POEMS - With Tongue In Cheek

[Gray]

Thank you, Keith.

[keithgood838]

In the shadow of Michele's sad news about Jack Jackson
(though the name is new to me), it occurred to me
that this forum's spirits may need lifting. I hope the following
verse may do the trick, and I'm sure Jack is nodding in
approval from his celestial vantage point:

ARTISTIC APOGEES

Envisage Sir Laurence Olivier declaiming
John Keats's towering Ode To A nightingale:
That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot,
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
And the electrifying effect would be to create
a classic chapter in the story of literary collaboration.

Then listen to Matt Monro's soaring interpretation
of Hoagy Carmichael's tone poem, Skylark:
wonderful music, faint as a will-o-the-wisp, crazy as a loon,
sad as a gypsy serenading the moon.
Oh Skylark, I don't know if you can find these things,
but my heart is riding on your wings.
And you savour a sublime passage in musical history
courtesy of a consummate combination.

Keith Good

[keithgood838]

On reading in today's paper that 'bells ring out
to greet the UK's newest national park', ie the South Downs,
I was instantly reminded of John Masefield's memorable poem
published in September 1918:

ON THE DOWNS

Up on the downs the red-eyed kestrels hover,
Eyeing the grass.
The field-mouse flits like a shadow into cover
As their shadows pass.
Men are burning gorse on the down's shoulder,
A drift of smoke
Glitters and hangs and the skies smoulder
And the lungs choke.
Once the tribe did thus on the downs, burning
Men in the frame,
Crying to the gods of the downs till their brains were burning
And the gods came.
And today on the downs, in the wind, the hawks of the grasses
In blood and air,
Something passes me and cries as it passes,
On the chalk downland bare.

[Marian]

Nice poem Keith, thanks for posting.

We have quite a number of Red Kites in the skies above us in Berkshire and Oxfordshire these days. They were reintroduced in recent years and appear to be very prolific. It unfortunately seems to also be one of the reasons our garden birds are fast disappearing.

Mentioning Oxfordshire, I noticed Hilary on the forum a day or two ago, but I don't think she made any postings. We miss her smiley face!
She might have been a regular poster before your time Keith.

[keithgood838]

Marian, your mention of birds and shires
put me in mind of the classic poem entitled Adlestrop
(pronounced as though there were two dees).

ADLESTROP

Yes, I remember Adlestrop -
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop - only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

EDWARD THOMAS (1878-1917)

Come back Hilary, all is forgiven.

[Marian]

A pleasant, peaceful, scenic poem Keith, a rural pause in life's day to day bustle!
I have one or two similar written about the villages around this way, even one about our own village. I've no idea who wrote them. I'll see if I can root them out.

[Marian]

Here's one, I have a feeling I might have posted one before and I don't want to bore you so just the one...for now!

Silchester.

Silchester is a nearby village where our children went to school. It was an important Roman town.

Old walls, old flints, by brambles half concealed
And wayward paths that wind through copse and field
To reach a Roman city laid in waste
Where Roman soldiers once the ramparts paced

And echoes from the ages everywhere
As scent of Alders fills the summer air
And gleaming, as of Roman spears by night
When Spring with snowdrops floods the churchyard white

Rest for a while beneath these walls and think,
Here by a little stream where rushes drink
And flow'ring flags uplift their banners gay
Against the stones so hard, so grim, so grey.

Then leave the storied past, and on with me
Across the heather common, open, free
'Til shadows from the timeless hills are flung
Such hills as make old Roman walls seem young.

[keithgood838]

Thanks for that rural reverie, Marian.
Here's a little verse I hope you will like:

DOWNLAND
(for Marian)

Down's upside makes it a warming word
when it weaves comfort from the web-foot bird,
and it is at its most expansive where
we harmonise with nature in God's air;
but Down becomes the most meaningful noun
when its smiling countenance appears here.

Keith

[Marian]

Thank you Keith, I feel very honoured!

[keithgood838]

My pleasure, Marian. As ever, it's all 'down' to
the subject matter. I hope forum members will enjoy
yet another poem by John Masefield, first published in 1902.
I love it for the way it harks back to a bygone age:

VAGABOND

Dunno a heap about the what an' why,
Can't say's I ever knowed.
Heaven to me's a fair blue stretch of sky,
Earth's jest a dusty road.

Dunno the name o' things, nor what they are,
Can't say's I ever will.
Dunno about God - He's jest the noddin' star
Atop the windy hill.

Dunno about life - it's just a tramp alone
From wakin' time to doss.
Dunno about death - it's jest a quiet stone
All over grey wi' moss.

An' why I live, an' why the old world spins,
Are things I never knowed;
My mark's the gipsy fires, the lonely inns,
An' jest the dusty road.

[Marian]

I like the pictures poetry paints Keith. This reminded me of 'Meg Merilees.'

[keithgood838]

Thanks for reminding me of the John Keats poem, Marian;
there is a striking similarity between the two.
The Fans Reunited function coincides with our annual
golfing trip to West Cork in September, which ruled me out
of applying for a ticket. The following idyll is where I shall be
instead. One can't have every good thing in life:

NIRVANA

Heaven is at the Wood Point end
of comely Courtmacsherry,
where the food is divine, blest is the wine;
the celestial air is merry.
Where angels are dressed in waitressing clothes,
all it lacks are a choir and harps;
by request perhaps those
are invoked as well
at the Courtmacsherry Hotel.

Keith Good

PS Speaking of painting pictures, I have a collection,
comprising about sixty, of colour-illustrated (of which the above is one)
of A4 West Cork poems, which I would like to post hereon;
alas my technical shortcomings make it well nigh impossible.
Maybe one day, assuming forum members might like to read them.

[mariana44]

We will miss seeing you at Fans Reunited--Keith-maybe next time.

You may be able to get your photos on to the photo page, which is in the news section-I forget what it is called now, but all sorts of photos are there--including a pets corner, with my 2 dogs and my cat, and favourite pets from others.

[keithgood838]

I'm disappointed, but I look forward to enjoying
the warm glow of fellow Matt aficionados' companionship
at some future date, Marian(a).
I seem to recall that you possessed the expertise
that enabled you to post some pictorial matter here on the forum.

MASTERS MISHAP

Never mind, young Rory;
this time - no glory.
But the best is to come;.
Sunday was one mere page
of your glorious golf-life story

[mariana44]

I only post pictures on the Forum itself, very rarely.

It is much easier, and probably more convenient for everyone to have most photos in the Photo Galeery.