Who let the squirrels in?

La Vita Nuova
Dante Alighieri

In that book which is
My memory . . .
On the first page
That is the chapter when
I first met you
Appear the words . . .
Here begins a new life

The War Horse
By Eavan Boland

This dry night, nothing unusual
About the clip, clop, casual

Iron of his shoes as he stamps death
Like a mint on the innocent coinage of earth.

I lift the window, watch the ambling feather
Of hock and fetlock, loosed from its daily tether

In the tinker camp on the Enniskerry Road,
Pass, his breath hissing, his snuffling head

Down. He is gone. No great harm is done.
Only a leaf of our laurel hedge is torn—

Of distant interest like a maimed limb,
Only a rose which now will never climb

The stone of our house, expendable, a mere
Line of defence against him, a volunteer

You might say, only a crocus, its bulbous head
Blown from growth, one of the screamless dead.

But we, we are safe, our unformed fear
Of fierce commitment gone; why should we care

If a rose, a hedge, a crocus are uprooted
Like corpses, remote, crushed, mutilated?

He stumbles on like a rumour of war, huge
Threatening. Neighbours use the subterfuge

Of curtains. He stumbles down our short street
Thankfully passing us. I pause, wait,

Then to breathe relief lean on the sill
And for a second only my blood is still

With atavism. That rose he smashed frays
Ribboned across our hedge, recalling days

Of burned countryside, illicit braid:
A cause ruined before, a world betrayed.

Two jobs this weekend, gardening and printing myself off copies of my long lost poetry books.

Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day
Anne Bronte

My soul is awakened, my spirit is soaring
And carried aloft on the wings of the breeze;
For above and around me the wild wind is roaring,
Arousing to rapture the earth and the seas.
The long withered grass in the sunshine is glancing,
The bare trees are tossing their branches on high;
The dead leaves, beneath them, are merrily dancing,
The white clouds are scudding across the blue sky.

I wish I could see how the ocean is lashing
The foam of its billows to whirlwinds of spray;
I wish I could see how its proud waves are dashing,
And hear the wild roar of their thunder today!

One day I wrote her name upon the strand
by Edmund Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name;
Where, whenas death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

William Shakespeare (Hamlet)

"Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love."

Queen and Huntress
Ben Jonson

Queen and huntress, chaste and fair,
Now the sun is laid to sleep,
Seated in thy silver chair
State in wonted manner keep:
Hesperus entreats thy light,
Goddess excellently bright.

Earth, let not thy envious shade
Dare itself to interpose;
Cynthia's shining orb was made
Heaven to clear when day did close:
Bless us then with wished sight,
Goddess excellently bright.

Lay thy bow of pearl apart
And thy crystal-shining quiver;
Give unto the flying hart
Space to breathe, how short soever:
Thou that mak'st a day of night,
Goddess excellently bright.

On a Forenoon of Spring
William Allingham

I'm glad I am alive, to see and feel
The full deliciousness of this bright day,
That's like a heart with nothing to conceal;
The young leaves scarcely trembling; the blue-grey
Rimming the cloudless ether far away;
Brairds, hedges, shadows; mountains that reveal
Soft sapphire; this great floor of polished steel
Spread out amidst the landmarks of the bay.

I stoop in sunshine to our circling net
From the black gunwale; tend these milky kine
Up their rough path; sit by yon cottage-door
Plying the diligent thread; take wings and soar--
O hark how with the season's laureate
Joy culminates in song! If such a song were mine!

