As you're all a very cultured and erudite bunch
I was wondering....

Do you have a favourite poem? If so which one and why?

And if you don't like poetry, why?

And if you occasionally pen a bit of poetry yourself then stick it in here too.

:)
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:39, 62 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

10 sec poem


I like socks,
but not as much as cocks,
some keep me warm,
whilst the others just love porn.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:40, Reply)

Violets are Bluey
Roses are Pinky
Slip off your pants
And lets get kinky

*horns*
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:41, Reply)

*gets bucket*


Roses are red,
violets are blue,
I want to wear your skin.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:43, Reply)

I like this, don't know why as I don't normally like poetry
Little Twig isn’t big
To you, but she is
To me.
But however I don’t like it
When she makes faces.
And she seldom talks
When we go to places
And meet people
And sit around.
But she prances at dances
Gets crushes, takes chances
With boys. Wears a hat
No shoes, and they flatter her
Madly. What of that?
Neat, maroon, blue and white
Lace and chord, velvet. Might
Even keep her coat on if its right.
Next week
All change
To purple
Or black
Perhaps.
( M o D, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:47, Reply)

A poem
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert.

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

Yeats.

It's just a bit good innit? I'm not a Christian, but I love the imagery and language.
(Mr Steve is jobless and fancyfree!, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:48, Reply)

My Mother Said Never Play With Gypsies
My Mother said, I never should
Play with the gypsies in the wood;
If I did, she would say,
You naughty boy to disobey.
Your hair shan’t curl and your shoes shan’t shine,
You gypsy boy, you shan’t be mine.
And my father said that if I did
He’d rap my head with the teapot-lid.
The wood was dark, the grass was green
Along came Sally with a tambourine.
I went to sea - no ship to get across,
I paid ten shillings for a blind white horse.
I up on his back and was off on a crack,
Sally tell my mother that I shan't come back.
(oneinthepink is at your cervix m'lady, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:52, Reply)

that one by Robert Frost about the boy who accidentally cuts his hand off
that's a barrel of laughs

this one
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:55, Reply)

Seriously this time
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*.

*Translation: "It is noble and glorious to die for your mother country"
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:55, Reply)

W. H. Auden
the "war poets" wrote some good stuff, the kind of poems you need to grit your teeth to read

Siegfried Sassoon's "At the cenotaph" is a good 'un
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:58, Reply)

:)
www.poemhunter.com/poem/on-the-ning-nang-nong/

I'll never forget Comic and Curious Verse, Penguin, 1952

Edit: I like this one because it's wonderfully obscure, and introduced me to Spike Milligan when I was six.
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:57, Reply)

Okay...
but still no one has said why they like or dislike poetry.

Love the self-penned stuff btw.
:)

Oh, and the Robert Frost one - 'Out, Out' about the lad having his hand chopped off that's always made chilling reading...great choice :)
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 11:59, Reply)

Thanks Gilgamesh
I'll check out Auden later.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:05, Reply)

yes
also this is brilliant and still relevant today
( Gilgamesh gazed in wonder as Frampton came alive, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:10, Reply)

I'm always writing poetry in OQTW and no one ever responds
I still keep doing it though.

I like poetry because it forces you to engage with the text much more, both reader and writer.

My favourite poem is problem something by DH Lawrence: short, concise, minimum waffle.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:05, Reply)

I wrote these when I was about 18.
In a suit and a tie
Tall and dark
There stands the poet
John Cooper Clarke.

Also


Yossarian, Yossarian
You're my kind of fella.
Too bad that your just fiction
In a book by Joseph Heller.

Edit - I did actually have a crush on Alan Arkin? who played Yossarian in the film....hence the poem.


And to answer Chickenlady, I'm not a big poetry fan but there have been some poems I've read and enjoyed. Just can't think of them for now.
( girlinthehole, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:07, Reply)

@BGB
Nice, I like!
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:11, Reply)

I'm not a big fan of poetry
but Jabberwocky is probably my favourite

or Frankie Boyle's Daffodils by a Dalek

EXTERMINATE DAFFODILS!
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:13, Reply)

Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple
Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple

By Jenny Joseph

When 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 candles, 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 pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts 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 must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

This is my favouritist poem.

