They fuck you up your mum and dad (Phillip Larkin)

Oh yes! That "more loving one"! "Let the more loving one be me".

'ang on

But also, Carol Ann Duffy, Elvis' Twin Sister and also My Second Best Bed.

And more suitable for this site, Family House, by Gillian Clarke

I slept in a room in the roof,
the white planes of its ceiling
freckled with light from the sea,
or at night leaf shadows
from the street-lamp in the lane.

Below, the flame of her hair,
and the gleam of a colander
as she bent among the pea-rows,
or pulled lettuce from the black earth,
wearing silly shoes to make her taller.

Even in summer, sometimes, salt on the air,
I’d hear far off that faltered heartbeat
of the Breaksea lightship,
then the held breath of silence
to the count of ten.

Now the vegetable garden is a lawn,
and they sold the coach house, pigsty,
the old stable where in wet summers
we crouched over our cache of secrets
under the cidery air of an apple-loft.

From a hundred miles and thirty years away
I smell long rows of fruit,
turned to rotten gourds of juice
soft skinned as toads.

A real sense of the bitter sweetness of memories of the past.

I love Larkin and the Trees is a favourite
The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.
And all of Yeats especially "A terrible Beauty and An Irish Airmen
I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me"

Charles Kingsley (1819-1875)
from The Water Babies

Young and Old

WHEN all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green ;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen ;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away ;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.

When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown ;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down ;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among :
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.

Cupid and my Campaspe played
At cards for kisses;
Cupid paid.
He stakes his quiver, bow, and arrows,
His mother's doves and team of sparrows,
Loses them too; then down he throws
The coral of his lip, the rose
Growing on's cheek (but none knows how),
With these the crystal of his brow,
And then the dimple of his chin:
All these did my Campaspe win.
At last he set her both his eyes;
She won, and Cupid blind did rise.
O Love! has she done this to thee?
What shall, alas, become of me?

John Lyly 1553 - 1606

Brought a lump to my throat Rosecarmel

You Who Never Arrived

You who never arrived
in my arms, Beloved, who were lost
from the start,
I don't even know what songs
would please you. I have given up trying
to recognize you in the surging wave of
the next moment. All the immense
images in me -- the far-off, deeply-felt
landscape, cities, towers, and bridges, and
unsuspected turns in the path,
and those powerful lands that were once
pulsing with the life of the gods--
all rise within me to mean
you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all
the gardens I have ever gazed at,
longing. An open window
in a country house-- , and you almost
stepped out, pensive, to meet me.
Streets that I chanced upon,--
you had just walked down them and vanished.
And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors
were still dizzy with your presence and,
startled, gave back my too-sudden image.
Who knows? Perhaps the same
bird echoed through both of us
yesterday, separate, in the evening...

Rainer Maria Rilke

Thomas Hardy

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

Hardy thought of himself as a poet who wrote novels for a living. In fact, for the last 33 years of his life, he wrote no more novels.

What is the real good?"
I ask in a musing mood.

"Order," said the law court;
"Knowledge," said the school;
"Truth," said the wise man;
"Pleasure," said the fool;
"Love," said the maiden;
"Beauty," said the page;
"Freedom," said the dreamer;
"Home," said the sage;
"Fame," said the soldier;
"Equity," said the seer.
Spake my heart fully sad:
"The answer is not here."

Then within my bosom,
Softly this I heard:
"Each heart holds the secret:
'Kindness' is the word."

John Boyle O'Reilly

"The Arab's farewell to his Steed" Caroline Norton.

Please Call Me By My True Names
#37 Autumn 2004
By Thich Nhat Hanh

Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow— even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving to be a bud on a Spring branch, to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry, to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that is alive.

I am a mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of the river. And I am the bird that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am a frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond. And I am the grass-snake that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks. And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean after being raped by a sea pirate.

And I am also the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo, with plenty of power in my hands. And I am the man who has to pay his “debt of blood” to my people dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth. My pain is like a river of tears, so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names, so I can hear all my cries and laughter at once, so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names, so I can wake up and the door of my heart could be left open, the door of compassion.

BREAKAGE - Mary Oliver

I go down to the edge of the sea.
How everything shines in the morning light!
The cusp of the whelk,
the broken cupboard of the clam,
the opened, blue mussels,
moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—
and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,
dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.
It’s like a schoolhouse
of little words,
thousands of words.
First you figure out what each one means by itself,
the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop
full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Isn't this a wonderful thread? I do so love poetry.

Here are two of my 40 million favourites

The Donkey by 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
Of 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.

***********************************************
Jenny Kissed Me by Leigh Hunt

Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss’d me.

