Poetry!!!

[Little Green Man]

I suspect that if all "black" people were "green" there would still the same problems that stem from them being a different colour (regardless of what that colour is).

If only you knew the half of it...

[Prufrock]

I suspect that if all "black" people were "green" there would still the same problems that stem from them being a different colour (regardless of what that colour is).

If only you knew the half of it...

[Worthy4England]

I suspect that if all "black" people were "green" there would still the same problems that stem from them being a different colour (regardless of what that colour is).

If only you knew the half of it...

[CAPSLOCK]

William

half-caste with or half caste without

[TANGODANCER]

[William the White]

My birthday yesterday and my wife gave me 'Midnight' - a new translation of poems by the brilliant Palestinian poet Mourid Barghouti. It's brilliant, heartbreaking and humane. The title poem is huge - 60 plus pages long, but there are a number of shorter ones - some very short - in the collection.

He has experienced exile from his own country in the aftermath of the 1967 war, and from the arab states where he was initially given refuge, who didn't want this brave, insistent, critical voice pointing a finger of contempt at reactionary Arab governments, especially the military dictatorships. He has been imprisoned, seen members of his family killed in Israeli bombing strikes, their houses reduced to rubble. And still he won't shut up.

A taster - one for every military dictator.

THE MERCIFUL

His military uniform
has, of course, been tailored by battles.
On his day off
he puts it on and makes himself taller with his hat.
Neither could Sophocles match his inspiration
nor could the clouds aspire to have his place.
In a fit of fury
he drew his sword against all those who opposed him
and, as his ardour increased,
he drew it against all those who supported him.
The following day,
as he was giving his speech,
he wept sincerely
for,
of all his people,
no-one had survived to listen to him.

[thebish]

Amongst the poems (ok - two poems!) that I committed to memory whilst on my hols, was this one by Ted Hughes.... "The Thought Fox"

By far the best answer to the question "where do you get your ideas from for your poems" that I have ever read - and the glorious economy of language and thought....

(I like it anyway)

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 now

Sets 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 come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with 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.

[Il Pirate]

As this has been following me around longer than Bolton's tag of a 'big and physical side'; longer than Joey OB's injury even, I need to purge myself of it. So here's my contribution to the long neglected poetry thread.

Moments

And there are times, when I glimpse you from the corner of my eye, and call your name. And you turn thereby, but to be, just another mind trick case of mistaken identity. And there are times when, old friends gather to rejoice, and above the cheer and the noise, your voice heard clear, has me thinking you're still near. But there are times when, uncertain footfalls do propose, those lonely nightfalls after curtains close, that dare our love to be reposed, as the memories fade and decompose. And there are times when, I reach, to touch, and I hold tight the emptiness you have now become. And there are times when life just goes on.

[Gravedigger]

I love 'If', 'Cargoes' (Already mentioned) and the Lancashire dialect poetry of which a great example below.

Bowton’s Yard


At number one, i' Bowton's yard, mi gronny keeps a skoo,

Hoo hasna’ mony scholars yet, hoo's nobbut one or two;

They sen th' owd woman's rayther cross,—well, well, it may be so;

Aw know hoo boxed me rarely once, an' pood mi ears an' o.



At number two lives widow Burns, hoo weshes clooas for folk;

The’r Billy, that's her son, gets jobs at wheelin' coke;

They sen hoo coarts wi' Sam-o'-Ned’s, ’at lives at number three;

It may be so, aw conno tell, it matters nowt to me.



At number three, reet facin' th' pump, Ned Grimshaw keeps a shop;

He's Eccles-cakes, an' gingerbread, an' traycle beer an' pop;

He sells oat-cakes an' o, does Ned, he has boath soft an' hard,

An' everybody buys off him 'at lives i' Bowton's Yard.



At number four Jack Blunderick lives; he goes to th' mill an' wayves;

An' then, at th' week-end, when he's time, he pows a bit an' shaves;

He's badly off, is Jack, poor lad! he's rayther lawm, they sen,

An' his childer keep him deawn a bit, aw think they'n nine or ten.



At number five aw live misel', wi' owd Susannah Grimes,

But dunno like so very weel, hoo turns me eawt sometimes;

An' when aw’m in ther's ne'er no leet, aw have to ceawer i' th' dark;

Aw conno pay mi lodgin' brass, becose aw’m eawt o' wark.



At number six, next door to us, an' close to th' side o' th' speawt,

Owd Susie Collins sells smo' drink, but hoo's welly allus beawt;

An’ heaw it is, ut that is so aw’m sure aw conno’ tell,

Hoo happen mak’s it very sweet, an' sups it o hersel’.



At number seven ther's nob'dy lives, they laft it yesterday,

Th' bum-baylis coom an' marked the’r things, an’ took 'em o away;

They took 'em in a donkey cart—aw know nowt wheer they went—

Aw reckon they'n bin ta'en an’ sowd becose they owed some rent.