I like poetry because to me it isn't about the literary aspect it is about the art of emotion and trying to create an immediate touch with someones essence. This poem does it for me.
(porkylips looks better as the sun goes down., Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:15, Reply)

I can never decide whether I "like" poetry
I've read some which I've really liked, but I've also read many which have either left me cold or made my toes curl. I do think a lot of modern poets take themselves too seriously, though -
www.b3ta.com/questions/cringe/post315028 is the experience which scarred me for life.

Still, since we're all writing poems, here's my own effort for today:
Bagel warmers wash kittens playfully in a deluge of blancmange.
Yeats ties knots in Shelley's pigtails,
whilst his mother farts into open pie dishes.

"Ibuprofen, ibupfrofen!" screams the town crier,
twiddling
the ferrets that adorn his jacket and run betwixt the folds of his
flared trouser
legs.

A blacksmith lumbers into view, just in time to catch
the walrus, as it falls,
wobblingly,
from the sky.

The cheesemaker rubs his crusty hands with glee.
He knows this
gluttonous walrus
will buy lots of cheese from him.

And fevered, the cockles twirl beneath the simultaneously shimmering stars and moon.

Edit: @Porkylips - like the poem. Reminds me a bit of Jake Thackray's "Widow of Bridlington"
(LongJohnBaldry, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:22, Reply)

I recently read this poem for the first time and it moved me to tears
famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets/gwendolyn_brooks/poems/4136

It's 'The Mother' by Gwendolyn Brooks.

And another of my favourites (at the moment) is

SOME PEOPLE by Rita Ann Higgins (1988)

Some people know what it is like,

to be called a cunt in front of their children

to be short for the rent

to be short for the light

to be short for school books

to wait in Community Welfare waiting rooms full of smoke

to wait two years to have a tooth looked at

to wait another two years to have a tooth out (the same tooth)

to be half strangled by your varicose veins, but you’re 198th on the list

to talk into a banana on a jobsearch scheme

to talk into a banana on a jobsearch dream

to be out of work

to be out of money

to be out of fashion

to be out of friend

to be in for the Vincent de Paul man

(sorry, mammy isn’t in today she’s gone to Mars for the weekend)

to be in Puerto Rico for the blanket man

to be dead for the coal man

(sorry, mammy passed away in her sleep, overdose of coal in the teapot)

to be in hospital unconscious for the rent man (St Jude’s ward 4th floor)

to be second hand

to be second class

to be no class

to be looked down on

to be pissed on

to be shat on

and other people don’t.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:23, Reply)

Me like poems.
I like poetry as a kind of music with language rather than notes; it appeals on emotional and thoughtful levels simultaneously, often regardless of quality. Prose can be bogged down in its own self-importance more easily, I think. You may have noticed that this is rambling, half-formed stream-of-consciousness stuff.

I don't really have any absolute favourites, though I like some popular works like Leisure by W. H. Davies and some of John Masefield's poetry.

I can't really sit and read poetry silently, however. I regard it as an aural medium and generally prefer to listen or read aloud, which is why I'm scouring around for performance poetry a bit more. I shall end this nonsense with this here poem from Luke Wright (www.lukewright.co.uk):

A Short Poem About My Own Death

I hope I die
in the changing room at Primark
squeezing into a pair of denim shorts
two sizes too small
slumped back on the stool
the denim tight around my slackened knees
a style far too young for me
so the shop girl later comments: Poor dead try-hard…

I hope I die
in a mall in Maidenhead
my colon rammed with lamb jalfrezi
let it dribble from my arsehole
down to my metatarsals
and make some cleaner loathe me
when he gets it on his clothing
I hope he slops his mop and curses me for being dead.

I hope I die
on a kid’s plastic train at McDonalds
sweating, dressed as The Hamburgler
I hope my wheezing and gasping
gets next door’s children laughing
let them clap and let them squeal
when I bring the happy meals
crashing to the bleached dirt-cracked floor as I fall

And at my funeral dispense of the eulogies.
Don’t give me another man’s version of dignity.
I don’t want poets there flexing pretensions
comparing me to a felled redwood or the River Wensum.

Just stick me in a deck chair atop my red Escort
dressed in a fishing hat, Bermuda shorts,
and a T-shirt with Well Dead and Loving it written on it.
Have Page Three girls drape themselves on the bonnet.

