Canto XXXVII

They fle from me that somtyme did me seke
-- Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-1542)

The Oxford Book of English Verse

They fle from me that somtyme did me seke

Tooting Bec - St Anslelms
-- Lewis Robinson

Tooting Bec - St Alselms

Tooting Bec - St Anselms

Poetry is lyrical... reggae tends to be lyrical with a social message.

Subjective Reality

The Novice
-- Michael Lermontov
- Translated by Charles Johnston
(apologies for the mistake in reading - it is an old watchman not a woman - I need glasses)

Narrative Poems by Alexander Pushkin and by Michael Lermontov Translated by Charles Johnston

The Novice - I

taking offence

A Nocturnall upon S Lucies Day
-- John Donne

A Nocturnall upon S Lucies Day

=========
Her death
=========
 
And when his love she died
he barely felt the prick of grief
infected though he was
with well on well of tears –
submerged it found no outlet
(others saw but he was blind)
until he often prayed for her in church
and thus aligned his broken heart and mind.
 
And then he saw in light of day
the reasons that he prayed
the debt of gratitude he owed to her
the elegance she was –
the mystéry why such a light
would shed her grace
on such a fool as him
(fool him and his disgrace).
 
And in the years before he came to church
he lived with heart and mind at odds
and thus his head a dodgem car
which bounced at all contact –
and all the while grief lay submerged
a grief he couldn’t tell
not least because he felt the ebb
but couldn’t see the well.
 
And when he talked of anything
communication failed
in speaking of her death
or just what passed today –
and thus it was her death
shook all (both branch and root)
although he tried to hear and speak
he may as well have been deaf mute.

https://solipsism.robinsoni.net/

Her Death

the girl outside the supermarket
-- Charles Bukowski

The Pleasures of the Damned

the girl outside the supermarket

the screw-game

Sonnet V - Petrarchan

The hunter & the hunted play love’s war,
 and both do see a rapture in the chase,
 with fight or flight a part of human race;
do lover’s games reflect what went before?
Our animal psychology explore,
 and thus persuade that it is not the case,
 that mating’s tooth & claw, as well as grace;
how many psyches, others, selves, do gore?
 True love would mean the lioness & lamb
  lay down together as was prophesied.
   The chance, it seems, recedes as time doth move;
 do modern maps of love but form a sham?
  There’s no intent this century to chide,
   there’s just the modest view things don’t improve.

Sonnet five - Petrarchan

the shower

Sonnet XXIII. On His Deceased Wife

Methought I saw my late espoused Saint
Brought to me like Alcestus from the grave,
Who Jove's great Son to her glad Husband gave,
Rescu'd from death by force though pale and faint.
Mine as whom washt from spot of child-bed taint
Purification in the old Law did save,
And such as yet once more I trust to have
Full sight of her in Heav'n without restraint,
Came vested all in white, pure as her mind:
Her face was veil'd, yet to my fancied sight
Love, sweetness, goodness in her person shin'd
So clear, as in no face with more delight.
But O as to embrace me she enclin'd
I wak'd, she fled, and day brought back my night.

Lewis

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