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If you don't like them, don't read them! One day I'll make a page with some new, new poems. |
Peckwater Quad. January |
A bench seat on the window ledge, recessed in thick old walls.
Down across the raindamp twilight of the square
Breath snorts up through heavy air.
Light from library windows pales the mist and glances
Above the secret harbour, in our room, we think we guide
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January 1983, Christ Church, Oxford. I returned early after Christmas, and, staying with a friend, it seemed as though we had the whole of Christ Church to ourselves. We looked out of an upstairs window in Peckwater Quad and we saw ships in the quadrangle. |
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Starlight, snowflake, dewdrop, shower. Sunshine, rainbow, lovely flower
Fridge Magnet Poems
Other Poems
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Kender du lyden af en knusende hjerte? Det er som lyden af en blad, faldende i vand, Eller som en spurv pa sneen. . |
Do you know the sound of a heart breaking?
It is like the sound of a leaf falling into water, Or like a sparrow on the snow |
Treasures I caught a falling snowflake,
In it’s place a tiny jewell
I have a tiny fragment of tomorrow.
Journal Broken pieces, as the world expands,
The fabric of the sky is wearing thin.
Heaven bites, Hell sings.
The gates of Hell are wide,
The timely death that rescues from a savaging old age
Cuts scar,
Anne Donelly burned to death when she was five,
Our loss is like the rain
And then the years of longing,
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Now you are gone Now you are gone,
Longing overwhelms me
Now you are gone,
It’s human nature to look back
It’s human nature to take fright
And when the moment duly comes,
A Question Are we invested with some special power
The Angel that God sent The fabric of the sky is wearing thin.
“We’re really very sorry,
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Ice like fire bites. Ice like a bluebird sings. Ice like a snowbird soars On snowflake wings. Ice like starlight burns.
Ice like tears melts.
This is Solheimi’s house (alternative). These are his spoons, this is his plate,
This is his toilet, grubby and bare
Out in the garden, Solheimi’s sheep,
This is the rain that falls from the sky,
Be careful with my heart.
This way sadness lies
The frost is hard
Balmedie Here is a man of long ago places,
St. George's Day Off The pale flag forgets
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The very first time I heared your name
The very first time I heared you speak,
The very first time I saw your face
Then I saw the ocean for the every first time,
The very first time you looked at me,
The very first time you held my hand,
He likes to believe
He likes to believe
In fact he’s a man
He’s a man with a heart,
Anne Donelly burned to death when she was five,
Sadness settles
Longing overwhelms me like a flood. Cuts scar burns char death tests faith.
And the ocean howls when it dreams.
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Some micropoems - mainly from twitter @petergknight
You asked me why the sky was blue / I said it was because it loved the sea but knew / The sea, like me, loved you.
Your wild-horse heart vast beating, drumming open space across the ancient galloping sunshine storm-grass days in lightning herds, be calm.
Dreams I've not yet had / move slowly through the long queue. / Each must take its turn. //
Fix a glacier / With long, grey strands of fine thread / And small silver pins
Fix a broken sky / With butterflies and birdsong. / Leave holes for the rain.
The moon passes close / The ocean draws in its breath / and then we move on.
I cut the right palm / Of my ancient fear and press / It against your heart.
One drop, two drops, three. / And so we watch our lives pass. / Time for tea, I think.
Rains break the long drought / The sounds of your voice wake me / You, you are my day.
Fine strong silver thread // arcs dew across first sunlight. // Spider builds a home.
This paper thin skin / Hides my furtive bones but bleeds / where edges break through.
Single pale droplets / That break from this long soft rain / Sound like your footsteps
Take a rainbow. Light one end. Watch it burn across the sky like a 10-second fuse.
Your life was on fire. / Birds used to flock to your heart / To smother the flames.
Most wanted. Most lost. / Jet trail gold across the heart. / Sunset. Sleep now. Dream.
The dream-heaving sea // Turns to the wind and the tide // With most of its heart.
This one he he let go. That one did not work out well. Now these dreams are mine. (second hand dreams are mine)
Small bird to my left. A squirrel under the tree. They don't notice me.
ripples in the sky / from where our fingers touched it: / I still watch for them.
Celebrate the wind, Celebrate the trees, the sea, And the falling rain.
Silence. ... A leaf falls. / I wait, as echoes subside. / ...A second leaf falls.
Shape me the whole world - Shape me the turn of your heart - And write me five words.
I bathe in hot wine - And miss old fashioned goat’s milk. - Life goes on, of course…
This one is special. / It dreams. It knows how to love. / Give this one the Earth //
Unlock your dry heart - to let the haiku slip out - and tell your story.
