General Chat

n

Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard's.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn't fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they'd keep, knew they would not



I loved Seamus Heaney when I studied him for A level,this is so evocative of my childhood.


Caz xxxx

oh Mary, please please don't go - I had no idea of what you have been through - if anyone should bow out that is me, big time

Ann XX

What a lovely,little poem Susan, must remember that.
Thanks a lot Mary, I am delighted to have the whole poem, didn't know it was such a long one, only heard the four lines from athritis to how I miss my mind. The other poem is sooo sad.
Thanks also to Jenny, even more info about that lovely poem, how it was used etc.

Will have to type the ones I want to keep.Wish I could just print them though.

Eileen

The Listeners
by Walter De La Mare

'Is there anybody there?' said the Traveller,
Knocking on the moonlit door;
And his horse in the silence champed the grasses
Of the forest's ferny floor:
And a bird flew up out of the turret,
Above the Traveller's head
And he smote upon the door again a second time;
'Is there anybody there?' he said.
But no one descended to the Traveller;
No head from the leaf-fringed sill
Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,
Where he stood perplexed and still.
But only a host of phantom listeners
That dwelt in the lone house then
Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight
To that voice from the world of men:
Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,
That goes down to the empty hall,
Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken
By the lonely Traveller's call.
And he felt in his heart their strangeness,
Their stillness answering his cry,
While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,
'Neath the starred and leafy sky;
For he suddenly smote on the door, even
Louder, and lifted his head:-
'Tell them I came, and no one answered,
That I kept my word,' he said.
Never the least stir made the listeners,
Though every word he spake
Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house
From the one man left awake:
Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,
And the sound of iron on stone,
And how the silence surged softly backward,
When the plunging hoofs were gone.

The Listeners

My all time favourite, Cx

Here's my all-time favourite poem,
Mary

Christmas is a bitter day
For mothers who are poor,
The wistful eyes of children
Are daggers to endure.

Though shops are crammed with playthings
Enough for everyone.
If a mother's purse is empty
There might as well be none.

My purse is full of money
But I cannot buy a toy;
Only a wreath of holly
For the grave of my little boy.

—Earl C. Willer

Eileen, here's your poem about the bifocals etc,
Mary
CAN'T REMEMBER

Just a line to say I'm living
That I'm not among the dead,
Though I'm getting more forgetful
And mixed up in the head.
I got used to my arthritis.
To my dentures I'm resigned.
I can manage my bifocals,
But God, I miss my mind.
For sometimes I can't remember
When I stand at the foot of the stairs,
If I must go up for something,
Or have I just come down from there?
And before the 'fridge so often,
My poor mind is filled with doubt;
Have I just put some food away, or
Have I come to take some out?
And there is time when it is dark
With nightcap on my head . . .
I don't know if I'm retiring, or
Just getting out of bed.
So, if it's my turn to write you,
There's no need for getting sore.
I may think that I have written
And don't want to be a bore.
So, remember that I love you
And wish that you were near,
But now it's nearly mail time so,
I must say goodbye, Dear.
There I stand beside the mailbox,
With a face so very red . . .
Instead of mailing you my letter,
I'VE OPENED IT INSTEAD!

Author, Anita Spoon.

I did a project on Violette Szabo a secret agent in the second world war and the "Life that I have" was her call sign

SMILE FOR YOU



Smiling is infectious; you catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today, I started smiling too.
I passed around the corner and someone saw my grin
When he smiled I realized I’d passed it on to him.
I thought about that smile then I realized its worth,
A single smile, just like mine could travel round the earth.
So, if you feel a smile begin, don’t leave it undetected
Let’s start an epidemic quick, and get the world infected!

Susan

Thanks for the interesting titbit.How did Leo Marks do this, did all his poems have a 'hidden agenda", so to speak?

Eileen

Claddagh, Leo Marks was a code breaker in the second world war, and he used poems to send messages to British Officers.

Davex

What a lovely, evocative poem Dave.

Betty, The W.B Yeats poem is beautful.Have you ever read another one of his called An Irishman Forsees His Death?

Can anyone tell me which poem this came from, I used to know it back in the 'dark ages'.

"..and men that were boys, when I was a boy, will come and play with me"...

Eileen

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause
For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours and yours.

By Leo Marks

My favourite poem love it
Dave Bx

Another amusing (poem this time) one about old age called Growing Old Gracefully.

There's a mole on my neck that's growing a hair,
when I was younger it wasn't there,
A lot of things have changed since I've grown older,
Like my fallen arches and this hump on my shoulder.

