tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8881054030497725613.post5064489153759219962..comments2023-11-03T15:50:56.001+01:00Comments on POET IN RESIDENCE : Wild HorsesGwil Whttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8881054030497725613.post-57035887548141010702009-03-13T18:39:00.000+01:002009-03-13T18:39:00.000+01:00Many thanks for that Dominic. It's a prophetic thi...Many thanks for that Dominic. It's a prophetic thing. Prince Charles reckons we've all only got about 100 months left before 'the end' according to an article in today's free U-Bahn sheet. I'll have to google him and see what he's on about. But a great poem there by Muir. Couldn't find him at the library. Got Jorge Luis Borges 'This Craft of Verse' to compensate!Gwil Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8881054030497725613.post-83655553928979295372009-03-13T18:09:00.000+01:002009-03-13T18:09:00.000+01:00Just doing some cut and paste while talking to Wea...Just doing some cut and paste while talking to Weaver of Grass on the phone here<BR/><BR/>The Horses<BR/> <BR/>Barely a twelvemonth after<BR/>The seven days war that put the world to sleep,<BR/>Late in the evening the strange horses came.<BR/>By then we had made our covenant with silence,<BR/>But in the first few days it was so still<BR/>We listened to our breathing and were afraid.<BR/>On the second day<BR/>The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.<BR/>On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,<BR/>Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day<BR/>A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter<BR/>Nothing. The radios dumb;<BR/>And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,<BR/>And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms<BR/>All over the world. But now if they should speak,<BR/>If on a sudden they should speak again,<BR/>If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,<BR/>We would not listen, we would not let it bring<BR/>That old bad world that swallowed its children quick<BR/>At one great gulp. We would not have it again.<BR/>Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,<BR/>Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,<BR/>And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.<BR/>The tractors lie about our fields; at evening<BR/>They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.<BR/>We leave them where they are and let them rust:<BR/>'They'll molder away and be like other loam.'<BR/>We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,<BR/>Long laid aside. We have gone back<BR/>Far past our fathers' land.<BR/>And then, that evening<BR/>Late in the summer the strange horses came.<BR/>We heard a distant tapping on the road,<BR/>A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again<BR/>And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.<BR/>We saw the heads<BR/>Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.<BR/>We had sold our horses in our fathers' time<BR/>To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us<BR/>As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.<BR/>Or illustrations in a book of knights.<BR/>We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,<BR/>Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent<BR/>By an old command to find our whereabouts<BR/>And that long-lost archaic companionship.<BR/>In the first moment we had never a thought<BR/>That they were creatures to be owned and used.<BR/>Among them were some half a dozen colts<BR/>Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,<BR/>Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.<BR/>Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads<BR/>But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.<BR/>Our life is changed; their coming our beginning.<BR/><BR/>Edwin MuirDominic Rivronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02618013365521035400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8881054030497725613.post-65209695966795353772009-03-13T08:14:00.000+01:002009-03-13T08:14:00.000+01:00Dominic, I haven't read Muir's book. I'll put it o...Dominic, I haven't read Muir's book. I'll put it on my list as I'm going to the library later today to look for Name of the Rose. This is because in April I'm going on a conducted tour through the Abbey at Melk which is where the action takes place. I have seen the film of Name of the Rose but never read the book.<BR/>John, glad you enjoyed them. I think it's a pity that poetry magazines always insist on this 'never published elsewhere rule' but I understand why they do it. If I was an editor I think I'd modify it to 3 years or so.Gwil Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8881054030497725613.post-75376153142521086402009-03-13T08:07:00.000+01:002009-03-13T08:07:00.000+01:00Jinksy, have you read the quote currently at the h...Jinksy, have you read the quote currently at the header of this page...now that is really erotic poetry, isn't it?Gwil Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8881054030497725613.post-6498504197569046262009-03-13T00:06:00.000+01:002009-03-13T00:06:00.000+01:00wonderful group of poemsjohnwonderful group of poems<BR/>johnJohn McDonaldhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02306609410526737715noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8881054030497725613.post-77629505998680812852009-03-12T23:48:00.000+01:002009-03-12T23:48:00.000+01:00I enjoyed this. (And it got me thinking of -and re...I enjoyed this. (And it got me thinking of -and rereading- Edwin Muir's The Horses).Dominic Rivronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02618013365521035400noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8881054030497725613.post-74008153177058907942009-03-12T22:21:00.000+01:002009-03-12T22:21:00.000+01:00jinksy, you are on the tright track, the erotic ev...jinksy, you are on the tright track, the erotic events and the newspaper article described are in fact true, and the church is the Vienna Votivkirche built in no parish and in a constant state of repair, which was erected to commemorate a more or less fictitious 'heroic' incident which was blown up out of all proprtion to boost the credentials of the heir to the Austrian throne and to make schoolchildren more gullible if that were possible, it's here today because of the increasing number of young girls now wandering into the oldest profession as a result of the ecomonomic crisis - so yes, it's valid. No need for a shrink I hope!Gwil Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03305768121713053837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8881054030497725613.post-12565887341955963362009-03-12T20:02:00.000+01:002009-03-12T20:02:00.000+01:00God help me - this was an erotic, wishful thinking...God help me - this was an erotic, wishful thinking dream, as far as I could tell? Had I better go visit a shrink?Jinksyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01686101468214361004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8881054030497725613.post-19632718599679338952009-03-12T19:35:00.000+01:002009-03-12T19:35:00.000+01:00Now that I have got to your comments page I am not...Now that I have got to your comments page I am not sure what to say. I have read your poem three times - some lines I love - swimming-pool blue eyes - wonderful. It conjures up such pictures, yet I am not sure of what I am reading. Shall now go and read it again, safe in the knowledge that my Honda Jazz is not going to be attacked by a marten be it stone or pine. Thanks.The Weaver of Grasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13947971556343746883noreply@blogger.com