Forget the meaningful folk songs – play Agadoo, instead!
Get the mortician to draw a penis on my forehead.
And in place of a hymn just shout at my corpse:
We’re going to Alton Towers, and you can’t come because you’re dead!

Shoot down pomp! Shoot down significance!
Don’t let that get in way of who I really was
because stencilled wit on a grave stone,
written in pure testosterone,
means nothing if you lived your life like a bastard,
means nothing if you came home every night plastered,
means nothing if you never gave your loved ones what they asked for.

So lay me out on a Black and Decker Workmate
intestate,
in Margate,
with a hard drive full of porn
a grin on my lips, my dignity torn
and ask:
Was I any good to you?
Did I really do my best?
Did I make your dreams come true?
I hope the answer’s Yes.
(ThomsonsPier consumes, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:35, Reply)

@ ThomsonsPier
That's a fantastic poem!

I've bookmarked Luke Wright's website and I shall spend some time reading more of his stuff.

Excellent!

Who says contemporary poetry is crap?!
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:40, Reply)

@chickenlady
Hurrah! I'm glad you like it. Luke Wright tours a fair amount, performing his work, and is usually up at the Edinburgh Festival. He led a full day poetry tent at the Free Fringe in 2007, which I looked into for five minutes and ended up staying for most of the day. I recommend seeing him.
(ThomsonsPier consumes, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:43, Reply)

Additional:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Le_Sac_Vs_Scroobius_Pip

Message ends.
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:47, Reply)

I loathe poetry
:)
( Kroney, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:48, Reply)

I'd love to go to a day's workshop run by him!
So few poetry authors run really good ones - and by that I mean authors who aren't pretentious! I've been to a few poetry readings where they spout their god-awful writings which hark back to Victorian poetry. Any contemporary writing should be just that - contemporary and using contemporary language (obviously I'm making a sweeping statement and avoiding the whole notion of genre writing that is historical fiction).
So more swearing and cultural references!
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:51, Reply)

@ Kroney
Why?
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 12:52, Reply)

Percy Bysshe Shelley: "Ozymandias"
I 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 hp 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.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:08, Reply)

John Donne: A Valediction of Weeping
Let me pour forth
My tears before thy face, whilst I stay here,
For thy face coins them, and thy stamp they bear,
And by this mintage they are something worth,
For thus they be
Pregnant of thee;
Fruits of much grief they are, emblems of more,
When a tear falls, that thou falls which it bore,
So thou and I are nothing then, when on a diverse shore.


On a round ball
A workman that hath copies by, can lay
An Europe, Afric, and an Asia,
And quickly make that, which was nothing, all;
So doth each tear
Which thee doth wear,
A globe, yea world, by that impression grow,
Till thy tears mix'd with mine do overflow
This world; by waters sent from thee, my heaven dissolved so.


O more than moon,
Draw not up seas to drown me in thy sphere,
Weep me not dead, in thine arms, but forbear
To teach the sea what it may do too soon;
Let not the wind
Example find,
To do me more harm than it purposeth;
Since thou and I sigh one another's breath,
Whoe'er sighs most is cruellest, and hastes the other's death.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:10, Reply)

Much as I think all good poems start with "There once was a..."
I do love this:

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
No 412 squadron, RCAF
Killed 11 December 1941
( Fireflier La la la la, not listening on, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:10, Reply)

The Empress - "Divine Attribution" (written for a writing course I'm doing)
The Appendix.
The most useless part
Of your body.
Why
Am I here?

Do you think me lonely, here, in this
Dark, small room,
Off the bustling corridor
Of the large intestine?
Unseen, unused, unloved.

I serve no apparent function, yet
When you banish me from your temple
I leave behind a small, glistening scar,
And a feeling
Of loss.

What else, in this holy body of yours,
Is being pushed away?
What other attributes are already lost
To myth and legend?

A tail, certainly.
Horns?
Wings?
Am I, your humble appendix,
The final vestige of your
Divinity?

When you cut me out, destroy my being,
Will you be removing something more important?
Am I
Your soul?

