Scraps of rhyme .....

[Thorgrimm Halfdane]

One to ponder on.



We Are Accepting.

We loosen our grip,
We open our hand,
We are accepting.

In our empty hand
We feel the shape
Of simple eternity.

It nestles there;
We hold it gently,
We are accepting.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Michael Leunig - Poems 1972-2002.

:)T.

[Thorgrimm Halfdane]

Just a little more of the 'Banjo' to go on with ...

DAYLIGHT IS DYING


THE DAYLIGHT is dying
Away in the west,
The wild birds are flying
In silence to rest;
In leafage and frondage
Where shadows are deep,
They pass to its bondage—
The kingdom of sleep.

And watched in their sleeping
By stars in the height,
They rest in your keeping,
Oh, wonderful night.
When night doth her glories
Of starshine unfold,
’Tis then that the stories
Of bush-land are told.

Unnumbered I hold them
In memories bright,
But who could unfold them,
Or read them aright?
Beyond all denials
The stars in their glories
The breeze in the myalls
Are part of these stories.

The waving of grasses,
The song of the river
That sings as it passes
For ever and ever,
The hobble-chains’ rattle,
The calling of birds,
The lowing of cattle
Must blend with the words.

Without these, indeed, you
Would find it ere long,
As though I should read you
The words of a song
That lamely would linger
When lacking the rune,
The voice of the singer,
The lilt of the tune.

But, as one half-hearing
An old-time refrain,
With memory clearing,
Recalls it again,
These tales, roughly wrought of
The bush and its ways,
May call back a thought of
The wandering days,