At number eight—they're Yawshur folk—ther's only th' mon an' th’ woife,

Aw think aw ne'er seed nicer folk nor these i' o mi loife!

Yo'll never see 'em foin' eawt, loike lots o' married folk,

They allus seem good-temper’t like, an' ready wi' a joke.



At number nine th' owd cobbler lives, th' owd chap ut mends mi shoon,

He's getting very wake an' done, he'll ha' to leeov us soon;

He reads his Bible every day, an’ sings just loike a lark,

He says he's practisin' for heaven—he's welly done his wark.



At number ten James Bowton lives, he's th' noicest heawse i' th' row;

He's allus plenty o' summat t' ate, an’ lots o' brass an' o;

An' when he rides or walks abeawt he's dressed up very fine,

But he isn't hawve as near to heaven as him at number nine.



At number 'leven mi uncle lives, aw co him Uncle Tum,

He goes to concerts, up an' deawn, an' plays a kettle-drum;

I' bands o' music, an' sich things, he seems to tak' a pride,

An' allus mak’s as big a noise as o i' th' place beside.



At number twelve, an' th' eend o' th' row, Joe Stiggins deols i ale;

He's sixpenny, an' fourpenny, dark-colour’t, an' he's pale;

But aw ne'er touch it, for aw know its ruin’t mony a bard,

Aw’m th' only chap as doesn't drink 'at lives i' Bowton's Yard!



An' neaw aw’ve done, aw'll say good-bye, an' leov yo' for awhile;

Aw know aw haven't towd mi tale i' sich a fust-rate style;

But iv yo're pleased aw’m satisfied, an' ax for no reward

For tellin' who mi neighbours are ut live i' Bowton's Yard.



From ‘Collected Writings’ Samuel Laycock, 2nd ed., 1908.

[William the White]

Poetry in motion - Barcelona...

Music too, a symphony, perhaps...

A symphonic poem, maybe...

Great result tonight...

[TANGODANCER]

Hamilcar would have been very proud.

[Little Green Man]

In honour of the rare swift that dares to dart round the skies of Edinburgh, here's the mid-portion of Ted Hughes' eponymous poem.


And here they are, here they are again
Erupting across yard stones
Shrapnel-scatter terror. Frog-gapers,
Speedway goggles, international mobsters —

A bolas of three or four wire screams
Jockeying across each other
On their switchback wheel of death.
They swat past, hard-fletched

Veer on the hard air, toss up over the roof,
And are gone again. Their mole-dark labouring,
Their lunatic limber scramming frenzy
And their whirling blades

Sparkle out into blue —
Not ours any more.

[thebish]

In honour of the rare swift that dares to dart round the skies of Edinburgh, here's the mid-portion of Ted Hughes' eponymous poem.


And here they are, here they are again
Erupting across yard stones
Shrapnel-scatter terror. Frog-gapers,
Speedway goggles, international mobsters —

A bolas of three or four wire screams
Jockeying across each other
On their switchback wheel of death.
They swat past, hard-fletched

Veer on the hard air, toss up over the roof,
And are gone again. Their mole-dark labouring,
Their lunatic limber scramming frenzy
And their whirling blades

Sparkle out into blue —
Not ours any more.

fab!

[Lofthouse Lower]

Heard this today

I know a fat Mackem

He lives down our way

I know he is a Mackem

He's big, he's fat, he's gay

I know he is Mackem

He makes me want to spew

He's just a Mackem bastard from division two

[thebish]

Arthur Graeme West....

God! How I hate you, you young cheerful men,
Whose pious poetry blossoms on your graves
As soon as you are in them, nurtured up
By the salt of your corruption, and the tears
Of mothers, local vicars, college deans,
And flanked by prefaces and photographs
From all you minor poet friends — the fools —
Who paint their sentimental elegies
Where sure, no angel treads; and, living, share
The dead’s brief immortality
Oh Christ!
To think that one could spread the ductile wax
Of his fluid youth to Oxford’s glowing fires
And take her seal so ill! Hark how one chants —
“Oh happy to have lived these epic days” —
“These epic days”! And he’d been to France,
And seen the trenches, glimpsed the huddled dead
In the periscope, hung in the rusting wire:
Choked by their sickley fœtor, day and night
Blown down his throat: stumbled through ruined hearths,
Proved all that muddy brown monotony,
Where blood’s the only coloured thing. Perhaps
Had seen a man killed, a sentry shot at night,
Hunched as he fell, his feet on the firing-step,
His neck against the back slope of the trench,
And the rest doubled up between, his head
Smashed like an egg-shell, and the warm grey brain
Spattered all bloody on the parados:
Had flashed a torch on his face, and known his friend,
Shot, breathing hardly, in ten minutes — gone!
Yet still God’s in His heaven, all is right
In the best possible of worlds. The woe,
Even His scaled eyes must see, is partial, only
A seeming woe, we cannot understand.
God loves us, God looks down on this out strife
And smiles in pity, blows a pipe at times
And calls some warriors home. We do not die,
God would not let us, He is too “intense,”
Too “passionate,” a whole day sorrows He
Because a grass-blade dies. How rare life is!
On earth, the love and fellowship of men,
Men sternly banded: banded for what end?
Banded to maim and kill their fellow men —
For even Huns are men. In heaven above
A genial umpire, a good judge of sport,
Won’t let us hurt each other! Let’s rejoice
God keeps us faithful, pens us still in fold.
Ah, what a faith is ours (almost, it seems,
Large as a mustard-seed) — we trust and trust,
Nothing can shake us! Ah, how good God is
To suffer us to be born just now, when youth
That else would rust, can slake his blade in gore,
Where very God Himself does seem to walk
The bloody fields of Flanders He so loves!

