Above the clouds

How deep the shadows seem to lie in thought (Upon the days of springtime where you dwell) ; Apparently to keep attention caught In traps and snares whose making none can tell. What monsters dare to cast their empty stares When you, in spirit, have no wish to be O’erthrown by shady, truthless, void despairs? [...]

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In memoriam

They say if I but listen to the wind, My soul should speak to me in ways unheard, But felt – as if by touch divine ; and kind,- In ways the noisesome world would make absurd . But as I contemplate this little patch, In which we laid you wrap’t in holy trust, No [...]

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Reasonable rhymes from Vienna

Well, everyone knows how I like Freud.  A straightforward diagnosis My dear Doktor Freud, you must come to my aid, For  disequilibrium makes me quite fade. When I fly in a plane or ride on a bike, A bott.  of best brandy I must first tike! Professorial knowledge, I’ve heard it well said, Is your [...]

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Folded Cross

Now, here’s a poem that captures a paradox for me ; captures it and spots a kind of solution to it.  It is by the poet Jaime, who blogs here and there on matters literary – and to great effect.  This poem concerns the recent discovery of an Anglo- Saxon treasure in Staffordshire.  In particular, [...]

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The way through the woods

The Way through the Woods They shut the road through the woods Seventy years ago. Weather and rain have undone it again, And now you would never know There was once a road through the woods Before they planted the trees. It is underneath the coppice and heath, And the thin anemones. Only the keeper [...]

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Other worlds revisited

I once knew a statistician of international note.  Over a period of four years we used to meet regularly to put the world to rights.  We talked about science, about research, about the nature of knowledge, about cycling, about the weather, about psychology ; in fact, we discussed just about everything because he, being a [...]

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Poetic meaning

An emotion is called such because it calls upon us to do something.  And the presence of an emotion is signified by more or less definite physiological movements which can be felt.  It can be a useful and revealing exercise to note where one feels a particular emotion.  Do you feel it in your legs?  [...]

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That brightsome light

Thy brightsome light, that shines tomorrow’s deeds Into the mindscape that I view today, Ne’er fails to fire the hope in all my needs ; It goads me on when else my will would stray. What mystery, that lantern of the mind, That shows to me the things I would have true! They say the [...]

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Intrusion

You came to me as a blade of light From heaven’s sphere to pierce the night. You sundered solid darkness at a stroke, Dissolved the all-enveloping gloom ; Unwilled the Fates and spread delight. Jamie MacNab

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Farewell

Brave heart, go sweetly to your lasting rest. Before its duty-labour’s finished here, A soul can do so much, and do its best. Then ere it leaves this world it feels the fear And loneliness it must perforce endure Until the weighing of its hours is done. Alone it went when straying from the pure, [...]

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The solitary reaper

from Memorials of a Tour in Scotland, 1803 (Wordsworth) BEHOLD her, single in the field, Yon solitary Highland Lass! Reaping and singing by herself; Stop here, or gently pass! Alone she cuts and binds the grain, And sings a melancholy strain; O listen! for the Vale profound Is overflowing with the sound. No Nightingale did [...]

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Betrayed by love

What price a soul that sways with ease In every happy  passing breeze? What price a heart that seeks to freeze It’s burning, yearning nature? Deeper than soul, let thy spirit fill With Being – steadfast  – not icy will. True hearts can beat yet firmer still Given free adventure. Does Eros infiltrate your world [...]

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Opposites

To those who have been blessed with the ability to see them, the waves and particles that the physicists talk about must seem like things poles apart.  The wave must seem to be the very opposite of a particle.  And yet, I have heard people say that the one is convertible to the other. It’s [...]

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The joys of poetry

I suppose we each have a favourite poem, and maybe several.   We all have our reasons for appointing certain poems as our favourites.  One of my favourites is this, by Robert Browning. Summum  Bonum by Robert Browning. All the breath and the bloom of the year in the bag of one bee : All the [...]

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Awareness of rainbows

Where do the colours of the rainbow come from? Where does so much come from?

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Addressing Robert Burns

Discovering more about Robert Burns than his poems and songs readily suggest.

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The wellspring of forgiveness

Of love and friendship and forgiveness. A poem.

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Finding and making

How happiness is found and made.

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Passing Time

They say we live in passing time.  No doubt, On flows the river, moments’  precious waste Of scarce resource that runs to rot and rout ; Uncontrolled, rushing, bent on maddest haste. Must that machine, which on my wrist did lour, A-put to death each second’s lusty shine? In vasty halls of time I live [...]

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Where was Pride before the Fall?

Where now the Summer that has passed us by, With little thought of bringing us enjoyment? The Sun, as deer in wood, was rudely shy, Too busy with a private entertainment (Far out of sight above the frowning clouds) Than that which ever human hearts desire. On high he played, disdaining cloudy shrouds, Ignoring pleas [...]

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What is poetry?

Nobody has ever defined, for general use, what poetry is.  As was noted in very early writings, a word cannot be defined except for the purposes of a narrow technical discussion.  As Plato said, “Don’t tell me what a word means ; tell me how you use it.”  Dr. Johnson was to come to realize [...]

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