The Windhover - Gerard Manley Hopkins

A page from G.M.H.'s journal - June 30th 1864

 I caught this morning morning's minion, king-

      dom of daylight's dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
      Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
      As a skate's heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
      Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird, – the achieve of, the mastery of the thing. 

Brute beauty and valour and act, oh, air, pride, plume, here
      Buckle! AND the fire that breaks from thee then, a billion
Times told lovelier, more dangerous, O my chevalier!

      No wonder of it: shéer plód makes plough down sillion
Shine, and blue-bleak embers, ah my dear,
      Fall, gall themselves, and gash gold-vermilion.

Fever 103 - Sylvia Plath

Irving Feldman said of Plath that she was 'Glamourous with misery...She looms up as our infirm prophet'. Well Feldman, if this reading is anything to go by then I think you might call me a disciple.

Shale - Vona Groarke

What leaves us trembling in an empty house 
is not the moon, my moon-eyed lover. 
Say instead there was no moon 
though for nine nights we stood 
 
on the brow of the hill at midnight 
and saw nothing that was not 
contained in darkness, in the pier light, 
our hands, and our lost house. 
 
Small wonder that we tired of this 
and chose instead to follow the road 
to the back of the island, and broke 
into the lighthouse-keeper’s house. 
 
We found the lower windows boarded up 
and the doors held fast, but one. 
Inside, we followed the drag of light 
through empty rooms of magenta and sky blue. 
 
This house has been decided by the sea. 
These rooms are stones washed over by waves 
and spray from the lighthouse 
by which we undress 
 
to kneel under the skylight. 
Our hands and lips are smeared with blackberries. 
Your skin, my sloe-skinned lover, 
never so sweet, your hand so quiet. 
 
The sea is breaking and unbreaking on the pier. 
You and I are making love 
in the lighthouse-keeper’s house, 
my moon-eyed, dark-eyed, fire-eyed lover. 
 
What leaves us trembling in an empty room 
is not the swell of darkness in our hands, 
or the necklace of shale I made for you 
that has grown warm between us.

An Opening Post

Manuscript of 'Sailing to Byzantium' W.B. Yeats

It remains to be seen whether my decision to start off this blog with a few of my own poems was a good or bad idea. Either way, 'Keeners', 'Lady of the House', and 'The Lamplighters' have all been sent out into the ether. Be kind and I might just be persuaded to share some more of my work. In the meantime however, I will be posting some of my favourite poetry from all sorts of writers to give you a taste of things to come for Ice on a Hot Stove...

The Lamplighters

They stand, two women, and bookend the rod,

wick and tallow basined between them.

Doily trimmed and apron starched,

they dip the flax, hang to dry and dip again.

The roving fattens with a litany of motions;

white with the fineness of the first skimming,

black grains catch the surface between each sinking:

but still the women anoint the tincted skin,

till, wick-snuffed and socket-fitted, the ritual is over.

Somewhere its flame will glaze a room

and the tallow will gutter and smoke black

as it coils towards the bareness of a low ceiling.

Lady of the House

The list of your small provinces was endless

and lost the run of itself by the end.

Southfleet, Heathfield, Eastbourne,

terrace, bungalow and flat.

The low lands and high lands of homes,

a catalogue of short emigrations.

You were Queen of the glebes,

working the paddocks of kitchens,

and stowing the plots of attic graveyards.

Every place was filled to brim and border,

as with each move you stretched the breadth

of your arms through rooms and spanned the walls.

The furniture of your lawns,

the acres of your window pelmets

and the hectares of your bed linen;

I could always recognise your little country.

A skittering of wild strawberries in one front garden,

a trellis of runner beans at the back of another.

You laid on the floor of your flat once and combed the length

of your fingers through the weave of the carpet.

I would put my head to your chest,

hardly able to tell if you were coming or going,

and let the woollen threads of your vest knit into mine,

let my fingers root in yours.

One night I dreamt a wind entered your home,

slubbing the gloss of surfaces with dust,

and covering with shade rooms lamped in gilt.

It filched through porches,

breached windows lost to drapes,

and tore at your rafters.

By morning it had blown its course;

there was no trace of dust-dance on the lino,

no crockery shaken free from the shelf,

and the dried linen still hung from the clothes horse.

As I watched the day break with the weight of itself 

Only a draught was trying your door.

Keeners

She came weeping at the border-hour,

waiting at the wall between field and house.

In the kitchen, the men strained into the dark

beyond the big window, scared for their lives

and counting quiet decades of prayers

between the kettle and the cooker,

while the women washed away dinner,

singing at the plates in the sink as they tidied.

Outside, she heard their echoes and was moved

past the house whose lights glittered like a shrine.