[Gooner Girl]

Ahhh, war poetry. Not a big fan of poetry in general, but doing GCSE English i got an A for my work on World War 1 poetry (before the days of poncey A*'s i might add ) Not the most cheerful of topics, but i found it fascinating.

Here are a few of my favourites.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares(2) we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest(3) 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(4)
Of tired, outstripped(5) Five-Nines(6) that dropped behind.
Gas!(7) Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets(8) just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime(9) . . .
Dim, through the misty panes(10) 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,(11) 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(12)
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest(13)
To children ardent(14) for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.(15)

Wilfred Owen

Suicide in the Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy.....
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
And no one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Siegfried Sassoon


1914 V: The Soldier

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.


Rupert Brooke

[The Axman]

I've looked through all 13 pages of this thread and noted that 2 out of the 4 of my favourite poems have already been mentioned [viz. Beasley Street, and The Road Not Taken]

Here are the other two [They F*ck You Up, and Jim]

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.

JIM Who ran away from his Nurse and was eaten by a Lion

There was a Boy whose name was Jim;
His Friends were very good to him.
They gave him Tea, and Cakes, and Jam,
And slices of delicious Ham,
And Chocolate with pink inside
And little Tricycles to ride,
And read him Stories through and through,
And even took him to the Zoo--
But there it was the dreadful Fate
Befell him, which I now relate.

You know--or at least you ought to know,
For I have often told you so--
That Children never are allowed
To leave their Nurses in a Crowd;
Now this was Jim's especial Foible,
He ran away when he was able,
And on this inauspicious day
He slipped his hand and ran away!

He hadn't gone a yard when--Bang!
With open Jaws, a lion sprang,
And hungrily began to eat
The Boy: beginning at his feet.
Now, just imagine how it feels
When first your toes and then your heels,
And then by gradual degrees,
Your shins and ankles, calves and knees,
Are slowly eaten, bit by bit.
No wonder Jim detested it!
No wonder that he shouted ``Hi!''

The Honest Keeper heard his cry,
Though very fat he almost ran
To help the little gentleman.
``Ponto!'' he ordered as he came
(For Ponto was the Lion's name),
``Ponto!'' he cried, with angry Frown,
``Let go, Sir! Down, Sir! Put it down!''
The Lion made a sudden stop,
He let the Dainty Morsel drop,
And slunk reluctant to his Cage,
Snarling with Disappointed Rage.
But when he bent him over Jim,
The Honest Keeper's Eyes were dim.
The Lion having reached his Head,
The Miserable Boy was dead!

When Nurse informed his Parents, they
Were more Concerned than I can say:--
His Mother, as She dried her eyes,
Said, ``Well--it gives me no surprise,
He would not do as he was told!''
His Father, who was self-controlled,
Bade all the children round attend
To James's miserable end,
And always keep a-hold of Nurse
For fear of finding something worse.

[Lord Kangana]

Ahhh, war poetry. Not a big fan of poetry in general, but doing GCSE English i got an A for my work on World War 1 poetry

God heard the embattled nations sing and shout
"Gott strafe England" and "God save the King!"
God this, God that, and God the other thing –
"Good God!" said God, "I've got my work cut out!"

I think sums up the absurdity of man rather better.

[Bijou Bob]

Despite a long standing love of literature, I just don't do poetry. Having said that, Il Pirate has just left me strangely moved with the words above

[Little Green Man]

There just aren't enough poems with the word cleavage in.


The Judgement (R.P. Lister)

I dreamed the judgement came to me by night
They stood around my bed, severe of mien
And asked one question “what is enstatite?”

“It is an orthorhombic pyroxene,”
I said, and as I spoke I heard the jangle
Of planets crashing down the cosmic seas.

I added hastily: “Its cleavage angle
is eighty-seven (more or less) degrees.
If it were fifty-six, not eighty-seven

We should, quite clearly, have an amphibole.”
At this they swept me, singing up to heaven,
Where angels’ hands received my battered soul.