Sunday 28 February 2016

The Year's At The Spring


Yes, we're almost here now :) 


from Pippa Passes - Robert Browning

The year's at the spring
    And day's at the morn;
    Morning's at seven;
    The hillside's dew-pearled;
    The lark's on the wing;
    The snail's on the thorn:
    God's in His heaven—
    All's right with the world!
 

Monday 22 February 2016

February Twilight




February Twilight - Sara Teasdale

I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.

There was no other creature
That saw what I could see--
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me.

Sunday 21 February 2016

Love



Love - May Sarton

Fragile as a spider's web
Hanging in space
Between tall grasses,
It is torn again and again.
A passing dog
Or simply the wind can do it.
Several times a day
I gather myself together
And spin it again.
Spiders are patient weavers.
They never give up.
And who knows
What keeps them at it?
Hunger, no doubt,
And hope.

Saturday 20 February 2016

The Truth



The Truth - Philip Shultz 

You can hide it like a signature
or birthmark but it's always there
in the greasy light of your dreams,
the knots your body makes at night,
the sad innuendos of your eyes,
whispering insidious asides in every
room you cannot remain inside. It's
there in the unquiet ideas that drag and
plead one lonely argument at a time,
and those who own a little are contrite
and fearful of those who own too much,
but owning none takes up your life.
It cannot be replaced with a house or a car,
a husband or wife, but can be ignored,
denied, and betrayed, until the last day,
when you pass yourself on the street
and recognize the agreeable life you
were afraid to lead, and turn away.

Thursday 18 February 2016

Postcard



 Love comes
in waves like the ocean, 
a sickness which goes on & on...


Postcards Poem - Margaret Atwood

I'm thinking about you. What else can I say?
The palm trees on the reverse
are a delusion; so is the pink sand.
What we have are the usual
fractured coke bottles and the smell
of backed-up drains, too sweet,
like a mango on the verge
of rot, which we have also.
The air clear sweat, mosquitoes
& their tracks; birds & elusive.

Time comes in waves here, a sickness, one
day after the other rolling on;
I move up, it's called
awake, then down into the uneasy
nights but never
forward. The roosters crow
for hours before dawn, and a prodded
child howls & howls
on the pocked road to school.
In the hold with the baggage
there are two prisoners,
their heads shaved by bayonets, & ten crates
of queasy chicks. Each spring
there's race of cripples, from the store
to the church. This is the sort of junk
I carry with me; and a clipping
about democracy from the local paper.

Outside the window
they're building the damn hotel,
nail by nail, someone's
crumbling dream. A universe that includes you
can't be all bad, but
does it? At this distance
you're a mirage, a glossy image
fixed in the posture
of the last time I saw you.
Turn you over, there's the place
for the address. Wish you were
here. Love comes
in waves like the ocean, a sickness which goes on
& on, a hollow cave
in the head, filling & pounding, a kicked ear.

Tuesday 16 February 2016

Message From Space


Every thought I have of space - infinite, mysterious space - only serves to amplify that of our own space we occupy here on earth. How about you?

Message From Space - William Stafford

Everything that happens is the message:
you read an event and be one and wait,
like breasting a wave, all the while knowing
by living, though not knowing how to live.

Or workers built an antenna—a dish
aimed at stars—and they themselves are its message,
crawling in and out, being worlds that loom,
dot-dash, and sirens, and sustaining beams.

And sometimes no one is calling but we turn up
eye and ear—suddenly we fall into
sound before it begins, the breathing
so still it waits there under the breath—

And then the green of leaves calls out, hills
where they wait or turn, clouds in their frenzied
stillness unfolding their careful words:
"Everything counts. The message is the world."

Monday 15 February 2016

Utterance

 
Utterance - WS Mervin
Sitting over words
very late I have heard a kind of whispered sighing
not far
like a night wind in pines or like the sea in the dark
the echo of everything that has ever
been spoken
still spinning its one syllable
between the earth and silence

Sunday 14 February 2016

All You Need is Love

 

Happy Valentine's Day! 


Variation on a Lennon and McCartney Song - Wendy Cope

Love, love, love,
Love, love, love,
Love, love, love,
Dooby do dooby doo,
All you need is love,
Dooby dooby doo,
All you need is love,
Dooby dooby doo,
All you need is love, love
Or, failing that, alcohol.

Saturday 13 February 2016

I Have To Tell You

 
Yes, this is exactly what it feels like.

 
I Have To Tell You - Dorothea Grossman
 
I have to tell you,
there are times when
the sun strikes me
like a gong,
and I remember everything,
even your ears.

Friday 12 February 2016

Love Letter



Love Letter From A Toothbrush to a Bicycle Tire - Sarah Kay

I love this poem - so original and endearing! Who knew a (completely random) love story between a toothbrush and a bicycle tire could be so romantic and well scripted?! Aww, brilliant. 

