Maltese, perhaps? Said X marks the spot. (9) *

Like tea, we say, is a daily treat.
In boxes, although not on shelves.
It's completely clear in black and white.
Optimistic writers use a pen.
Do you need a clue? It's cryptic.
I am left blank.  Too down.


*Crossword

Not quite Adlestrop

Emerging from a tunnel, the train slows to a gentle halt.
Bare rails alongside are linked by concrete sleepers,
Bearing the word Tarmac: unlikely thought.

Evening sunlight highlights drifting willowherb seeds
Carried on a lack of breeze; bullied by exhaust
From between silent wheels.

Green banks enclose us in leafy isolation
Half-way from there to somewhere else.
Nowhere in particular.

And not even a station sign to inform our location.

Now that April's here........ (Thursday extracts)

Home Thoughts From Abroad

O, to be in England   
Now that April 's there,   
And whoever wakes in England   
Sees, some morning, unaware,   
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf            
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,   
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough   
In England—now!

Robert Browning (1812 - 1889)
Poem dated 1845

Thursday extracts: It's still snowing!

April Snow

by Caroline Spencer

The green was creeping o'er the brown,
The skies dropt bluebirds yesterday;
Again today the snow is down,
And spring a thousand miles away.


Full text here.

Yeah - I know it's still March. But it won't be on Monday.

Thursday extracts: weather

When men were all asleep the snow came flying,

In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled—marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.   London Snow
Robert Bridges 1844–1930

*******************

Seemed fitting. Although the most we've had overnight is three inches. And I'm nowhere near London.

Thursday Extracts: The Days of Philip Larkin

Days
What are days for?
Days are where we live.
They come, they wake us
Time and time over.
They are to be happy in:
Where can we live but days?

Ah, solving that question
Brings the priest and the doctor
In their long coats
Running over the fields.

Philip Larkin
1922–1985

Thursday extracts: Wrong time of year

I walked about on my own, a bit lonely.
Suddenly I saw a whole lot of yellow flowers with long stalks.
They were right by a pond under some trees and the wind was
blowing them about a bit.
They seemed to go on and on, great rows of them.
I realised with one look there were masses of them all
moving about on the wind.
Now, when I'm lying on my bed, with nothing to do or feeling
a bit low, I think about those yellow flowers and it sort of
cheers me up, like.

Jill Streatfield
With apologies to Wordsworth

***********
OK - so I know it's the wrong season. But it's funny. Right? 

Thursday Extracts: On the way to winter

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.

From : That time of year thou mayst in me behold (Sonnet 73) by William Shakespeare 

September

Yesterday I saw a leaf, just one, drift past me as I walked.

It fell to earth, still green, but dry-looking and slightly wrinkled.

An omen of autumn; for while the sun is still bright, it is low in the sky

And it has lost the heat of summer.

Thursday extracts. Ever so portant

Lines and Squares

Whenever I walk in a London street,

I'm ever so careful to watch my feet;
And I keep in the squares,
And the masses of bears,
Who wait at the corners all ready to eat
The sillies who tread on the lines of the street
Go back to their lairs,
And I say to them, "Bears,
Just look how I'm walking in all the squares!"

And the little bears growl to each other, "He's mine,
As soon as he's silly and steps on a line."
And some of the bigger bears try to pretend
That they came round the corner to look for a friend;
And they try to pretend that nobody cares
Whether you walk on the lines or squares.
But only the sillies believe their talk;
It's ever so portant how you walk.
And it's ever so jolly to call out, "Bears,
Just watch me walking in all the squares!"

A A Milne. When We Were Very Young. 1924

*********

More A A Milne. Because, as Pooh would say: "It's that sort of day."
The picture is one of E H Shepard's preparatory drawings for the illustration that went with the poem.

Thursday Extracts: God Speed the Plough

I found this at Battlefield 1403 near Shrewsbury. All the references I can find attribute it to Trad. or Anon.

Thursday extracts: Checking your spelling.

Eye have a spelling chequer,

It came with my Pea Sea.
It plane lee marks four my revue
Miss Steaks I can knot sea.

Eye strike the quays and type a whirred
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am write oar wrong
It tells me straight a weigh.

Eye ran this poem threw it,
Your shore real glad two no.
Its vary polished in its weigh.
My chequer tolled me sew.

A chequer is a bless thing,
It freeze yew lodes of thyme.
It helps me right all stiles of righting,
And aides me when eye rime.

Each frays come posed up on my screen
Eye trussed too bee a joule.
The chequer pours o'er every word
Two cheque sum spelling rule.
 

