Poems
Because of the sentiment... everyone's life is worthy and we're all connected.
And because of the phrases that travelled through time (it was written in 1623, in fact in the winter of 1623... how poetic!); "no man is an island"; "any man's death diminishes me"; "for whom the bell tolls" (thank you Hemingway and Metallica).
You ever stopped to realise that you’re middle class bourgeoisie, bloke ? A middle class bourgeoisie straight from English stock and that no amount of listening to yob pommy bass heavy , whinge rap will ever alter the fact.
Self loathing is a very unattractive trait.
Here’s a poem just for you bloke:
There was a Crow Eater in Margies
Who fancied himself at argy bargy
But his hide was too thin
He led with his chin
And absent in his chest was a hearty
In all the land’s creation
there’s none with less imagination
than the Crow Eater in Margies
who’s mouth is a party
in which every ageing oi punk is Cummin’
Perhaps you should heed the last verse.
‘Twas a biblical flood and the power was outed
Processing mangoes by head light is an act of the truly devouted
Whilst the stereo blasted and the fruit did amass
I risked a quick look online in hopes of some class
all I did find woe is me and alas
was that strange cnt Crow Eater who’s such a prize arse
you know who it was “twas that ageing clown Memo
the sort of clown who’s less appealing than chemo
luckily there’s many a legend on Swellnet’s broad canvas
and when he’s easily ignored he disappears up his own anus
#CarcheronDundeeAProtectedSpecies?
Nice poem you posted there Patrick, sad the thread sideways from there.
Very sad, we cant have nice things.
A Poison Tree
By William Blake
I was angry with my friend;
I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
I was angry with my foe:
I told it not, my wrath did grow.
And I waterd it in fears,
Night & morning with my tears:
And I sunned it with smiles,
And with soft deceitful wiles.
And it grew both day and night.
Till it bore an apple bright.
And my foe beheld it shine,
And he knew that it was mine.
And into my garden stole,
When the night had veild the pole;
In the morning glad I see;
My foe outstretched beneath the tree.
#Bukowski
Thanks Patrick... good thread to start.
Never knew where "no man is an island" came from, so educational too!
Just a shame that angry men have to toxify a beautiful discussion on poetry.
Stand tall.
Stand tall and face your foe.
Stand tall and face this man you hate.
Parry left, he follows your every move.
Feint to the right, and he is there before you.
Your mortal foe, this man you hate, he knows you very well.
For he lives in the mirror.
Pollution
all around
sometimes up
sometimes down
but always around
pollution
are you coming to my town
or am I coming to yours
we’re on different buses pollution
but we’re both using petrol
Bombs!
Prick, Britain.
World’s biggest bottom burp.
“Looking for Work”
I’ve always wanted brook trout
for breakfast.
Suddenly, I find a new path
to the waterfall.
I begin to hurry.
Wake up,
my wife says,
you’re dreaming.
But when I try to rise,
the house tilts.
Who’s dreaming?
It’s noon, she says.
My new shoes wait by the door.
They are gleaming.
- Raymond Carver
You're wrong fighting jihad
Your blind faith in God
Your religions are all flawed
You're wrong about drug use
when its not abuse
i hope you never reproduce
you're getting high on the down low
a victim of the Cointelpro
you're wrong
and will probably never know.
Factotum… that Carver poem rocks.. so much storey and it's told so concisely.
Immediately so descriptive, drawing you in to trout for breakfast, and a stream , then the confusion of waking up midday, house wobbling hungover. Then reality of shoes (and plans undone). What a Perfect title "“Looking for Work”.
Second read, laughing aloud at how relatable it is.
Rick's work ain't bad either.
He saw that all the struggles of life were incessant, laborious, painful, that nothing was done quickly,
without labor,
that it had to undergo a thousand fondlings,
revisitings, moldings,
addings, removings,
graftings, tearings,
correctings, smoothings,
rebuildings, reconsiderings,
nailings, tackings, chippings, hammerings,
hoistings, connectings-
all the poor fumbling uncertain incompletions
of human endeavor.
They went on forever
and were forever incomplete,
far from perfect, refined, or smooth, full of terrible memories of failure and fears of failure,
yet,
in the way of things, complete, and shining in the end.
somehow noble,
Facto should know who wrote this.
Agreed, the carver poem is cool as are the other contributors. Keep it up chaps.
Thanks for that poem Zenagain... had to google who it was by, but then happily spent all night reading Jack Kerouac quotes. Never realised what a crazy genius he was.
Kerouac on Poets.
“A poet is a blind optimist.
