YellowFlower

Poetry

More borrowed lines from the final poem in the YellowFlower trilogy. This is the poem in full.

Astrophel and Stella: 1

by Sir Philip Sydney

—–

Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show,

that she, dear she, might take some pleasure of my pain, –

Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know,

Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain, –

I sought fit words to paint the blackest face of woe;

Studying inventions fine her wits to entertain,

Oft turning others’ leaves, to see if thence would flow

Some fresh and fruitful flowers upon my sunburn’d brain.

But words came halting forth, wanting invention’s stay;

Invention, nature’s child, fled step-dame study’s blows;

And others feet still seemed but strangers in my way.

Thus great with child to speak and hapless in my throws,

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite,

“Fool” said my muse to me, “look in thy heart and write”

——–

Sir Philip Sydney was a 16th Century poet, courtier, scholar and soldier. The above poem was one of a number of sonnets he wrote titled Astrophel and Stella

The Bone Carrier

I sit alone

listening to the absence of life,

held in a grip of semi-hibernation.

I see you time and time again

through defeated eyes,

carrying your cold white bones; proud of your height

that moved with carefree intelligence.

The hooded robe

floating in pools about your feet,

of ghostly beauty and fathomless eyes.

I name each bleach bare bone you carry,

so that one day I can piece you together.

New poem: The Bone Carrier – to READ and COMMENT on this and other poems in the latest collection go to http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com and CLICK on YellowFlower parts 1 and 2

Twelfth Night

“It came o’er my ear like the sweet sound,

that breathes upon a bank of violets,

stealing and giving odour! Enough; no more:

’tis not as sweet now as it was before”

From Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

Howls and Whispers

Howls and Whispers

If love is the ultimate joke

on which our universe turns,

then memory of love is the cruel mistress.

We are haunted by punch-lines of former lovers,

as we make our emasculated crawl into the mine shaft,

like Shakespeare.s messenger

enduring the flirtatious wrath

of Egypt’s last Ptolemy.

The stumbling, humbling final act. A path

pitted with regret and phials of perfumed misfortune,

of poisoned tongues and bloody reckoning.

What is stronger than death? Not love.

When death owns the whole stony earth,

the sensuous rivers, all of space,

and is stronger than hope.

Even our last breath is his,

our last howl or whisper, is his.

Words by Dave Young. Artwork by Dianne Bowell.

To read and post comments go to http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com and CLICK on YellowFlower parts 1 and 2

Natures snake

I believe in beginnings,

not endings.

Endings deceive you as to their nature,

they lie in wait,

as eager as ink,

waiting for words

not yet on the page.

Natures snake,

patrolling the margin

of your senses.

The earthquake telephone call,

the inequity of silence,

the tears for lost Edens.

To read other poems on this website go to http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com and CLICK on YellowFlower – feel free to post a comment.

For updates follow me on Facebook at Dave Young – Good Poetry Licks or Twitter @dy_dave

Manifest

(a poem about doors and the possibility of what lies beyond)

I saw it happen,

or I didn’t.

Behold an open door,

and we are immediately seduced by the possibility of what lies beyond.

Liberation or the disappointment of a mirror world,

roads not taken, people not born,

the flirtation that leads to adultery.

———

Not long after his death.

I saw my father in an empty train carriage. Manifest.

A flick of the peripheral vision.

I saw it happen,

or I didn’t.

The door closed and history remained the same.

This can’t be laid at the page of the writers imagination.

It happens to many.

Was he an intermediate state of being?

How many are tricks of the light?

How many are connected?

How many are in the state they purport to be?

YellowFlower – part 1 of a new collection

YellowFlower – part 1 of a new collection of poems by Dave Young

I hope you can spare the time to visit the website READ and POST a COMMENT at

http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com

“Falling at your feet so that you were able to receive me like a favourite chair”, so begins YellowFlower, pages of poetry and prose influenced by writers loved by my daughter Claire. These pages are dedicated to her.

Contents on Part 1 of YellowFlower are:-

1. Tapestry or Blue

2. Sonnet (Lost in St. Catherine’s Wood)

3. Cross to bear

4. Duende

5. Love in the margin

6. Return of the Carlton Terrace Bard

7. Quatrain

8. Look at me (by Nahida Izzett)

You can follow part 2 of YellowFlower by looking out for updates on Twitter @dy_dave or on my Facebook page at Dave Young – Good Poetry Licks

6:20am

6:20 aah yes 6:20am.

The waking hour.

380 shapeless minutes after midnight.

Here they come, a bleeding trail of bone white curves and straights,

running deep into the colours of my pillow,

the synergetic six, the troubled two, their empty cipher in tow.

My numerical bete noir.

I prepare myself for wakefulness.

The familiar morning curse,

released at the swish of a curtain rail.

A new page

A dark portrait,

A rectangular sky swimming in ink,

the warm musty tang of morning in my mouth.

My heart opens and closes like the red blooms

clinging to my outside wall….

To READ the full poem and leave a COMMENT go to http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com and CLICK on YellowFlower Part 2

Roberta Joan Anderson and the vapour trail

a new poem by Dave Young

You lived for language,

not pressed flowers inside scented pages.

the limb of the cherry blossom tree,

your window on the world.

Reckless brazen in the play of your changing traffic lights.

A vapour trail beautiful and true, suddenly,

without warning, swallowed by the sky.

An artist derailed by circumstance,

and i’m left with an aching why,

and my head above the beach tar

staring at the incoming tide.

