How about a poetry thread?

Tringa

Tringa

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Dave
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I'd like to think I have read a few decent books

In my opinion the following are up there with the best but the range probably shows my limitations -

Return of the Native,
Titus Groan and Gormenghast,
1984,
Wolf Hall, and
Neuromancer

Poetry, however I have never understood and most of the poems I like are comic verses.

Recently I found this poem which I think is .... well I'll leave others to draw a conclusion.

Any comments on this poem and any other views on poetry will be welcomed.


Dave


Doppelganger | By James A. Lindon


Entering the lonely house with my wife
I saw him for the first time
Peering furtively from behind a bush —
Blackness that moved,
A shape amid the shadows,
A momentary glimpse of gleaming eyes
Revealed in the ragged moon.
A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have
Put him to flight forever —
I dared not
For reasons that I failed to understand,
Though I knew I should act at once.

I puzzled over it, hiding alone,
Watching the woman as she neared the gate.
He came, and I saw him crouching
Night after night.
Night after night
He came, and I saw him crouching,
Watching the woman as she neared the gate.

I puzzled over it, hiding alone —
Though I knew I should act at once,
For reasons that I failed to understand
I dared not
Put him to flight forever.

A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have
Revealed in the ragged moon.
A momentary glimpse of gleaming eyes
A shape amid the shadows,
Blackness that moved.

Peering furtively from behind a bush,
I saw him for the first time,
Entering the lonely house with my wife.
 
have you read any other William Gibson? one of my fave authors.

I have the Oxford book of Victorian Verse which I have had for years and pretty much read it all, Walter Landor and Elizabeth Browning being 2 of my faves, also have some James Joyce stuff I like... and I loved Pam Ayres when I was a kid.
 
Sorry, David, can't resist!

Hear I sit
Broken hearted
Took Picolax
Now just sharted!
 
Tringa said:
Peering furtively from behind a bush,
I saw him for the first time,
Entering the lonely house with my wife.
Click to expand...
That reminds me of the 6th day (film)
and this ..

Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there.
He wasn't there again today,
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

When I came home last night at three,
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall,
I couldn't see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don't you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don't slam the door...

Last night I saw upon the stair,
A little man who wasn't there,
He wasn't there again today
Oh, how I wish he'd go away...
 
One bright day in the middle of the night
Two dead men got up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
Drew their swords and shot each other


I'm all about the classy arts me :D
 
My favourite nonsense poem, although I can only remember bits.

To be read with a deliberately strong and bad New York accent.

Spring is sprung
Da grass is riz
I wonder where dem boidies is.

Da boids is on da wing
Dat's absoid
Da wings is on da boid

Toity poiple boids
Sittin' on da koib
Achoipin
And aboipin
Eatin' doity woims.
 
I write poetry on occasion, most of my poetry however is very dark and usually based off of personal experiences


No Tomorrow By Keith

Beautiful rose, a flower,
Birds singing,
A child giggles watching the puppy playing,
Life of joy,
Life of happiness,
Peace and calm, where did it all go?
Wilted flower a thorn to prick,
No rose, no birds or a child’s giggle,
Lost,
Gone,
Now full of sorrow,
Hoping today there will be no tomorrow.
 
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David, the other Gibson books I've read are Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive and Burning Chrome. All good but I think Neuromancer is the best, though the idea of, 'Bobby pulls a Wilson' is a classic.

Dave
 
Reflection by Kieth

I walk up to it, a mirror, to see
But who is this person looking back at me?
I see no eyes but pits of darkness
But who is this person, this likeness?
I see nothing in this mirror,
Empty,
Dark,
Black,
Nothing,
This is the reflection of the real me.
 
Remember this from t.v back in the 60's or 70's
The worms crawl in .
The worms crawl out .
In your tummy .
And out your mouth .

You ever see a hearse go by .
And wonder if your gonna die.
 
Although not strictly a poem, this, in my humble opinion, is one of the finest ever examples of the use of the English language.

Read it slowly and find the rhythm.

Under Milk Wood - Dylan Thomas

To begin at the beginning:

It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courters'-and- rabbits' wood limping invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing sea. The houses are blind as moles (though moles see fine to-night in the snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.

Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cocklewomen and the tidy wives. Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glow-worms down the aisles of the organplaying wood. The boys are dreaming wicked or of the bucking ranches of the night and the jollyrogered sea. And the anthracite statues of the horses sleep in the fields, and the cows in the byres, and the dogs in the wet-nosed yards; and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sly, streaking and needling, on the one cloud of the roofs.

You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing.

Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast, and slow, asleep.

And you alone can hear the invisible starfall, the darkest-before- dawn minutely dewgrazed stir of the black, dab-filled sea where the Arethusa, the Curlew and the Skylark, Zanzibar, Rhiannon, the Rover, the Cormorant, and the Star of Wales tilt and ride.

Listen. It is night moving in the streets, the processional salt slow musical wind in Coronation Street and Cockle Row, it is the grass growing on Llareggub Hill, dewfall, starfall, the sleep of birds in Milk Wood.

Listen. It is night in the chill, squat chapel, hymning in bonnet and brooch and bombazine black, butterfly choker and bootlace bow, coughing like nannygoats, suckling mintoes, fortywinking hallelujah; night in the four-ale, quiet as a domino; in Ocky Milkman's lofts like a mouse with gloves; in Dai Bread's bakery flying like black flour. It is to-night in Donkey Street, trotting silent, with seaweed on its hooves, along the cockled cobbles, past curtained fernpot, text and trinket, harmonium, holy dresser, watercolours done by hand, china dog and rosy tin teacaddy. It is night neddying among the snuggeries of babies.

Look. It is night, dumbly, royally winding though the Coronation cherry trees; going through the graveyard of Bethesda with winds gloved and folded, and dew doffed; tumbling by the Sailors Arms.

Time passes. Listen. Time passes.

Come closer now.

Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night. Only you can see in the blinded bedrooms, the combs and petticoats over the chairs, the jugs and basins, the glasses of teeth, Thou Shalt Not on the wall, and the yellowing, dickybird-watching pictures of the dead. Only you can hear and see, behind the eyes of the sleepers, the movements and countries and mazes and colours and dismays and rainbows and tunes and wishes and flight and fall and despairs and big seas of their dreams.

From where you are, you can hear their dreams.
 
Hated trying to learn it by heart but love some parts of Vergil's Aeneid in the Latin.

"Tempus erat
Quo prima quies
Mortalibus aegris incipit
Et dono Divum
Gratissima serpit"

Which translates as
"It was the time
When first sleep
Overtakes mortal men
And like a gift from the Gods
Creeps gratefully over them."

That's the only part I can remember despite having to learn it verbatim to get a Latin O level (which I don't have!)
 
Indeed - "Buggerall" backwards!

The BBC adaptation of Under Milkwood made a couple of years ago with a starry Welsh cast, was worth that years licence fee alone. The best version since Richard Burton's narrated radio epic.
 
simon ess said:
My favourite nonsense poem, although I can only remember bits.

To be read with a deliberately strong and bad New York accent.

Spring is sprung
Da grass is riz
I wonder where dem boidies is.

Da boids is on da wing
Dat's absoid
Da wings is on da boid

Toity poiple boids
Sittin' on da koib
Achoipin
And aboipin
Eatin' doity woims.
Click to expand...

My dad used to recite that one.... Thanks. :-)
 
A Soul So Empty By Keith

A soul so empty,
A head so full,
A turmoil built into a rage inside,
I await the steel to glide,
Slow slow, waiting waiting,
A soul so empty
A head so full
A turmoil built into a rage inside
Explosion!
Cold cold steel cuts, slices, no control,
Pressure spurting
No more hurting
Red release, it hurt it hurts, where is the peace?
A soul so empty,
A head so full
A turmoil built into a rage inside,
I await once more the steel to glide.
 
There was a young woman from Leeds
Who swallowed a packet of seeds
Now blades of grass
grow out of her arse
and her fanny's all covered in weeds.
 
Another one I like.

To me it could be taken as a poem for children, and I found it in a poetry book for children and used to read it to my son when he was little, but there is quite sinister about it too -

The Egg Shell by Rudyard Kipling

The wind took off with the sunset—
The fog came up with the tide,
When the Witch of the North took an Egg-shell
With a little Blue Devil inside.
“Sink,” she said, “or swim,” she said,
“It’s all you will get from me.
And that is the finish of him!” she said,
And the Egg-shell went to sea.

The wind fell dead with the midnight—
The fog shut down like a sheet,
When the Witch of the North heard the Egg-shell
Feeling by hand for a fleet.
“Get!” she said, “or you’re gone,” she said,
But the little Blue Devil said “No!”
“The sights are just coming on,” he said,
And he let the Whitehead go.

The wind got up with the morning—
The fog blew off with the rain,
When the Witch of the North saw the Egg-shell
And the little Blue Devil again.
“Did you swim?” she said. “Did you sink?” she said,
And the little Blue Devil replied:
“For myself I swam, but I think,” he said,
“There’s somebody sinking outside.



