Those little  words invented as we loved
Now have no other speaker but myself.
Lost, unique, the man so well beloved,
Those little words sprang from our deep, sweet love-
In my own speech, these words no longer live
I  cannot use our words,  that loving wealth.
The chosen  words  invented as we loved
Now have no other  listener but myself.

My old blue fountain pen allows
The ink across the page to flow
Like wet paint from an artist’s brush,
And words come in a rush.
Enchanting through the hand which writes,
Bewitched with art, beauty alights.
The script is like a music score
Through which we pass as through a door.
Imagination’s home.

When seven years come round again
My self is liquified.
My skin becomes a holding shell
For my old self has died.
As I dissolve I feel great fear
And yet I trust my soul.
So in the sea I lose my form,
And with the waves I roll.
I am at one with all the world,
And yet I am nothing.
My inner waters rise and fall
What will the high tide bring?
After my drowning I shall rise
And I shall be renewed.
I must submit to that strange Life
With which I am imbued.
I am not mistress of myself,
I am this moment’s flower.
In the deep waters I must trust
To take me to the shore.
Oh hang my arms with grasses green
And dissolve me in your sea.
Thus when the time comes for rebirth
Regenerated I shall be.

http://www.thehypertexts.com/Best%20Symbols%20in%20Poetry%20and%20Literature.htm
Excerpts from “More Poems”
by A. E. Housman

XXIII

Crossing alone the nighted ferry
With the one coin for fee,
Whom, on the wharf of Lethe waiting,
Count you to find? Not me.

The brisk fond lackey to fetch and carry,
The true, sick-hearted slave,
Expect him not in the just city
And free land of the grave.

Charon’s ferry symbolizes the transition from life to death, or dying. The “one coin” is the obulus, which symbolizes death: the ultimate cost of mortal life. The river Lethe symbolizes forgetfulness, oblivion and concealment, as the dead are concealed from the living, and vice versa. The grave is also symbolic of death. In this poem the river Styx symbolizes death; although it is not explicitly named, we can infer it. In Greek mythology, Charon’s ferry carried the newly dead from the land of the living across the River Styx to Hades, the realm of the dead. It may interest Christians to know that Hades was not “hell,” as Hades incorporated heavenly regions such as the Elysian Fields and the Blessed Isles. Y

 
Sonnet 147
by William Shakespeare

My love is as a fever, longing still [1]
For that which longer nurseth the disease,
Feeding on that which doth preserve the ill,
The uncertain sickly appetite to please.
My reason, the physician to my love,
Angry that his prescriptions are not kept,
Hath left me, and I desperate now approve
Desire is death, which physic did except.
Past cure I am, now reason is past care,
And frantic-mad with evermore unrest.
My thoughts and my discourse as madmen’s are, [11]
At random from the truth vainly expressed,
For I have sworn thee fair, and thought thee bright,
Who art as black as Hell, as dark as night. [14]

This is one of Shakespeare’s famous “Dark Lady” sonnets. It employs simile, a type of metaphor in which comparisons are introduced by “like” or “as” (please refer to lines one, eleven and fourteen).

http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/culture/literature-and-creative-writing/literature/what-poetry/content-section-0

We have the Open University here and I find they have a lot of free courses.I think I will do one as we get into winter.There is a big range of topics/

Poems are shorter
Shorter than a novel is.
Still – no one reads them.

Except for the ones
Written inside Birthday cards.
Sentiment’s valued.

And we remember
That poor lady of Shallot
Peeling onions.

And also repeat
Nursery rhymes and stories
For little children.

You see thy don’t know
It’s poetry,.Goood heavens.
That is not for me.

The cello has a tender singing voice

Allows the feelings which we cannot say.

Among composers,  Bach would  be my choice

The cello sings   rich lyrics  with her voice.

Rostropovich , Prague,he wept of course.

Soviet armies  marched, the Czechs  were  flayed.

The cello has a sorrowing truthful voice;

Speaks our feelings when we cannot pray.

I saw you look,I saw you stare
You liked the colour of my  hair.
I heard you speak,I felt  less bleak
Now I sit  near where you were.

I held your hand, on Southwold sands
Your hand was warm,who understands?
Your time was up,you won the lot.
I gave your grace to  those forgot.

I rode my bike,St Giles was dark
A car hit me  and I saw sparks.
You knew my name, we were the same
I saw real stars, when  shot by car.

I saw a hand turn in the sand
Life is a film and love’s the bond.
Your trust complete,I was your sweet
The end is here; it’s no defeat.

For life’s a tale we won’t bewail
You write along the  hidden trail.
Your narrative  can no more live
You  were yourself.,no more to give.

We knit the fabric  for the young
And with this gift our song is sung
The melody, sonorous be
For life is good and love is free

And yet I weep whilst I’m asleep
I wish to be with you so deep
Come back again,we’ll live the pain
We’ll weep till we  become the rain.

For fire burns and stomachs churn
We may not get what we have earned
Who is the judge,who keeps the ledge
Who will be when love’s  alleged?

http://www.poetryarchive.org/glossary/metre

“Like the rhythm in a piece of music, the metre is an underlying structure. Poets often slip in extra feet, or remove them, or change stress patterns around to prevent monotony, like playing rubato. (Sometimes a poem seems to be exploring how far a line can be pushed without losing all connection with the underlying metre.) This means that the discovery of a foot other than an iamb in the middle of what is otherwise iambic, say, does not stop the poem from being iambic; rather the attention ends up lingering at that point, so the word on the different foot ends up more powerful as it has the attention longer. An example of this can be found in Peter Dale’s ‘Half-Light’; he writes “I’m trying not to give another glance. / Lit window thirty years back up that path.” The first line is a perfectly regular iambic pentameter, but the second introduces an extra stress on “Lit”, so that what the speaker’s trying not to be drawn to seems more powerful, perhaps helping us empathise with him when he does look back and “catch her eye an instant””

Note  on  the word:iamb