*********

Taken from Wikipedia, which claims the original was written by Jerrold H. Zar in 1992. Several versions exist. Wiki also claims that modern spell checkers would be able to consider more than pure 'spelling' and realise that a lot of the poem is wrong.  We all know that's not true though, don't we?

Beginning to feel homesick (or should that be sea sick?)

Poster of the Charles W Morgan (a whaling ship) at Mystic Seaport.
I took the photo and the poster resides in my bathroom*

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

*Though the photo was taken while it was propped up on the back of the sofa, so I could get a long enough focus on it.  

More rescued words

There are no dates on the actual writings I have rescued from my old email folders - only the dates of storage. I know this one is older than July 2008 (when it was stashed away) because I know which event in my life it describes.

This one was for you, K!

*********

Love is a disease, they say, and it’s true.
The symptoms are the same.
The faster heart, the sweating palms
The lack of concentration
Could all be flu.
Do I know if I am ill? Or in Love’s sight??
Do past romances tell?
No use depending on old loves
For a clue as my last was
A parasite.

*********

Incidentally - six years on and he's still a keeper!

Scapegoat

Can you hear me?
I’m here.
I know you hear. No?
I need the truth
You knead the truth
So I am nowhere.
Know where.
Not here but where?
I wear myself out
Trying to be heard
By the herd.
I wear your guilt.
You take the gilt
And the gingerbread.
Ill bred. Your head
Held high. Your soul -
Sole-less,
So less than clean.
A fact of which
You’re conscious.
Your conscience.
Out in force
Shouting forth:
Can you hear me?
I’m still here.

Genesis

The year advances and a voice
Inside is saying ’be creative’.
I obey.
The urge to make and do
Among the oldest of Man’s drives.
Eat, sleep, multiply, be safe, create.
Feather your nest for warmth
But choose colour.
Paint your cave with beasts.
Carve the rocks.
Storyteller's muse must be as old
But leaves no trace.
Inside the silence
A tale is forming,
And I would hear.
If only my hands would stop
And let me listen.

*********

The creation bug appears to have trapped me in three dimensions, temporarily. Words are flowing less freely than usual.

An advent calendar of sorts Day 16. (Also a FFF55)

The end of the year is approaching,
And nights are drawing in.
It’s time for presents and stockings,
And cracking the damson gin.

Red robins are heard in the garden
We watch every morning for snow
Wish each other holiday greetings
And watch as smiles light up and glow.

Compliments of the season my readers!

***********
FFF55 is a weekly challenge set by The G-Man. Trot over to his blog to see what others have composed.

Thursday extracts: Beowulf (extracts)

A boat with a ringed neck rode in the haven,
icy, out-eager, the atheling's vessel,
and there they laid out their lord and master,
dealer of wound gold, in the waist of the ship,
in majesty by the mast. A mound of treasures
from far countries was fetched aboard her,
and it is said that no boat was ever more bravely fitted out
with weapons of a warrior, war accoutrement,
swords and body-armour; on his breast were set
treasures and trappings to travel with him
on his far faring into the flood's sway.




But if the fight should take me, you would forward to Hygelac
this best of battle-shirts, that my breast now wears.
The queen of war-coats, it is the bequest of Hrethel
and from the forge of Wayland.


Let Unferth have the blade that I inherited -
this wave-patterned sword of rare hardness.

*********

The eighth century English poem Beowulf is set in the time of the Anglo-Saxons: the time of the Sutton Hoo burial. Similarities exist between the excavated finds and some lines of the poem. In the fanciful tale Beowulf fights a series of monsters to save the kingdom of the Scyldings but there is also a wealth of description about Anglo-Saxon life and customs in the story.

camera obscura

clear view

skewed

inverted

introverted

reflected
far off

from afar

twisted mind

converts reality

truth is

a black wall

a pinhole

admitting light

admitting guilt

in a dark room

I cannot leave

*********

Inspired by the above photo, which appeared in New Scientist a couple of weeks ago. The picture is by Abelardo Morell and shows New York's Central Park, upside down, as revealed by a camera obscura.

Thursday extracts: Which in Henry Reed's case we have not got.

Sorry - I don't have a photo of japonica

I fell in love with this poem when I first studied it at school. As far as I am aware I have never read anything else by Henry Reed, but the phrase 'which in our case we have not got' entered my lexicon and has been used ironically ever since.  I also love the section about easing the spring.

**********

Naming of Parts

To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
          And to-day we have naming of parts.

This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
          Which in our case we have not got.

This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
          Any of them using their finger.

And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
          They call it easing the Spring.

They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
          For to-day we have naming of parts.

Henry Reed. 1942.