- This topic has 80 replies, 62 voices, and was last updated 6 years ago by samunkim.
-
Its National Poetry Day – lets have a bit o' culcha
-
binnersFull Member
Let’s have your favourite poems then?
Heres mine, with a suitable illustration. It was my uncle Petes favourite poem. He died a few years ago. Always reminds me of him, and the time we spent at air shows as a kid…
[url=https://flic.kr/p/LYz5u1]High Flight[/url] by bin lid, on Flickr
Lets have yours then….
PeyoteFree Member’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.CaptainFlashheartFree MemberA grand start, Binners.
As the team’s head-brass flashed out on the turn
The lovers disappeared into the wood.
I sat among the boughs of the fallen elm
That strewed an angle of the fallow, and
Watched the plough narrowing a yellow square
Of charlock. Every time the horses turned
Instead of treading me down, the ploughman leaned
Upon the handles to say or ask a word,
About the weather, next about the war.
Scraping the share he faced towards the wood,
And screwed along the furrow till the brass flashed
Once more.
The blizzard felled the elm whose crest
I sat in, by a woodpecker’s round hole,
The ploughman said. “When will they take it away?”
“When the war’s over.” So the talk began—
One minute and an interval of ten,
A minute more and the same interval.
“Have you been out?” “No.” “And don’t want
to, perhaps?”
“If I could only come back again, I should.
I could spare an arm. I shouldn’t want to lose
A leg. If I should lose my head, why, so,
I should want nothing more. . . . Have many gone
From here?” “Yes.” “Many lost?” “Yes, a good few.
Only two teams work on the farm this year.
One of my mates is dead. The second day
In France they killed him. It was back in March,
The very night of the blizzard, too. Now if
He had stayed here we should have moved the tree.”
“And I should not have sat here. Everything
Would have been different. For it would have been
Another world.” “Ay, and a better, though
If we could see all all might seem good.” Then
The lovers came out of the wood again:
The horses started and for the last time
I watched the clods crumble and topple over
After the ploughshare and the stumbling team.“As the team’s head brass”. Edward Thomas.
DickyboyFull MemberThe “poetry voice” that seems to be necessary when poetry is read aloud is a massive put off for me & Mrs dickboy
theotherjonvFull MemberFor my wife. I don’t tell her how much she means to me often enough, and this sort of captures it.
Flowers by Wendy Cope
Some men never think of it.
You did. You’d come along
And say you’d nearly brought me flowers
But something had gone wrong.The shop was closed. Or you had doubts –
The sort that minds like ours
Dream up incessantly. You thought
I might not want your flowers.It made me smile and hug you then.
Now I can only smile.
But, look, the flowers you nearly brought
Have lasted all this while.perchypantherFree MemberFuzzy Wuzzy was a bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair
Fuzzy wuzzy wasn’t fuzzy…
.. was he?flangeFree MemberCharlie-bus, sitti-bus, on the deskinoram
Deskibus collapse-ibus, Charlie on the floorammartinhutchFull MemberThe Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock
An anthem for all the insecure, balding, weak middle-aged men on here. Don’t know why I already loved it in my early 20s!
Oh, and.
My mother had a flit gun/Twas not devoid of charm/A bit of flit shot out of it/The rest shot up her arm’.
DezBFree MemberThe only poem I know by heart is
My doggie don’t wear glasses
So they’re lyin when they say
A dog looks like it’s owner
Aren’t they.(John Hegley)
beanumFull MemberTed Hughes, “Wodwo”
What am I? Nosing here, turning leaves over
Following a faint stain on the air to the river’s edge
I enter water. Who am I to split
The glassy grain of water looking upward I see the bed
Of the river above me upside down very clear
What am I doing here in mid-air? Why do I find
this frog so interesting as I inspect its most secret
interior and make it my own? Do these weeds
know me and name me to each other have they
seen me before do I fit in their world? I seem
separate from the ground and not rooted but dropped
out of nothing casually I’ve no threads
fastening me to anything I can go anywhere
I seem to have been given the freedom
of this place what am I then? And picking
bits of bark off this rotten stump gives me
no pleasure and it’s no use so why do I do it
me and doing that have coincided very queerly
But what shall I be called am I the first
have I an owner what shape am I what
shape am I am I huge if I go
to the end on this way past these trees and past these trees
till I get tired that’s touching one wall of me
for the moment if I sit still how everything
stops to watch me I suppose I am the exact centre
but there’s all this what is it roots
roots roots roots and here’s the water
again very queer but I’ll go on lookingnickcFull MemberHaving a coke with you.
