ladylinda
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May
May 5, 2014 9:04:10 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 5, 2014 9:04:10 GMT -5
I thought I'd follow Beth's excellent example for April and create a thread for each month.
For May I've chosen an animal theme.
I'll begin by posting some poems about cats.
Please feel free to post any poems you like about animals!
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ladylinda
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May
May 5, 2014 9:05:30 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 5, 2014 9:05:30 GMT -5
Diamond cut diamond Ewart Milne Two cats One up a tree One under the tree The cat up a tree is he The cat under the tree is she He takes no notice of she, she takes no notice of he. He stares at the woolly clouds passing, she stares at the tree. There’s been a lot written about cats by Old Possum, Yeats and Company But not Alfred de Musset or Lord Tennyson or Poe or anybody Wrote about one cat under, and one cat up, a tree. God knows why this should be left for me Except I like cats as cats be Especially one cat up And one cat under A witch elm Tree
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ladylinda
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May
May 5, 2014 9:06:05 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 5, 2014 9:06:05 GMT -5
My old cat
Hal Summers
My old cat is dead, Who would butt me with his head. He had the sleekest fur, He had the blackest purr. Always gentle with us Was this black puss, But when I found him to-day, Stiff and cold where he lay His look was a lion’s, Full of rage, defiance: Oh, he would not pretend That what came was a friend But met it in pure hate. Well died, my old cat.
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ladylinda
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May
May 5, 2014 9:06:29 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 5, 2014 9:06:29 GMT -5
Epitaph for Bathsheba
J G Whittier
To whom none ever said scat, No worthier cat Ever sat on a mat Or caught a rat: Requies-cat
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ladylinda
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May
May 6, 2014 14:32:39 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 6, 2014 14:32:39 GMT -5
Yesterday cats - today some poems about dogs.
To Flush My Dog
Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Yet, my pretty sportive friend, Little is't to such an end That I praise thy rareness! Other dogs may be thy peers Haply in these drooping ears, And this glossy fairness.
But of thee it shall be said, This dog watched beside a bed Day and night unweary— Watched within a curtained room, Where no sunbeam brake the gloom Round the sick and dreary.
Roses, gathered for a vase, In that chamber died apace, Beam and breeze resigning. This dog only, waited on, Knowing that when light is gone Love remains for shining.
Other dogs in thymy dew Tracked the hares, and followed through Sunny moor or meadow. This dog only, crept and crept Next a languid cheek that slept, Sharing in the shadow.
Other dogs of loyal cheer Bounded at the whistle clear, Up the woodside hieing. This dog only, watched in reach Of a faintly uttered speech, Or a louder sighing.
And if one or two quick tears Dropped upon his glossy ears, Or a sigh came double— Up he sprang in eager haste, Fawning, fondling, breathing fast, In a tender trouble.
And this dog was satisfied If a pale thin hand would glide Down his dewlaps sloping— Which he pushed his nose within, After—platforming his chin On the palm left open.
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ladylinda
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May
May 6, 2014 14:33:32 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 6, 2014 14:33:32 GMT -5
Aurora Prone
Les Murray
The lemon sunlight poured out far between things inhabits a coolness. Mosquitoes have subsided, flies are for later heat.
Every tree's an auburn giant with a dazzled face and the back of its head to an infinite dusk road.
Twilights broaden away from our feet too as rabbits bounce home up defiles in the grass.
Everything widens with distance, in this perspective. The dog's paws, trotting, rotate his end of infinity and dam water feels a shiver few willow drapes share.
Bright leaks through their wigwam re-purple the skinny beans then rapidly the light tops treetops and is shortened into a day. Everywhere stands pat beside its shadow for the great bald radiance never seen in dreams.
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ladylinda
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May
May 6, 2014 14:34:01 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 6, 2014 14:34:01 GMT -5
Zero
Robert Creeley
Not just nothing, Not there's no answer, Not it's nowhere or Nothing to show for it -
It's like There's no past like the present. It's all over with us. There are no doors...
Oh my god! Like I wish I had a dog. Oh my god! I had a dog but he's gone.
