Originally posted by Grampy Bobby (OP)
Poetry Corner
“The Gift”
In 1945, when the keepers cried kaput
Josef Stein, poet, came out of Dachau
Like half a resurrection, his other half
eighty pounds still in their invisible grave.
Slowly then the mouth opened at first
a broth, and then a medication, and then
a diet, and all in time and the knitting mercies,
the showing bones were buried back in flesh,
and the miracle was finished. Josef Stein
man and poet, rose, walked, and could even
beget, and did, and later died of other causes
only partly traceable to his first death.
He noted - with some surprise at first -
that strangers could not tell he had died once.
He returned to his post in the library, drank his beer,
published three poems in a French magazine,
and was very kind to the son who at last was his.
In the spent of one night he wrote three propositions:
That Hell is the denial of the ordinary. That nothing lasts.
That clean white paper waiting under a pen
is the gift beyond history and hurt and heaven.
(John Ciardi)
http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/gift/gift.html
Note: Link site graphics lend an aura to Ciardi's words. After a reading in Boston, he autographed this poem in my copy of "Modern Poets" large size paperback, which is with my belongings somewhere in a musty box in my son's home near Boston.
Originally posted by Grampy BobbyNice one, gb
Originally posted by Grampy Bobby (OP)
[b]Poetry Corner
“The Gift”
In 1945, when the keepers cried kaput
Josef Stein, poet, came out of Dachau
Like half a resurrection, his other half
eighty pounds still in their invisible grave.
Slowly then the mouth opened at first
a broth, and then a medication, and then
a diet, and all ...[text shortened]... ze paperback, which is with my belongings somewhere in a musty box in my son's home near Boston.[/b]
TAMER AND HAWK
I thought I was so tough,
But gentled at your hands,
Cannot be quick enough
To fly for you and show
That when I go I go
At your commands.
Even in flight above
I am no longer free:
You seeled me with your love,
I am blind to other birds—
The habit of your words
Has hooded me.
As formerly, I wheel
I hover and I twist,
But only want the feel,
In my possessive thought,
Of catcher and of caught
Upon your wrist.
You but half civilize,
Taming me in this way.
Through having only eyes
For you I fear to lose,
I lose to keep, and choose
Tamer as prey.
Thom Gunn
A Winter's Tale
When, by the sacred light of candles,
The snow softly falling about the churchyard graves
And the sheep huddled together in the midnight cold,
The priest unrolls his winter tale
Upon the pedestal of the flickering altar,
The barn-owl, proud upon the swirling spire
And the forest gently sleeping, a muffled shape,
Old as the gnarled torn oak, gentle as snow,
Walks upon the riding hills and vallies
Alone with his sadness and his grief.
The distant villages are asleep; dog, cat and mouse,
Only the hushed fall of snow-flakes upon the mantle,
The spread of cloth of farmyards, gently stirs
The flurrying air around him as silently he walks past,
Past the frozen duck-pond by the village green,
The school, empty and desolate, each room
Longing for the daily chaos of children's laughter,
Past the comfortable houses cut off by the snow,
Till beneath a drooping arch of holly
By the churchyard gate, the latch unlocks
The way, sacred by the light of the moon,
The falling snow about the graves
And the wind-swept horsemen flowing like the north wind
Through the time-shed villages and valleys sleeping.
The crooking shepherd, blinded by the light
Of stars falling cold among the pastures,
Tiptoes in the mantled night past the church door
But no black priest now upon the pedestal,
The wooden altar, bare and withered;
Only the empty words skulking in the corners.
And here he rests in the eternal darkness
Cold as the damp stone walls, the shimmering dawn
Heralding a frosty morning that he will never see;
The sacred light about him dies softly to the tune of a lark.
Nick Quiney c. 1975
Written as an homage to Dylan Thomas
Originally posted by Pianoman1"The barn-owl, proud upon the swirling spire..."
A Winter's Tale
When, by the sacred light of candles,
The snow softly falling about the churchyard graves
And the sheep huddled together in the midnight cold,
The priest unrolls his winter tale
Upon the pedestal of the flickering altar,
The barn-owl, proud upon the swirling spire
And the forest gently sleeping, a muffled shape,
Old as the gna ...[text shortened]... y to the tune of a lark.