And, blending with each
In the memories that throng,
There haply shall reach
You some echo of song.
~~~~

Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Paterson
- The Man From Snowy River and Other Verses

:)T.

[Halethala]

All three . . so lovely, Thor . . I love the rythmn of the Banjo piece . .
And now, one I heard set to song tonight . .

If music be the food of love,
Sing on till I am fill'd with joy;
For then my list'ning soul you move
To pleasures that can never cloy.
Your eyes, your mien, your tongue declare
That you are music ev'rywhere.
Pleasures invade both eye and ear,
So fierce the transports are, they wound,
And all my senses feasted are,
Tho' yet the treat is only sound,
Sure I must perish by your charms,
Unless you save me in your arms.

Authored by Colonel Henry Heveningham, but of course, the first line by Shakespeare . .

[Thorgrimm Halfdane]

Just the other day, I was asked why Australia is sometimes called the 'Land of the Rainbow Gold', maybe this poem goes some of the way towards explaining it.

THE COLOURS OF LIGHT.

This is not easy to understand
For you that come from a distant land
Where all the colours are low in pitch -
Deep purples, emeralds deep and rich,
Where autumn's flaming and summer's green -
Here is a beauty you have not seen.

All is pitched in a higher key,
Lilac, topaz, and ivory,
Palest jade-green and pale clear blue
Like aquamarines that the sun shines through,
Golds and silvers, we have at will -
Silver and gold on each plain and hill,
Silver-green of the myall leaves,
Tawny gold of the garnered sheaves,
Silver rivers that silent slide,
Golden sands by the water-side,

Golden wattle, and golden broom,
Silver stars of the rosewood bloom;
Amber sunshine, and smoke-blue shade:
Opal colours that glow and fade;
On the gold of the upland grass
Blue cloud-shadows that swiftly pass;
Wood-smoke blown in an azure mist;
Hills of tenuous amethyst. . .

Oft the colours are pitched so high
The deepest note is the cobalt sky;
We have to wait till the sunset comes
For shades that feel like the beat of drums -
Or like organ notes in their rise and fall -
Purple and orange and cardinal,
Or the peacock-green that turns soft and slow
To peacock-blue as the great stars show . . .

Sugar-gum boles flushed to peach-blow pink;
Blue-gums, tall at the clearing's brink;
Ivory pillars, their smooth fine slope
Dappled with delicate heliotrope;
Grey of the twisted mulga-roots;
Golden-bronze of the budding shoots;
Tints of the lichens that cling and spread,
Nile-green, primrose, and palest red . . .

Sheen of the bronze-wing; blue of the crane;
Fawn and pearl of the lyrebird's train;
Cream of the plover; grey of the dove -
These are the hues of the land I love.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

by Dorothea Mackeller


:)T.

[Pensive]

~sneaks in for a much needed fix~...THANK you...

[Thorgrimm Halfdane]

FOR A SON.

Wind in the trees, sighing,
A dog’s howl in the night, crying.

Shadows and memories rise up, unbidden,
A sense that something is missing, hidden.

An inarticulate heart, aching,
With indefinable pain, breaking.

The distance has widened, thoughts turning,
To yesterdays ungrasped, a yearning.

They come in the night, inseeping,
And pry at my mind, doubts creeping.

That I have failed somehow, resounding,
Have I done what was right, pounding.

You’ve grown into manhood, time passes,
Gone are the schooldays, the classes.

I must let you go, as I ought to,
You’ve your own duties now, a daughter.

All things must end, ways parting,
Your new life is ahead, just starting.

Words spoken deeds done, I’d rather,
You remember me kindly, your father.

:)T.

[Thorgrimm Halfdane]

Just for a bit of a change of pace, here are a couple of short poems by Spike Milligan.

On observing a lone eagle in the sky from a trench in Tunisia

A bird a'flight
Her wings spread wide
The soul of a man
With his bonds untied
Beyond the plough
The spade, the hod,
The bird flies,
In the face of God.
Yet we with reason
Bright as day
Forever tread
An earthbound clay.

Tunisia 1943

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2B or not 2B

When I was small and five
I found a pencil sharpener alive!
He lay in lonely grasses
Looking for work
I bought a pencil for him
He ate and ate until all that was
Left was a pile of wood dust.
It was the happiest pencil sharpener
I ever had.

From - Small dreams of a Scorpion by Spike Milligan

[Thorgrimm Halfdane]

I was just browsing through an old book of poems when I came across this one which I would like to share with you all.

HE wishes for the cloths of heaven.

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths,
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

- William Butler Yeats.

There was something about it that struck a chord within me.

:)T.

[Dream Loxley]

One of my all time favourites..... thankyou Thor.

[Halethala]

*Smiles softly* Yes, it does ring with familiarity . .

[Thorgrimm Halfdane]

The following is not a piece of poetry but it is one from my favourite stories of the Australian Bush. It was first published in 1946, so some of wording may seem a little strange.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Champion Bullock Driver.

We were sitting outside old Tallwood cattle-station, in our white moleskin trousers, elastic-side boots, and cabbage-tree hats, watching two stockmen shoe a very wild brumby mare. We were all slaves to the saddle and bridle, and there was nothing too heavy or hard. The boss squatted on a new four-rail fence. There were twenty panels of this fence, strong iron bark post-and-rails. The first rails were mortised into a big iron-bark tree, and there were four No. 8 wires twisted around the butt, passed through the posts and strained very tightly to the big strainer at the other end.
As though he had dropped out of the sky there appeared on the scene a very smart-looking man carrying a red-blanket swag, a water-bag, tucker-bag, and billycan. He put them down and said, “Is the boss about?”
We all pointed to the man on the fence. The new chap took his pipe out of his mouth and walked up, a bit shy-like, and said,
“Is there any chance of a job, boss?”
“What can you do?” asked the boss.
“Well, anything amongst stock. You can’t put me wrong.”
“Can you ride a buckjumper?”
“Pretty good,” said the young man.
“Can you scrub-dash – I mean, can you catch cattle in timber on a good horse before they’re knocked up?”
“Hold my own,” said the young man.
“Have you got a good flow of language?”
