ladylinda
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August
Aug 1, 2014 16:25:29 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 1, 2014 16:25:29 GMT -5
August is a special month this year as it is the hundredth anniversary of the First World War. I've chosen four themes for this month - the Great War itself (I'll post some war poems on 4th August and probably the rest of the month as well and the first line of a poem by Auden which begins 'August for the people and their favourite islands' so there will also be poems about August, people and islands.
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 1, 2014 16:26:01 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 1, 2014 16:26:01 GMT -5
To a Writer on His Birthday
W H Auden August for the people and their favourite islands. Daily the steamers sidle up to meet The effusive welcome of the pier, and soon The luxuriant life of the steep stone valleys The sallow oval faces of the city Begot in passion or good-natured habit Are caught by waiting coaches, or laid bare Beside the undiscriminating sea.
Lulled by the light they live their dreams of freedom, May climb the old road twisting to the moors, Play leapfrog, enter cafes, wear The tigerish blazer and the dove-like shoe. The yachts upon the little lake are theirs, The gulls ask for them, and to them the band Makes its tremendous statements ; they control The complicated apparatus of amusement.
All types that can intrigue the writer's fancy Or sensuality approves are here. And I each meal-time with the families The animal brother and his serious sister, Or after breakfast on the urned steps watching The defeated and disfigured marching by, Have thought of you, Christopher, and wished beside me Your squat spruce body and enormous head.
Nine years ago upon that southern island Where the wild Tennyson became a fossil, Half-boys, we spoke of books, and praised The acidd and austere, behind us only The stuccoed suburb and expensive school. Scented our turf, the distant baying Nice decoration to the artist's wish, Yet fast the deer was flying through the wood.
Our hopes were set still on the spies' career, Prizing the glasses and the old felt hat, And all the secrets we discovered were Extraordinary and false ; for this one coughed And it was gasworks coke, and that one laughed And it was snow in bedrooms ; many wore wigs, The coastguard signalled messages of love, The enemy were sighted from the nor man tower.
Five summers pass and now we watch The Baltic from a balcony: the word is love. Surely one fearless kiss would cure The million fevers, a stroking brush The insensitive refuse from the burning core. Was there a dragon who had closed the works While the starved city fed it with the Jews ? Then love would tame it with his trainer's look. Pardon the studied taste that could refuse The golf-house quick one and the rector's tea;
Pardon the nerves the thrushes could not soothe, Yet answered promptly the no-sub tier lure To private joking in a panelled room. The solitary vitality of tramps and madmen, Believed the whisper in the double bed. Pardon for these and every flabby fancy.
For now the moulding images of growth That made our interest and us, are gone. Louder to day the wireless roars Its warnings and its lies, and it's impossible Among the well-shaped cosily to flit, Or longer to desire about our lives The beautiful loneliness of the banks, or find The stores and resignations of the frozen plains. The close-set eyes of mother's boy Saw nothing to be done ; we look again See scandal praying with her sharp knees up And virtue stood at Weeping Cross And Courage to his leaking ship appointed,
Slim Truth dismissed without a character And gaga Falsehood highly recommended, The green thumb to the ledger knuckled down,
Greed showing shamelessly her naked money And all love's wandering eloquence debased To a collector's slang, Smartness in furs And Beauty scratching miserably for food, Honour self sacrificed for Calculation And reason stoned by mediocrity, Freedom by power shamefully maltreated And Justice exiled till Saint Geoffrey's Day.
So in this hour of crisis and dismay What better than your strict and adult pen Can warn us from the colours and the consolations, The showy arid works, reveal The squalid shadow of academy and garden, Make action urgent and its nature clear ? Who give us nearer insight to resist The expanding fear, the savaging disaster ? This then my birthday wish for you, as now From the narrow window of my fourth floor room I smoke into the night, and watch reflections Stretch in the harbour. In the houses The little pianos are closed, and a clock strikes. And all sway forward on the dangerous flood Of history that never sleeps or dies, And, held one moment, burns the hand.
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 1, 2014 16:26:26 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 1, 2014 16:26:26 GMT -5
An August Midnight
Thomas Hardy
A shaded lamp and a waving blind, And the beat of a clock from a distant floor: On this scene enter--winged, horned, and spined - A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore; While 'mid my page there idly stands A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .
II
Thus meet we five, in this still place, At this point of time, at this point in space. - My guests parade my new-penned ink, Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink. "God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why? They know Earth-secrets that know not I.
