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The Forum's Favourite Poems
- Thread starter Withnail
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Withnail
Well-Known Forumite
Balloons
Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk
Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish--------
Such queer moons we live with
Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
And these traveling
Globes of thin air, red, green,
Delighting
The heart like wishes or free
Peacocks blessing
Old ground with a feather
Beaten in starry metals.
Your small
Brother is making
His balloon squeak like a cat.
Seeming to see
A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,
He bites,
Then sits
Back, fat jug
Contemplating a world clear as water.
A red
Shred in his little fist.
p. 1963
SYLVIA PLATH
Since Christmas they have lived with us,
Guileless and clear,
Oval soul-animals,
Taking up half the space,
Moving and rubbing on the silk
Invisible air drifts,
Giving a shriek and pop
When attacked, then scooting to rest, barely trembling.
Yellow cathead, blue fish--------
Such queer moons we live with
Instead of dead furniture!
Straw mats, white walls
And these traveling
Globes of thin air, red, green,
Delighting
The heart like wishes or free
Peacocks blessing
Old ground with a feather
Beaten in starry metals.
Your small
Brother is making
His balloon squeak like a cat.
Seeming to see
A funny pink world he might eat on the other side of it,
He bites,
Then sits
Back, fat jug
Contemplating a world clear as water.
A red
Shred in his little fist.
p. 1963
SYLVIA PLATH
John Marwood
I ♥ cryptic crosswords
Gaberdine Angus at the magazine rack
Views the situation from the front to the back
Nobody's looking for the man with the mac
Stick it right back in the stack jack
Gaberdine Angus had a mean trick
Had a mean wang - made women sick
Here's one now - go on act the goat
Gaberdine Angus - open your coat
Why waste words - risk resistance
When you can climax from a distance
Shock tactics - designed to stun
Gaberdine Angus - it isn't done
She don't run - she don't scream
Your pink extremity has gone unseen
She doesn't give the usual nervous cough
So zip up Angus - then zip off.
JCC
Views the situation from the front to the back
Nobody's looking for the man with the mac
Stick it right back in the stack jack
Gaberdine Angus had a mean trick
Had a mean wang - made women sick
Here's one now - go on act the goat
Gaberdine Angus - open your coat
Why waste words - risk resistance
When you can climax from a distance
Shock tactics - designed to stun
Gaberdine Angus - it isn't done
She don't run - she don't scream
Your pink extremity has gone unseen
She doesn't give the usual nervous cough
So zip up Angus - then zip off.
JCC
Gramaisc
Forum O. G.
Playing golf or being otherwise dull
with malice aforethought
watching TV for more than ten hours a week
discussing soap operas
(or any TV programmes or adverts
in the case of a stand-up comedian on stage)
and becoming obsessed with the work of
Quentin Tarantino
Damien Hirst
or William Burroughs
will become a criminal offence
punishable by five years' enforced participation
in a non-stop mime
juggling
and face painting workshop
in Slough.
The Berlin Wall will be rebuilt -
only five metres higher.
It will keep people out.
People like the World Bank
the International Monetary Fund
the Spice Girls
Price Waterhouse
Goldman Sachs
Jeffrey Archer
William Archer
Peter Mandelson
Helmut Kohl
and Boris Yeltsin.
Peter Lilley and Michael Portillo
will suffer immediate retrospective abortion.
In order to combat the increasing danger
to civilised society
posed by pig-ignorant
misogynistic
right-wing
testosterone-poisoned
road rage specialists
theme gulags will be introduced
for anyone who drives a van with scratches down the side
and shouts at or otherwise intimidates
lone women drivers at roundabouts
or buys shares in industries
which belonged to him in the first place.
These gulags will all be situated on Rockall
and will have three themes:
Saturday night in August on the Costa Del Sol
auction day at the used car emporium on Shoreham seafront
and happy hour in a Harlow theme pub.
All themes will run 24 hours a day
365 days a year
and inmates will be able to nominate their chosen
theme on arrival.
No theme changing will be allowed
hut Clash albums
chess sets
and copies of 'The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists'
will be available for rehabilitation purposes.
Tight security will be enforced.
Theme gulags will be surrounded by large, deep moats
filled with soya milk and real ale
guarded by pitbullfrogs
and kept under constant surveillance
by hundreds of high court judges
watching from carefully constructed ivory towers.
Boris Yeltsin will finally be recognised
as the traitor and Judas he is
and made to spend the rest of his days
cleaning out the toilets
at the Glastonbury Festival.
With his tongue.
Every Western government leader
and the entire staff of the United Nations
will be forced to walk naked
through the burnt-out towns
and mass graves
in what used to be the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia
and then have the words
'Marshall Tito was right'
tattooed on their foreheads.
