I'm surprised I didn't mention this before. BBC Radio4 has a regular programme "Poetry Please" which you can listen to on the internet: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qp7q
Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run; To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.
Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep, Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers; And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cider-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.
Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, - While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.
When the bus stopped suddenly to avoid damaging a mother and child in the road, the young lady in the green hat sitting opposite was thrown across me, and not being one to miss an opportunity i started to make love with all my body.
At first she resisted saying that it was too early in the morning and too soon after breakfast and that anyway she found me repulsive. But when i explained that this being a nuclear age, the world was going to end at lunchtime, she took off her green hat, put her bus ticket in her pocket and joined in the exercise.
The bus people, and there were many of them, were shocked and surprised and amused and annoyed, but when the word got around that the world was coming to an end at lunchtime, they put their pride in their pockets with their bus tickets and made love one with the other. And even the bus conductor, being over, climbed into the cab and struck up some sort of relationship with the driver.
That night, on the bus coming home, we were all a little embarrassed, especially me and the young lady in the green hat, and we all started to say in different ways how hasty and foolish we had been. But then, always having been a bit of a lad, i stood up and said it was a pity that the world didn;t nearly end every lunchtime and that we could always pretend. And then it happened…….
Quick as a crash we all changed partners and soon the bus was acquiver with white mothball bodies doing naughty things.
And the next day And everyday In every bus In every street In every town In every country
people pretended that the world was coming to an end at lunchtime. It still hasn’t Although in a way it has.
Let me die a youngman's death not a clean and inbetween the sheets holywater death not a famous-last-words peaceful out of breath death
When I'm 73 and in constant good tumour may I be mown down at dawn by a bright red sports car on my way home from an allnight party
Or when I'm 91 with silver hair and sitting in a barber's chair may rival gangsters with hamfisted tommyguns burst in and give me a short back and insides
Or when I'm 104 and banned from the Cavern may my mistress catching me in bed with her daughter and fearing for her son cut me up into little pieces and throw away every piece but one
Let me die a youngman's death not a free from sin tiptoe in candle wax and waning death not a curtains drawn by angels borne 'what a nice way to go' death
I was so deeply engaged and moved by the Keats poem that I started not to read the others right afterward. But just a peek drew me in. Fabulous, fabulous choices, all three. Thanks so much for posting these.
To celebrate the election as Ireland's President of Michael D. Higgins, a poet (well, mainly politician, who has tried for the Presidency before, but he is also a poet) , here is the poem of his that has been a gift to the headline writers - since, in a sense, his time has indeed come:
When Will My Time Come
When will my time come for scenery And will it be too late? After all Decades ago I was never able To get excited About filling the lungs with ozone On Salthill Prom.
And when the strangers To whom I gave a lift Spoke to me of the extraordinary Light in the Western sky; I often missed its changes. And, later, when words were required To intervene at the opening of Art Exhibitions, It was not the same.
What is this tyranny of head that stifles The eyes, the senses, All play on the strings of the heart.
And, if there is a healing, It is in the depth of a silence, Whose plumbed depths require A journey through realms of pain That must be faced alone. The hero, setting out, Will meet an ally at a crucial moment. But the journey home Is mostly alone.
When my time comes I will have made my journey And through all my senses will explode The evidence of light And air and water, fire and earth.
Since it's April, how about a sonnet? 104's a good one.
To me, fair friend, you never can be old, For as you were when first your eye I eyed, Such seems your beauty still. Three winters cold Have from the forests shook three summers' pride, Three beauteous springs to yellow autumn turn'd In process of the seasons have I seen, Three April perfumes in three hot Junes burn'd, Since first I saw you fresh, which yet are green. Ah! yet doth beauty, like a dial-hand, Steal from his figure and no pace perceived; So your sweet hue, which methinks still doth stand, Hath motion and mine eye may be deceived: For fear of which, hear this, thou age unbred; Ere you were born was beauty's summer dead.
"I Am" I am black. I am white. I am all skin in between. I am young. I am old. I am each age that has been. I am scrawny. I am well fed. I am starving for attention. I am famous. I am cryptic. I am hardly worth the mention. I am short. I am height. I am any frame or stature. I am smart. I am challenged. I am striving for a future. I am able. I am weak. I am some strength. I am none. I am being. I am thoughts. I am all things, said and done. I am born. I am dying. I am dust of humble roots. I am grace. I am pain. I am labor of willed fruits. I am a slave. I am free. I am bonded to my life. I am rich. I am poor. I am wealth amid strife. I am a shadow. I am glory. I am hiding from my shame. I am hero. I am loser. I am yearning for a name. I am empty. I am proud. I am seeking my tomorrow. I am growing. I am fading. I am hope amid the sorrow. I am certain. I am doubtful. I am desperate for solutions. I am leader. I am student. I am fate and evolutions. I am spirit. I am voice. I am memories not recalled. I am chance. I am cause. I am effort, blocks and walls. I am him. I am her. I am reasons without rhymes. I am past. I am nearing. I am present in all times. I am many. I am no one. I am seasoned by each being. I am me. I am you. I am all souls now decreeing. I am
I had not read this until today Lugg. Thank you. This I wrote during a grim holiday season of late.
COLD DREAMS Winding through my hair, aspirations like dreams; A fierce arctic wind prevails and spins itself into a barbed wire fence; hungry, greedy birds greet, line the trees of the ice coated trees speaking dialects with their chirps, lining up like dirty laundry; eyes on the prize only the eternal one will seize and possess, their mouths aligned with the horizons crooked edge. Teary eyes from the cold and it's sorrow are formed; The stars begin to smear themselves accross the sky; without the moon, the barren land bathes in darkness.
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