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Post by mickthecactus on Nov 30, 2017 14:43:13 GMT
The Power Of The Dog
There is sorrow enough in the natural way From men and women to fill our day; And when we are certain of sorrow in store, Why do we always arrange for more? Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Buy a pup and your money will buy Love unflinching that cannot lie-- Perfect passion and worship fed By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head. Nevertheless it is hardly fair To risk your heart for a dog to tear.
When the fourteen years which Nature permits Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits, And the vet's unspoken prescription runs To lethal chambers or loaded guns, Then you will find--it's your own affair-- But...you've given your heart for a dog to tear.
When the body that lived at your single will, With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!); When the spirit that answered your every mood Is gone--wherever it goes--for good, You will discover how much you care, And will give your heart for the dog to tear.
We've sorrow enough in the natural way, When it comes to burying Christian clay. Our loves are not given, but only lent, At compound interest of cent per cent. Though it is not always the case, I believe, That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve: For, when debts are payable, right or wrong, A short-time loan is as bad as a long-- So why in Heaven (before we are there) Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
Literature Network » Rudyard Kipling » The Power Of The Dog
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Post by tod2 on Dec 1, 2017 7:29:35 GMT
That is a lovely poem. We have given our hearts for a dog to tear... no going back.
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Post by questa on Dec 1, 2017 9:27:21 GMT
Oh, Rats, Mick...now you've got me crying.
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Post by questa on Jan 15, 2018 4:18:15 GMT
from years ago.
I’ve wandered in this Rainbow Serpent land And marvelled at the colours. Blues and gold Adorn the coast, then greens and browns unfold Shimmering plains as long-dry seas expand. Then heat haze country, where the earth is black, Or clay pans, sparkling salt on shades of rust, Where lizards shine like gems in smoky dust As willy-willies drift along the track.
But colours – none for splendour match “the Heart”, Where dying suns on sandy dunes have bled. Blue-purple mountains crown primeval art Of ghost-white gums and crimson river bed Where opalescent birds from saltbush start And brooding over all – the Rock, blood red
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Post by mickthecactus on Jan 16, 2018 8:41:57 GMT
That's a great poem Questa.
As an aside I have a client who was left a picture by Arthur Streeton, the Australian landscape artist and I was lucky enough to see it before it was sold. The colours in it were absolutely perfect but it was the light that he captured so that the picture positively radiated the Australian heat and the gum trees were almost glowing.
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Post by questa on Jan 16, 2018 9:41:15 GMT
Broken Hill is a large mining town in the desert in Far West of NSW. When I lived there in 1967, there was a group of painters and another of photographers. They often hosted fellow artists from UK and other parts of Europe. It was one of these who, as he descended from the aircraft, was heard to yell, "The Light! the Light!" which became a catch cry for the group. The visitor told me that in UK his paintings would take up to a week to dry enough to work on again. In Oz his work would take an hour or so while he had lunch at the pub. Google "Brushmen of the Bush" for some of the group's work. Thanks Mick
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Post by mickthecactus on Jan 16, 2018 13:35:08 GMT
And thank you Questa.
They were fascinating and I need to look more into them. Some lovely work.
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Post by questa on Jan 25, 2018 9:15:51 GMT
Please, will someone else read #303 and critique it...I feel like I am sitting here naked and hoping for someone to cover my shyness!
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Post by kerouac2 on Feb 6, 2018 7:45:24 GMT
Well I have an actual critique. It is very lovely but almost too lovely -- too many images and colours to take in at once, in terms of my own sensory abilities. I feel that a desert needs to be drier and more sparse.
But then again, I have said more than once that I am almost completely impervious to poetry, so don't listen to me!
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Post by questa on Feb 6, 2018 8:01:18 GMT
A very good point you make. Took me years of travelling to see these sights so can't expect someone else to see it all in one chunk. You are poetic in a different style to what the schools churn out. You see the poetry in places and people but use visual images, not words, to express it. Thanks for the thoughts
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Post by mickthecactus on Feb 6, 2018 8:19:53 GMT
Yes, I know what he means and that was probably my initial reaction but the more I read it the more I got out of it. Funnily enough I got quite a sense of emptiness out of it.
