Poetry by Twebers

[Ben Zwycky]

D'oh! was supposed to be 'cloud' instead of 'sea' in that first verse, Don't know how I managed to type it out wrong like that. Could a friendly mod or admin change it, please?

[David Hayward]

From my troubled youth:

Thoroughly distressed
By every thought of his distress –
Agitated by his failures,
Damned by every thought,
Agitated by his failure
To control his thought –
He wanders into daydream lands
To hide from everyday distress,
Wanders into lands of thought
Wherein he is the best of all;
Then he, in disbelief, does fall,
His strained imagination burst,
Into another land of thought
Wherein he is the worst.
By nerves, by tedium, and thought
That echoes endlessly, and serves
To iterate his sad disgrace –
His failure to be what he ought –
He's driven, place to place.
He does little but to think
And think, and think,
And hurt, and cry,
Walk the streets at pace, or try
To do his Lab. Reports, or learn.
He has no peace, and no respite,
Thinks and daydreams, day and night.

David

[David Hayward]

And from the same time and in the same vein:

Feel the thoughts go round and round
On a mental underground;
Thoughts that speak without a sound,
Thoughts that echo and resound,
Thoughts in which my woes are found;
Thoughts that ever do abound,
Cycling round and round and round.

David

[David Hayward]

It didn't last, though:

Edale, on a windy day;
A hollow, up on Rushup Edge;
A flask of tea, while waiting for a friend:
Where have all my troubles gone,
Which I have suffered for so long,
Which with their thought have passed away:
Edale, on a windy day;
A hollow, up on Rushup Edge;
A flask of tea, while waiting for a friend.

David

[David Hayward]

Sorry about my doggerel:

I'd like to be a poet
But I cannot do it
Very well;
To find a word to rhyme
With each last line
Is hard:
I am no bard.

David

[Cow Poke]

Toidy Doidy Boids
were sittin on a coib
eatin doity woims.

[princesa]

And from the same time and in the same vein:

Feel the thoughts go round and round
On a mental underground;
Thoughts that speak without a sound,
Thoughts that echo and resound,
Thoughts in which my woes are found;
Thoughts that ever do abound,
Cycling round and round and round.

David

this sounds like it would make a great chorus to a song. i like it.

[David Hayward]

Seeking THE answer:

When I ask the question, "Why?",
I sometimes feel I want to cry:
I seek an answer, but instead I get many
To decide between;
And why is "X" any better than "Y"?

David

[David Hayward]

Balanced by:

Vast silence:
I ask – and hear
Vast silence;
Except my voice
Is asking;
And except that
Here is this.
Loneliness –
And gratitude
For plenitude.

David

"It is right to give thanks and praise" -- a traditional response in a service or Mass, and one which strike a chord in me.

[David Hayward]

“Between you and God, let there be a cloud of unknowing; between you and the things of this world, let there be a cloud of forgetting.”
– The anonymous author of “The Cloud of Unknowing.”

When I'm plagued by troubles,
Everything amiss,
I let them drop, and find that
Here is this.

David

[David Hayward]

An image triggered by the language of the Tao Te Ching:

Ten thousand things of everyday –
Leaves on a windy day, scurrying –
Arise and pass away.

David

[arnoldo]

On wintery skies doth fireflies shine
waves of sound ripple down
towering mushrooms sprout o'er ground

[pancreasman]

I have a brain that's made of meat
And I know that you do too,
And from this mound of flesh and blood
Comes all the things we do;
Our thoughts and all our feelings
Our laughter and our rage
And even how you read right now
The words upon this page.
Animals all have them too
Beneath their furry hide
And so it seems a little odd
To serve them lightly fried.

[Dracula Girl]

Death, despair
World unfair
Hopes and dreams
Fleeting seems
Weight to bear
Something screams

[mossrose]

I wrote this in 1988. My son was 12 and my daughter was 9. People kept asking me if we were going to have any more children.

ARROWS

"Children are a gift from God,"
The psalmist wisely says.
"A man who has his quiver full
Is joyful all his days".

There are some arrows in my home.
Look closely at each one.
The first one, strong, and straight, and true,
My oldest child, my son.

Gentle, thoughtful, loving, kind,
His mind as quick as light.
He sees the humour in each day,
His eyes gleam with delight.

And God? Oh, yes, he loves the Lord.
He knows the Fletcher's Son.
He grows each day in faith and love;
For him, the battle's won.

The second arrow you will find
Is smaller, but not less.
My second-born, my woman-child,
My girl of tenderness.

Caring, giving, always sweet,
She shares her life with all.
Her beauty shines from deep within,
Her love holds us in thrall.

She also knows her Maker well.
His love she learned while young.
His name she shares with each and all,
His praises fill her tongue.

But wait! Just two? There are no more?
Is life now dull and sad?
Must there be four, or five, or six
To make our spirits glad?

The Lord has given two to me
To fill my life with joy.
Two arrows are sufficient here,
My girl, and my boy.

May they continue strong and straight,
These arrows, true and fine.
Content to grow far more each day
In God's sweet will divine.