Crossley-Holland: "Comfort"

COMFORT

Who said anything about comfort?
Those syllables do not rhyme
with zinc slakes or ice-bright sky.
The sea is grinding her spears.
Up creeks and gullies, over groynes
the black tide surges
and the hag wind rides her.
In the bleak forest on the staithe
rigging clacks and chitters.

Little but memory for company,
wild geese, swans whooping,
but no urbanity no
gossip prejudice bitterness sham.
In London I dream of these harsh folds,
the sea's slam, the light's eagle eye,
and here again I draw
this place -- hair-shirt, dear cloak --
around such infirmities.

--Kevin Crossley-Holland

Nick Drake's "Time Has Told Me"

TIME HAS TOLD ME

Time has told me
You're a rare rare find
A troubled cure
For a troubled mind.

And time has told me
Not to ask for more
Someday our ocean
Will find its shore.

So I`ll leave the ways that are making me be
What I really don't want to be
Leave the ways that are making me love
What I really don't want to love.

Time has told me
You came with the dawn
A soul with no footprint
A rose with no thorn.

Your tears they tell me
There's really no way
Of ending your troubles
With things you can say.

And time will tell you
To stay by my side
To keep on trying
'til there's no more to hide.

So leave the ways that are making you be
What you really don't want to be
Leave the ways that are making you love
What you really don't want to love.

Time has told me
You're a rare rare find
A troubled cure
For a troubled mind.

And time has told me
Not to ask for more
For some day our ocean
Will find its shore.

--Nick Drake


Seek out Nick Drake's CD Five Leaves Left for the original song, from which I have taken these lyrics. Gorgeous music too.

Survey: Two Views

"Oh Malachi Malarkey" (Poetry)

OH MALACHI MALARKEY

When the ropes of reason slacken
When the veils of prudence thin
Then intuition beckons
Then souls fit skin to skin

Hope can be so brittle
Clay not fired to the core
Well-thrown bowls roughly handled
Scattered shells along the shore

Now there's a measure in the offing
Now the surges swell with pride
Say, is this canny craft a coffin?
Say, may your reach not fall too shy

Oh, Malachi Malarkey
Oh, Sophia Sophrosyne
Heed the reefs not yet charted
Seek that green isle beyond design

--MD



(the latest attempt to play with verse and not just savor, not just quote)


If I manage to compose enough poems for a collection, I'm thinking of calling it "Shore Leave," as this post was originally entitled.