Horses on the Camargue
Roy Campbell

In the grey wastes of dread,
The haunt of shattered gulls where nothing moves
But in a shroud of silence like the dead,
I heard a sudden harmony of hooves,
And, turning, saw afar
A hundred snowy horses unconfined,
The silver runaways of Neptune's car
Racing, spray-curled, like waves before the wind.
Sons of the Mistral, fleet
As him with whose strong gusts they love to flee,
Who shod the flying thunders on their feet
And plumed them with the snortings of the sea;
Theirs is no earthly breed
Who only haunts the verges of the earth
And only on the sea's salt herbage feed-
Surely the great white breakers gave them birth.
For when for years a slave,
A horse of the Camargue, in alien lands,
Should catch some far-off fragrance of the wave
Carried far inland from this native sands,
Many have told the tale
Of how in fury, foaming at the rein,
He hurls his rider; and with lifted tail,
With coal-red eyes and catarcating mane,
Heading his course for home,
Though sixty foreign leagues before him sweep,
Will never rest until he breathes the foam
And hears the native thunder of the deep.
And when the great gusts rise
And lash their anger on these arid coasts,
When the scared gulls career with mournful cries
And whirl across the waste like driven ghosts;
When hail and fire converge,
The only souls to which they strike no pain
Are the white crested fillies of the surge
And the white horses of the windy plain.
Then in their strength and pride
The stallions of the wilderness rejoice;
They feel their Master's trident in their side,
And high and shrill they answer to his voice.
With white tails smoking free,
Long streaming manes, and arching necks, they show
Their kinship to their sisters of the sea-
And forward hurl their thunderbolts of snow.
Still out of hardship bred,
Spirits of power and beauty and delight
Have ever on such frugal pasture fed
And loved to course with tempests through the night.

Heard you use one of my favourite words again in an Antipodean interview...
HAPPENSTANCE, love it!

A photo I like to refer to as...
"Get your coat, you've pulled."

In Time of “The Breaking of Nations”
Thomas Hardy (1915)

Only a man harrowing clods
In a slow silent walk
With an old horse that stumbles and nods
Half asleep as they stalk.

Only a thin smoke without flame
From the heaps of couch-grass;
Yet this will go onward the same
Though Dynasties pass.

Yonder a maid and her wight
Come whispering by:
War’s annals will cloud into night
Ere their story die.

Oh no!
Can it be true that the BFS is no longer with us?

The original ode plus a new third verse
Ode to the BFS

You match me in paleness, the blue of my eyes,
You hold me, enfold me, caressing my thighs,
By you I am comforted, safe and secure,
You save me from demons, no fear anymore.
My constant companion wherever I roam
Be it over the ocean or nearer to home.

You have your own place in the hearts of the few
who acknowledge the significance that I give you.
I've loved you so long that you're part of me now,
I'll never discard you, I'll honour this vow.
My magical talisman, fame-bringer, friend,
Your story's a legend that never will end.
----------------------------------------------------------------

OK, I've outgrown you in more ways than one,
Perhaps you're now dusters or completely gone.
I no longer need you, the world knows my name,
But you'll be immortal, you've JMB fame.
Dear Blue Flowery Shirt, so sad now you're gone,
Just realised, they're not flowers, it's leaves you had on!

Hope that you have a great time in Australia, James.

The Atlantic's Roar
Edmond Holmes

Two walls of precipices black and steep,
The storm-lashed ramparts of a naked land,
Are parted here by leagues of lonely sand
That make a bay; and up it ever creep
Billowy ocean ripples half asleep,
That cast a belt of foam along the strand,
Seething and white, and wake in cadence grand
The everlasting thunder of the deep.
And there is never silence on that shore -
Alike in storm and calm, foam-fringes gird
It's desolation, and the Atlantic's roar
Makes mighty music. Though the sea be stirred
By scarce a breath of breeze, yet evermore
The sands are whitened, and the thunder heard.

"It wasn't the Exxon Valdez captain's driving that caused the Alaskan oil spill.  It was yours." 

H is for - Haven't got any Hydrogen
--------------------------------------------
What on earth is the solution
without causing air pollution
to the question of propulsion
without causing the expulsion
of enormous clouds of gases
highly toxic to the masses?

(Buy a Prius and feel pious? Nah!)

The,
hydrogen cause is rising
well, that hardly is surprising
the element's so abundant
will it make oil redundant?
Well I'm told it's just a carrier
and that really is the barrier
not to mention infrastructure.
(p.s. Ladybird want to book yer.)

So,I'm cancelling the Clarity,
'twould be the subject of hilarity.
Till I can find a *HP source,
I'm going to buy myself a horse!