His name was Zero, something for nothing! You like dog biscuits? Fill in the blank.
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ladylinda
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May
May 7, 2014 10:27:20 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 7, 2014 10:27:20 GMT -5
Cats, dogs, a couple about birds; today I'm posting poems about horses.
All in green went my love riding
e e cummings
all in green went my love riding on a great horse of gold into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling the merry deer ran before.
Fleeter be they than dappled dreams the swift sweet deer the red rare deer.
Four red roebuck at a white water the cruel bugle sang before.
Horn at hip went my love riding riding the echo down into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling the level meadows ran before.
Softer be they than slippered sleep the lean lithe deer the fleet flown deer.
Four fleet does at a gold valley the famished arrow sang before.
Bow at belt went my love riding riding the mountain down into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling the sheer peaks ran before.
Paler be they than daunting death the sleek slim deer the tall tense deer.
Four tell stags at a green mountain the lucky hunter sang before.
All in green went my love riding on a great horse of gold into the silver dawn.
four lean hounds crouched low and smiling my heart fell dead before.
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ladylinda
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May
May 7, 2014 10:28:06 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 7, 2014 10:28:06 GMT -5
Horse
Louise Gluck
What does the horse give you That I cannot give you?
I watch you when you are alone, When you ride into the field behind the dairy, Your hands buried in the mare's Dark mane.
Then I know what lies behind your silence: Scorn, hatred of me, of marriage. Still, You want me to touch you; you cry out As brides cry, but when I look at you I see There are no children in your body. Then what is there?
Nothing, I think. Only haste To die before I die.
In a dream, I watched you ride the horse Over the dry fields and then Dismount: you two walked together; In the dark, you had no shadows. But I felt them coming toward me Since at night they go anywhere, They are their own masters.
Look at me. You think I don't understand? What is the animal If not passage out of this life?
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ladylinda
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May
May 7, 2014 10:29:45 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 7, 2014 10:29:45 GMT -5
Horses in the Camargue
Roy Campbell
In the grey wastes of dread, The haunt of shattered gulls where nothing moves But in a shroud of silence like the dead, I heard a sudden harmony of hooves, And, turning, saw afar A hundred snowy horses unconfined, The silver runaways of Neptune's car Racing, spray-curled, like waves before the wind. Sons of the Mistral, fleet As him with whose strong gusts they love to flee, Who shod the flying thunders on their feet And plumed them with the snortings of the sea; Theirs is no earthly breed Who only haunts the verges of the earth And only on the sea's salt herbage feed- Surely the great white breakers gave them birth. For when for years a slave, A horse of the Camargue, in alien lands, Should catch some far-off fragrance of the wave Carried far inland from this native sands, Many have told the tale Of how in fury, foaming at the rein, He hurls his rider; and with lifted tail, With coal-red eyes and catarcating mane, Heading his course for home, Though sixty foreign leagues before him sweep, Will never rest until he breathes the foam And hears the native thunder of the deep. And when the great gusts rise And lash their anger on these arid coasts, When the scared gulls career with mournful cries And whirl across the waste like driven ghosts; When hail and fire converge, The only souls to which they strike no pain Are the white crested fillies of the surge And the white horses of the windy plain. Then in their strength and pride The stallions of the wilderness rejoice; They feel their Master's trident in their side, And high and shrill they answer to his voice. With white tails smoking free, Long streaming manes, and arching necks, they show Their kinship to their sisters of the sea- And forward hurl their thunderbolts of snow. Still out of hardship bred, Spirits of power and beauty and delight Have ever on such frugal pasture fed And loved to course with tempests through the night.
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ladylinda
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May
May 8, 2014 7:15:41 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 8, 2014 7:15:41 GMT -5
Today - three poems about foxes.
Here's the first one.
Fox
Clifford Dyment
Exploiter of the shadows, He moved among the fences, A strip of action coiling Around his farmyard fancies.
With shouting fields not shaken,, The spinneys give no shelter; There is delight for riders, Fox hounds a tooth in shoulder.
