Hi Marilyne
I use Adapted cutlery and one of them looks like a runcible spoon!

Kelly

Hi Everyone
Another Spike Milligan poem I like.

Soldier Freddy
was never ready,
But! Soldier Neddy,
unlike Freddy
Was always ready
and steady,

That's why,
When Soldier Neddy
Is-outside-Buckingham-Palace-on-guard-in -the-pouring-wind-and-rain-being-steady-and-ready ,
Freddy
is home in beddy.

Kelly - The Mulligan poem is funny, and a real tongue-twister to boot! LOL! It's fun to read a poem that is cleverly written and makes you smile.  I have a witty one by Billy Collins, that I posted a few years ago . . . I'll look for it and post it again.

Geez, I love Billy Collins!  I have two of his books of poetry.

Hi Marilyne
Yes please regarding the poem you have.

Kelly

Here is the Billy Collins poem (non-rhyming) - especially for Tome and Kelly!  


The Country House
          ~ Billy Collins

I wondered about you
when you told me never to leave
a box of wooden, strike-anywhere matches
lying around the house, because the mice
might get into them and start a fire.

But your face was absolutely straight
when you twisted the lid down on the round tin
where the matches, you said, are always stowed.

Who could sleep that night?
Who could whisk away the thought
of the one unlikely mouse,
padding along a cold water pipe
behind the floral wallpaper,
gripping a single wooden match
between the needles of his teeth?

Who could not see him rounding a corner,
the blue tip scratching against a rough-hewn beam,
the sudden flare, and the creature
for one bright, shining moment
suddenly thrust ahead of his time -
now a fire-starter, now a torch-bearer
in a forgotten ritual, little brown druid
illuminating some ancient night.

Who could fail to notice,
lit up in the blazing insulation,
the tiny looks of wonderment on the faces
of his fellow mice, one-time inhabitants
of what once was your house in the country?

Hi Marilyne
Lovely poem

Thank you

Kelly

 A beautiful poem by Kay Ryan.  I kind of relate this to Mother's Day.

THINGS SHOULDN'T BE SO HARD

A life should leave deep tracks:
ruts where she went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space-
however small-
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn't
be so hard.

MIRROR by Mark Strand

A white room and a party going on
and I was standing with some friends
under a large gilt-framed mirror
that tilted slightly forward
over the fireplace.
We were drinking whiskey
and some of us, feeling no pain,
were trying to decide what precise shade of yellow
the setting sun turned our drinks.
I closed my eyes briefly,
then looked up into the mirror;
a woman in a green dress leaned
against the far wall.
She seemed distracted,
the fingers of one hand
fidgeted with her necklace,
and she was staring into the mirrror,
not at me, but past me, into a space
that might be filled by someone
yet to arrive, who at that moment
could be starting the journey
which would lead eventually to her.
Then, suddenly, my friends
said it was time to move on.
This was years ago,
and though I have forgotten
where we went and who we all were,
I still recall that moment of looking up
and seeing the woman stare past me
into a place I could only imagine,
and each time it is with a pang,
as if just then I were stepping
from the depths of the mirror
into that white room, breathless and eager,
only to discover too late
that she is not there.

The Poem-A-Day site where I found this called it "a rueful beauty" by Mark Strand.
It is that.

Tome - I like both poems very much, and will save them to read again and again.

Things Shouldn't Be So Hard, reminded me immediately of my mother.  Long story to tell, so I will spare you. I will just say that my mother left her "mark" in a few places in her house.  I didn't discover those small signs, until after my dad died, (18 years after her passing), when I was cleaning the house to get it ready for selling.  Brought tears to my eyes at the time . . . still does, when I think about it. 

Mirror
Wow, that's a heavy one!  The many choices over a lifetime . . . the missed opportunities, et al.  "The Road Not Taken", by Carl Sandburg, comes to mind.   I'll look for it and post it later.   

Marilyne, I would love to hear the "long story" you mention.  You could email me, and tell me about it.
I simply adore "The Mirror" poem. So many deep meanings all through the poem.

I think how many times I watched my mom go outside to move the hose around to the various flowerbeds and trees.

Another Spike Milligan poem, very funny I thought.

American Detectives
Never remove their hats
When investigating murders
In other people's flats.

P.S. Chinese Tecs
Are far more dreaded!
And they always appear
Bare-headed!

Kelly

Forgetfulness - Billy Collins

The name of the author is the first to go
followed obediently by the title, the plot,
the heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
never even heard of,

as if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
to a little fishing village where there are no phones.

Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
and watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
and even now as you memorize the order of the planets,

something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
the address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.

Whatever it is you are struggling to remember,
it is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.

It has floated away down a dark mythological river
whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.

No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
to look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.   

This is my Favorite Billy Collins.  I found one of the books "Aimless Love".