I don’t know. I’m only
An appendix.
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:11, Reply)

Self-pitying poem
Poor
Old
Egotistical
Me

by John Hegley
(raymond "three griddle pans" luxury yacht lovin' the christmas action, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:16, Reply)

@ The Empress
I like your Appendix poem, I like the thought of it being ones soul.
The only suggestion I'd make is perhaps losing the first stanza because it's unnecessary and the rest of the poem has rich images, those lines don't.
I'd also suggest that you keep up writing poetry!
:)
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:18, Reply)

Favorite poems?
Hmm. I still realy love Tiger Tiger by Blake, cos my dad used to read it to me when I was tiny. I'm a fan of Bukowski also, and I do like The Waste Land. My own poetry though? Meh.... I've got one saved here, but Im not totaly happy with it to be honest.

Untitled
Shot-down run down. Talk about this town,
Cobweb faced, grey eyed dead-real and really dead.
I think I meant it this time, never dig too far down.
They thought I did, observation changes effect.
Effects me none.

Fed us to the monsters once in the past, in other places.
Silly me, I thought it was make-believe. Pretend.
Then I still thought you could tell monsters by their faces
Turns out the insides count for it all, in the end.
Still effects me none.

Streetlight flare. Shows up battles never fought.
Blue uniform. Grey uniform. Questions asked.
Fifteenth floor ground floor shortcut cut short.
Nothing is forever, and nothing really lasts.
Still effects me none.
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:18, Reply)

@Chickenlady
thanks! Yes, I've thought about how to cut it down a bit, so will look at trying to shave off the first paragraph.

I love reading poetry (well, some poetry: Donne, Byron, Eliot, Larkin spring to mind), but never really tried writing any before that one. Will keep it up though!



hehehe..."keep it up"...
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:22, Reply)

WS Landor
written as a memorial for his sister.

"Sharp crocus wakes the froward year;
In their old haunts birds reappear;
From yonder elm, yet black with rain,
The cushat looks deep down for grain
Thrown on the gravel-walk; here comes
The redbreast to the sill for crumbs.
Fly off! fly off! I can not wait
To welcome ye, as she of late.
The earliest of my friends is gone.
Alas! almost my only one!
The few as dear, long wafted o'er,
Await me on a sunnier shore."
(Himjim died a little more inside on, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:23, Reply)

@ Fredz
That's very powerful but I think I see what you mean about not being satisfied with it.
Have you thought about putting more structure into it?
You've already hinted at that with the repeated last lines. Something like a villanelle would work I think. Dylan Thomas's 'Do not go gentle into that good night' is a villanelle as are plenty of blues songs.
It might work.
( chickenlady b3ta's very own Elizabeth Taylor, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:23, Reply)

@Chickenlady
I was thinking about something like that. Maybe split up the verses a little, and add a couple more or something. Oh well, like I said, it's kinda work in progress anyway.... thanks for the advice!
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:27, Reply)

Empress
love that appendix poem, it is excellent!

really really good
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:30, Reply)

John Hegley!
He's one of the few poets I like.


*remembers*
( girlinthehole, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:33, Reply)

Thanks Vipros!

(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:34, Reply)

I used to write a lot of poetry
I love that Luke Wright poem TP - I'm going to spend some time today going through his work I think - yay for new ways to procrastinate!

As for my nonsense, these two were written after I read a Philip Larkin pome, guess which...

I
This overpopulated world
Needs no more to fill it up
Brimming over with our filth
Soon the planet will erupt
Like a plook squeezed from the base
Septic humans fill the spot
Pus will seep and smother us
Perpetuating all our rot.
Breeding, breeding rabbits we
Prolong our egos and our ids
Save the planet, save yourself!
Don`t bother having any kids!
After all, it`s not as if
Humans have any more to give
For far too long we`ve only taken
We really don`t deserve to live.