Yesterday I noticed a twitch in one eye,
And spots on my hand that resemble a fly,
I used to be able to party all night,
But now to stay awake until five is a fight.

My breasts used to be firm and quite pert,
Now I have to be careful they don't drag in the dirt,
Gravity surely has taken it's toll,
What was once on the surface,is now in a hole.

The backs of my arms are wobbly like jelly,
And I found the remote tucked under my belly,
I used to eat steak but now I can't chew it,
Growing old gracefully? I don't think I can do it.

Eileen

Now for something completely different:

Who can tell me the 3rd line of this little ditty, it has been niggling away over the years.

I can manage my bifocals,
To my dentures I'm resigned,
-----------------------------------------?
But how I miss my mind.

Hope someone can help.

Eileen

IssyB, I love The Love Song by T.S Eliot, have never heard of it.His 'The Wasteland' was so long, it put me off him.B.Zephaniah sounds like how most of us must feel, good one, that.
Ann of G.G Thanks for the reminder of The Village Blacksmith, it brings back memories.
Carole, love most of Robbie Burns poetry, some of it is very funny.I used to have the one you mention on a record, it was sung by Kenneth McKeller, if that's how you spell his name.Lovely!

Eileen

Benjamin Zephaniah is a performance poet who has a wonderful sense of rhythm and humour as well as getting down to the nitty gritty of life. He writes as he speaks so I chose this one to share with you as it is probably a bit easier for me to type - I hope!

According to my mood.

I have poetic licence, i WriTe thE way i waNT.
i drop my full stops where i like........
MY CAPITAL LetteRs go where i like
(i do my spelling write)
Acording to My MOod.
i HAve poetic licence,
i put my commers where i like,,((())).
(((my brackets are write((
I REPEAT WHen i likE.
i can't go rong.
i look and i.c.
It's rite.
i REpeat when i liKe. i have
poetic licence!
don't question me????

My maiden name so I like this ......

Tomlinson

Now Tomlinson gave up the ghost in his house in Berkeley Square,
And a Spirit came to his bedside and gripped him by the hair -
A Spirit gripped him by the hair and carried him far away,
Till he heard as the roar of a rain-fed ford the roar of the Milky Way:
Till he heard the roar of the Milky Way die down and drone and cease,
And they came to the Gate within the Wall where Peter holds the keys.
"Stand up, stand up now, Tomlinson, and answer loud and high
The good that ye did for the sake of men or ever ye came to die -
The good that ye did for the sake of men in little earth so lone!"
And the naked soul of Tomlinson grew white as a rain-washed bone.
"O I have a friend on earth," he said, "that was my priest and guide,
And well would he answer all for me if he were by my side."
"For that ye strove in neighbour-love it shall be written fair,
But now ye wait at Heaven's Gate and not in Berkeley Square:
Though we called your friend from his bed this night, he could not speak for you,
For the race is run by one and one and never by two and two."
Then Tomlinson looked up and down, and little gain was there,
For the naked stars grinned overhead, and he saw that his soul was bare:
The Wind that blows between the worlds, it cut him like a knife,
And Tomlinson took up his tale and spoke of his good in life.
"This I have read in a book," he said, "and that was told to me,
And this I have thought that another man thought of a Prince in Muscovy."
The good souls flocked like homing doves and bade him clear the path,
And Peter twirled the jangling keys in weariness and wrath.
"Ye have read, ye have heard, ye have thought," he said, "and the tale is yet to run:
By the worth of the body that once ye had, give answer - what ha' ye done?"
Then Tomlinson looked back and forth, and little good it bore,
For the Darkness stayed at his shoulder-blade and Heaven's Gate before:
"O this I have felt, and this I have guessed, and this I have heard men say,
And this they wrote that another man wrote of a carl in Norroway."
- "Ye have read, ye have felt, ye have guessed, good lack! Ye have hampered Heaven's Gate;
There's little room between the stars in idleness to prate!
O none may reach by hired speech of neighbour, priest, and kin
Through borrowed deed to God's good meed that lies so fair within;
Get hence, get hence to the Lord of Wrong, for doom has yet to run,
And...the faith that ye share with Berkeley Square uphold you, Tomlinson!"

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

O, my luve is like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June;
O, my luve is like a melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
till a' the seas gang dry.
Adn I will luve tee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands of life shall run.
But fare thee weel, my only luve!
O, fare thee weel awhile!
And I will come agian, my luve,
Tho' 'twere ten thousand miles.
Tho' 'twere then thousand mile, my luve,
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile,
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho 'twere ten thousand mile.
Robert Burns