Day 45 - Valentine (Carol Ann Duffy)

Valentine by Carol Ann Duffy

 Not a red rose or a satin heart.

 I give you an onion.
 It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
 It promises light
 like the careful undressing of love.

 Here.
 It will blind you with tears
 like a lover.
 It will make your reflection
 a wobbling photo of grief.

 I am trying to be truthful.

 Not a cute card or kissogram.

 I give you an onion.
 Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
 possessive and faithful
 as we are,
 for as long as we are.

 Take it.
 Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
 if you like.
 Lethal.
 Its scent will cling to your fingers,
 cling to your knife.

Finally caught up!

I had abandoned this for a while, but I've just caught up on my posts. I've decided that it is quite a random selection of poems so, starting tomorrow, I'm going to have a theme each week. As tomorrow is Valentines Day the theme will be love. I generally cannot abide Valentine's Day, mostly because I've never managed to be with anyone on that day but also because it's a commercial crapfest. But there are so many poems about the matters of the heart that it seems an ideal opportunity. And I've recently (and quite unexpectedly) started thinking about someone in that way so the poems could be resonant to my situation. Although if that were true they'd probably be love doomed to failure poems!!

Day 44 - I carry your heart with me (EE Cummings)

I carry your heart with me by EE Cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Day 43 - The Subway Piranhas (Edwin Morgan)

The Subway Piranhas by Edwin Morgan

  Did anyone tell you
  that in each subway train
  there is one special seat
  with a small hole in it
  and underneath the seat
  is a tank of piranha-fish
  which have not been fed
  for quite some time.
  The fish become quite agitated
  by the shoogling of the train
  and jump up through the seat.
  The resulting skeletons
  of unlucky passengers
  turn an honest penny
  for the transport executive,
  hanging far and wide
  in medical schools.

Day 42 - For Whom The Bell Tolls (John Donne)

Not technically a poem, but I love this. My mum has a framed poster of it in her toilet so I've been able to recite it from a very young age.

For Whom The Bell Tolls by John Donne

No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; 

every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; 

if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, 

as well as if a Promontorie were, 

as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; 

any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; 

And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee...

Day 41 - The Good-morrow (John Donne)

The Good-morrow by John Donne

 I wonder by my troth, what thou and I
 Did, till we lov'd? Were we not wean'd till then,
 But suck'd on country pleasures, childishly?
 Or snorted we in the seven sleepers' den?
 'Twas so; but this, all pleasures fancies be.
 If ever any beauty I did see,
 Which I desir'd, and got, 'twas but a dream of thee.

 And now good morrow to our waking souls,
 Which watch not one another out of fear;
 For love, all love of other sights controls,
 And makes one little room, an everywhere.
 Let sea-discoverers to new worlds have gone,
 Let maps to other, worlds on worlds have shown,
 Let us possess one world, each hath one, and is one.

 My face in thine eye, thine in mine appears,
 And true plain hearts do in the faces rest;
 Where can we find two better hemispheres,
 Without sharp north, without declining west?
 Whatever dies, was not mix'd equally;
 If our two loves be one, or, thou and I
 Love so alike, that none do slacken, none can die.

Day 40 - Warning (Jenny Joseph)

Warning by Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Day 39 - The Drum (John Scott)

The Drum by John Scott

I hate that drum's discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round:
To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,
And lures from cities and from fields,
To sell their liberty for charms
Of tawdry lace and glitt'ring arms;
And when Ambition's voice commands,
To fight and fall in foreign lands.

I hate that drum's discordant sound,
Parading round, and round, and round:
To me it talks of ravaged plains,
And burning towns and ruin'd swains,
And mangled limbs, and dying groans,
And widow's tears, and orphans moans,
And all that Misery's hand bestows,
To fill a catalogue of woes.

