The Hills of my Childhood

On the N.Yorkshire Moors – Pen & Ink … WHB

The Hills of my Childhood

 

The hills of my childhood
Mountains to me
Remain in my memory
And still I can see

Their contours throbbing
Against the bright sky
Promising thrills
With every sigh.

I climbed, scrambled upwards
To grasp what they pledged
In heedless delight
My keenness knife-edged.

The summit had beckoned
Becoming my mission
My reason for living
My only ambition.

And as my heart pounded,
As upwards I raced,
It presaged my future,
The world that I faced.

To view from the summit
The expanse of my world
Was a glimpse of hereafter
Forever unfurled.

Advertisements

‘Death’ . . . W.B.Yeats

[  # 98 of My Favourite Short Poems  ]

This poem, ‘Death’, by W.B.Yeats (1865 – 1939} is one of his shortest.   It attempts to contrast the death of of animals, who do not possess such a concept, with the centrality, the significance and the certitude of what death means in the experience of all human beings.   Yeats wrote this poem in 1929 and published it in his 1933 collection, ‘The Winding Stair and Other Poems’. 

Death

Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all;
Many times he died,
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Supersession of breath;
He knows death to the bone –
Man has created death.

 

Author: William Butler Yeats

Night Fears

Photo by Tookapic on Pexels.com

 

The night has its fears,
It is fraught with mistrust;
I lie in a mist,
My mind swathed in dust.

When sleep will not come,
When rest is denied,
My mind is a playground,
Sense cast aside.

Struggling with thoughts,
Unbidden, intense;
A barrage of cares
That hardly make sense.

Then fears invade, 
Not something I sought.
What happened to reason,
To logical thought?

So I wait for the morning,
The return of the light,
To banish the tension 
And put fears to flight. 

Heart’s Journey

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

 

Age has brought no end to loving
Never the torch has shone so bright
Always wishing, always searching, 
Will it last me through the night? 

And when the morning breaks again
Upon those northern heather moors
Will my ageing heart return
Will it still be yours? 

 

 

 

 

My Heart’s Age

My Heart’s Age

Do I know how old my heart is?
Do I know its age?
Has it earned its idyll now, 
Has it burnt its rage?

It must be old, older than me, 
It’s showing signs of abuse;
Perhaps a lighter schedule now, 
Less of the fast and loose.

If only I could follow my heart
And it could read my mind,
I’d live within my dream and leave
My remnant life behind.

 

 

 

‘Trees’ . . . Joyce Kilmer

[  # 99 of My Favourite Short Poems  ]

Tree Roots at Claremont Gardens, Surrey – WHB   ©

 

Trees

By: Joyce Kilmer

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

Notes:  (From Wikipedia):

Joyce Kilmer (born as Alfred Joyce Kilmer; December 6, 1886 – July 30, 1918) was an American writer and poet mainly remembered for a short poem titled “Trees” (1913), which was published in the collection Trees and Other Poems in 1914. Though a prolific poet whose works celebrated the common beauty of the natural world as well as his Roman Catholic religious faith, Kilmer was also a journalist, literary critic, lecturer, and editor. While most of his works are largely unknown, a select few of his poems remain popular and are published frequently in anthologies. Several critics—including both Kilmer’s contemporaries and modern scholars—have disparaged Kilmer’s work as being too simple and overly sentimental, and suggested that his style was far too traditional, even archaic. Many writers, including notably Ogden Nash, have parodied Kilmer’s work and style—as attested by the many parodies of “Trees”.

At the time of his deployment to Europe during World War I, Kilmer was considered the leading American Roman Catholic poet and lecturer of his generation, whom critics often compared to British contemporaries  G.K.Chesterton (1874–1936) and Hilaire Belloc (1870–1953). He enlisted in the New York National Guard and was deployed to France with the  69th Infantry regiment (the famous “Fighting 69th”) in 1917. He was killed by a sniper’s bullet at the Second Battle of the Marne in 1918 at the age of 31. He was married to Aline Murray, also an accomplished poet and author, with whom he had five children.

I Am Roland

Statue of Roland at Metz railway station, France.

I am Roland 
or I have become him
created the myth of Mr Keld
opportunity taken 
I have procured my host’s mind 
now an alien presence
absorbed into this foreign body
diverting thoughts 
rebuilding a past 
guessing at a further future 
a variant stated truth 
inhabiting a different reality
masking neutrality
approval seeking
in a subsumed persona
a manufactured myth
ambushed by his muse
Roland of Roncevaux
reconvened
brandishing Durendal
to fight new battles
forever a mask
behind which to hide 
a second rate hero
his fable exposed
another fiction
masquerading as truth

 

RHS Wisley . . . Summertime

[  Photo Gallery # 103  ]

The Royal Horticultural Society’s garden at Wisley in the English county of Surrey, south of London, is one of four gardens run by the Society.  It may be unseasonal, but my Photo Gallery today takes me back to a visit there in Summertime ten years ago.  Following last week’s photographs of Spring in these gardens I give below some of my photographs taken 4 months later.

What’s In A Name? . . . 3 Limericks

THREE LIMERICKS

Aloysius Archibald Ash

Was considered exceedingly brash

When he said to his mater

You’re getting like pater

I especially like your moustache.

Mister Horatio Hess

Lived his whole life under stress

When he tried to slow down

His continuous frown

Meant his face was a permanent mess

Mister Hieronymus Bosch

Never thought he’d be posh

But his depiction of Hell

Went down very well

And it earned him a great deal of dosh

Le Mot Juste

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

As I sit with pen in hand
Considering what my muse demands,

Oft an idea comes to mind;
So many thoughts are inter-twined.

First a ruling I must make,
What form shall my poem take?

Rondeau, ode, or Villanelle,
Sonnet, haiku, kyrielle?

I’m excited, I am ready,
I’m inspired, feeling heady.

Ah, when the mot juste does occur,
How joyously my line will purr.

But then my thoughts will always turn
To all those words which I shall spurn.

Those rhymes which never quite will fit,
And where those phrases should be split

Have I spelt that word correctly?
I must check it out directly.

Then the punctuation too;
Comma or colon?  Wish I knew.

Capitals to start each line?
Will they add to my design?

Perhaps it’ll prove less nondescript
If I centre all the script.

Can I improve the way it flows?
Better check that I suppose.

Then, of course, must choose a title,
That indeed will be most vital.

Decisions made, about to publish.
Please don’t tell me it’s all RUBBISH.