Crows correct their flight / Each time Earth's heart skips a beat. / We do not notice.
White sky, falling snow / Seventeen blades of pale grass / Minimal design.
Ice burns, pale green flame, // Geese rise to the false-lit dawn. // Arctic aurora.
Let the ocean dream / Let the Earth compose the song / Close your eyes and wait
Last snow long since thawed / White flakes still cover the path / Carpet of petals
Lean, spare, ravaged heart; / icicles on last year’s crop. // Distant train whistle.
Snowflakes on water ~ Silence after a long search ~ A second heart breaks
No more chance today ~ Clouds fold up and steal away ~ Dry heart close your eyes
Beneath open sky / extraordinary rain. / Five drops now. No, six.
Chairs are in the hedge— Bird table is in the pond— We storm towards Spring
The stream meanders – the road alongside runs straight – three crows overhead. #haiku 52'59'08" N 2'14'50" W #geography sense of place
SaltWind in dry eyes~Rain obscures faraway hills~This is the 1st dream~These are the bones of the Earth~This is how we touch the sky
night time sky wears thin ~ tiny holes let light shine in ~ fabric tears at dawn
Sooner or later ~ Each of us loses our way ~ Then we can begin
Cold wind bringing rain ~ Early shoots regret their choice ~ This is not the spring.
Low slanting sunlight ~ overwrites cold memory ~ Promises of Spring
We learnt just one thing, for what it is worth: the people who lived here called it“The Earth”. 100word prompted text http://bit.ly/fo5qod
Yesterday ~ I found gogyohka ~ Now ~ Everything I see ~ Is in five parts.
Petals in the air / March winds rake the avenue / Cherry blossom storm.
Is this dust, or seed? / Ash falling on stony ground. / Burning old notebooks.
Pausing to reflect / The dog calculates his age / In short human years. / Don't run, walk slowly. / Lie still, breathe deeply.
First hi-pitch then low/Gus comes hurtling past full tilt/Doppler-shifting dog/Panting puffs transition thru/shortwave red to slowpitch blue
Moments of quiet / Slow circulating eddies / Propagate down stream. [Wait by the stream. Listen hard.]
Cure this broken day / with shiny drops of birdsong / carried on the wind.
Your heart was my map / But lines bridged across in ink / Cannot reach you now.
New shoots. Hopeful. Small. / Big world, wind and hail, hot sun. / Persevere. Blossom.
5-7-5 If these new avenues of pleasure start / To seem familiar to me they will become mundane / And then the long, slow fall begins.
Oh! Absolute sky. / Turbulent, opaque, sincere. / Hold back cold dark space.
We are given grace ~ To draw an image in sand ~ Between the long tides
Turn the Earth over./ Read the small sign on the back:/ "Use this planet well".
We are all broken./ We WAIT, each in our own way,/ Knowing it or not. // Snow falls like ash from the sky.
You gave me the world. / In the end I enjoyed some. / But most I wasted.
Possessive pronoun / adjective, adjective noun / verb (past tense) noun. End. (eg: My fat, old cat ate fish.)
One note. Then one more. / Then a complete symphony. / A rain storm at night. //
Unexposed image / Cool dark face of the new moon / Shadow on the sky
3 in the morning - finding again I can't sleep - the cat says "breakfast?" - I say: let's write #haiku, then - Cat: no, let's try #gogyohka
Drown once, but slowly. Year by year in such small sips. Slow water-filled breaths .
Six thirty sky light - Orange grading into blue - Sleep grades into life
That was the third day / Raise me from the sea floor now / Let me see the sky. / I must reply to the birds. / I must throw dust to the wind.
Comets trailing words, Interesting packages, tweets stream past like sparks
These are not Haiku, I learn to build the structure, But they have no heart.
I learn the fine words, To pour out over the page, But I have no point.
I learn the story, That would mend your breaking heart, But I’ve only words.
Worn thin like the sky, dark hearts cannot hold their hope. Fortune hides its face.
Fog worn down by rain // Wind breaks up the floating ice // Shore seems far away
Pearl, dressed down in blue ~ fading, sky seems far away. ~ Better, seen with you
Crows do not see us / As most of us do not see / Pieces of the wind.
Long hot summer day / tired frog, big pond, few lillies / a nice cup of tea
Unforgiving rain / Speaks a language we don’t know / But makes clear choices.
The sounds of long grass / are stretched thin across deep air / into which fish leap.
The ice has been wrapped up in sheets of sky that fold so tight against each sharp crevasse that clouds cry out http://twitpic.com/c0cs8a
Bring me a glass jar / to keep my leftover dreams. / It will need no lid; / they don't fly or jump or climb. / They wait patiently for you.