is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectaclesand the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together for the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully
as the horse it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about itFrank O’Hara
He did write some terrible old trite, but his description of that first feeling of growing infatuation with some-one that you realise you’re falling in love with takes some beating. (Plus of course it’s not some old dusty neo classical dirge written by a 19th romantic with a bad case of consumption)
thejesmonddingoFull Member“Oh,darling Flo,
I love you so,
Especially in your nightie.
For when the moonlight flits,
across your tits,
Oh Jesus Christ Almighty.”
Derek and Clive.perchypantherFree MemberThe one I most enjoy reading out loud is this one.
It trips off the tongue delightfully….
NicoFree MemberIT’S a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries;
I never hear the west wind but tears are in my eyes.
For it comes from the west lands, the old brown hills.
And April’s in the west wind, and daffodils.It’s a fine land, the west land, for hearts as tired as mine,
Apple orchards blossom there, and the air’s like wine.
There is cool green grass there, where men may lie at rest,
And the thrushes are in song there, fluting from the nest.“Will ye not come home brother? ye have been long away,
It’s April, and blossom time, and white is the may;
And bright is the sun brother, and warm is the rain,–
Will ye not come home, brother, home to us again?“The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run.
It’s blue sky, and white clouds, and warm rain and sun.
It’s song to a man’s soul, brother, fire to a man’s brain,
To hear the wild bees and see the merry spring again.“Larks are singing in the west, brother, above the green wheat,
So will ye not come home, brother, and rest your tired feet?
I’ve a balm for bruised hearts, brother, sleep for aching eyes,”
Says the warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries.It’s the white road westwards is the road I must tread
To the green grass, the cool grass, and rest for heart and head,
To the violets, and the warm hearts, and the thrushes’ song,
In the fine land, the west land, the land where I belong.PJM1974Free MemberIt’s got to be John Cooper Clarke and Christopher Ecclestone for me.
[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejKIgsR5W6k[/video]
nbtFull MemberSerious:
Never fails to bring a lump to my throat. Anything that moving is utterly brilliant
NotLess Serious[video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4B04eUmHag[/video]
BeagleboyFull MemberWhen I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me,
And I shall spend my pension
on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals,
and say we’ve no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired,
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells,
And run my stick along the public railings,
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people’s gardens,
And learn to spit.
You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat,
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go,
Or only bread and pickle for a week,
And hoard pens and pencils and beer mats
and things in boxes.
But now we must have clothes that keep us dry,
And pay our rent and not swear in the street,
And set a good example for the children.
We will have friends to dinner and read the papers.
But maybe I ought to practise a little now?
So people who know me
are not too shocked and surprised,
When suddenly I am old
and start to wear purple!Jenny Joseph
That and this are far and away my favourites…
The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey–
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter–
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover–
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.T.S. Eliot
Maybe not hip and obscure, but I like them cause they make me smile. 🙂
Rockape63Free MemberSaid the Table to the Chair,
‘You can hardly be aware,
‘How I suffer from the heat,
‘And from chilblains on my feet!
‘If we took a little walk,
‘We might have a little talk!
‘Pray let us take the air!’
Said the Table to the Chair.II
Said the Chair to the table,
‘Now you know we are not able!
‘How foolishly you talk,
‘When you know we cannot walk!’
Said the Table with a sigh,
‘It can do no harm to try,
‘I’ve as many legs as you,
‘Why can’t we walk on two?’III
So they both went slowly down,
And walked about the town
With a cheerful bumpy sound,
As they toddled round and round.
And everybody cried,
As they hastened to the side,
‘See! the Table and the Chair
‘Have come out to take the air!’IV
But in going down an alley,
To a castle in a valley,
They completely lost their way,
And wandered all the day,
Till, to see them safetly back,
They paid a Ducky-quack,
And a Beetle, and a Mouse,
Who took them to their house.V
Then they whispered to each other,
‘O delightful little brother!