Oh yes Tome! Forgetfulness, is also my favorite Billy Collins poem!  It definitely speaks to those of us, of a certain age.    I saved a link to a discussion about it on Poemfinder.com/ or similar site? . . . I'll see if I can find it and post it here.

which of his books do you have?

Forgetfulness is a good poem

Kelly

Quote from: Tomereader1 on April 30, 2016, 11:58:00 AM
Hoping Sato was missed by the earthquakes.

I was safe and visited here after a long time. The earthquakes have been in the south of Japan.

Hi Sato
Good to see your post on the poetry board.

Kelly

Tome - I don't have any books by Billy Collins, but would love to have some. (Why didn't I think of that when I was asked what I wanted for Mother's Day?)  I only have collections by poets of yesteryear, like Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sara Teasdale, Christina Rossetti, Ella Wheeler Wilcox. I do like poetry anthologies very much, and used to have a few, but now all are packed away.

Sato, so glad you are okay, and were not near the earthquake area.  My heart goes out to those who were affected.

Marilyne, Billy Collins' poems sometimes are "sneaky".  You're ambling along, and suddenly the ending just hits you in the heart or midsection!  I have ordered two from Thrift Books (one will probably be the other copy I can't find here at home), but c'est la vie!  If you will Google his poem, "The Revenant", you will be sad at the opening line, but will have to laugh out loud at the rest of it.  If we ever wonder what our pets are thinking.

Things Shouldn't Be So Hard, is a favorite of mine and yes it makes me think of my mother.    I can't see her mark on her house (her house is gone to another) but she did leave her marks on my heart and in my brain....I see them when   I do things like she did. 

Tome - I hope we can agree to disagree on The Revenant?  I Googled it, and have to be honest and say that I hated it. Not a shred of humor there for me. Just very discomforting and grim. I would never read it again.

I guess we can agree to disagree on this one, Marilyne.  I've read it several times, and even decided to read it to my hubby, who probably has never had a poem read to him in his adult life.  He laughed so hard, nearly fell out of his recliner, and I laughed till I had tears running down my face!  Takes all kinds, doesn't it?  LOL !  Like I said before, the opening lines were so very sad, but who can say what our dogs are thinking!  Sorry you didn't find anything humorous therein. 
There was a lovely one in this book, that fit right in with Mothers Day on Sunday.  Titled
"The Lanyard".  Google that one.

Tome - Whew!  I'm glad your feelings weren't too badly hurt by my dislike of The Revenant.  We usually agree on most literature and poetry, but occasionally we clash! LOL!  However, we agree once again, on The Lanyard.   That is one of my top three favorite Billy Collins poems. As you said, perfect for Mother's Day!  Here it is for everyone to read and enjoy.

The Lanyard

The other day I was ricocheting slowly
off the blue walls of this room,
moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano,
from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor,
when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word lanyard.

No cookie nibbled by a French novelist
could send one into the past more suddenlyâ€"
a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp
by a deep Adirondack lake
learning how to braid long thin plastic strips
into a lanyard, a gift for my mother.

I had never seen anyone use a lanyard
or wear one, if that's what you did with them,
but that did not keep me from crossing
strand over strand again and again
until I had made a boxy
red and white lanyard for my mother.

She gave me life and milk from her breasts,
and I gave her a lanyard.
She nursed me in many a sick room,
lifted spoons of medicine to my lips,
laid cold face-cloths on my forehead,
and then led me out into the airy light
and taught me to walk and swim,
and I , in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said,
and here is clothing and a good education.
And here is your lanyard, I replied,
which I made with a little help from a counselor.

Here is a breathing body and a beating heart,
strong legs, bones and teeth,
and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered,
and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now,
is a smaller giftâ€"not the worn truth
that you can never repay your mother,
but the rueful admission that when she took
the two-tone lanyard from my hand,
I was as sure as a boy could be
that this useless, worthless thing I wove
out of boredom would be enough to make us even.

Hi Marilyne
A superb poem, thank you for sharing it with us.

kelly

Hi Chocky
Nice poem.

Kelly

Chocky . . well done, and very "Springy"!  You're an excellent poet, and I hope to see more of your work here in the Poetry Corner.

High Flight, was written by John G. Magee on September 3, 1941. He had recently joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, and was sent to Britain, where he flew in a Spitfire squadron and was killed on December 11, 1941. The sonnet above was sent to his parents written on the back of a letter which said, "I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed."

Magee's parents lived in Washington, D.C., at the time of his death, and the sonnet came to the attention of the Librarian of Congress, Archibald MacLeish. He acclaimed Magee, the first poet of the War, and included the poem in an exhibition of, "Poems of Faith and Freedom", at the Library of Congress in February 1942. The poem was then widely reprinted, and the RCAF distributed plaques with the words to all airfields and training stations.

President Ronald Reagan, quoted from the first and last lines in his televised address to the nation after the space shuttle Challenger exploded, January 28, 1986.