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 1, 2014 16:26:52 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 1, 2014 16:26:52 GMT -5
The Secret People
G K Chesterton
Smile at us, pay us, pass us; but do not quite forget, For we are the people of England, that never has spoken yet. There is many a fat farmer that drinks less cheerfully, There is many a free French peasant who is richer and sadder than we. There are no folk in the whole world so helpless or so wise. There is hunger in our bellies, there is laughter in our eyes; You laugh at us and love us, both mugs and eyes are wet: Only you do not know us. For we have not spoken yet.
The fine French kings came over in a flutter of flags and dames. We liked their smiles and battles, but we never could say their names. The blood ran red to Bosworth and the high French lords went down; There was naught but a naked people under a naked crown. And the eyes of the King's Servants turned terribly every way, And the gold of the King's Servants rose higher every day. They burnt the homes of the shaven men, that had been quaint and kind, Till there was no bed in a monk's house, nor food that man could find. The inns of God where no man paid, that were the wall of the weak, The King's Servants ate them all. And still we did not speak.
And the face of the King's Servants grew greater than the King: He tricked them, and they trapped him, and stood round him in a ring. The new grave lords closed round him, that had eaten the abbey's fruits, And the men of the new religion, with their Bibles in their boots, We saw their shoulders moving, to menace or discuss, And some were pure and some were vile; but none took heed of us. We saw the King as they killed him, and his face was proud and pale; And a few men talked of freedom, while England talked of ale.
A war that we understood not came over the world and woke Americans, Frenchmen, Irish; but we knew not the things they spoke. They talked about rights and nature and peace and the people's reign: And the squires, our masters, bade us fight; and never scorned us again. Weak if we be for ever, could none condemn us then; Men called us serfs and drudges; men knew that we were men. In foam and flame at Trafalgar, on Albuera plains, We did and died like lions, to keep ourselves in chains, We lay in living ruins; firing and fearing not The strange fierce face of the Frenchman who knew for what he fought, And the man who seemed to be more than man we strained against and broke; And we broke our own rights with him. And still we never spoke.
Our path of glory ended; we never heard guns again. But the squire seemed struck in the saddle; he was foolish, as if in pain. He leaned on a staggering lawyer, he clutched a cringing Jew, He was stricken; it may be, after all, he was stricken at Waterloo. Or perhaps the shades of the shaven men, whose spoil is in his house, Come back in shining shapes at last to spoil his last carouse: We only know the last sad squires ride slowly towards the sea, And a new people takes the land: and still it is not we.
They have given us into the hands of the new unhappy lords, Lords without anger and honour, who dare not carry their swords. They fight by shuffling papers; they have bright dead alien eyes; They look at our labour and laughter as a tired man looks at flies. And the load of their loveless pity is worse than the ancient wrongs, Their doors are shut in the evenings; and they know no songs.
We hear men speaking for us of new laws strong and sweet, Yet is there no man speaketh as we speak in the street. It may be we shall rise the last as Frenchmen rose the first, Our wrath come after Russia's wrath and our wrath be the worst. It may be we are meant to mark with our riot and our rest God's scorn for all men governing. It may be beer is best. But we are the people of England; and we have not spoken yet. Smile at us, pay us, pass us. But do not quite forget.
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 1, 2014 16:27:14 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 1, 2014 16:27:14 GMT -5
The Islander
Lawrie Scarlett
My eyes are marble my veins are wire
It is the end of the season of growth the olives are withered you cannot eat the stones
The boat in the secret cove cannot save me now the sails untended are rags the planks unoiled are warped
Here I stay as the orchards rot the branches snap under the weight of nests there are stone eggs in the nests
There is nobody to bury me the wind and the returning birds will not mourn me
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 2, 2014 17:29:22 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 2, 2014 17:29:22 GMT -5
August
Alec Craig
The grass in the park is parched whereon we loved; the sullen sun broods on the unripe fruit of womb and tree In this heat flesh recoils from flesh: mouth, and breast, and buttock, bore us with familiarity Among the silver paper and the dust we lose the tarnished broken token of our constancy
Oh, where is the green bed? The bridal shout of blessing? The angel bird with “ever ever” Shining on his wings?
