Ode to Keith

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Eman
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by Eman » Tue Nov 11, 2014 12:14 am

No worries Keith..
Beautiful and moving post.

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keithgood838
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by keithgood838 » Tue Nov 11, 2014 11:47 am

Thanks, Eman.

ON PASSING THE NEW MENIN GATE

Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
The unheroic Dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,
Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones? ...

Here was the world's worst wound. And here with pride,
'Their name liveth for ever,' the Gateway claims.
Was ever an immolation so belied
As these intolerably nameless names?
Well might the Dead who struggled in the slime
Rise and deride this sepulchre of crime.

Siegfried Sassoon
(1886-1967)


DEAR SIEGFRIED

The four-year daily slaughter of young men
by my eyes was mercifully not seen,
so in my blinkered viewpoint the Menin Gate
and Tower of London poppies are not obscene:
they are memorials to brave lives lost,
not monuments to the grotesque killing machine.

Keith

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keithgood838
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by keithgood838 » Fri Nov 14, 2014 7:53 pm

ROSETTA'S ROVER

Disregarding his anchor-appurtenances,
Philae became a comet wanderer,
with the predictable consequences
of an unstable philanderer.
Yet will he show that a dawn-of-time birth
was the progenitor of life on Earth?

Keith Good

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Marian
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by Marian » Fri Nov 14, 2014 10:16 pm

Good one Keith. It's exciting what we might out from this project. How they managed to land reasonably successfully after ten years are beyond me. :) Amazing!

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keithgood838
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by keithgood838 » Sat Nov 15, 2014 7:37 pm

Yes Marian, a stunning scientific achievement,
even for the much-maligned EU:

CONTRASTING CONSEQUENCES

Philea and Icarus took flight
but both were soon undone;
the former was stilled through lack of light,
the latter by too much sun ...

:wink:

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keithgood838
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by keithgood838 » Tue Nov 25, 2014 1:39 pm

THE YEAR-TURN TRILOGY

One month from today
we play parts in the Birthday play;
one month thereafter
comes the big Burns Night production
interposed by dress rehearsal of Hogmanay.

Keith Good

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Eman
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by Eman » Wed Nov 26, 2014 1:38 am

Wow where does the time go Keith? Nice retrospective lines. Love em'

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maxine
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by maxine » Wed Nov 26, 2014 7:27 pm

Love the posts Keith ;0))) 8)
Softly, I will leave you softly
For my heart would break if you should wake and see me go.....

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keithgood838
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by keithgood838 » Thu Nov 27, 2014 3:41 pm

Hi Eman and Maxine; I'm flattered that you both find some pleasure
in my meandering musings. I hope to post a new seasonal sestet
soon; in the meantime here is a less obvious Christmas poem:

THE DONKEY

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born.

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me; I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

G.K. Chesterton
(1874-1936)

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Marian
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by Marian » Thu Nov 27, 2014 5:49 pm

The Donkey is one of the poems I remember from school Keith,and one of the first things that came back to me after the stroke. :D

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Eman
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by Eman » Thu Nov 27, 2014 8:14 pm

I remember this one from school days also Marian. Grade 4 or 5 I believe for me.

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keithgood838
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by keithgood838 » Fri Nov 28, 2014 9:09 pm

The two foregoing posts are confirmation
of this forum's fine erudition:

A CHILD OF THE SNOWS

There is heard a hymn when the panes are dim,
And never before or again,
When the nights are strong with darkness long,
And the dark is alive with rain.

Never we know but in sleet and in snow
The place where the great fires are,
That in the midst of the earth of is a raging mirth
And the heart of the earth is a star.

And at night we win to the ancient inn
Where the child in the frost is furled,
We follow the feet where all souls meet
At the inn at the end of the world.

The gods lie dead where the leaves lie red,
For the flame of the sun is flown;
The gods lie cold where the leaves lie gold,
And a child comes forth alone.

G.K. Chesterton

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Marian
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Re: Ode to Keith

Post by Marian » Sun Nov 30, 2014 11:28 pm

:D :D

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