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The Chameleon, by A.P. Herbert

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on June 11, 2020 by telescoper

A Chameleon, in Dublin Zoo.

The chameleon changes his colour;
He can look like a tree or a wall;
He is timid and shy and he hates to be seen,
So he simply sits down on the grass and grows green,
And pretends he is nothing at all.

I wish I could change my complexion
To purple or orange or red:
I wish I could look like the arm of a chair
So nobody ever would know I was there
When they wanted to put me to bed.

I wish I could be a chameleon
And look like a lily or rose;
I’d lie on the apples and peaches and pears,
But not on Aunt Margaret’s yellowy chairs—
I should have to be careful of those.

The chameleon’s life is confusing;
He is used to adventure and pain;
But if he ever sat on Aunt Maggie’s cretonne
And found what a curious color he’d gone,
I don’t think he’d do it again.

by A.P. Herbert (1890-1971)

 

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The Trees, by Philip Larkin

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on May 31, 2020 by telescoper

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too,
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

by Philip Larkin (1922-1985)

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#PoetryDayIRL: ‘Quarantine’, by Eavan Boland

Posted in History, Poetry with tags , , on April 30, 2020 by telescoper

It is a remarkable fact that when the poet Eavan Boland passed away a couple of days ago, the sad news of her passing led the main TV bulletin here in Ireland. I struggle to think of another country where the death of a poet would be deemed so important.

Anyway, today is National Poetry Day in Ireland so I decided to post a poem by Eavan Boland as a tribute on this day. This is Quarantine a moving contemplation of the tragedy of the Great Hunger.

In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking — they were both walking — north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

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One Cigarette – Edwin Morgan

Posted in Poetry with tags , , on April 27, 2020 by telescoper

Today (27th April 2020) is the 100th anniversary of the birth of the late great Scottish poet Edwin Morgan so I thought I’d take the opportunity to post one of my favourite poems of his. This is called One Cigarette:

No smoke without you, my fire.
After you left,
your cigarette glowed on in my ashtray
and sent up a long thread of such quiet grey
I smiled to wonder who would believe its signal
of so much love. One cigarette
in the non-smoker’s tray.
As the last spire
trembles up, a sudden draught
blows it winding into my face.
Is it smell, is it taste?
You are here again, and I am drunk on your tobacco lips.
Out with the light.
Let the smoke lie back in the dark.
Till I hear the very ash
sigh down among the flowers of brass
I’ll breathe, and long past midnight, your last kiss.

by Edwin Morgan (1920-2010)

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#WorldPoetryDay: ‘Nuns fret not..’, by William Wordsworth

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on March 21, 2020 by telescoper

My sixth and final poem for World Poetry Day returns, in a way, to the theme of the first. It is a sonnet by William Wordsworth.

Nuns fret not at their convent’s narrow room;
And hermits are contented with their cells;
And students with their pensive citadels;
Maids at the wheel, the weaver at his loom,
Sit blithe and happy; bees that soar for bloom,
High as the highest Peak of Furness-fells,
Will murmur by the hour in foxglove bells:
In truth the prison, into which we doom
Ourselves, no prison is: and hence for me,
In sundry moods, ’twas pastime to be bound
Within the Sonnet’s scanty plot of ground;
Pleased if some Souls (for such there needs must be)
Who have felt the weight of too much liberty,
Should find brief solace there, as I have found.

by William Wordsworth (1770-1850)

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#WorldPoetryDay: ‘The more loving one’, by W.H. Auden

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on March 21, 2020 by telescoper

My fifth poem for World Poetry Day is by the great W.H. Auden.

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total dark sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

by W.H. Auden (1907-1973)

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#WorldPoetryDay: ‘Children’s Song’, by R.S. Thomas

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on March 21, 2020 by telescoper

My fourth poem for World Poetry Day is by the great R.S. Thomas

We live in our own world,
A world that is too small
For you to stoop and enter
Even on hands and knees,
The adult subterfuge.
And though you probe and pry
With analytic eye,
And eavesdrop all our talk
With an amused look,
You cannot find the centre
Where we dance, where we play,
Where life is still asleep
Under the closed flower,
Under the smooth shell
Of eggs in the cupped nest
That mock the faded blue
Of your remoter heaven.

by R.S. Thomas (1913-2000)

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#WorldPoetryDay: ‘Black March’, by Stevie Smith

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , on March 21, 2020 by telescoper

My third choice for World Poetry Day is by Stevie Smith and is called  Black March.

I have a friend
At the end
Of the world.
His name is a breath

Of fresh air.
He is dressed in
Grey chiffon. At least
I think it is chiffon.
It has a
Peculiar look, like smoke.

It wraps him round
It blows out of place
It conceals him
I have not seen his face.

But I have seen his eyes, they are
As pretty and bright
As raindrops on black twigs
In March, and heard him say:

I am a breath
Of fresh air for you, a change
By and by.

Black March I call him
Because of his eyes
Being like March raindrops
On black twigs.

(Such a pretty time when the sky
Behind black twigs can be seen
Stretched out in one
Uninterrupted
Cambridge blue as cold as snow.)

But this friend
Whatever new names I give him
Is an old friend. He says:

Whatever names you give me
I am
A breath of fresh air,
A change for you.

by Stevie Smith (1902-1971)

 

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#WorldPoetryDay: “Hope” is the thing with feathers, by Emily Dickinson

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , , on March 21, 2020 by telescoper

My second poem for  United Nations World Poetry Day is by Emily Dickinson:

“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –

And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –

I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.

by Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

 

 

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#WorldPoetryDay: `Solitude’ by Lord Byron

Posted in Poetry with tags , , , , , , on March 21, 2020 by telescoper

Today (Saturday 21st March 2020) is United Nations World Poetry Day. As I think we need poetry now more than ever I thought I’d post some poems to celebrate. There will be five altogether, spread throughout the day. My first choice is by Lord Byron:

To sit on rocks, to muse o’er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest’s shady scene,
Where things that own not man’s dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne’er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o’er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude, ’tis but to hold
Converse with Nature’s charms, and view her stores unrolled.

But midst the crowd, the hurry, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel and to possess,
And roam alone, the world’s tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less
Of all the flattered, followed, sought and sued;
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!

by Lord Byron (1788-1824)

 

 

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