Elaine x      (*Hydrogen plentiful)

Sonnet
Richard Elwes

I have been greeted by long absent friends
and loved the starting pleasure in their eyes;
have known the silence as the singer ends,
holding the listeners dumb with ecstasies;
have filled my nostrils from the opening rose,
have shouted verse, exulting, down the wind,
have gazed at moonlit water as it flows,
and morning mountains with the sun behind;
have felt the blessed ease that follows pain,
and heard great tides of music as they sweep;
have found lost infant memories again,
seen Heaven-visiting children fast asleep.
I summon up these joys, each one apart-
and I have held my love against my heart.

My still much missed, old cat, Mariella Foss-Trop.
As a  kitten, she was left to die.
We rescued her and  had her with us for thirteen years.

'I took a chair and threw it...'
Felix Dennis

I took a chair and threw it
Across my unmade bed
When I returned one evening,
To find my old cat dead.

Yet when an ailing neighbour
Passed on - no missiles flew.
The ties that bind are stronger
Than what we tie them to.

A few days by the sea...

Astrophel and Stella: I
Sir Philip Sidney

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,
That she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain,--
Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,
Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain,--
I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;
Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain,
Oft turning others' leaves, to see if thence would flow
Some fresh and fruitful showers upon my sunburn'd brain.
But words came halting forth, wanting invention's stay;
Invention, Nature's child, fled step-dame Study's blows;
And others' feet still seem'd but strangers in my way.
Thus great with child to speak and helpless in my throes,
Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,
"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write."

Whatnot Superman
------------------------
They're hanging on your every word
- how absurd!
Your pedestal begins to rock
- such a shock!

They can't believe that you're not perfect
- Mr May?
I never thought you were from Stepford
- anyway.

Sometimes you get caught saying it
- as it is
And bite the hand that feeds you, well
- that's showbiz

In comparison, smarter, richer, luckier
- you may be
If we're born equal, then you are no
- better than me!

For all your faults I'll always love you
- as a fan
As after all, alas alack you're
- just a man!

MY LADY CARRIES LOVE WITHIN HER EYES
by: Dante Alighieri

My lady carries love within her eyes;
All that she looks on is made pleasanter;
Upon her path men turn to gaze at her;
He whom she greeteth feels his heart to rise,
And droops his troubled visage, full of sighs,
And of his evil heart is then aware:
Hate loves, and pride becomes a worshiper.
O women, help to praise her in somewise.
Humbleness, and the hope that hopeth well,
By speech of hers into the mind are brought,
And who beholds is blessèd oftenwhiles,
The look she hath when she a little smiles
Cannot be said, nor holden in the thought;
'Tis such a new and gracious miracle.

Hafiz

The rose is not the rose unless thou see;
Without good wine, spring is not spring for me.

Without thou tulip cheek, the gracious air
Of gardens and of meadows is not fair.

The rosy limbs, unless I may embrace,
Lose for my longing eyes full half their grace;

Nor does thy scarlet mouth with honey drip
Unless I taste it's honey, lip to lip.

Vainly the cypress in the zephyr sways,
Unless the nightingale be there to praise.

Nothing the mind imagines can be fair,
Except the picture that it makes of her.

Hidden Flame
John Dryden

I FEED a flame within, which so torments me
That it both pains my heart, and yet contents me:
'Tis such a pleasing smart, and I so love it,
That I had rather die than once remove it.

Yet he, for whom I grieve, shall never know it;
My tongue does not betray, nor my eyes show it.
Not a sigh, nor a tear, my pain discloses,
But they fall silently, like dew on roses.

Thus, to prevent my Love from being cruel,
My heart 's the sacrifice, as 'tis the fuel;
And while I suffer this to give him quiet,
My faith rewards my love, though he deny it.

On his eyes will I gaze, and there delight me;
While I conceal my love no frown can fright me.
To be more happy I dare not aspire,
Nor can I fall more low, mounting no higher.

The Infinite
Giacomo Leopardi

I always loved this solitary hill,
This ledge as well, which takes so large a share
Of the far-flung horizon from my view;
But seated here, in contemplation lost,
My thought discovers vaster space beyond,
Supernal silence and unfathomed peace;
Almost I am afraid; then, since I hear
The murmur of the wind among the leaves,
I match that infinite calm unto this sound
And with my mind embrace eternity,
The vivid, speaking present and dead past;
In such immensity my spirit drowns,
And sweet to me is shipwreck in this sea.