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 2, 2014 17:29:49 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 2, 2014 17:29:49 GMT -5
Mr Bleaney
Philip Larkin
'This was Mr Bleaney's room. He stayed The whole time he was at the Bodies, till They moved him.' Flowered curtains, thin and frayed, Fall to within five inches of the sill,
Whose window shows a strip of building land, Tussocky, littered. 'Mr Bleaney took My bit of garden properly in hand.' Bed, upright chair, sixty-watt bulb, no hook
Behind the door, no room for books or bags - 'I'll take it.' So it happens that I lie Where Mr Bleaney lay, and stub my fags On the same saucer-souvenir, and try
Stuffing my ears with cotton-wool, to drown The jabbering set he egged her on to buy. I know his habits - what time he came down, His preference for sauce to gravy, why
He kept on plugging at the four aways - Likewise their yearly frame: the Frinton folk Who put him up for summer holidays, And Christmas at his sister's house in Stoke.
But if he stood and watched the frigid wind Tousling the clouds, lay on the fusty bed Telling himself that this was home, and grinned, And shivered, without shaking off the dread
That how we live measures our own nature, And at his age having no more to show Than one hired box should make him pretty sure He warranted no better, I don't know.
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 2, 2014 17:30:48 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 2, 2014 17:30:48 GMT -5
A TRUE ACCOUNT OF TALKING TO THE SUN AT FIRE ISLAND Frank O’Hara The Sun woke me this morning loud and clear, saying "Hey! I've been trying to wake you up for fifteen minutes. Don't be so rude, you are only the second poet I've ever chosen to speak to personally so why aren't you more attentive? If I could burn you through the window I would to wake you up. I can't hang around here all day." "Sorry, Sun, I stayed up late last night talking to Hal."
"When I woke up Mayakovsky he was a lot more prompt" the Sun said petulantly. "Most people are up already waiting to see if I'm going to put in an appearance." I tried to apologize "I missed you yesterday." "That's better" he said. "I didn't know you'd come out." "You may be wondering why I've come so close?" "Yes" I said beginning to feel hot wondering if maybe he wasn't burning me anyway. "Frankly I wanted to tell you I like your poetry. I see a lot on my rounds and you're okay. You may not be the greatest thing on earth, but you're different. Now, I've heard some say you're crazy, they being excessively calm themselves to my mind, and other crazy poets think that you're a boring reactionary. Not me. Just keep on like I do and pay no attention. You'll find that people always will complain about the atmosphere, either too hot or too cold too bright or too dark, days too short or too long. If you don't appear at all one day they think you're lazy or dead. Just keep right on, I like it.
And don't worry about your lineage poetic or natural. The Sun shines on the jungle, you know, on the tundra the sea, the ghetto. Wherever you were I knew it and saw you moving. I was waiting for you to get to work.
And now that you are making your own days, so to speak, even if no one reads you but me you won't be depressed. Not everyone can look up, even at me. It hurts their eyes." "Oh Sun, I'm so grateful to you!"
"Thanks and remember I'm watching. It's easier for me to speak to you out here. I don't have to slide down between buildings to get your ear. I know you love Manhattan, but you ought to look up more often. And always embrace things, people earth sky stars, as I do, freely and with the appropriate sense of space. That is your inclination, known in the heavens and you should follow it to hell, if necessary, which I doubt. Maybe we'll speak again in Africa, of which I too am specially fond. Go back to sleep now Frank, and I may leave a tiny poem in that brain of yours as my farewell."
"Sun, don't go!" I was awake at last. "No, go I must, they're calling me." "Who are they?" Rising he said "Some day you'll know. They're calling to you too." Darkly he rose, and then I slept.
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 3, 2014 16:53:19 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 3, 2014 16:53:19 GMT -5
An August Midnight
Thomas Hardy
A shaded lamp and a waving blind, And the beat of a clock from a distant floor; On this scene enter – winged, horned, and spined – A longlegs, a moth, and a Dumbledore, While ‘mid my page there idly stands A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands ...
Thus meet we five, in this still place, At this point in time, at this point in space. -My guests besmear my new-penned line, Or bang at the lamp and fall supine. “God’s humblest, they!” I muse. Yet why? They know earth-secrets that know not I.
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 3, 2014 16:53:46 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 3, 2014 16:53:46 GMT -5
Poem
Simon Armitage
And if it snowed and snow covered the drive He took a spade and tossed it to one side. And always tucked his daughter up at night, And slippered her the one time that she lied
And every week he tipped up half his wage And what he didn’t spend each week he saved. And praised his wife for every meal she made. And once, for laughing, punched her in the face.