Modest like light rain / You nevertheless persist / And in time prevail.
Flexible like time ~ Oceans are drawn by the tide ~ as my heart by yours. //
From dreams of falling / Trees wake with a sudden start. / We kick home through leaves /... & dream of sleeping.
Rain is its own dream /We cannot see the colours / This is not our sleep //
In dreams the frail sky / pulls taut across high mountains / and the stars shine through. //
Hearts dropped at anchor / Deny quick tides' ease and ebb. / Long love beats slowly.
Pale, flat, sharp-edged moon / embroiders lace in shadows. / Ancient trees, new snow.
Cloudfall, raindrop, stream / Variations on a theme / A dream in pale grey. //
We keep the wilderness behind these doors / and look at it through this small window, here. / We then write #haiku to define our fear.
How are we supposed to sleep against this crushing weight of words these waves of broken verse this storm of beating time in twos and fives?
Time stands still like rain. / The world rises up through it / With increasing haste.
Five mounds of fresh earth. / Stone wings knock on wooden skies. / Angels in boxes. //
Moon draws close the tide / Dolphin heart react with mine / Cresting the same wave
Th birds r like fish ~We, creatures of th seafloor ~Move slowly & blind ~at th mercy of th tide ~Th long slow tide of th heart
Lend me your stale tears / So I may shed them for you / And return them fresh. //
Eggshell dusk blue powder with a fine green mist of brittle silk between the grains, and sounds of water far below. Fresh flakes falling.
Raindrops fall quickly. Clouds remember the ocean. Oceans dream of skies.
Turtles count dark sheep. Sunrise waits while the moon sets. Slow, unlikely dreams.
One small broken dream / Three cups of sugar and dust. / Stir slowly and wait.
Half moon, tall grey sky. Six crooked fence posts, one tree. One more dream set down.http://twitpic.com/bsra0z
Waiting quietly / listening for an echo / I hear your silence //
Trap sunlight in ice. Wait one hundred thousand years. Repeat twice, slowly
Seventeen black crows / Strung tight on telegraph wires / I present my woes //
Crossed wires, angry dawn / Sky pushes past in grey shards / The ground is frozen // http://twitpic.com/bkk77k
One shelf, seven books / three thousand pages or more. / The dreams hide in here. // http://twitpic.com/bkj3u6
Across the same sky / We all fly beneath the moon. / Awake but dreaming. photo: http://twitpic.com/bk5rdx
Unlikely raindrop / One thousand miles of blue sky / Nazca teardrop dream! // Somebody wake me / Somebody wake me //
There is just water / When you melt it to release / the bird that ice was. //
Mown down by F sharps / Staccato from Marshall stacks. / Bullets of music. // Legato we fall.
I shouted in his face, the iambs fell away: "Anapaestic substitution! Tell me WHAT part of THAT do you NOT underSTAND?"
Small lights in the sky / Pretending to be the stars / Burn out silently
The truths are not out there, they are in here, with us; quietly behind that upturned box, or inbetween our tea time and our evening walk.
Both long ago & far away, but closer to me now as you approach the end & I begin, you pass me in the doorway with your eyes turned down.
My hands, far away, reach out for yours, further still. Dreaming straight and fast. //
Haiku Disorder/ Noticing crows in the snow/ Is the 1st symptom./ Next will come cherryblossom./ Finally frogs beneath reeds.
Higgs Boson ripples / Mass through a wide field moving / Like wind through deep corn.
Ah, rosy like the dawn while buzzards and a crow debate the merits of the day in yonder copse we steal across the hill pic.twitter.com/kFSXTvFl
ACCÈS INTERDIT / mon cœur, c'est fermé / comme les yeux d'hiver
A crow calls three times. /. Frozen water makes no sound. / Midwinter story.
Searching for my (he)art / I fight off these rich visions / and wish for silence.
Are you in your box? / Heart closed, fists clenched, eyes tight shut? / Out here, it's still Spring.
hunch-winged birds shiver / water pauses in its flow / clouds black out the moon.
Here in my pale stone / Admirable gravity / Defeats your warm light... http://bit.ly/fIKBrD
Three clear insights / One butterfly net, woven too coarse. / Life slips away and we awake.
Does the ocean howl / When it leaves the sky behind / Falling, with eyes closed //
Careless fish weave gold / into my green tapestry / dappled by sunlight.
This is not my heart ~ onto which your cold tears splash. ~ Just my memory.
Guiding a small brook / stout beams recall the first ark. / Floods were something then.
Activity 2: // Repeat Activity 1. // This time, do it right!
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The Dust at the bottom of the page.
I dread to sleep for fear I'll dream of you Tonight the sky will cry. |
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