II
Who needs children anyway?
Nasty sucking parasites
Sqealing, mewling, wormy things
Shrieking through the darkling nights.
Growing up and costing more
Causing mum and dad to grieve.
Eighteen years of cupboard love
Then the little bastards leave.
( ascorbate, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:38, Reply)

@ Fredz

If I may be so bold, I quite like the way you write, but I think it feels a bit obvious, I think the reader should have to engage more to discover all the layers of meaning.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:39, Reply)

@Nakedape
Perhaps you have a point.... this is pretty useful actualy, cos before I didn't know exactly why I was unsatisfied with it, but now I have ideas about where to take it and such. Hummm....
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:43, Reply)

For some reason
I don't often like poems that don't rhyme. I know that's very childlike, but I just feel that if it doesn't have a rhyming beat it's just a rambling bunch of text. Having said that, there are some very moving poems (that I can't think of) that don't rhyme, however, I prefer to think of them as monologues rather than poetry, although I suppose the categorisation of the text has little bearing on its meaning.

Here's my favourite poem because it makes me lol and because it shows that not all poetry has to be poignant to be enjoyable:

The boy with nails in his eyes
Put up his aluminium tree
It looked pretty strange
Because he couldn't really see.

From Tim Burton's collection The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy.
( Kitty v1.0 desperately naive, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:43, Reply)

@Vitamin C
I love the second one so much!
(The Empress it seems you CAN polish a turd!, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:44, Reply)

Favourite war poem
"Good morning good morning!" the general said
as we passed him last week on our way to the line
Now the fellows he smiled at are most of 'em dead
and we're cursing his staff for incompetent swine.
"He's a cheery old card" muttered Harry to Jack as they slogged up to Arras with rifle and pack

But he did for 'em both with his plan of attack.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:53, Reply)

War poetry makes your spine go cold...
It's so powerful, and the tiniest details just get magnified amazingly. Very haunting.
(Fredz A graveyard of hopes, a dump of ambition, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:56, Reply)

One more
which I wrote about 6 years ago.

The dog who was a cat inside,
From puppy-hood had tried to hide
His feelings for the other cats
And tendency for chasing rats.

Mice he cornered, trees he climbed,
And other dog-cats tried to find.
But his main dilemma was with food,
He tried his best not to be rude,

Though every day, within his dish
He found beef heart – he wanted fish!
His brothers though him mad when first
He supped on milk to quench his thirst.

And then one day he met a horse
Who always felt full of remorse,
Because horse knew that inside him
There lived a chinese pangolin.

Poor horse and dog were most upset,
Needed to run, escape, forget
The taunting, heckling, laughing jeers,
They had received from all their peers.

And so they left to walk for miles
All across the British isles,
Searching for justification
For their unique situation.

Together roamed our mixed-up pair,
Clad in the wrong kind of hair.
They knew they made a matchless sight,
As they roamed on into the night,

Looking for answers to their riddle,
Were they different in the middle?
Was each abnormal for his wish
To dine on ants and feed on fish?

On their way, they met a monkey,
Who believed he was a donkey,
And a mouse who said he knew
That inside him there grew a gnu.

Our little band of pilgrims walked,
And on their way, they talked and talked
And found they all felt pretty good,
As finally they understood

That they were normal in their way,
Despite internal disarray.
And so they formed a happy band
Who wandered all throughout the land,

Collecting creatures who believed
That as freaks they were perceived,
And happily they lived together
With friends of fur, scale, and feather.

The moral of this story is
To be yourself, for the truth is,
Those that matter do not care
What skin you have (or clothes you wear)
And love you more for being you—
Just ask dogcat, he know’s it’s true!

many apologies for length ;-)

btw, Empress - I like your appendix poem, but agree with chickenlady - the first stanza could be lost, giving you a much tighter piece.
( ascorbate, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:56, Reply)

I think my dad wrote this about my sister
To a daughter.

The day I knew we both were growing old

was when you took my arm and not my hand

First shyly, but with each step growing bold

as if you wanted me to understand that you were no longer to be led

But that I would do to lean on 'til you learned to fly.
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 13:57, Reply)

vitamin c
I like that, a lot :-)
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 14:06, Reply)

Custard the Dragon
www.eecs.harvard.edu/~keith/poems/Custard.html
( SpikeyPickle wishes he was mabazaritchie, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 14:07, Reply)

Vit C

That is brill, cheered me up no end!

