I?d sooner
Curse than cry. And people don?t often
Know what they?re saying in the end.
Or I could die in my sleep.

So I?ll say it now. Here it is.
Don?t pay any attention
If I don?t get it right
when it?s for real. Blame that
on terror and pain
or the stuff they?re shooting
into my veins. This is what I wanted to
sign off with. Bend
closer, listen, I love you.

Alden Nowlan.

So many to choose from, but for anybody with a lover or family who has set out on an uncertain journey, the following has the ring of truth:

Love Song

Don't set sail
The wind is rising and the weather none too good
Far better to come back to my house
If there is anything you want, just tell me
If you are cold, my body is warm
Let us be happy together this one night
Tomorrow the wind will have dropped
Then you can go
And I shan't worry about you

Feng Meng Yung (16th century)
translated by Arthur Waley

Memorial

Everywhere she dies.
Everywhere I go she dies.
No sunrise, no city square, no lurking beautiful mountain but has her death in it.
The silence of her dying sounds through the carousel of language, it's a web on which laughter stitches itself.
How can my hand clasp another's when between them is that thick death, that intolerable distance?
She grieves for my grief.
Dying, she tells me that bird dives from the sun, that fish leaps into it.
No crocus is carved more gently than the way her dying shapes my mind.
But I hear, too, the other words, black words that make the sound of soundlessness, that name the nowhere she is continuously going into.
Ever since she died she can't stop dying.
She makes me her elegy. I am a walking masterpiece, a true fiction of the ugliness of death.
I am her sad music.

Norman MacCaig

Sweetest Thing - that is beautiful

I had also forgotten how wonderful Sylvia Plath is - thanks sassy.

I borrowed the most wonderful book of eastern european poetry from a friend years ago and I worshiped the poems. I must borrow it back again as I can't remember them properly.

This will appeal to all the mothers of boys. I might be tempted to post it on all MIL threads from hereon in:

Mother of the Groom; Seamus Heaney

What she remembers
Is his glistening back
In the bath, his small boots
In the ring of boots at her feet.

Hands in her voided lap,
She hears a daughter welcomed.
It's as if he kicked when lifted
And lifted her soapy hold.

Once soap would ease off
The wedding ring
That's bedded forever
In her clapping hand.

From Romeo and Juliet

Come gentle night, come loving black brow'd night
Give me my Romeo and when he shall die
Take him and cut him out in little stars
And he will make the face of heaven so fine
That all the world will be in love with night
And pay no worship to the garish sun...........

RAG DOLL TO THE HEEDLESS CHILD

(by david harsent)

I love you
with my linen heart.

you cannot
know how these

rigid,lumpy arms
shudder in your grasp,

or what
tears dam up against

these blue eye-smudges at
your capriciousness.

At night I watch you sleep;
you'll never know

how I thrust my face
into the stream

of your warm breath;
and how

love-words choke me behind
this sewn-up mouth.