Thursday 11 February 2016

One Boy Told Me

 
I HEART this poem, bigtime. A love letter to life and love, youth and imagination, and possibility.
 
 
One Boy Told Me - Naomi Shihab Nye
 
Music lives inside my legs.
It’s coming out when I talk.

I’m going to send my valentines
to people you don’t even know.

Oatmeal cookies make my throat gallop.

Grown-ups keep their feet on the ground
when they swing. I hate that.

Look at those 2 o’s with a smash in the middle—
that spells good-bye.

Don’t ever say “purpose” again,
let’s throw the word out.

Don’t talk big to me.
I’m carrying my box of faces.
If I want to change faces I will.

Yesterday faded
but tomorrow’s in boldface.

When I grow up my old names
will live in the house
where we live now.
I’ll come and visit them.

Only one of my eyes is tired.
The other eye and my body aren’t.

Is it true all metal was liquid first?
Does that mean if we bought our car earlier
they could have served it
in a cup?

There’s a stopper in my arm
that’s not going to let me grow any bigger.
I’ll be like this always, small.

And I will be deep water too.
Wait. Just wait. How deep is the river?
Would it cover the tallest man with his hands in the air?

Your head is a souvenir.

When you were in New York I could see you
in real life walking in my mind.

I’ll invite a bee to live in your shoe.
What if you found your shoe
full of honey?

What if the clock said 6:92
instead of 6:30? Would you be scared?

My tongue is the car wash
for the spoon.

Can noodles swim?

My toes are dictionaries.
Do you need any words?

From now on I’ll only drink white milk
on January 26.

What does minus mean?
I never want to minus you.

Just think—no one has ever seen
inside this peanut before!

It is hard being a person.

I do and don’t love you—
isn't that happiness?

Wednesday 10 February 2016

Love Poem


Valentine's Day is almost upon is and so, time again to turn to love poetry, the jewel in poetry's crown. 

And no, not the sappy love poetry with now tired and lofty la-de-dah refrains, but the snappy zinging-with-feeling kind. The fresh, breezy, brilliant, pulse-popping poems with a heart of neon. Don't believe me? Stay tuned the next few days and/or have a look here: Love Poems To Make You Smile (And Maybe Swoon)
  


Love Poem - Charles Simic

Feather duster.
Birdcage made of whispers.
Tail of a black cat.

I’m a child running
With open scissors.
My eyes are bandaged.

You are a heart pounding
In a dark forest.
The shriek from the Ferris wheel.

That’s it, bruja
With arms akimbo
Stamping your foot.

Night at the fair.
Woodwind band.
Two blind pickpockets in the crowd.

Friday 5 February 2016

Prologue to Spring


February feels like a whole prologue to spring. Have you heard those 'green-singing birds' yet?


Prologue to Spring -  Sylvia Plath

The winter landscape hangs in balance now,
Transfixed by glare of blue from gorgon’s eye;
The skaters freeze within a stone tableau.

Air alters into glass and the whole sky
Grows brittle as a tilted china bowl;
Hill and valley stiffen row on row.

Each fallen leaf is trapped by spell of steel,
Crimped like fern in the quartz atmosphere;
Repose of scultpure holds the country still.

What coutermagic can undo the snare
Which has stopped the season in its tracks
And suspended all that might occur?

Locked in crystal caskets are the lakes,
Yet as we wonder what can come of ice
Green-singing birds explore from all the rocks.

Thursday 4 February 2016

Sound of Silence

 



Haiku - Jack Kerouac

The sound of silence
is all the instruction
You'll get

Wednesday 3 February 2016

Snowdrop Reverie



Snowdrop - Louise Gluck

Do you know what I was, how I lived? You know
what despair is; then
winter should have meaning for you.

I did not expect to survive,
earth suppressing me. I didn't expect
to waken again, to feel
in damp earth my body
able to respond again, remembering
after so long how to open again
in the cold light
of earliest spring--

afraid, yes, but among you again
crying yes risk joy

in the raw wind of the new world.

Monday 1 February 2016

Welcome Spring

                                               
 

 "Welcome and a thousand more to you,
O Spring of my youth..."

Heloooooo February!  The beginning of spring. 


Spring - Brendan Behan

Wild wicked winter
Your harsh face I hate.
The North wind blows in
Trembling, tormented, tough,
Without growth or goodness,
Loveliness or love,
Till the white feast of Brigid
And the resurrection of joy.
Then comes the South wind,
Promise of heat for my limbs
Life leaping in me,
Awakening of the blood.
Winter, you wastrel,
Old age is your season.
Welcome and a thousand more to you,
O Spring of my youth.

Translated from the Irish by Ulick O'Connor