Day 38 - Strawberries (Edwin Morgan)

Strawberries by Edwin Morgan

 There were never strawberries
 like the ones we had
 that sultry afternoon
 sitting on the step
 of the open french window
 facing each other
 your knees held in mine
 the blue plates in our laps
 the strawberries glistening
 in the hot sunlight
 we dipped them in sugar
 looking at each other
 not hurrying the feast
 for one to come
 the empty plates
 laid on the stone together
 with the two forks crossed
 and I bent towards you
 sweet in that air

 in my arms
 abandoned like a child
 from your eager mouth
 the taste of strawberries
 in my memory
 lean back again
 let me love you

 let the sun beat
 on our forgetfulness
 one hour of all
 the heat intense
 and summer lightning
 on the Kilpatrick hills

 let the storm wash the plates

Day 37 - Sonnet 18 (William Shakespeare)

Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:
But thy eternal Summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Day 36 - My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun (Sonnets CXXX) (William Shakespeare)

My Mistress' Eyes are Nothing Like the Sun (Sonnets CXXX) by William Shakespeare

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red than her lips' red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask'd, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound.
I grant I never saw a goddess go:
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground.
And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare
As any she belied with false compare.

Day 35 - Sonnet: Dolce stil novo (Gavin Ewart)

Sonnet: Dolce stil novo by Gavin Ewart

That woman who to me seems most a woman
I do not compare to angels --- or digress on schismatic Popes ---
or exalt above the terrestrial or consider a madonna.
Nor do I search in others for her lineaments,
or wish for Death to free me from desire,
or consider Love an archer; or see her as a Daphne,
fleeing the embraces of Apollo, transformed into a laurel.
I am not lost in the amorous wood of Virgil.

But although I do not rhyme or use the soft Italian,
my love is a strong love, and for a certain person.
Human beings are human; I can see a man might envy
her bath water as it envelops her completely.
That's what my love would like to do; and Petrarch
can take a running jump at himself --- or (perhaps?) agree.

Day 34 - An Irish Airman Foresees His Death (WB Yeats)

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death by WB Yeats

  I know that I shall meet my fate
  Somewhere among the clouds above;
  Those that I fight I do not hate,
  Those that I guard I do not love;
  My country is Kiltartan Cross,
  My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
  No likely end could bring them loss
  Or leave them happier than before.
  Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
  Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
  A lonely impulse of delight
  Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
  I balanced all, brought all to mind,
  The years to come seemed waste of breath,
  A waste of breath the years behind
  In balance with this life, this death.

Day 33 - The Soldier (Rupert Brooke)

The Soldier by Rupert Brooke

  If I should die, think only this of me:
  That there's some corner of a foreign field
  That is for ever England. There shall be
  In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
  A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
  Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
  A body of England's, breathing English air,
  Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

  And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
  A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
  Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
  Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
  And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
  In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

Day 32 - The Horses (Edwin Muir)

The Horses by Edwin Muir

 Barely a twelvemonth after
 The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
 Late in the evening the strange horses came.
 By then we had made our covenant with silence,
 But in the first few days it was so still
 We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
 On the second day
 The radios failed; we turned the knobs, no answer.
 On the third day a warship passed us, headed north,
 Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
 A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
 Nothing. The radios dumb;
 And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
 And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
 All over the world. But now if they should speak,
 If on a sudden they should speak again,
 If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
 We would not listen, we would not let it bring
 That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
 At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
 Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
 Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
 And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
 The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
 They look like dank sea-monsters crouched and waiting.
 We leave them where they are and let them rust:
 "They'll molder away and be like other loam."
 We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
 Long laid aside. We have gone back
 Far past our fathers' land.
 And then, that evening
 Late in the summer the strange horses came.
 We heard a distant tapping on the road,
 A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
 And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
 We saw the heads
 Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
 We had sold our horses in our fathers' time
 To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
 As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield
 Or illustrations in a book of knights.
 We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
 Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
 By an old command to find our whereabouts
 And that long-lost archaic companionship.
 In the first moment we had never a thought
 That they were creatures to be owned and used.
 Among them were some half a dozen colts
 Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
 Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
 Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads,
 But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
 Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.