‘What a lovely walk we’ve taken!
‘Let us dine on Beans and Bacon!’
So the Ducky and the leetle
Browny-Mousy and the Beetle
Dined and danced upon their heads
Till they toddled to their beds.bodgyFree MemberHaiku
Writing a poem
With seventeen syllables
Is very difficJohn Cooper Clarke
bodgyFree MemberBEATTIE IS THREE
At the top of the stairs
I ask for her hand. O.K.
She gives it to me.
How her fist fits my palm,
A bunch of consolation.
We take our time
Down the steep carpetway
As I wish silently
That the stairs were endless.
.
.
Adrian Mitchell, 1975Makes me well up every time.
deadlydarcyFree MemberMy lighthearted contribution…
This Be The Verse
BY PHILIP LARKIN
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.fasthaggisFull MemberA seasonal Robert Louis Stevenson
O Dull Cold Northern Sky
O Dull cold northern sky,
O brawling sabbath bells,
O feebly twittering Autumn bird that tells
The year is like to die!O still, spoiled trees, O city ways,
O sun desired in vain,
O dread presentiment of coming rain
That cloys the sullen days!Thee, heart of mine, I greet.
In what hard mountain pass
Striv’st thou? In what importunate morass
Sink now thy weary feet?Thou run’st a hopeless race
To win despair. No crown
Awaits success, but leaden gods look down
On thee, with evil face.And those that would befriend
And cherish thy defeat,
With angry welcome shall turn sour the sweet
Home-coming of the end.Yea, those that offer praise
To idleness, shall yet
Insult thee, coming glorious in the sweat
Of honourable ways.Autumn Fires
In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The grey smoke towers.Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!johndohFree MemberNot quite a poem, but always makes me smile:
The was a young man from Dundee,
Who was stung on the neck by a wasp.
When asked “did it hurt”,
He said “No, not a bit,
It can do it again if it wants.”votchyFree MemberI wanna Be Yours…
I wanna be your vacuum cleaner
breathing in your dust
I wanna be your Ford Cortina
I will never rust
If you like your coffee hot
let me be your coffee pot
You call the shots
I wanna be yoursI wanna be your raincoat
for those frequent rainy days
I wanna be your dreamboat
when you want to sail away
Let me be your teddy bear
take me with you anywhere
I don’t care
I wanna be yoursI wanna be your electric meter
I will not run out
I wanna be the electric heater
you’ll get cold without
I wanna be your setting lotion
hold your hair in deep devotion
Deep as the deep Atlantic ocean
that’s how deep is my devotionLYRICS © JOHN COOPER CLARKE
kiloFull MemberThere was a car driver called Rainier
Who could not have been less brainier
When confronted at the school gate
He got most irate
And led to a really long, typically STW thread.I think the last line may need a bit of work
martinhutchFull MemberA teacher stood at the school gate
Was making my darling kid late
So when he turned round
I just mowed him down
Can’t see why that’s got you irate?SandwichFull MemberThis becomes more appropriate as I age.