And for his Mum he hired a private nurse. And every Sunday taxied her to church. And he blubbed when she went from bad to worse. And twice he lifted ten quid from her purse.
Here’s how they rated him when they looked back: Sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that.
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 3, 2014 16:54:08 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 3, 2014 16:54:08 GMT -5
Bitter lemons
Lawrence Durrell
In an island of bitter lemons Where the moon’s cool fevers burn From the dark globes of the fruit,
And the dry grass underfoot Tortures memory and revises Habits half a lifetime dead
Better leave the rest unsaid, Beauty, darkness, vehemence Let the old sea-nurses keep
Their memories of sleep And the Greek sea’s curly head Keep its calms like tears unshed
Keep its calms like tears unshed
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 6, 2014 14:12:59 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 6, 2014 14:12:59 GMT -5
Dry August burned
Walter de la Mare
Dry August burned. A harvest hare Limp on the kitchen table lay, Its fur blood-blubbered, eyes astare, While a small child that stood nearby Wept out her heart to see it there.
Sharp came the clop of hoofs, the clang Of dangling chain, voices that rang. Out like a leveret she ran, To feast her glistening bird-glistening eyes On a team of field artillery, Gay, to manoeuvres, thudding by, Spur and gun and limber plate Flashed in the sun. Alert, elate, Noble horses, foam at lip, Harness, stirrup, holster, whip, She watched the sun-tanned soldiery Till dust-white hedge had hidden away – Its din into a rumour thinned – The laughing, jolting, wild array; And then – the wonder and tumult gone – Her dark eyes, dreaming... She turned, and ran, Elf-like, into the house again. The hare had vanished... ‘Mother,’ she said, Her tear-stained cheek now flushed with red, ‘Please, may I go and see it skinned?’
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 6, 2014 14:13:22 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 6, 2014 14:13:22 GMT -5
The Rites for Cousin Vit
Gwendolyn Brooks
Carried her unprotesting out the door. Kicked back the casket-stand. But it can’t hold her. That stuff and satin aiming to enfold her. The lid’s contraction nor the bolts before. Oh oh. Too much. Even now, surmise, She rises in the sunshine. There she goes, Back to the bars she knows and the repose In love-rooms and the things in people’s eyes. The vital and the squeaking. Must emerge. Even now she does the snake-hips with a hiss, Slops the bad wine across the shantung, talks Of pregnancy, guitars and bridgework, walks In parks or alleys, comes haply on the verge Of happiness, haply hysterics. Is.
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 6, 2014 14:14:10 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 6, 2014 14:14:10 GMT -5
The Departing Island
Ian Crichton Smith
Strange to see it – how as we lean over this vague rail, the island goes away into its loves light grown suddenly foreign: how the ship slides outward like a cold ray from a sun turned cloudy, and rough card draws down into an abstract sea, an arrested star.
Strange how it’s like a dream when two waves past, and the engine’s hum puts villages out of mind or shakes them together in a waving fashion. The lights stream northward down a wolfish wind. A pacing passenger wears the air of one whom tender arms and fleshly hands embraced.
It’s the island that goes away, not we who leave it. Like an unbearable thought it sinks beyond assiduous reasoning light and wringing hands, or, as a flower roots deep into the ground, it works its darkness into the gay winds that blow about us, in a later spirit.
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ladylinda
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August
Aug 7, 2014 11:13:48 GMT -5
Post by ladylinda on Aug 7, 2014 11:13:48 GMT -5
August
Andrew Young
The cows stood in a thunder-cloud of flies As, lagging through the field with tracing feet, I kicked up scores of skipper butterflies That hopped a little way, lazy with heat.
The wood I sought was in deep shelter sunk, Though clematis leaves shone with a glossy sweat And creeping over ground and up tree-trunk The ivy in the sun gleamed bright and wet Trees with the soot of August suns were black, Though splashed in places with a bright fire-light. I praised the daemon of that dim wood-track Where pepper moths were flittering by night.
Songs brief as Chinese poems the birds sung: And insects of all sheens, blue, brown and yellow Darted and twisted in their flight and hung On air that groaned like hoarse sweet violon-cello.
No leap in the least breath of wind was turning, And foliage hung on trees like heavy wigs; White suns fringed with long rainbow hairs were burning Inflammable leaves and the light-blackened twigs.
From that small sun patching the wood with light – O strange to think – hung all things that have breath, Trees, insects, cows, even moths that fly by night, And man, and life in every form – and death.
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