The people along the sand
All turn and look one way.
They turn their back on the land
They look at the sea all day.

As long as it takes to pass
A ship keeps raising its hull;
the wetter ground like glass
reflects a standing gull.

The land may say more;
But whatever the truth may be -
The water comes ashore,
And the people look at the sea.

They cannot look far out.
They cannot look in deep.
But when was that ever a bar
To any watch they keep.

Robert Frost
Neither Far Out nor in Deep

I Wanna be Yours -John Cooper Clark

I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust
If you like your coffee hot
I will be your coffee pot
You call the shots
I wanna be yours

I wanna be your electric meter
I will not run out
I wanna be the electric heater
You'll get cold without
I wanna be your setting lotion
Hold your hair in deep devotion
Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean
That's how deep is my devotion

Thanks, cavewoman. I can just hear JCC reading it in his deadpan voice.

Every Morning by Alice Walker

Every morning I exercise
my body.
It complains
"Why are you doing this to me?"
I give it a plié
in response.
I heave my legs
off the floor
and feel my stomach muscles
rebel:
they are mutinous
there are rumblings
of dissent
I have other things
to show,
but mostly, my body.
"Don't you see that person
staring at you?" I ask my breasts,
which are still capable
of staring back.
"If I didn't exercise
you couldn't look up
that far.
Your life would be nothing
but shoes."
"Let us at least say we're doing it
for ourselves";
my fingers are eloquent;
they never sweat.

Pets, death and indoor plants
By Myron Lysenko

We're becoming old enough
to want to change our lifestyles;
we're looking for substitutes
for sex & drugs & rock & roll.

But our dog...died
our cat...collapsed
budgies... wouldn't... budge.
Our roses...sank
our ferns...fizzled
cactus...carked it.

Yet seated around roast dinners
our parents still talk about
the possibility of grandchildren.

Our minds...boggle
our bodies...fidget
our voices...falter.

We're still immature
& we'd like to be
for a few years yet.

The world's not ready for our baby;
we're not ready for the world.
We're still trying to learn

how to make love properly;
still trying to come to terms
with pets & death & indoor plants.

I adore “The Owl and the Pussycat” by Edward Lear

My paternal Grandpa taught it to me before I started school.

Love that "Jenny kissed me" one BadfordLass.

I first came across it in a book I found in a library called Arthur Mee's Book of One Hundred Beautiful Things when I was about sixteen. Loved it ever since.

My aunt used to recite the Hillare Belloc cautionary tales for us, and we in turn learnt them by heart. I think 'Matilda' was my favourite:

Matilda told such Dreadful Lies,
It made one Gasp and Stretch one’s Eyes;
Her Aunt, who, from her Earliest Youth,
Had kept a Strict Regard for Truth,
Attempted to believe Matilda:
The effort very nearly killed her,
And would have done so, had not she
Discovered this Infirmity.
For once, towards the Close of Day,
Matilda, growing tired of play,
And finding she was left to alone,
Went tiptoe to the telephone
And summoned the Immediate Aid
Of London’s Nobel Fire-Brigade.
Within an hour the Gallant Band
Were pouring in on every hand,
From Putney, Hackney Downs and Bow,
With Courage high and Hearts a-glow
They galloped, roaring though the Town,
"Matilda’s House is Burning Down"
Inspired by British Cheers and Loud
Proceeding from the Frenzied Crowd,
They ran their ladders through a score
Of windows on the Ball Room Floor;
And took Peculiar Pains to Souse
The Pictures up and down the House,
Until Matilda’s Aunt succeeded
In showing them they were not needed
And even then she had to pay
To get the Men to go away! . . . . .
It happened that a few Weeks later
Here aunt was off to the Theatre
To see that Interesting Play
The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.
She had refused to take her Niece
To hear this Entertaining Piece:
A Deprivation Just and Wise
To Punish her for Telling Lies.
That Night a Fire did break out-
You should have heard Matilda Shout!
You should have heard her Scream and Bawl,
And throw the window up and call
To People passing in the Street-
(The rapidly increasing Heat
Encouraging her to obtain
Their confidence)-but it was all in vain!
For every time She shouted "Fire!"
They only answered "Little Liar!"
And therefore when her Aunt returned,
Matilda, and the House, were burned.

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

Louis Macneice

The last four lines are poignant.

For some reason I love railway poems, not just famous ones like Adlestrop (which I find wonderfully evocative of a railway junior of my childhood), but also this one by Robert Louis Stevenson, you can feel the speed of the train.

From a railway carriage

FASTER than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle,
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

journey, not junior