July Poems

7/25/2012

Poems to share from the Pente Poets.

7/25/2012 10:29:53 am

How Soft the Twilight Falls

The tide is full
the dark sea motionless
how soft the twilight falls
upon this place

soon pink and grey
will turn to violet
the clouds that lie
along the western sky

the gulls have ceased
their squabbling on the rocks
and fishermen with rods
have now come in

day fades to dusk
and timid stars appear
as gently falls the night
for blessed sleep

© J Bandidt 2006

Dee

7/31/2012 01:56:56 pm

Judy, as soon as I started reading this poem I was reminded of Matthew Arnold's poem Dover Beach. It's a favourite of mine. Unlike Arnold's though, this is a very immediate experience of the seashore and it's mood. His is nostalgic and rather sad.
I liked yours very much.

Judy Bandidt link

7/25/2012 10:31:31 am

Hi pente poets

This is a poem I wrote on Norfolk Island a few years ago. Just revisiting it now. The memory is as fresh as ever.

Judy

Brad Drew

7/29/2012 10:12:46 pm

This is also a poem I wrote some years back; about 36 of them, actually. Revisiting is not a bad past-time, so here we are...

PUTNEY BRIDGE

I loved you
oh so well that summer and tonight
a girl stood by me
in rain on Putney Bridge waiting
for a bus and looking
so very much like you.

I almost answered her eye
only she may not have been you
and of that I was afraid.

I stood with your phantom
in two years’ rain
and that last summer’s dim traffic glow
letting first one bus
and then another
go lumbering on
waiting to follow your memory
just a little further.

I sit here still
on an empty bus in an empty London night
while tears of rain
sweep moist-lidded windows, weep
a monsoon of memories
of one still summer’s night

abandoned
to the damp embrace of a steamy bus
in the hissing kiss of wet tires

and Cloverdale Park Nursery seems so very far away.

POSTSCRIPT:
Remembering that something
never was –
Searching that something
never is –
Half-day removed –
still there and starting at visions
in rain-spattered streets.

Brad Drew © 1976 London

Dee

7/31/2012 02:04:18 pm

Brad, What a heart-rending piece! Did I say that about your last one?!! Really though, it's so atmospheric that I feel as if I am in your shoes, standing in the London drizzle. I think many of us can relate to this sad nostalgia of things that might have been.
Like Judy, I too wanted to change placings of words. In the third stanza I desperately wanted to put 'go' at the end of the line to rhyme with ''glow'.
I loved it!

Judy

7/30/2012 07:45:38 am

Hi Brad

Oh, loved this so much! Such wistfulness!

You know, when I read this through (yes, aloud) I wanted to put some of the line endings in a different place. In line 4 I wanted to make 'waiting' begin the next line, and I wanted to make a separate line out of 'in an empty London night' line 19.

One day you must explain to me the reference to Cloverdale Park Nursery.

Judy

July Poems

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