Rhymes or Reason

I have

 

Can't say that I've read any Thomas Hardy. I guess I'll have to. There's Jude the Obscure, the Mayor of Casterbridge, and Tess of the Durbavilles that I know of, and I'm sure there are others as well for my reading list, so I s'pose I'll have to go hunting around to see what I can find.

 

well they are his books he wrote but there are a few [many] forums listed to select from

 

Thanks to your prompting, I've found some of Thomas Hardy's poetry. It's very good, and it inspired me to write the ode below.

Gibbous Moon

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

In light from yonder gibbous moon
the water slowly rises
ships of different sizes
though safely moored both stem and stern
the almanac advises
the tide will turn from ebb to flow
the hour approaches soon

so sleep ye gently while ye may
while creatures of the night
hunt quietly by pale moonlight
to fill their bellies if they might
then creep back into burrows tight
to quietly doze while fleas do bite
as soon will come the day

and when the Sun at last do clear
the downs and hills to East
we'll rise and eat our breaking feast
then on to work like burdened beast
to toil all day while paid the least
until at last our labours ceased
our lives thus catalogue each year

for we have nothing, me and you
unlike the rich who never need
some say they cannot help their greed
for when they grew their souls impeded
starved by fate then led to feed
upon the spoils from earth indeed
they cannot see the harm they do

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

I didn't know whether to end it there, or try to continue on, but decided that on the whole it's more or less finished. So there it is, written and presented on Friday, 13th. For your delectation and delight, or not as the case may be.

 

yes that has definitely got a touch of T. Hardy - the life and toils of the working classes heh - thomas H of course became very rich and lived in a large house with his darling wife living on the top floor [there were probably 3 and he on the ground floor and they hardly spoke despite him falling madly in love with her years before and upon her death he was mortified. Strange man. I'm not sure if his first wife understood him at all?? See if I can find some of my favorites and post them in the other thread - thanks again BJ keep working on it if you desire!!

 

heres the thomas hardy \i was talking about:

The Darkling Thrush
BY THOMAS HARDY
I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

I just love his way of describing the countryside of old england from when he first met emma down in cornwall and the chef fellow pays respect to him down there on one of his shows - he makes me feel that I am right back in those times its quite magical!

 

and this is the first one he wrote about his darling emma whom he later rejected?

he had met her down in Cornwall

Beeny Cliff
March 1870 - March 1913"
I

O the opal and the sapphire of that wandering western sea,
And the woman riding high above with bright hair flapping free—
The woman whom I loved so, and who loyally loved me.

II

The pale mews plained below us, and the waves seemed far away
In a nether sky, engrossed in saying their ceaseless babbling say,
As we laughed light-heartedly aloft on that clear-sunned March day.

III

A little cloud then cloaked us, and there flew an irised rain,
And the Atlantic dyed its levels with a dull misfeatured stain,
And then the sun burst out again, and purples prinked the main.

IV

—Still in all its chasmal beauty bulks old Beeny to the sky,
And shall she and I not go there once again now March is nigh,
And the sweet things said in that March say anew there by and by?

V

Nay. Though still in chasmal beauty looms that wild weird western shore,
The woman now is—elsewhere—whom the ambling pony bore,
And nor knows nor cares for Beeny, and will see it nevermore.

thomas hardy

very sad heh!

 

Yes, I read up about him. Like you say, from rags to riches life, and from Emma to many other women, most of them mistresses it seems. Although after Emma's death he did marry someone else, but by then he was in his 60's I think, so he didn't have the drive or energy to entertain both a wife and a mistress anymore. Not only that, but from what I've read, after Emma died, he was full of remorse for their estrangement, and his second wife must have found it a bit off putting playing second fiddle to a dead woman, whom Hardy had rejected in life, but then clung to the memory of in death.

 

yea that sums him up alright!!

 

Thanks to the cold snap, I looked out today to find the world had a fresh coat of frosting. It set me to thinking of those for whom the world was less forgiving in the cold than I find it for myself, as I sit here in my centrally heated home and look out on the frosty visage. So I wrote this winter poem.