The world is against him for
many reasons. But the
poet persists. He believes
that he is on the right track,
no matter what any of his
fellow men say. In his
eternal search for truth, the
poet is alone.
He tries to be timeless in a
society built on time.”
― Jack Kerouac
Patrick’s post, For Whom The Bells Tolls, is a great example of a poet achieving Kerouac’s goal of being timeless when writing poetry. John Donne’s work 400 years old, highly relevant and quoted daily worldwide.
Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.
JK.
There was a great thread quite a while ago on quotes. Have a trawl through that. Makes for some really good reading.
In a Kerouac connective vein, here's Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who recently passed away.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/feb/23/lawrence-ferlinghetti-obit...
A poem of his:
Dog
BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI
The dog trots freely in the street
and sees reality
and the things he sees
are bigger than himself
and the things he sees
are his reality
Drunks in doorways
Moons on trees
The dog trots freely thru the street
and the things he sees
are smaller than himself
Fish on newsprint
Ants in holes
Chickens in Chinatown windows
their heads a block away
The dog trots freely in the street
and the things he smells
smell something like himself
The dog trots freely in the street
past puddles and babies
cats and cigars
poolrooms and policemen
He doesn’t hate cops
He merely has no use for them
and he goes past them
and past the dead cows hung up whole
in front of the San Francisco Meat Market
He would rather eat a tender cow
than a tough policeman
though either might do
And he goes past the Romeo Ravioli Factory
and past Coit’s Tower
and past Congressman Doyle
He’s afraid of Coit’s Tower
but he’s not afraid of Congressman Doyle
although what he hears is very discouraging
very depressing
very absurd
to a sad young dog like himself
to a serious dog like himself
But he has his own free world to live in
His own fleas to eat
He will not be muzzled
Congressman Doyle is just another
fire hydrant
to him
The dog trots freely in the street
and has his own dog’s life to live
and to think about
and to reflect upon
touching and tasting and testing everything
investigating everything
without benefit of perjury
a real realist
with a real tale to tell
and a real tail to tell it with
a real live
barking
democratic dog
engaged in real
free enterprise
with something to say
about ontology
something to say
about reality
and how to see it
and how to hear it
with his head cocked sideways
at streetcorners
as if he is just about to have
his picture taken
for Victor Records
listening for
His Master’s Voice
and looking
like a living questionmark
into the
great gramaphone
of puzzling existence
with its wondrous hollow horn
which always seems
just about to spout forth
some Victorious answer
to everything
A San Francisco connection*:
From the Wave
BY THOM GUNN
It mounts at sea, a concave wall
Down-ribbed with shine,
And pushes forward, building tall
Its steep incline.
Then from their hiding rise to sight
Black shapes on boards
Bearing before the fringe of white
It mottles towards.
Their pale feet curl, they poise their weight
With a learn’d skill.
It is the wave they imitate
Keeps them so still.
The marbling bodies have become
Half wave, half men,
Grafted it seems by feet of foam
Some seconds, then,
Late as they can, they slice the face
In timed procession:
Balance is triumph in this place,
Triumph possession.
The mindless heave of which they rode
A fluid shelf
Breaks as they leave it, falls and, slowed,
Loses itself.
Clear, the sheathed bodies slick as seals
Loosen and tingle;
And by the board the bare foot feels
The suck of shingle.
They paddle in the shallows still;
Two splash each other;
Then all swim out to wait until
The right waves gather.
*Is Fred Van Dyke in the house?
Two beauties Facto.
How good are writers.
#SpikeMilligan
.
#BlowinHaveYouBeenSelf-RedactingToTry&CoverYourEmbarrassedArse...Again?
BrokeBlax Mountain
By Blowin
The old kook worked at a gym
and he was in love with a him
memo was the twink
the old kook lured with a wink
before pumping his stink raw to the rim
#NahNoIssuesThereAy
#IGuessYouDidn'tPickUpThat'GayDisabledMan'InYourCarThen
#Don'tYouGoOutInTheRain
#Nevermind
and so ends the poetry thread. Nearly had something nice going.
Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting...
Don't worry about the rest SS, it gets a bit preachy after that.
For the record, I enjoyed it while it lasted.
#AndSoEndsThePoetryThread?YeahNah
#IGuessSelfPennedLatentHomosexualZ-GradeDoggerelIsAKindOfPoetry?!
#Blowin'sGotIssues
#InsecurePhilistinesGonnaPhilistine
The love of field and coppice
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins.
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft, dim skies
I know, but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.
I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror
The wide brown land for me!
The stark white ring-barked forests,
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops,
And ferns the warm dark soil.
Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When, sick at heart, around us
We see the cattle die
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.
Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the rainbow gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold.