The young man hesitated awhile before answering this question. So the boss said,
“I mean, can you drive a rowdy team of bullocks?”
“Just into my hand,” said the young man.
The boss jumped down off the fence.
“Look here,” he said, “It’s no good you telling me you can drive a team of bullock if you can’t.”
And pointing to a little grave-yard he added,
“Do you see that little cemetery over there?”
The young man pulled his hat down over his eye, looked across, and said, “Yes.”
“Well,” continued the boss, “ there are sixteen bullock-drivers lying there. They came here to drive this team of mine.”
I watched the young man’s face when the boss said that to see if he would flinch; but a little smile broke away from the corner of his mouth, curled around his cheek and disappeared in his ear hole, and as the effect died away he said,
“They won’t put me there.”
“I don’t know so much about that,” said the boss.
“I’ll give you a trial,” the young man suggested.
“It would take too long to muster the bullocks,” said the boss. “But take that bullock-whip there” – it was standing near the big ironbark – “and say, for instance, eight panels of that fence are sixteen bullocks, show me how you would start up the team.”
“Right,” said the young man.
Walking over he picked up the big bullock-whip and very carefully examined it to see how it was fastened to the handle. Then he ran his hand down along the whip, examining it as though he were searching for a broken link in a chain. Then he looked closely to see how the fall was fastened to the whip. After that he stood back and swung it around and gave a cheer.
First he threw the whip up to the leaders, and then threw it back to the polers. He stepped in as though to dig the near-side pin-bullock under the arm with the handle of the whip, then stepped back and swung the big bullock whip around. He kept on talking, and the whip kept on cracking until a little flame ran right along the top of the fence.
And he kept on talking and the whip kept on cracking until the phantom forms of sixteen bullocks appeared along the fence – blues, black and brindles. And he kept on talking and the whip kept on cracking till the phantom forms of sixteen bullock-drivers appeared on the scene. And they kept on talking and their whips kept on cracking till the fence started to walk on, and pulled the big ironbark tree down.
“That will do,” said the boss.
“Not a bit of it,” said the young man, “where’s your woodheap?”
We all pointed to the woodheap near the old bark kitchen.
And they kept on talking and their whips kept on cracking till they made the fence pull the tree right up to the woodheap.
We were all sitting round on the limbs of the tree, and the young man was talking to the boss, and we felt sure he would get the job, when the boss called out,
“Get the fencing gear lads, and put that fence up again.”
“Excuse me for interrupting, boss,” said the young man, “but would you like to see how I back a team of bullocks?”
“Yes I would,” said the boss.
So the young man walked over and picked up the big bullock whip again. He swung it around and called out,
“Now then, boys, all together!”
And the phantom forms of the sixteen bullock-drivers appeared on the scene again; and they kept on talking and their whips kept on cracking, till every post and rail burst out into flame, and when the flame cleared away each post and rail backed into its place, and the phantom forms of the sixteen bullock-drivers saluted the young man, then bowed and backed, and bowed and backed right into their graves, recognising him as the champion bullock driver.

L. Skuthorpe

:)T.

[Pensive]

Just recently wrote a couple more...my dear friend Jenna so loves the sunrise so had to write one for her...and Amyra loves to watch another day fade into a sunset so couldn't leave her out...

A New Day

As another dusk fades
A new dawn is born
The starry sky sleeps
As we welcome another morn

We go from darkness into light
As nights become days
The sun she will warm and guide us
With the warmth and brightness of her rays

The horizon is now painted
With a soft warm glow
The colors of mother natures’ palette
Continues to change and grow

With each new sunrise
New dreams are born
Make everyday special
And something to be adorn

Let us bask in the splendor
Of another glorious day
Give thanks to the lord above
As we kneel to pray


Dusk

The horizon awaits
Its nightly kiss from the sun
A vast array of color
Second to none

A splendor to unfold
Before our very eyes
A glorious wonderment
Without need to disguise

The subtle change of color
Starts as a soft glow
Many hues of pastels
Their intensity begins to grow

From soft pinks and purples
To bright oranges and reds
Replaced is somber and muted
Now bold and resplendent instead

The picture painted
Lasts but a short time
The memory left behind
Is truly sublime

An awesome display
Of mother natures talent
The only possible explanation
Is surely heaven sent

[Dream Loxley]

Lovely Amyra.........lovely

[Thorgrimm Halfdane]

ANZAC COVE

There's a lonely strech of hillside:
There's a beach asleep and drear:
There's a battered broken fort beside the sea.
There are sunken trampled graves:
And a little rotting pier:
And winding paths that wind unceasingly.

There's a torn and silent valley:
There a tiny rivulet
With some blood upon the stones beside its mouth.
There are lines of buried bones:
There's an unpaid waiting debt:
There's a sound of gentle sobbing in the South.

January 1916
Leon Gellert

ANZAC

By purple hills and opalescent sea
And sunlit leagues of plain they lived, and they
Were summery-hearted all, and life was gay,
And peace was theirs, and love, and liberty.
And when the clarion sounded suddenly,
They went, a rollicky band of boys at play,
Tilted at doom, and there, in Anzac Bay,
Died ... but they taught the world what men there be.
And Anzac now is an enchanted shore;
A tragic splendour, and a holy name;
A deed eternity will still acclaim;
A loss that crowns the victories of yore;
A glittering golden dome for evermore
Shining above the minarets of fame.

Bartlett Adamson.

Lest We Forget

T.

[Thorgrimm Halfdane]

I think my recent trip to Tasmania helped to inspire this poem.

TAWNY FROGMOUTH.

Silent flight on silken wings.
My beak, a wide gap a sudden snap,
Taking insects from the air.
Daytime,
Mottled grey I sit still,
A broken branch my bright eyes shut.
Nightfall,
My drumbeat calls tell all around.
I am hunting.


In case anyone is wondering, there is a pic of this bird among my Holiday snaps (and plenty of info on Google)

:)T.