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Post by questa on Feb 6, 2018 12:10:31 GMT
Rightly so, Mick.If you look at the photos from Space at night and find the little pockets of light where the towns are, you can see that it is a huge, empty land mass where 90% of the population cling to the coast as if terrified of the Great Emptiness behind them.
I have flown dozens of times into Asian cities. Leave Sydney or Melbourne, read, snooze, look out the window...sheep area. An hour later...rocky desert, then sandy desert. 5 hours in and ridges of bare land show ancient rivers, Finally after 6-7 hours we cross the coast over nor-west empty land.
In a straight line it is about the same as London to Minsk or Paris to Istanbul.
Every time I do this flight the size and ancient-ness of this land hits me in the gut again, as does the emptiness. If you got this in the poem, Mick...that was a bonus!
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Post by bixaorellana on Feb 6, 2018 16:41:47 GMT
Well, I don't know what happened, but I DID comment on your poem. Also, I remember seeing a comment by Casimira which came directly after mine.
~?~
I now can't remember exactly what I said, but do remember finding it quite lovely and evocative. I also remember thinking my response was pretty inadequate next to that of Casimira's, which was an insightful and complimentary critique.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 6, 2018 17:40:26 GMT
If I were John and John were me He'd be six and I'd be three. If John were me and I were John I wouldn't have these trousers on.
A A Milne
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Post by questa on Feb 6, 2018 22:14:43 GMT
Bixa and Casi, your comments are in the thread "poets" reply 146
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 7, 2018 14:23:03 GMT
One of my favourite poets is Ted Hughes
The Hawk in the Rain
I drown in the drumming ploughland, I drag up
Heel after heel from the swallowing of the earth’s mouth,
From clay that clutches my each step to the ankle
With the habit of the dogged grave, but the hawk
Effortlessly at height hangs his still eye.
His wings hold all creation in a weightless quiet,
Steady as a hallucination in the streaming air.
While banging wind kills these stubborn hedges,
Thumbs my eyes, throws my breath, tackles my heart,
And rain hacks my head to the bone, the hawk hangs
The diamond point of will that polestars
The sea drowner’s endurance: and I,
Bloodily grabbed dazed last-moment-counting
Morsel in the earth’s mouth, strain towards the master-
Fulcrum of violence where the hawk hangs still,
That maybe in his own time meets the weather
Coming from the wrong way, suffers the air, hurled upside down,
Fall from his eye, the ponderous shires crash on him,
The horizon traps him; the round angelic eye
Smashed, mix his heart’s blood with the mire of the land.
Ted Hughes.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2018 14:57:23 GMT
Ted Hughes is one of my favorite poets as well Cheery. There's discussion of his work somewhere in here. Birthday Letters remains one of my favorite tomes, and, it was given to me as a Birthday Present many years ago! (Questa, take heart. In the eleven pages in this thread I posted likely a dozen or more poems, poems I had never shared with anyone some, highly personal and received no comments or feedback. It's nothing personal so, you can put your clothes back on. ).
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2018 21:25:48 GMT
I also, in an attempt to promote some discussion about the different ways that poetry writing varies with folks who write poems, and I would like to hear your feedback. It's always something I like to share and am curious about as each of us are inspired and or have many different ideas and methods.
Most of my poems have been penned very early in the morning and I write them as a whole with little to no editing.
One of the most singular things about my poems (along with other variables) is the title of the poem. I rarely if ever, title my poems until after they have been penned.
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Post by cheerypeabrain on Feb 8, 2018 10:05:14 GMT
I wrote poetry in my tortured youth, nothing I'd share on here...most of it written in diaries with my tears blurring the words and wrinkling the paper.