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze …
An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand
though Earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.
There you go SS- Dorothea McKellar.
I read Tess of the D'Urbervilles as a young fella, beautiful writing but hard going for a numpty like me.
Here’s the thing, Sheep Shagger.
This site is for entertainment purposes, ain’t no cures for cancer being developed here. So when I click on the poetry thread and contribute a poem, irrespective of whether you approve of it’s less than highbrow nature, I’m enjoying myself. In fact I was pissing myself laughing as I wrote it and believe me a good laugh is what I needed after chain sawing through downed trees on a slippery driveway in teeming rain , trying to get power restored to my home a couple of hours before dark during a one in hundred year flood , getting a boot off the fuse box and all the while trying to calm the elderly people inside who are freaking the fck out after they’ve just thought they were going to be killed by falling trees, and who’re now worried sick about anything and everything.
So if you want nice things perhaps less whinge whinge and more actual contributing to the thread which is nothing if crew don’t all chip in.
Put up or shut up bloke
Like Noah this morning
I rejoiced at blue sky
The bright star was shining
and my home was still dry
In the offshore I pondered
the value or worth
Of a deep ear infection
In a chocolate brown surf
Memo - Top of the page he’s whining about the bourgeoisie engaged in selfish leisure activities amongst the downtrodden
Bottom of the page he’s whining about the philistines cluttering up the thread where he posts the plagiarised poetry he uses to signify the confected identity he likes to project.
Best to remember that whilst Memo loves to post about how much he despises white colonialism, misogyny, the bourgeoisie and uncouth bogans he’s also there on his international splash splash surfing jaunts in third world countries and on the piss at four floors of whores ,with his drunken yob mates, buying sex off desperate ethnic women who subjugate themselves to his sweaty white man desires just so they can put food on the table.
Surely someone can write a poem about that rich vein of hypocrisy?
Fair enough Blowin... laughter is the best medicine after all. Saw the pictures of your trees down on the powerlines... scary situation. Hope that tame kookaburra you feed is OK as well. I like your nature posts. One original from me above already, and tonight's rain got me writing another.
Blackbird in the rain:
It’s raining, hard.
Almost dark.
Weed smoke fills the bathroom where I hide.
She doesn’t like the smell.
She doesn’t like much at all, anymore.
Quiet, but for the rain, and the silence between us.
A blackbird’s song disguises the monotony, for a moment.
What stupid bird sings in the rain? She asks through the door.
I ignore her. Glad there’s still the roach.
Cure for cancer:
If they find a cure for cancer,
how happy I will be.
The Winfield Red
I smoke in bed,
will taste better when guilt free.
Hypocrites:
You are hypocrites I told my friends,
why not be like me.
I am faultless to a fault,
neither left nor bourgeoises.
Try and grow,
change your ways,
or you will go to hell.
Now it’s three months since they last called,
I hope they’re doing well.
-this poem is not directed at anyone... just freestyling on stimulus from this thread-
"Here’s the thing, Sheep Shagger, this site is for entertainment purposes..." and what I decree goes, bloke.
"So when I click on the poetry thread and contribute a poem, irrespective of whether you approve of its less than highbrow nature" ie weird latent homosexuality, schoolyard insulting tone, and overall technical shiteness, "I’m enjoying myself". And that's all that matters, bloke.
"In fact I was pissing myself (not literally...um) laughing as I wrote it", as we all were when reading this next self-aggrandising, narcissistic, PR nonsense (at first I pictured ProMo, but really it's more like Abbott that time he got all dressed up and went firefighting with the CFS...cameras on call, of course. Hey, at least he did hold a hose, ay):
"...After chain sawing through downed trees on a slippery driveway in teeming rain , trying to get power restored to my home a couple of hours before dark during a one in hundred year flood , getting a boot off the fuse box and all the while trying to calm the elderly people inside who are freaking the fck out after they’ve just thought they were going to be killed by falling trees, and who’re now worried sick about anything and everything."
Some heroes don't wear a cape, or budgie smugglers. And yes, "believe me, a good laugh is what I needed".
"So if you want nice things perhaps less whinge whinge and more actual contributing to the thread", cunt.
"Put up or shut up bloke."
Yes, sir.
Hahahahahahaha. Fucking idiot.
Ignore that gronk's directives, SS.
In fact, the exact opposite would be a wiser direction to take, methinks.
I like Mary Oliver's writings.
'A Thousand Mornings', a little book of collected works, is a good place to start.
And this poem by John Donne:
No man is an island,
entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
as well as if a promontory were.
as well as if a manor of thy friend’s
or of thine own were.
Any man’s death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind;
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.