Poetry

[Daniel]

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

[Padraig]

Here's a poem by another American, Daniel.

A Meeting

In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead are changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: 'How you been?'
He grins and looks at me.
'I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees.'

Wendell Berry. (b 1934)

[johncorrigan]

Here's a poem by another American, Daniel.

A Meeting

In a dream I meet
my dead friend. He has,
I know, gone long and far,
and yet he is the same
for the dead are changeless.
They grow no older.
It is I who have changed,
grown strange to what I was.
Yet I, the changed one,
ask: 'How you been?'
He grins and looks at me.
'I been eating peaches
off some mighty fine trees.'

Wendell Berry. (b 1934)

[Padraig]

...and a snippet from Emily -

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant -
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanations kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.

Emily Dickinson

[Padraig]

I am Stretched on Your Grave

I am stretched on your grave
And would lie there forever
If your hands were in mine
I'd be sure we'd not sever.
My appletree, my brightness
'Tis time we were together
For I smell of the earth
And am worn by the weather

When my family thinks
That I'm safe in my bed
From night until morning
I am stretched at your head
Calling out into the air with
Tears hot and wild
My grief for the girl that
I loved as a child.

Do you remember the
Night we were lost
In the shade of the blackthorn
And the chill of the frost.
Thanks be to Jesus we
Did what was right
And your maidenhead still
Is a pillar of light.

The priest and the friars
Approach me in dread
Because I still love you
My love, and you're dead.
I still will be your shelter
Through rain and through storm
But with you in your cold grave
I cannot sleep warm.

I am stretched on your grave
And would lie there forever
If your hands were in mine
I'd be sure we'd not sever.
My appletree, my brightness
'Tis time we were together
For I smell of the earth
And am worn by the weather.

Anonymous (Eighteenth Century)
Translated from the Irish by Frank O'Connor 1903- 1966

[johncorrigan]

Thanks Padraig, and a beautiful song you posted to link with it.

http://www.for3.org/forums/showthread.php?8985-Cór-Chúil-Aodh&p=563079#post563079

I'm still on Carver.

What The Doctor Said


He said it doesn't look good
he said it looks bad in fact real bad
he said I counted thirty-two of them on one lung before
I quit counting them
I said I'm glad I wouldn't want to know
about any more being there than that
he said are you a religious man do you kneel down
in forest groves and let yourself ask for help
when you come to a waterfall
mist blowing against your face and arms
do you stop and ask for understanding at those moments
I said not yet but I intend to start today
he said I'm real sorry he said
I wish I had some other kind of news to give you
I said Amen and he said something else
I didn't catch and not knowing what else to do
and not wanting him to have to repeat it
and me to have to fully digest it
I just looked at him
for a minute and he looked back it was then
I jumped up and shook hands with this man who'd just given me
something no one else on earth had ever given me
I may have even thanked him habit being so strong


- Raymond Carver

[Daniel]

Here's a poem by another American, Daniel.

'A Meeting
...
Wendell Berry. (b 1934)'

Thanks for that, Padraig. I know the name but not any of his poems, so googled him and came up with this which I liked.

A Warning To My Readers

Do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honor the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.

Wendell Berry

[Padraig]

Why do I feel guilty, Daniel?

[Daniel]

Why do I feel guilty, Daniel?

Perhaps you have a similar mirror to mine?

[johncorrigan]

Heard this on a very enjoyable programme about the Fly on R4 yesterday. Came away with a different opinion of the little blighters.

The Fly

Little fly,
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death,

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

William Blake

[johncorrigan]

BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Tagore at 150' on this week's 'Poetry Extra' on Radio 4 extra. The programme is from 2011.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07g7hbt

[Globaltruth]

Heard this on a very enjoyable programme about the Fly on R4 yesterday. Came away with a different opinion of the little blighters.

The Fly

Little fly,
Thy summer’s play
My thoughtless hand
Has brushed away.

Am not I
A fly like thee?
Or art not thou
A man like me?

For I dance
And drink and sing,
Till some blind hand
Shall brush my wing.

If thought is life
And strength and breath,
And the want
Of thought is death,

Then am I
A happy fly,
If I live,
Or if I die.

William Blake

Ogden Nash nails it for me JC

God in his wisdom made the fly
And then forgot to tell us why.

[johncorrigan]

Ogden Nash nails it for me JC

Good point, GT, but they gave the intrepid listener a few inklings towards answering Oggie's point on the programme; though not why they have to blinkin' buzz around the place annoyin' the hell out of us. Bluebottles!

[Daniel]

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

W.B.Yeats


Written in 1919 in the wake of an event more serious by orders of magnitude, but much seems also strangely apt to the current masked ball in Europe.

[johncorrigan]

Thanks Daniel...Joni Mitchell turned this one into her song from 'Night Ride Home' called 'Slouching towards Bethlehem'. Actually I prefer the orchestrated version on 'Travelogue' but can't find it, so here's her original version.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cg0xMry2m9s