James, my inspiration and Muse...



Welcome

Here is a collection of my favourite poetry,
Mr May has admitted to liking poetry.
He has even inspired me to write some.
He likes poetry, I like him.
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Click on pics to enlarge.

Thank you for visiting.



Friday 23 October 2015


The Fall of the Leaf
Maurice Lindsay

As I rode home through woods that smelled of evening,
my horse reined up on his intuitive will
and stood, ears cocked, hearing his visible breathing,
the only sound alive this side the hill.
Autumn hung by a silence, swollen full
of the year's roundness. Under spars of dusk
the encircling frost moved stealthily to snick
each brittle stalk and shrivel night's black husk.

As if somehow it sensed it's enemy
the tired air leant against the lingering light,
trembling accumulated scents upon
the rearguard shadows backing the sun's flight.
Torn by the last horizon's hedgerow, strips
of straggled brightness littered the rutted track,
glossing a pack of ragged crows who savaged
hunger's edge with their own caw and clack.

It was as if the shorn and trampled season
bared an epiphany with no savioured parts
for we who hanker after permanence
while boredom and desires burn out our hearts:
until his tenseness splintered in a whinney,
acknowledging a cue I could not hear,
and anapaesting down his instinct's treason,
his hoofbeats thumped a rhyme of fear and dare.

Tuesday 20 October 2015

 
Strange Perspective
Edmund Blunden

Happy the herd is that in the heat of summer
Wades in the waters where the willows cool them,
From murmuring midday that singes the meadow,
And turns very tansies, fire-flowers, tindery.
Naked at noon there, naughtiness two wantons,
From bank bold jumping, and bough down dandling,
Of chimed hour chainless and churlish duty.
I see the glad set, who am far off sentenced;
Their lily limbs dazzle over long dry pastures;
And rude though ridges are risen between us,
Miles of mountains morosely upthrusting,
And dim and downward my gaze now droops,
My pool beyond pasture by a strange perspective
Is plain, and plunging its playmates gleam,
Hustling the staid herd into hazardous shadows.

Monday 12 October 2015


There's a Certain Slant of Light - 258
Emily Dickinson

There's a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons--
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes--

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us--
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are--

None may teach it--Any--
'Tis the Seal Despair--
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the air--

When it comes, the Landscape listens--
Shadows--hold their breath--
When it goes, 'tis like the Distance
On the look of Death--                         

Wednesday 7 October 2015


I Have No Life But This
Emily Dickinson

I have no life but this,
To lead it here;
Nor any death, but lest
Dispelled from there;
Nor tie to earths to come,
Nor action new,
Except through this extent,
The Realm of You!