*Verse & Prose* that I love...

That's so evocative, soop. I don't know that poet but will look for him now.

That's wonderful soop xx

Thanks, Annobel. I've been dusting books and 'Where the Dream Begins' ..A Miscellany of Prose, Poetry and Pictures by Brian Carter, made me sit down and read it properly...it was gifted to me in 1980. Must share others with you.

Ella you might also like...

Old Photo

The wave builds to break
but never falls;
the gull hangs in flight
but never calls;
your young face smiles
but never sings;
the bell swings high
but never rings.

Not lost, that Sunday stands
in the timeless place
safe from cold seasons,
ebb tides, darkness, death.
And there you are
- smiling, yet never present,
a dawn image
printed on summer's breath.

I love this extract from Tam O'Shanter by Rabbie Burns

But pleasures are like poppies spread,
You sieze the flower, its bloom is shed;
Or like the snow falls in the river,
A moment white--then melts for ever;
Or like the borealis race,
That flit ere you can point their place;
Or like the rainbow's lovely form
Evanishing amid the storm.--

Tam! I did him for ENGLISH o level?

I saw a wonderful version of Tam at the Mull Little Theatre (now no more) which dramatised it very ingeniously while it was being recited. My friend and I who had studied Burns intensively for our degree, more or less recited it (quietly) along with them.
It's a very great narrative poem. Very funny - satirical.

littlemo

Thanks for sharing.

soop thank you, I do like it!

Foxwise in the Darkness ...Brian Carter

He appears after dark,
reads the wind with his nose,
mirrors the moon in his eyes,
laps the dew, feels the grass sing
in his blood.
Ebb and flow of stars,
waves of trees breaking
on the sky
- these are the nightworld things.
And I shall go, foxwise,
in the darkness that is scent
and touch and wind torment,
on those blowy nights
of September, all gales
and roaring moonlight.
The wild darkness
can carry me back to the Old Times,
Night's child
clutching the grass like a mane,
riding the world away
from city glow and traffic streams
to the ancient woods
beyond day's end
- foxwise
and bright with dreams.

Magic soop

Western wind, when will thou blow
The small rain down can rain?
Christ, if my love were in my arms
And I in my bed again!

Ariadne Who is the author?

For Joy...John Pope

Somewhere she waits
This woman that I love
But have not met.
Somewhere, she thinks, he waits
This man I love,
While time and circumstance keep us apart.
But somewhere, sometime we will meet
And in that moment's space
Time will be crystalline
When we are face to face.
Wait love, I come,
I'll stride across the world,
Storm through the stars
To find you waiting there,
Waiting, because you knew that I would come.

soop it's mediaeval and anonymous.

Very moving

I also love Wendy Cope! Worked with her before she was published. She met her husband late in life.

II

Write it in fire across the night:

Some men are more or less all right.

Being Boring

If you ask me 'What's new?', 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.

Oh I did like Being Boring Ariande!

Wendy Cope's "Haiku"

A perfect white wine
is sharp, sweet and cold as this:
birdsong in winter.

Lovely!

YES! Wendy Cope is an artist with words.

Have quoted this before:

It really wouldn't do
To let him stay.
Not for the first time,
Not today.
But she put on her new black knickers anyway.

Ariadne

Portrait Painter...Dick Davis

If, in the middle-aged
Worn face now given to
His stranger's scrutiny
He sees - unbidden, true-
Regret stare unassuaged
From posed formality -

Her need and loss, a life
Of compromise made plain,
His thoughts are not the rush
Of sympathy for pain
But tone and palette-knife,
The texture of this brush:

And, glancing up, his gaze
Meetes nothing of the heart
But colour, shade, and gloss-
The problems of his art;
While from the canvas blaze
Discovered need need and loss.

I Feel...^Elizabeth Jennings^

I feel I could be turned to ice
If this goes on, if this goes on.
I feel I could be buried twice
And still the death not yet be done.

I feel I could be turned to fire
If there can be no end to this.
I know within me such desire
No kiss could satisfy, no kiss.

I feel I could be turned to stone,
A solid block not carved at all,
Beacause I feel so much alone.
I could be grave-stone or a wall.

But better to be turned to earth
Where other things at least can grow.
I could be then a part of birth,
Passive, not knowing how to know.

A long, long time ago, after some useless chap broke my heart, I read this poem over and over. Thank goodness for Mr soop...he came along at just the right time.

Thanks for starting this delightful thread, I've thoroughly enjoyed all of the poems!