A Zen Stalinist National Curriculum
will be introduced into schools.
Albanian
- both dialects, Gheg and Tosk -
will become compulsory as a foreign language.
Reading Geoffrey Archer
and supporting Crystal Palace
will become not just highly illegal
but indicative of a disturbed mental state
requiring instant frontal lobotomy.
The Alarm will reform.
All school students will have to attend morning assembly
and sing the new National Anthem:
'68 Guns' by The Alarm.
Mike Peters of The Alarm
will become the new Welsh football manager
with David Icke as his assistant.
The Royal Family
will be allowed to remain as figureheads
but will have to join The Alarm.
Billy Bragg will become next in line to the throne
and rhythm guitarist in The Alarm.
All game show hosts
and everyone who works for the Sun
and the Times Literary Supplement
will be shot.
Their executions will be videoed
an acid house soundtrack will be added
and huge week-long parties
known as 'graves'
will begin.
Ken Livingstone and his pet newt Dennis
will become Prime Minister
and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
All privatised industries will be renationalised
without compensation
and a huge TV and poster campaign will be launched
saying simply
'Tell Sid tough shit.'
The Queen will be privatised
and promoted to lead singer of The Alarm.
The first Zen Stalinist Five Year Plan
will be published
declaring world peace and social surrealism
and the dark nightmare of monetarist madness
will finally come to an end.
For ever.
Atilla the Stockbroker - The Zen-Stalinist Manifesto.
with malice aforethought
watching TV for more than ten hours a week
discussing soap operas
(or any TV programmes or adverts
in the case of a stand-up comedian on stage)
and becoming obsessed with the work of
Quentin Tarantino
Damien Hirst
or William Burroughs
will become a criminal offence
punishable by five years' enforced participation
in a non-stop mime
juggling
and face painting workshop
in Slough.
The Berlin Wall will be rebuilt -
only five metres higher.
It will keep people out.
People like the World Bank
the International Monetary Fund
the Spice Girls
Price Waterhouse
Goldman Sachs
Jeffrey Archer
William Archer
Peter Mandelson
Helmut Kohl
and Boris Yeltsin.
Peter Lilley and Michael Portillo
will suffer immediate retrospective abortion.
In order to combat the increasing danger
to civilised society
posed by pig-ignorant
misogynistic
right-wing
testosterone-poisoned
road rage specialists
theme gulags will be introduced
for anyone who drives a van with scratches down the side
and shouts at or otherwise intimidates
lone women drivers at roundabouts
or buys shares in industries
which belonged to him in the first place.
These gulags will all be situated on Rockall
and will have three themes:
Saturday night in August on the Costa Del Sol
auction day at the used car emporium on Shoreham seafront
and happy hour in a Harlow theme pub.
All themes will run 24 hours a day
365 days a year
and inmates will be able to nominate their chosen
theme on arrival.
No theme changing will be allowed
hut Clash albums
chess sets
and copies of 'The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists'
will be available for rehabilitation purposes.
Tight security will be enforced.
Theme gulags will be surrounded by large, deep moats
filled with soya milk and real ale
guarded by pitbullfrogs
and kept under constant surveillance
by hundreds of high court judges
watching from carefully constructed ivory towers.
Boris Yeltsin will finally be recognised
as the traitor and Judas he is
and made to spend the rest of his days
cleaning out the toilets
at the Glastonbury Festival.
With his tongue.
Every Western government leader
and the entire staff of the United Nations
will be forced to walk naked
through the burnt-out towns
and mass graves
in what used to be the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia
and then have the words
'Marshall Tito was right'
tattooed on their foreheads.
A Zen Stalinist National Curriculum
will be introduced into schools.
Albanian
- both dialects, Gheg and Tosk -
will become compulsory as a foreign language.
Reading Geoffrey Archer
and supporting Crystal Palace
will become not just highly illegal
but indicative of a disturbed mental state
requiring instant frontal lobotomy.
The Alarm will reform.
All school students will have to attend morning assembly
and sing the new National Anthem:
'68 Guns' by The Alarm.
Mike Peters of The Alarm
will become the new Welsh football manager
with David Icke as his assistant.
The Royal Family
will be allowed to remain as figureheads
but will have to join The Alarm.
Billy Bragg will become next in line to the throne
and rhythm guitarist in The Alarm.
All game show hosts
and everyone who works for the Sun
and the Times Literary Supplement
will be shot.
Their executions will be videoed
an acid house soundtrack will be added
and huge week-long parties
known as 'graves'
will begin.