To READ the full poem and leave a comment go to http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com and CLICK on YellowFlower Part 2

Click

Click, finger poised…hovering…and

Click you’re the lowest common denominator link bate and

Click you’re swimming in inconspicuous consumption and

Click you’re diving into hastily abandoned underwear and

Click you’re cast in marble by doomed slaves and

Click you’re a monument to doomed ambition.

Oh click…oh click…oh click

To read this and other new poems go to http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com and CLICK on Yellow Flower part 2

Elizabeth Barrett Browning: you have questions to answer

Seduced into your world, gladly,

assignations and trysts,

stolen kisses and silken beds.

How do I love thee let me count the ways.

to the poets we turn,

foraging Browning’s pages,

leafing with eager fingers,

where lovers part, where lovers meet.

I love thee to the depth and breadth and height.

Careless lovers,

navigating a carefree path,

oh careless heart.

I love thee to the level of every days most quiet need,

by sun and candlelight,

blissfully unaware of what fate awaits.

so cruelly you kissed me,

your lips of cold blue steel,

left me screaming in silence,

at cankerous lines,

blurred into shameful shadows before my eyes.

All poems FREE to READ on http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com

CLICK on YellowFlower Part 1 and/or Part 2 and leave a COMMENT

What lips my lips have kissed…

As part of the Heart trilogy I have included “What lips my lips have kissed” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, the American poet and playwright. This poem was a particular favourite of my daughter Claire, the final three lines of the poem being particularly poignant.

To READ the full poem go to http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com and CLICK on YellowFlower Part 2

Loving heart

The exploration and the exhilaration

of boundaries and passion.

The soft give,

the healing of pillow talk.

Barbarity tamed, chaos subdued.

It was love,

like mathematicians and their symbols,

like the poets and their phrases.

A rapture shared,

slave to the whim,

each breath like ancient silk

clinging to skin.

To make comments go to http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com and CLICK on YellowFlower Part 2

YellowFlower Part 2

Welcome to a NEW page on my website: YellowFlower Part 2

The aims of this page are the same as YellowFlower Part 1. A most welcome addition will be the artwork of Teesside Fine Artist Dianne Bowell. Many of her wonderful images will act as an inspiration source/counterpoint to the poems.

You can see a more comprehensive range of Dianne’s artwork by going to http://www.artfinder.com

Dianne’s current exhibition ‘Breaking Down’ is at the Python Gallery, Middlesbrough, Teesside

YellowFlower…so far. Catch up on new poems. Free to read on http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com

“To have this again, just this, just once more, I would sink below autumnal earth and place my right hand in your hand like a shadow”

Take the following by the hand and post a comment 1. Tapestry or Blue 2. Sonnet (lost in St. Catherine’s Wood) 3. Cross to bear 4. Duende 5. Love in the margin 6. Return of the Carlton Terrace Bard 7. Quatrain (3) 8. Look at me (by Nahida Izzat)

Look at me

: Gaza is half children

“Look at me” is a poem by Nahida Izzett, child of Gaza, reflecting the pain and suffering of the recent conflict through young eyes and a poignant reminder that poetry, whether 100 years old or of the present day, can reflect the human cost of war and sadly man’s inhumanity to man.

Look at me by Nahida Izzatt

I would love to write poems about love,

paint rainbows and butterflies,

smell the scent of pink rose buds.

I would love to close my eyes and see children smiling,

no guns pointing at their heads,

no bullets shrieking, no missiles exploding.

Humanity, where are you?

why do you turn your face away?

why do you keep looking the other way?

I am here,

languishing in Gaza’s allyways.

Humanity, look at me,

see me.

There is a dagger in my heart

and I am hurting hurting.

Virginia Woolf

“Every secret of a writer’s soul, every experience of his life is written in his work”

“We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print”

“I thought about unpleasant it is to be locked out, and then how much more unpleasant it would be to be locked in”

Virginia Woolf (1882-1941)

Quatrain (3)

Quatrain (3)

As witness to this brief, divine apparition,

like arrowed sunlight bathed in pure reflection,

your accidental angel suckling at your breast,

i marvel how beauty outside mirrors beauty within.

————————

life in all it’s indecent haste,

renders chaos and brute confusion,

tearing the veil of silence, unaware

the unexpected thud of something falling

————————

The moon vanished, swallowed by clouds,

a thin rain drummed on upturned slate.

Through keyholes and secret openings

a downpouring of uneasy darkness crept.

To READ and POST COMMENTS on the above and more of my latest work go to http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com and CLICK on YellowFlower.

Return of the Carlton Terrace bard

A new poem for the YellowFlower collection FREE to read on my website

Return of the Carlton Terrace bard

All afternoon the heat wavered on the runway of paved squares

up to the steadfast, well braced gate,

clean, solid iron hung in the shadows of the whitewashed arch,

the heave and sweep of the cobbles beyond,

a farewell to sure-footedness…

To READ the full poem and POST COMMENTS go to http://www.daveyoungpoet.wordpress.com and CLICK on YellowFlower

love in the margin

The following poem is a homage to the French writer Marguerite Duras, a dramatist beloved by my daughter Claire, and deals with the immediate aftermath of a doomed love affair.

Love in the margin

She was the land, he was the sea,

and when the sea walls broke,

he infested her land with salt.

—————————————

At night she was naked, with fresh make up, naked,

looking at herself in the full length mirror…

Had she been drinking, had she gone mad,

then suddenly she spoke his name…