The creature tense with wildness Knows death is sudden falling From fury into weary Surrendering of feeling,
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ladylinda
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May
May 8, 2014 7:16:32 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 8, 2014 7:16:32 GMT -5
The Thought—Fox
Ted Hughes
I imagine this midnight moment’s forest: Something else is alive Beside the clock’s loneliness And this blank page where my fingers move. Through the window I see no star: Something more near Though deeper within darkness Is entering the loneliness:
Cold, delicately as the dark snow, A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf; Two eyes serve a movement, that now And again now, and now, and now
Sets neat prints into the snow Between trees, and warily a lame Shadow lags by stump and in hollow Of a body that is bold to come Across clearings, an eye, A widening deepening greenness, Brilliantly, concentratedly, Coming about its own business Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox It enters the dark hole of the head. The window is starless still; the clock ticks, The page is printed.
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ladylinda
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May
May 8, 2014 7:17:08 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 8, 2014 7:17:08 GMT -5
The Fox
Kenneth Patchen
Because the snow is deep Without spot that white falling through white air
Because she limps a little - bleeds Where they shot her
Because hunters have guns And dogs have hangman's legs
Because I'd like to take her in my arms And tend her wound
Because she can't afford to die Killing the young in her belly
I don't know to say of a soldier's dying Because there are no proportions in death.
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ladylinda
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May
May 9, 2014 10:22:35 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 9, 2014 10:22:35 GMT -5
Today, continuing the animal theme of this month, I'm posting some poems about sheep.
Sheep
W H Davies
WHEN I was once in Baltimore A man came up to me and cried, " Come, I have eighteen hundred sheep, And we will sail on Tuesday's tide.
" If you will sail with me, young man, I'll pay you fifty shillings down ; These eighteen hundred sheep I take From Baltimore to Glasgow town."
He paid me fifty shillings down, I sailed with eighteen hundred sheep ; We soon had cleared the harbour's mouth, We soon were in the salt sea deep.
The first night we were out at sea Those sheep were quiet in their mind ; The second night they cried with fear They smelt no pastures in the wind.
They sniffed, poor things, for their green fields, They cried so loud I could not sleep : For fifty thousand shillings down I would not sail again with sheep.
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ladylinda
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May
May 9, 2014 10:23:38 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on May 9, 2014 10:23:38 GMT -5
The Silent Shepherds
Robinson Jeffers
What's the best life for a man? --Never to have been born, sings the choros, and the next best Is to die young. I saw the Sybil at Cumae Hung in her cage over the public street-- What do you want, Sybil? I want to die. Apothanein Thelo. Apothanein Thelo. Apothanein Thelo. You have got your wish. But I meant life, not death. What's the best life for a man? To ride in the wind. To ride horses and herd cattle In solitary places above the ocean on the beautiful mountain, and come home hungry in the evening And eat and sleep. He will live in the wild wind and quick rain, he will not ruin his eyes with reading, Nor think too much. However, we must have philosophers. I will have shepherds for my philosophers, Tall dreary men lying on the hills all night Watching the stars, let their dogs watch the sheep. And I'll have lunatics For my poets, strolling from farm to farm, wild liars distorting The country news into supernaturalism-- For all men to such minds are devils or gods--and that increases Man's dignity, man's importance, necessary lies Best told by fools. I will have no lawyers nor constables Each man guard his own goods: there will be manslaughter, But no more wars, no more mass-sacrifice. Nor I'll have no doctors, Except old women gathering herbs on the mountain, Let each have her sack of opium to ease the death-pains.
That would be a good world, free and out-doors. But the vast hungry spirit of the time Cries to his chosen that there is nothing good Except discovery, experiment and experience and discovery: To look truth in the eyes, To strip truth naked, let our dogs do our living for us But man discover. It is a fine ambition, But the wrong tools. Science and mathematics Run parallel to reality, they symbolize it, they squint at it, They never touch it: consider what an explosion Would rock the bones of men into little white fragments and unsky the world If any mind for a moment touch truth.
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