National Poetry Month #30

 ...I didn't realise until l just now, that choosing poetry for the penultimate night might be a difficult task. The next-to-last of anything its significant, after all. 

So much to say; so much for poetry to reflect. So many poems, so little time/space/inclination of Campfire visitors to persevere. Am I underestimating you? I really don't think so. After all, you probably have work tomorrow. At least skim read the titles.

Nevertheless, after another dose of Larkin's realism, I'll try to be positive.

Sad Steps by Philip Larkin

Groping back to bed after a piss

I part thick curtains, and am startled by   

The rapid clouds, the moon’s cleanliness.

Four o’clock: wedge-shadowed gardens lie   

Under a cavernous, a wind-picked sky.   

There’s something laughable about this,

The way the moon dashes through clouds that blow   

Loosely as cannon-smoke to stand apart   

(Stone-coloured light sharpening the roofs below)

High and preposterous and separate—   

Lozenge of love! Medallion of art!

O wolves of memory! Immensements! No,

One shivers slightly, looking up there.

The hardness and the brightness and the plain   

Far-reaching singleness of that wide stare

Is a reminder of the strength and pain   

Of being young; that it can’t come again,   

But is for others undiminished somewhere.

...........................................................

Loft By Michael Dransfield

(for Hilary)

Sometime in the night I stir, rain

has been falling and darker than

evening is the sound of overspilling

water from the roof. two pairs of

jeans move slightly with a breeze

from the window. traffic. in the button

hole of my coat the yellow of a daisy.

thunder. lightning is a bruise of pale

havoc around my eye's coast, and my arm, or

hers, draws in under a blanket from

the first morning of winter.

...........................................................

Everything Is Going To Be All Right by Derek Mahon

How should I not be glad to contemplate

the clouds clearing beyond the dormer window

and a high tide reflected on the ceiling?

There will be dying, there will be dying,

but there is no need to go into that.

The lines flow from the hand unbidden

and the hidden source is the watchful heart.

The sun rises in spite of everything

and the far cities are beautiful and bright.

I lie here in a riot of sunlight

watching the day break and the clouds flying.

Everything is going to be all right.

...........................................................

The day ahead by Thomas a Kempis

Who can tell what a day might bring?

Therefore, gracious God,

cause me to live every day

as if it were to be my last,

for I know not but that it may be such.

Cause me to live now

as I shall wish I had done

when I come to die.

...........................................................

from Darklight by Adrienne Rich

II

The heat leaves the walls at last

and the breeze comes

or seems to come, off water

or off the half-finished moon

her silver roughened by a dark blue rag

this is the ancient hour

between light and dark, work and rest

earthly tracks and star-trails

the last willed act of the day

and the night's first dream

If you could have this hour

for the last hour of your life.

...........................................................

I am learning to abandon the world by Linda Pastan

I am learning to abandon the world

before it can abandon me.

Already I have given up the moon

and snow, closing  my shades

against the claims of white.

And the world has taken

my father, my friends.

I have given up melodic lines of hills,

moving to a flat, tuneless landscape.

And every night I give my body up

limb by limb, working upwards

across bone, towards the heart.

But morning comes with small

reprieves of coffee and birdsong.

A tree outside the window

which was simply shadow moments ago

takes back its branches twig

by leafy twig.

And as I take my body back

the sun lays its warm muzzle on my lap

as if to make amends.

...........................................................

I could go on, but it's time you began searching out poems yourselves. A few of you have passed some on to me. I have already ordered Jack Gilbert's Collected Poems, though it costs a fortune! it's all worth it.

Until tomorrow.