General Chat

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

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

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

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

Davex

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

Eileen

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

n

Don,t know whether this qualifies as a poem as such but it has lovely words.
I noted it down some while ago. no idea of the title or who wrote it or for whom.

You never said "I'm leaving",
You never said goodbye;
You were gone before I knew it,
And only God knew why.

A million times I needed you,
A million times I cried;
If love alone could have saved you,
You never would have died.

In life I loved you dearly,
In death I love you still;
In my heart you hold a place,
That no-one else can fill.

It broke my heart to lose you,
But you didn,t go alone;
For part of me went with you,
The day God took you home.

Happy days

Googled it as "poem" and quoted the first two lines. Came up with music playing.. Author unknown. title "you never said goodbye

As I was not here yesterday
did not have much to say
have read the poems all today
and gosh what loads to say
from different walks
and different talks
we all have come together
and to share with one another
wonderful words made from others!

(not strictly a poem but there you go) lol

Tina x

Fairies, blackberries and poem , in fact all of them,
beautiful.

Pass me a hankie.

Sue

An old Romany poem, from a time when the words meant something else.

Im a Romany Rai
A true Diddicai
I sleep near the bushes
Under the sky
I live in a tent
And dont pay any rent
And thats why they call me a Romany Rai.

O, TO be in England
Now that April 's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

--Robert Browning--

These are not strictly poems but my next door neighbours sister in law was a nurse in WW1 and she had some of the soldiers sign her autograph book and these are some of the things they wrote. It is a wonderful thing to read and very sad, as I wonder if some of them pulled through or not. - I hasten to add my next door neighbour herself is nearly 90 and SIL has long gone about 25 years ago I think.

A Soldiers Grace
Thank the Lord for what we have had
If we had had a little more we should be glad
But as things is so shocking bad
We shall have to be satisfied with what we have had!
* * * * * * *
It was the 13th of November
That day I will remember
Lying waiting in the mud
Getting many shells tho' often a dud
Then came the word "advance"
When we all had our chance
But on getting to the second line
Thats the place I got mine.

* * * * * *
Going through life
you will need an umbrella
may it always be upheld
by a handsome young fella!

* * * * * *
God made woman perfect
Man soils her
Love redeems her

* * * * * *
Kind hearts are the garden
Kind thoughts are the roots
Kind words are the blossoms
Kind deeds are the fruits
Love is the sweet sunshine
That worms into life
For only the darkness
Grows hatred and strife

* * * * * *
Thou shalt not steal
But nick abundantly!

* * * * * *
The Bullet
Every bullet has its billet
Many bullets more than one
God! Perhaps I killeda mother
When I killed a mother's son

* * * * * *
I dipped my pen into the ink
I tracked my brains and tried to think
I thought but all in vain, and
thought at last
I'd write my name!

*******

Hope you have enjoyed reading those - makes you wonder about those lads.

Tina