- This topic has 59 replies, 33 voices, and was last updated 14 years ago by zaskar.
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Do you think poetry is for puffs?
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enfhtFree Member
I think this is turning into a poetry competition, so may I present the undisputed champion of the world
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.nigewFree MemberCant believe nobody has recommended you introduce the young chap in your lesson to listen to
John Cooper Clarke
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGWhjojt5dwWorked for me as a kid 😉
MosesFull MemberTry Simon Armitage:
It ain’t what you do, it’s what it does to you.I have not bummed across America
with only a dollar to spare, one pair
of busted Levi’s and a bowie knife.
I have lived with thieves in Manchester.I have not padded through the Taj Mahal,
barefoot, listening to the space between
each footfall, picking up and putting down
its print against the marble floor. But Iskimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day
so still I could hear each set of ripples
as they crossed. I felt each stone’s inertia
spend itself against the water; then sink.I have not toyed with a parachute cord
while perched on the lip of a light aircraft;
but I held the wobbly head of a boy
at the day centre, and stroked his fat hands.And I guess that the lightness in the throat
and the tiny cascading sensation
somewhere inside us are both part of that
sense of something else. That feeling, I mean.AndyPFree Member`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.A cheap imitation of the true classic from The Outcast. Which I can’t currently locate. Anyone…?
AndyPFree MemberThe old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
ah…more whining squaddies. Always the same.
😉0303062650Free MemberI can’t quite believe i’m asking this on a public web forum, but, hey ho. I have no shame!
How do I read it??????
I have not bummed across America
with only a dollar to spare, one pair
of busted Levi’s and a bowie knife.
I have lived with thieves in Manchester.Is it; I have not bummed across America , with only a dollar to spare,
or is it, I have not bummed across America with only a dollar to spare,
etc (I hope that makes sense…)
hopefully my ineptness serves as a guide to more, err, inept people!?
jt
trailmonkeyFull Memberjontawn, punctuation within poetry is quite deliberate and for effect. If there is no comma there, then read it without one.
HTH
mogrimFull MemberPhilip Larkin – This Be The Verse
They f*ck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.But they were f*cked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.SirJonLordofBikeFree MemberLol, for poofs? No I have always loved poetry, beautiful and mysterious… I do think that thicko’s or machismo obsessed teenagers might say its only for effeminate men though,
try Miltons Paradise Lost/regained…. or Philip Larkin;
This Be The Verse
They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.But they were **** up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.
………………………………..The Old Fools
What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It’s more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can’t remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?
Or do they fancy there’s really been no change,
And they’ve always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
Watching light move? If they don’t (and they can’t), it’s strange:
Why aren’t they screaming?At death, you break up: the bits that were you
Start speeding away from each other for ever
With no one to see. It’s only oblivion, true:
We had it before, but then it was going to end,
And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour
To bring to bloom the million-petaled flower
Of being here. Next time you can’t pretend
There’ll be anything else. And these are the first signs:
Not knowing how, not hearing who, the power
Of choosing gone. Their looks show that they’re for it:
Ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines –
How can they ignore it?Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
Inside your head, and people in them, acting.
People you know, yet can’t quite name; each looms
Like a deep loss restored, from known doors turning,
Setting down a lamp, smiling from a stair, extracting
A known book from the shelves; or sometimes only
The rooms themselves, chairs and a fire burning,
The blown bush at the window, or the sun’s
Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely
Rain-ceased midsummer evening. That is where they live:
Not here and now, but where all happened once.
This is why they giveAn air of baffled absence, trying to be there
Yet being here. For the rooms grow farther, leaving
Incompetent cold, the constant wear and tear
Of taken breath, and them crouching below
Extinction’s alp, the old fools, never perceiving
How near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet:
The peak that stays in view wherever we go
For them is rising ground. Can they never tell
What is dragging them back, and how it will end? Not at night?
Not when the strangers come? Never, throughout
The whole hideous, inverted childhood? Well,
We shall find out.Philip Larkin
TravisFull Membersome old classics popping up here, Jabberwocky, IF, Dulce et… don’t forget the Nations favourite for a long time, Daffodils
AdamWFree MemberDunno. I’m a
‘poof’/’pouf’ or any of the other words you want to say in a similar vein.
Do I like poetry? As much as the next ‘real man’/’idiot’/’neanderthal bigot’ (choose as appropriate) I guess.
Or am I missing the point here?
donaldFree Memberduntstick – You’re going to get your account suspended for pedaling such filth!
horaFree MemberWindmills back into the thread whos callin mi a poof then’?
Re-reads Anthem for Doomed Youth then sits sobbing..
.
.
.
What passing-bells for those who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
Only the stuttering rifles’ rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisons.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells;
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling for them from sad shires.What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
The pallor of girls’ brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds..
.
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.
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….And bugles calling for them from sad shires.
Thats the evocative line for meBigButSlimmerBlokeFree MemberMurray Lachlan Young on Keef and that cocnut tree incident of a couple of years ago (speaking for myself though, I hope I’m climbing coconut trees whan I’m that age).
What the hell did you think you were doing?
So blind that you just could not see
Not a thought for your legion of worshipping fans
When you shinned up the trunk of that coconut treeIf you’re gonna go Keith go Keith go
If your gonna go Keith go Keith go
If your gonna go Keith go Keith go
Don’t do it like that Keith no Keith noGo in the middle of a hard blues riff
Go at the end of a laced up spliff
Speedball death plunge, Lear jet smash
Coked up gunfight, high-speed car crash
Kohl black eyes white rock n roll skin
With your hand on the fret board cigarette grin
Do itlike a king pin Debauchee
But not falling out of a coconut treeKeith, man, what goaded you on
Was it Ronnie Wood? Who said you should?
Or was it Elton John that you tried to prove wrong?
When he called you King Kong, did you snag your sarong?C’mon Keith, baby, tell us please what the hell was going on
If you’re gonna go Keith, go Keith go
If you’re gonna go Keith go Keith go
If you’re gonna go Keith go Keith go
Don’t do it like that Keith no Keith nozaskarFree Memberourmaninthenorth – Member
Poetry to GF gets me sex.
Better still, try it in another language. She’ll love it….
Last time I went to Paris with her I revised as much French as I could (even asked Juan on here a few yrs back) LOL.
Now a poem in French thats a great idea.
To write a poem can still be manly,
Not just fix the shelf and come in handy.It helps to be in shape and have a brain,
to be independant and not a pain.
Don’t worry if you don’t have a 12 inch snake,
just be truthful and don’t be fake!Don’t worry about the moody Grizzlygus,
One day you’ll read he’s got hit by a bus.Love your woman and be a man,
learn to cook and have a plan!
Don’t talk too much but keep on listening,
Then she’ll realise that there is nothing missing.
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