I shall forward it to some non B3tans if I may, with your byline of course.
( Naked Ape call me Caitlyn, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 14:10, Reply)

Long Distance II
by tony harrison

Though my mother was already two years dead
Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,
put hot water bottles her side of the bed
and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn't just drop in. You had to phone.
He'd put you off an hour to give him time
to clear away her things and look alone
as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn't risk my blight of disbelief
though sure that very soon he'd hear her key
scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.
He knew she'd just popped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.
You haven't both gone shopping; just the same,
in my new black leather phone book there's your name
and the disconnected number I still call.

and edna st vincent millay, whose stuff i love.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

actually that last one looks a bit wanky on here but meh, i can't put two about bereavement, it'll turn it into oprah!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 14:14, Reply)

that 1st one
is heartbreaking rswipe.
( ascorbate, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 14:22, Reply)

@ vitc
yeah, i thought so, the last two lines made me go cold the first time i read it!
( rachelswipe with a fork, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 14:34, Reply)

Reflection on icebreaking
Think that's what its called anyway. It's by Ogden Nash.

Candy
Is Dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.
(Moniker, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 15:58, Reply)

Charles Bukowski - Nirvana
not much chance,
completely cut loose from
purpose,
he was a young man
riding a bus
through North Carolina
on the wat to somewhere
and it began to snow
and the bus stopped
at a little cafe
in the hills
and the passengers
entered.
he sat at the counter
with the others,
he ordered and the
food arived.
the meal was
particularly
good
and the
coffee.
the waitress was
unlike the women
he had
known.
she was unaffected,
there was a natural
humor which came
from her.
the fry cook said
crazy things.
the dishwasher.
in back,
laughed, a good
clean
pleasant
laugh.
the young man watched
the snow through the
windows.
he wanted to stay
in that cafe
forever.
the curious feeling
swam through him
that everything
was
beautiful
there,
that it would always
stay beautiful
there.
then the bus driver
told the passengers
that it was time
to board.
the young man
thought, I'll just sit
here, I'll just stay
here.
but then
he rose and followed
the others into the
bus.
he found his seat
and looked at the cafe
through the bus
window.
then the bus moved
off, down a curve,
downward, out of
the hills.
the young man
looked straight
foreward.
he heard the other
passengers
speaking
of other things,
or they were
reading
or
attempting to
sleep.
they had not
noticed
the
magic.
the young man
put his head to
one side,
closed his
eyes,
pretended to
sleep.
there was nothing
else to do-
just to listen to the
sound of the
engine,
the sound of the
tires
in the
snow.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Wed 7 Jan 2009, 16:51, Reply)

Surrealist limerick
There was a young man of Dundee

When stung on the neck by a wasp

Was asked "Did it hurt"?

He replied "Not at all",

"It can do it again if it likes"!
(Captain Placid 24/7 ball gags, brownie mix and clown porn, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 18:01, Reply)

I'm an obsessive for a particular genre of poetry..
..this is going to sound horribly pretencious, but imagine growing up shy and retiring in a house full of French literature as a result of a mother who teaches the language..

So age 13/14 I developed a lasting taste for the "damned poets" - Verlaine (in particular Verlaine), Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Apolinaire etc.. and not a few more obscure ones such as Theophile Gautier and Gerard de Nerval (well worth tracking down translations of his stuff if you want to feel especially poncey in a kinda cool way). I wont write any poems out here for fear someone one the internet might reach through my screen and slap me.

I've written lots of poetry. I have a wicker basket full. Some in French.. Not written much in recent years though and not sure any is worthy of printing in public; still less that I want any of it printed here.

@BGB.. John Hegley's touring at the moment and he's ace live - properly entertaining.
(raymond "three griddle pans" luxury yacht lovin' the christmas action, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 21:14, Reply)

The age demanded..
..by Ernest Hemmingway:

The age demanded that we sing
And cut away our tongue.

The age demanded that we flow
And hammered in the bung.

The age demanded that we dance
And jammed us into iron pants.

And in the end the age was handed
The sort of shit that it demanded.
(raymond "three griddle pans" luxury yacht lovin' the christmas action, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 21:23, Reply)

To Electra by Robert Herrick
I DARE not ask a kiss,
I dare not beg a smile,
Lest having that, or this,
I might grow proud the while.
No, no, the utmost share
Of my desire shall be
Only to kiss that air
That lately kissed thee

I think this might be what words are for
(onefishtwofish Redfishbluefish, Wed 7 Jan 2009, 21:23, Reply)