Winter Poetry

[footlight]

I wondered how winter - and, in particular, colder winters - had been treated in the world of poetry. I found this one by Whitman McGowan written in 1986 in Paris.

The horses on the carousel refused to budge.
Notes of music froze and
shattered with prismatic finality...
The mimes couldn't change their expressions.
When a bread truck overturned and
baguettes were suspended in mid-air
pigeons were afraid to leave their roosts for the feast.
Women in expensive fur hats could not retract icy stares.
Rats went skating on rivers of frozen dog piss.
Double buses refused to straighten out
continued running in circles indefinitely.
Terrorist bombs exploded in s l o w m o t i o n
allowing everyone to escape harm.
A fountain in the Place Edmond Rostand became
a crystal pineapple inhabited by Eskimos.
A Norwegian with a pickax broke off pieces for souvenirs.
Outside Paris waterfalls retreated back into mountains.
God Himself became an irrelevant ice cream vendor
slowly scooping a ball of lemon sherbet
from horizon to painted horizon.

Anyone have a favourite, or just one they've happened across?

[Muzzick]

Excellent idea Footie!

One of my favourites:

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp’d and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marion’s nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs his in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;
Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

from Love's Labour's Lost by W. Shakespeare

[Tats]

Nice idea!

Here's one that I love, despite it's strong rhyming style - the words are so well chosen that none of the rhymes sound forced. I'm also really surprised to look at it again and see how few adjectives it has, yet it gives me a complete image in my mind of the scene and the way the traveller is feeling.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by: Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of the easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

[footlight]

Lovely choices - and the last one by a Mr Frost, too!