Congratulations to James and Top Gear on their National TV award.

Sorry James,

On the loss of Fusker
------------------------
Tiger bright

whiskers white
velvet paws
unsheathed claws
tongue-washed clean
obsidian sheen.
Mischievous lad
not all bad.
Tuxedo smart
grabbed a heart.
Of the night,

Bye, tiger bright.
---------------------------

Thought I'd bring this back up.

Ode to Fusker May
------------------
"There are two means of refuge from the
miseries of life: music and cats." - Albert Schweitzer

Calling Fusker May, did you know that here today,
Your person just called you a rubbish cat?
Well I thought he had good manners
And was good at playing pianos,
Not to mention using spanners,
But I never thought I'd see him writing that!

Now he knows that you originate from Hammond,
But still a docile creature he expects,
So!, you borrowed the new car,
Well, you didn't take it far,
(Fifi still thinks you're a star), Don't worry puss 'cos nobody suspects!

Big Tom, you're trusty sidekick, has really got him fooled,
Opposite his office window, in that tree,
His wood pigeon disguise,
Gives him cover while he spies,
(Think He needs to test his eyes!),
When He's out, it's up to mischief you can be!

Have you heard about the calendar he's sorting?
He asked Them if They thought it was a goer,
What the Posters had to say
Was that they wanted Fusker May,
Want to see YOU on display,
On their list, poor Him, He came out SO much lower!

You're oh so handsome in your tux; he says you're like a loaf!
And that the only thing you're good at is the jumping!
It's just jealousy I'm thinking,
You can see it when he's blinking,
And you're driving him to drinking,
Take no notice puss, of him, just interrupt him when he's... writing his column.

Elaine x
on March 16, 2010

Love hath so long possessed me for his own

Dante Alighieri

Love hath so long possessed me for his own
And made his lordship so familiar
That he, who at first irked me, is now grown
Unto my heart as its best secrets are.
And thus, when he in such sore wise doth mar
My life that all its strength seems gone from it,
Mine inmost being then feels thoroughly quit
Of anguish, and all evil keeps afar.
Love also gathers to such power in me
That my sighs speak, each one a grievous thing,
Always soliciting
My lady's salutation piteously.
Whenever she beholds me, it is so,
Who is more sweet than any words can show.

Tonight's sunset vapour trails

Forbear , Sir Knight!
Felix Dennis

Forbear Sir Knight! You quest too late,
  (Alas, alack for thee);
No damsels in distress now wait
   On shining chivalry.

Your courtly love, your sword and spur
   Bound Guinevere to woe-
And we have learned to much prefer
   The dragon to his foe.

Ride on to lands where maidens cower
  And revel in their plight:
I am the mistress of this tower -
   I  am my own heart's knight.

The Last Performance
Thomas Hardy

"I am playing my oldest tunes," declared she,
"All the old tunes I know, -
Those I learnt ever so long ago."
- Why she should think just then she'd play them
Silence cloaks like snow.

When I returned from the town at nightfall
Notes continued to pour
As when I had left two hours before:
It's the very last time," she said in closing;
"From now I play no more."

A few morns onward found her fading,
And, as her life outflew,
I thought of her playing her tunes right through;
And I felt she had known of what was coming,
And wondered how she knew.

New Year's Resolutions
------------------------------
I'm giving up, I'm giving up,
but now I'm thinking, what?
A tot of spirits now and then
does not make me a sot!

I gave up smoking years ago,
and my word, was that hard.
I'd smoked my dears for many years,
my insides were well charred!

I'm keeping up the exercise,
so I can keep on treating
myself to yummy chocolate,
besides the salad eating!

So, what is left, oh no, not that,
I couldn't that forgo.
(A man in a tuxedo always raises my libido.)
So that I think, is definitely no!

Well that's it for another year
Giving up's not the solution.
As usual I'll ignore it all,
Yes, that's my resolution!