Dave
 
When I am sad and weary,
When I think all hope is gone,
When I walk along High Holborn,
I think of you with nothing on.

"Celia, Celia" by Adrian Mitchell

When visiting London I often meet a friend in Pendrel's Oak on High Holborn and it always brings this poem to mind.
 
I am a fan of Jonathon X Coudrille ( his art, music and poetry) and have his book Love, Death and Bad Behaviour from which this little gem is taken...

Flies
Two Flies, devoid of delicacy, decency or tact
Performed upon my luncheon tray the procreative act.
Quite without contrition, they refused to call a halt,
Intent upon coition,
‘Though I peppered them with salt.
At length the She-Fly wearied
Of his passionate attack
And shook her paltry partner
Like a raincoat
From her back…
Bemused, distrait, diverted.
He lay there scarcely spent
To be pulled along inverted
Like a clown
When off she went.
Her trampled wings she mastered
Looking flustered as she fled
And dropped
The little b*****d
In the Mustard
On
His
H
e
a
d

Anthony.
 
Human nature revealed - 14th. Century style.

http://sites.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/langland/pp-pro.html

A taster

And some to make mirth · as minstrels know how,
And get gold with their glees · guiltlessly, I hold.
But jesters and janglers · children of Judas,
Feigning their fancies · and making folk fools,
They have wit at will · to work, if they would;
Paul preacheth of them · I'll not prove it here --
Qui turpiloquium loquitur · is Lucifer's hind.

Tramps and beggars · went quickly about,
Their bellies and their bags · with bread well crammed;
Cadging for their food · fighting at ale;
In gluttony, God knows · going to bed,
And getting up with ribaldry · the thieving knaves!
 
Middle......................................................................................Aged
Couple.....................................................................................Playing
Ten.........................................................................................Nis
When......................................................................................The
Game......................................................................................Ends
And.........................................................................................They
Go...........................................................................................Home
The..........................................................................................Net
Will..........................................................................................Still
Be............................................................................................Be
Tween......................................................................................Them.
 
There are holes in the sky where the rain gets in.
They're ever so small, that's why rain is thin.
 
There's nothing wrong with writing a poem
While emptying your jeroboam
'cause making a rhyme is not a sin
Provided you get the scanning in
But if you make your verses blank
Just keep your day job at the bank!

17291930145_989c4126b8_b.jpg
 
The Lord said unto Moses
All the people shall have round noses
Except Peter, as he shall have a
Gas meter.

By Harry "Lewis" Moore, RIP
 
Hush, listen, whisper who dares,
little boy kneels at the foot of the stairs.
There's blood on his hands
and fur on the mat.
Christopher Robin's castrated the cat.
 
We've found the cultural level then?

:)

Mary had a little lamb
It was always gruntin'
She tied it to a five bar gate

Edit

I decided the last line was probably a step too far.

:D
 
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simon ess said:
I decided the last line was probably a step too far.
Click to expand...
I thought so too :D

If I could be a caterpillar
Life would be a farce,
I'd climb right up the highest trees
and slide down on my arse.
 
I've long thought that this is excellent advice about how to conduct oneself in an internet forum.

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.
As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

The rest is here
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~gongsu/desiderata_textonly.html

Rudyard Kipling had something to say on the subject too.

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/175772
 
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simon ess said:
I've long thought that this is excellent advice about how to conduct oneself in an internet forum.
Click to expand...
Ah yes Desiderata.
However there is a shorter version,
don't p*** off the Mods.
The end :D
 
From that genius that was Spike Milligan.

On the Ning Nang Nong
Where the Cows go Bong!
and the monkeys all say BOO!
There's a Nong Nang Ning
Where the trees go Ping!
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo.
On the Nong Ning Nang
All the mice go Clang
And you just can't catch 'em when they do!
So its Ning Nang Nong
Cows go Bong!
Nong Nang Ning
Trees go ping
Nong Ning Nang
The mice go Clang
What a noisy place to belong
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!
 
The Elephant is a graceful bird
it swings from bough to bough.
It lay's it's eggs in a Cuckoo's nest
and whistles like a cow.
 
A slinking fox with bushy tail. A brush?
Stuck in the entrance to his lair. A push?
A shotgun hidden nearby, explodes!. Poor red.
No more a slinking will he go.....



....he's dead.
 
Never ever did I spy
A meal as lovely as a pie.
A banquet in a single course
Blushing with tomato sauce.
 
But more seriously;

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

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 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.


---

Timeless in its power and relevance.
 
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