Ken Livingstone and his pet newt Dennis
will become Prime Minister
and Chancellor of the Exchequer.
All privatised industries will be renationalised
without compensation
and a huge TV and poster campaign will be launched
saying simply
'Tell Sid tough shit.'
The Queen will be privatised
and promoted to lead singer of The Alarm.
The first Zen Stalinist Five Year Plan
will be published
declaring world peace and social surrealism
and the dark nightmare of monetarist madness
will finally come to an end.
For ever.
Atilla the Stockbroker - The Zen-Stalinist Manifesto.
Withnail
Well-Known Forumite
six of Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
p.1917
WALLACE STEVENS
I
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
III
The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV
A man and a woman
Are one.
A man and a woman and a blackbird
Are one.
V
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
VIII
I know noble accents
And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
But I know, too,
That the blackbird is involved
In what I know.
XII
The river is moving.
The blackbird must be flying.
p.1917
WALLACE STEVENS
John Marwood
I ♥ cryptic crosswords
Tits
With tails
Of length
Indeed
Breeding
Feeding
Chirping aloud
It beats
the rain
and breaks
the cloud
AJ Thribb age 61
With tails
Of length
Indeed
Breeding
Feeding
Chirping aloud
It beats
the rain
and breaks
the cloud
AJ Thribb age 61
Withnail
Well-Known Forumite
3 Cheers for Pooh!
(For who?)
For Pooh -
(Why, what did he do?)
I thought you knew;
He saved his friend from a wetting!
3 Cheers for Bear!
(For where?)
For Bear -
He couldn't swim,
But he rescued him!
(He rescued who?)
Oh, listen, do!
I am talking of Pooh!
(Of who?)
Of Pooh!
(I'm sorry, I keep forgetting).
Well, Pooh was a Bear of Enormous Brain
(Just say it again!)
Of enormous brain -
(Of enormous what?)
Well, he ate a lot,
And I don't know if he could swim or not,
But he managed to float
On a sort of boat
(On a sort of what?)
Well, a sort of pot -
So now let's give three hearty cheers!
(So now let's give him three hearty whiches?)
And hope he'll be with us for years and years,
And grow in health and wisdom and riches!
3 Cheers for Pooh!
(For who?)
For Pooh -
3 Cheers for Bear
(For where?)
For Bear -
3 Cheers for the wonderful Winnie-the-Pooh!
(Just tell me, somebody - WHAT DID HE DO?)
p.1926
MR. SANDERS
(For who?)
For Pooh -
(Why, what did he do?)
I thought you knew;
He saved his friend from a wetting!
3 Cheers for Bear!
(For where?)
For Bear -
He couldn't swim,
But he rescued him!
(He rescued who?)
Oh, listen, do!
I am talking of Pooh!
(Of who?)
Of Pooh!
(I'm sorry, I keep forgetting).
Well, Pooh was a Bear of Enormous Brain
(Just say it again!)
Of enormous brain -
(Of enormous what?)
Well, he ate a lot,
And I don't know if he could swim or not,
But he managed to float
On a sort of boat
(On a sort of what?)
Well, a sort of pot -
So now let's give three hearty cheers!
(So now let's give him three hearty whiches?)
And hope he'll be with us for years and years,
And grow in health and wisdom and riches!
3 Cheers for Pooh!
(For who?)
For Pooh -
3 Cheers for Bear
(For where?)
For Bear -
3 Cheers for the wonderful Winnie-the-Pooh!
(Just tell me, somebody - WHAT DID HE DO?)
p.1926
MR. SANDERS
Withnail
Well-Known Forumite
The Sunlight on the Garden
The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.
Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.
The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying
And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.
p.1938
LOUIS MacNEICE
The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.
Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.
The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying
And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.
p.1938
LOUIS MacNEICE
Gramaisc
Forum O. G.
A Dead Boche.
To you who’d read my songs of War
And only hear of blood and fame,
I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before)
”War’s Hell!” and if you doubt the same,
Today I found in Mametz Wood
A certain cure for lust of blood:
Where, propped against a shattered trunk,
In a great mess of things unclean,
Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk
With clothes and face a sodden green,
Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,
Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.
Robert Graves.
To you who’d read my songs of War
And only hear of blood and fame,
I’ll say (you’ve heard it said before)
”War’s Hell!” and if you doubt the same,
Today I found in Mametz Wood
A certain cure for lust of blood:
Where, propped against a shattered trunk,
In a great mess of things unclean,
Sat a dead Boche; he scowled and stunk
With clothes and face a sodden green,
Big-bellied, spectacled, crop-haired,
Dribbling black blood from nose and beard.
Robert Graves.