Probably the wrong place, but your favourite poems

[oohlaalaa]

Here's mine:

Being Boring by Wendy Cope

I have nothing to say
Except that the garden is growing.
I had a slight cold but it's better today.
I'm content with the way things are going.
Yes, he is the same as he usually is,
Still eating and sleeping and snoring.
I get on with my work. He gets on with his.
I know this is all very boring.

There was drama enough in my turbulent past:
Tears and passion-I've used up a tankful.
No news is good news, and long may it last,
If nothing much happens, I'm thankful.
A happier cabbage you never did see,
My vegetable spirits are soaring.
If you're after excitement, steer well clear of me.
I want to go on being boring.

I don't go to parties. Well, what are they for,
If you don't need to find a new lover?
You drink and you listen and drink a bit more
And you take the next day to recover.
Someone to stay home with was all my desire
And, now that I've found a safe mooring,
I've just one ambition in life: I aspire
To go on and on being boring.

this I mean. must preview.

and as we are having a carol ann duffy trend

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy
Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or a kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding-ring,
if you like.

Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

In the novel Testament of Youth there is a poem I've always loved its written by a soldier in WW1 who was the fiancee of Vera Brittain(mum of MP Shirley Williams I believe.)
Its called "Another Stranger", with a heading Hedauville. November 1915.

The sunshine on the long white road
That ribboned down the hill,
The velvet clematis that clung
Around your window-sill,
Are waiting for you still.

Again the shadowed pool shall break
In dimples round your feet,
And when the thrush sings in your wood,
Unknowing you may meet
Another stranger, Sweet,

And if he is not quite so old
As the boy you used to know,
And less proud, too, and worthier,
You may not let him go-
(And daisies are truer than passion-flowers)
It will be better so.

The poet was Roland Leyton and he died along with so many of that generation. I don't know which part of it I love the most as he faces up to the reality he may die it is so poignant. Hedauville is the place it was written and near to his grave.
Nice to share it, I don't think its ever won any awards.

Thats really beautiful.

I love the poem by violette Szabo "The life that I have is all that I have"

So moving when you know how she died

I love "Litany" by Billy Collins. There is the most adorable, amazing video of a three year old reciting this on youtube and it makes my day :)

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet andsomehowthe wine.

I love this;

695: To his lost lover
"To his lost lover"
Simon Armitage

Now they are no longer
any trouble to each other

he can turn things over, get down to that list
of things that never happened, all of the lost

unfinishable business.
For instance? for instance,

how he never clipped and kept her hair, or drew a hairbrush
through that style of hers, and never knew how not to blush

at the fall of her name in close company.
How they never slept like buried cutlery ?

two spoons or forks cupped perfectly together,
or made the most of some heavy weather ?

walked out into hard rain under sheet lightning,
or did the gears while the other was driving.

How he never raised his fingertips
to stop the segments of her lips

from breaking the news,
or tasted the fruit

or picked for himself the pear of her heart,
or lifted her hand to where his own heart

was a small, dark, terrified bird
in her grip. Where it hurt.

Or said the right thing,
or put it in writing.

And never fled the black mile back to his house
before midnight, or coaxed another button of her blouse,

the another,
or knew her

favourite colour,
her taste, her flavour,

and never ran a bath or held a towel for her,
or soft-soaped her, or whipped her hair

into an ice-cream cornet or a beehive
of lather, or acted out of turn, or misbehaved

when he might have, or worked a comb
where no comb had been, or walked back home

through a black mile hugging a punctured heart,
where it hurt, where it hurt, or helped her hand

to his butterfly heart
in its two blue halves.

And never almost cried,
and never once described

an attack of the heart,
or under a silk shirt

nursed in his hand her breast,
her left, like a tear of flesh

wept by the heart,
where it hurts,

or brushed with his thumb the nut of her nipple,
or drank intoxicating liquors from her navel.

Or christened the Pole Star in her name,
or shielded the mask of her face like a flame,

a pilot light,
or stayed the night,

or steered her back to that house of his,
or said ?Don?t ask me how it is

I like you.
I just might do.?

How he never figured out a fireproof plan,
or unravelled her hand, as if her hand

were a solid ball
of silver foil

and discovered a lifeline hiding inside it,
and measured the trace of his own alongside it.

But said some things and never meant them ?
sweet nothings anybody could have mentioned.

And left unsaid some things he should have spoken,
about the heart, where it hurt exactly, and how often.

my two favourites are

1. the almond tree (puisipoesy.blogspot.com/2006/03/almond-tree.html)

which is about a father being all excited about seeing his newborn then finds out he has down syndrome and how he reconciles (he is writing from experience)

1. Futility (europeanhistory.about.com/library/weekly/blowenfutility.htm)

this about a soldier who has just died in WW1, the sentiment is that usually the sun woke him, not today. very very poignant

not the happiest of poems, but beautiful.

My very favourite poems are:

The Wishing Tree by Seamus Heaney

I thought of her as the wishing tree that died
And saw it lifted, root and branch, to heaven,
Trailing a shower of all that had been driven
Need by need by need into its hale
Sap-wood and bark: coin and pin and nail
Came streaming from it like a comet-tail
New-minted and dissolved. I had a vision
Of an airy branch-head rising through damp cloud,
Of turned-up faces where the tree had stood.

Sea Fever by John Measfield (you have to read this one out loud to get full effect)

I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven by WB Yeats

HAD I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

With Rue My Heart Is Laden by A.E. Housman

With rue my heart is laden
For golden friends I had,
For many a rose-lipt maiden
And many a lightfoot lad.

By brooks too broad for leaping

The lightfoot boys are laid;
The rose-lipt girls are sleeping
In fields where roses fade.

Cargoes by John Masefield

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amythysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

And I'm not religious one iota but I love this one:

The Donkey by GK Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood,
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

Incident
by Norman MacCaig

I look across the table and think
(fiery with love)
Ask me, go on, ask me
to do something impossible,
something freakishly useless,
something unimaginable and inimitable

Like making a finger break into blossom
or walking for half an hour in twenty minutes
or remembering tomorrow.

I will you to ask it.
But all you say is
Will you give me a cigarette?
And I smile and,
returning to the marvelous world
of possibility
I give you one
with a hand that trembles
with a human trembling.

The Donkey
G.K.Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

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.

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...........

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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!)