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.W.H. Davies
cheese@4pFull MemberTHE THOUGHT-FOX by Ted Hughes
I imagine this midnight moment’s forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock’s loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and nowSets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warily a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to comeAcross clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own businessTill, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.BillMCFull MemberEVIDENTLY CHICKEN TOWN
the **** cops are **** keen
to **** keep it **** cleanthe **** chief’s a **** swine
who **** draws a **** line
at **** fun and **** games
the **** kids he **** blames
are nowehere to be **** found
anywhere in chicken town
the **** scene is **** sad
the **** news is **** bad
the **** weed is **** turf
the **** speed is **** surf
the **** folks are **** daft
don’t make me **** laugh
it **** hurts to look around
everywhere in chicken town
the **** train is **** late
you **** wait you **** wait
you’re **** lost and **** found
stuck in **** chicken town
the **** view is **** vile
for **** miles and **** miles
the **** babies **** cry
the **** flowers **** die
the **** food is **** muck
the **** drains are **** ****
the colour scheme is **** brown
everywhere in chicken town
the **** pubs are **** dull
the **** clubs are **** full
of **** girls and **** guys
with **** murder in their eyes
a **** bloke is **** stabbed
waiting for a **** cab
you **** stay at **** home
the **** neighbors **** moan
keep the **** racket down
this is **** chicken town
the **** train is **** late
you **** wait you **** wait
you’re **** lost and **** found
stuck in **** chicken town
the **** pies are **** old
the **** chips are **** cold
the **** beer is **** flat
the **** flats have **** rats
the **** clocks are **** wrong
the **** days are **** long
it **** gets you **** down
evidently chicken town
LYRICS © JOHN COOPER CLARKE
fergalFree MemberOzymandias
by Percy Bysshe ShelleyI met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”Malvern RiderFree MemberThe Collar-bone of a Hare – W.B Yeats
WOULD I could cast a sail on the water
Where many a king has gone
And many a king’s daughter,
And alight at the comely trees and the lawn,
The playing upon pipes and the dancing,
And learn that the best thing is
To change my loves while dancing
And pay but a kiss for a kiss.I would find by the edge of that water
The collar-bone of a hare
Worn thin by the lapping of water,
And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare
At the old bitter world where they marry in churches,
And laugh over the untroubled water
At all who marry in churches,
Through the white thin bone of a hare.eviljoeFree MemberListen!
Listen,
if stars are lit
it means – there is someone who needs it.
It means – someone wants them to be,
that someone deems those specks of spit
magnificent.And overwrought,
in the swirls of afternoon dust,
he bursts in on God,
afraid he might be already late.
In tears,
he kisses God’s sinewy hand
and begs him to guarantee
that there will definitely be a star.
He swears
he won’t be able to stand
that starless ordeal.Later,
He wanders around, worried,
but outwardly calm.And to everyone else, he says:
‘Now,
it’s all right.
You are no longer afraid,
are you?’Listen,
if stars are lit,
it means – there is someone who needs it.
It means it is essential
that every evening
at least one star should ascend
over the crest of the building.Vladimir Mayakovsky
I love the bit about bursting in on god- which agnostic/atheist hasn’t done that when they really want something?
NicoFree MemberAnd one for the kippers:
Little Indian, Sioux, or Crow,
Little frosty Eskimo,
Little Turk or Japanee,
Oh! don’t you wish that you were me?You have seen the scarlet trees
And the lions over seas;
You have eaten ostrich eggs,
And turned the turtle off their legs.Such a life is very fine,
But it’s not so nice as mine:
You must often as you trod,
Have wearied NOT to be abroad.You have curious things to eat,
I am fed on proper meat;
You must dwell upon the foam,
But I am safe and live at home.
Little Indian, Sioux or Crow,
Little frosty Eskimo,
Little Turk or Japanee,
Oh! don’t you wish that you were me?NicoFree MemberThere was once an old sailor my grandfather knew
Who had so many things which he wanted to do
That, whenever he thought it was time to begin,
He couldn’t because of the state he was in.He was shipwrecked, and lived on an island for weeks,
And he wanted a hat, and he wanted some breeks;
And he wanted some nets, or a line and some hooks
For the turtles and things which you read of in books.And, thinking of this, he remembered a thing
Which he wanted (for water) and that was a spring;
And he thought that to talk to he’d look for, and keep
(If he found it) a goat, or some chickens and sheep.Then, because of the weather, he wanted a hut
With a door (to come in by) which opened and shut
(With a jerk, which was useful if snakes were about),
And a very strong lock to keep savages out.So he thought of his hut … and he thought of his boat,
And his hat and his breeks, and his chickens and goat,
And the hooks (for his food) and the spring (for his thirst) …
But he never could think which he ought to do first.And so in the end he did nothing at all,
But basked on the shingle wrapped up in a shawl.
And I think it was dreadful the way he behaved –
He did nothing but basking until he was saved.perchypantherFree MemberRoses are red,
So are my hands.
Stop me.
Before I kill again.
The topic ‘Its National Poetry Day – lets have a bit o' culcha’ is closed to new replies.