Studying poetry I used to fight to interpret the meaning behind the words..I think you take what you can. I like the imagery painted by words...but find the tortured soul stuff difficult. I often don't dip as deep into the layered meaning of a poem. Unless it grabs me.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 9, 2018 20:29:50 GMT
Hansel and Gretel I have always wanted to write a poem about Hansel and Gretel going through the forest, leaving behind them pieces of apple pie to form sort of a bridge between dream and reality, and being followed by those gentle birds that embrace both illusions like violins eating pieces of apple pie. Richard Brautigan source
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Post by questa on Aug 10, 2018 7:44:21 GMT
How gentle!...or maybe not.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 10, 2018 18:13:13 GMT
Thanks for that lovely Brautigan poem Bixa. I was a huge fan of his back in my hippie days.
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Post by bixaorellana on Sept 13, 2019 20:31:41 GMT
Vermeerby Howard Nemerov Taking what is, and seeing it as it is, Pretending to no heroic stances or gestures, Keeping it simple; being in love with light And the marvelous things that light is able to do, How beautiful! a modesty which is Seductive extremely, the care for daily things. At one for once with sunlight falling through A leaded windo, the holy mathematic Plays out the cat’s cradle of relation Endlessly; even the inexorable Domesticates itself and becomes charm. If I could say to you, and make it stick, A girl in a red hat, a woman in blue Reading a letter, a lady weighing gold… If I could say this to you so you saw, And knew, and agreed that this was how it was In a lost city across the sea of years, I think we should be for one moment happy In the great reckoning of those little rooms Where the weight of life has been lifted and made light, Or standing invisible on the shore opposed, Watching the water in the foreground dream Reflectively, taking a view of Delft As it was, under a wide and darkening sky. source
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 11, 2020 11:22:25 GMT
Secrets by Faith Shearin They go to the dark, unloved places: into buildings where no one lives, where windows have broken and walls have fallen and all the furniture is full of birds. Secrets are at the bottom of each tea cup, at the bottom of the ocean where fish swim through their ruined remains. Secrets are in hospitals where doctors hide them in the sleeves of their white coats, write them sometimes in files that will be forgotten. There are secrets in desks and curtains, secrets in trees and secrets in the uncombed hair of young girls. There are secrets in blood which even microscopes cannot find, secrets in the dens of foxes and the seeds of apples. There are secrets on abandoned playgrounds where the swings move back and forth without children or wind. Some secrets are alive and they flutter in closets, nibble television cords, steal crumbs. But others are buried deeply in cemeteries and safe deposit boxes and require no air. Wine turns red with secrets; dresses carry them in their skirts. I have seen a secret coiled like a snake at the center of a dinner party; I have walked through parks where they fell around me like leaves. I have kept them, which is not as easy as it sounds: some howl at night, transformed by the presence of the moon. Some breathe fire and place the village in danger. Some get caught in my throat like a bone, and I must pretend I am not choking...
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 11, 2020 11:24:54 GMT
It's a bit late but I hadn't seen Vermeer before. It is very good.
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Post by kerouac2 on Aug 11, 2020 13:53:59 GMT
All of the good poems generally seem to be rather distressing. I find it appropriate, but most people seem to think that poems are all about butterflies and rainbows.
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Post by bixaorellana on Aug 11, 2020 18:51:26 GMT
Thanks, Mick. And thank you for Secrets. I've already read it twice -- not only for content, but for its conversational yet stately form.
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Post by mickthecactus on Aug 11, 2020 18:55:23 GMT
I get a poem to my email every day but I wouldn’t give you tuppence for most of them. This one really caught me.
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Post by lugg on Dec 4, 2020 19:47:11 GMT
This talented young person has won an award for this - an ode to my home town. I apologise in advance because a lot of it may only ring a chord if you are local but I thought I would post it anyway.
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Post by onlyMark on Dec 5, 2020 8:52:44 GMT
That's really good Lugg. Like that. Have you heard of Fidget pie? Local thing.
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