Winter Woes

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The water tumbles o'er the falls
and down the craggy rocks it splashes
freezing ice doth line the edge
along the river's winding course
and does not melt despite the sun's
warm morning rays that bathe the ground
the shining frost that cleans the fields
a pure white carpet yet untrodden
undisturbed the frost abounds

the forest glen is dark and quiet
only footfall echoes here
as silent hunter stalks his prey
and strings an arrow to his bow
but as he does so ears prick up
the eyes go wide and white tail lifts
the grazing doe now springs away
and in a flash she's gone, oh no

another day without a meal
the hunter's hunger gnaws inside
until he kills his wife and bairns
will suffer in the freezing whiteness
so he trudges on and on
through stinging nettles, biting thorns
he needs to fill their hungry tums
he needs to give them all some warmth

with frozen fingers, aching limbs
he pulls his cloak around his shoulders
keeping out the cold he hopes
until he manages to find
a deer or just a pair of coneys
anything whose flesh will warm
the tiny hands and feet and noses
crying from the cold at home

but wait what is that breath I see
a sleeping pair of geese ahead
he notches up a cold hard arrow
pulls his bow and aims with care
then arrow flies and goose falls dead
a second arrow flies as true
and hits the other in the head

so now at last he can go home
with bounty for a winter's feast
the children now will laugh at last
his wife will pluck the birds today
then cook the brace in pot and oven
feathers into covers sewn
for nothing here is thrown away
the meat will last at least a week
until the pot once more is bare
then out he'll go armed with his bow
to hunt what he can find out there

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The cold snap is due to stay all week, but I hope the frost lets up a bit. My missus had to use the hairdryer to thaw out the door lock on her car this morning so that she could go to work. I hope there's no repeat of that tomorrow, or she may end up getting in late. :-(

 

nice one BJ - you seem to have a lilt of TH there? - certainly catches a mood of some times and lifestyle?

 

A never never day

I sat in frangipani glade
the dogs stretched out in midday haze
the seaward breeze moved gentle leaves
this never never land can freeze!

the early morns now cool and sharp
Gone is that humid apple tart
but still the sun creeps up the sky
and by midday has drooped the eye

just sit it out till twilight comes
and off shore breezes hum their tunes
the never never freeze at night
need canvas swag till bleak sunlight

the welcome tinge of daylight dawns
as dew hangs heavy, still not warm
the 'billy' lets off steam not dew
and soon cold hands have thawed anew

Fitz © 2023

 

Um, I don't know if this is OK or not, but I've written an erotic poem. It doesn't have any rude words in it, so I s'pose it should be alright to post it here. Anyway, here it is.

Remembering

-----------------------------------------------------------

With china doll-like clear white skin
she smoothly moves from side to side
her arms reach out, legs akimbo
smiles and whispers words of love
seduction guides her swaying hips

you move in closer till you hear
her breathing softly, slowly sighing
soon you know you'll both be feeling
heat from passions slowly growing
into something you both need

to feel each other's presence near
to watch each other's pupils grow
her arms now reach to pull you close
with rising passion you grow bolder
any second now you'll hold

the pretty face with eyes so bright
the flowing hair that falls so free
she's lying back now open wide
she wants you, needs you here inside
this place where raging passions hide

a secret moment you both share
a tryst between now entwined lovers
drawn together from afar
to touch and feel and warm the other
avidity inflames desire

the heat is rising as you move
and soon your skin is glowing bright
the beads of sweat now start to drip
from brow and chin, from breast and hip
and movement smooth and ever flowing

nature's rhythm now is driving
lust and passion must arise
ever climbing higher still
as primal urges coalesce
to push and pull with supple grace

until the beast with two backs thrashes
crashes like exploding glass
shooting shards of life take flight
as though this moment is its last
till finally it gasps and shudders

falls like death into the void
where lovers now relax unwound
and lie as one compleat and sated
heat and pressure now translated
into something so profound

-----------------------------------------------------------

Saturn's day tomorrow, then Sun's day after that. Think I'll just relax and let them get on with it.

 

wow - left nothing for the imagination there! very good and very seductive - yes I can just about remember my own events that clear!! we all learn our own style of prose and poetry etc and if it works for you then good we don't need to pander to the public - these can simple be affairs of the heart.

 

It was an amalgam of various memories from times gone by. Not all of the events in the poem concern just one person, but something from each of them left their mark for me to pull out of the ether and throw untidily at the page.

As to the style of prose. That's still a hangover from Thomas Hardy's way of not rhyming things directly, mixed with my own blunderbus approach to the use of the English language to try and get a thought or feeling out of my head and onto the screen.

I don't know about you, but I find that once I've expunged it from my psyche I can happily forget about it altogether. As though the sheer act of writing it down is enough to absolve me of the sin of thinking it. A bit like going to a confessional and being given hail mary's by a priest. They give the ex-sinner a boost in morale, and a lightness of being that can only be obtained by cleansing the soul of all the burdens piled onto it by our little daily wrongdoings. So that's poetry for me, whatever form it takes, the impetus is there to sweep away the misery of existence by reaffirming my ability to express in the only language I know, the meanings I can glean of life, love and the universe. The ultimate answer '42'.