Nick Quiney c. 1975
Written as an homage to Dylan Thomas
"Walks upon the riding hills and vallies..."
"The distant villages are asleep; dog, cat and mouse,
Only the hushed fall of snow-flakes upon the mantle,..."
"Past the frozen duck-pond by the village green,..."
"Longing for the daily chaos of children's laughter,..."
"And the wind-swept horsemen flowing like the north wind
Through the time-shed villages and valleys sleeping."
"And here he rests in the eternal darkness
Cold as the damp stone walls, the shimmering dawn
Heralding a frosty morning that he will never see;
The sacred light about him dies softly to the tune of a lark."
(Excerpts from "A Winter's Tale" by Nick Quiney, c. 1975)
So much of Dylan Thomas himself in this homage: uneven line lengths with minds of their own yet obedient to the unspoken authority of a playful muse; the hyphenated coinage; internal and approximate rhyme; picturesque compound sentences entwined as one with palpable grief; counterpoint of children; winter loss; sonorities fade; reverence; dawn. Thank you.
Originally posted by Grampy BobbyGlad you liked it. I consider this poem one of my most satisfying creations, written as it was in the full flush of youth with the master looking over my shoulder!
"The barn-owl, proud upon the swirling spire..."
"Walks upon the riding hills and vallies..."
"The distant villages are asleep; dog, cat and mouse,
Only the hushed fall of snow-flakes upon the mantle,..."
"Past the frozen duck-pond by the village green,..."
"Longing for the daily chaos of children's laughter,..."
"And the wind-swept hors ...[text shortened]... pable grief; counterpoint of children; winter loss; sonorities fade; reverence; dawn. Thank you.
Pianoman1, here's another memorable Dylan Thomas poem I hope you enjoy.
More than a few lines are unforgettable as were many in "A Winter's Tale":
Fern Hill
Now as I was young and easy under the apple boughs
About the lilting house and happy as the grass was green,
The night above the dingle starry,
Time let me hail and climb
Golden in the heydays of his eyes,
And honoured among wagons I was prince of the apple towns
And once below a time I lordly had the trees and leaves
Trail with daisies and barley
Down the rivers of the windfall light.
And as I was green and carefree, famous among the barns
About the happy yard and singing as the farm was home,
In the sun that is young once only,
Time let me play and be
Golden in the mercy of his means,
And green and golden I was huntsman and herdsman, the calves
Sang to my horn, the foxes on the hills barked clear and
cold,
And the sabbath rang slowly
In the pebbles of the holy streams.
All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was
air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass.
And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the
nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.
And then to awake, and the farm, like a wanderer white
With the dew, come back, the cock on his shoulder: it was all
Shining, it was Adam and maiden,
The sky gathered again
And the sun grew round that very day.
So it must have been after the birth of the simple light
In the first, spinning place, the spellbound horses walking
warm
Out of the whinnying green stable
On to the fields of praise.
And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways,
My wishes raced through the house high hay
And nothing I cared, at my sky blue trades, that time allows
In all his tuneful turning so few and such morning songs
Before the children green and golden
Follow him out of grace.
Nothing I cared, in the lamb white days, that time would
take me
Up to the swallow thronged loft by the shadow of my hand,
In the moon that is always rising,
Nor that riding to sleep
I should hear him fly with the high fields
And wake to the farm forever fled from the childless land.
Oh as I was young and easy in the mercy of his means,
Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.
Dylan Thomas
The Come Back
by Joyce Sutphen
He was eighty-seven, and one day he
made a wrong step on an icy sidewalk
and he fell, breaking his hip. It was just
past dawn, and he'd gone out to put some wood
in the furnace that heated the house. Down
on his hands and knees, he crawled across
the yard but couldn't climb the steps or yell
loud enough to wake the sleepers sleeping
in their warm rooms, so he pounded against
the side of the house, and they found him there.
After that, it was just a matter of repair,
repair. The ice melted; the days grew warm
and green. He learned to walk again, to lift
each foot as in a dance—each step a gift.
"The Come Back" by Joyce Sutphen, from After Words.
© Red Dragonfly Press, 2013. (Writers Almanac)