The Forum's Favourite Poems

[John Marwood]

Dot King was whittled from the bone of Cain
with a little drop of poison in the red, red blood
She need a way to turn around the bend
She said I want to walk away and start over again.

There are things I've done I can't erase
I want to look in the mirror, see another face
I said never would I do it again
I want to walk away, start over again.

No more rain
No more roses
On my way, shake my thirst in a cool, cool pond.

There is a winner in every place
There is a heart that's beating in every page
The beginning of it starts at the end
When it's time to walk away and start over again.

Weather is murder at a hundred and three
William Ray shot Corabell Lee
A yellow dog knows when he has sinned
You want to walk away and start over again.

No more rain
No more roses
On my way, shaking my thirst in a cool cool pond.

Cooper told Maui the whole block is gone
They're dying for jewelry, money, and clothes
I always get out of the trouble I'm in
I want to walk away, start over again.

I left my bible by the side of the road
Carve my initials in an old dead tree
I'm going away but I'm going to be back when
It's time to walk away and start over again.

 

[Gramaisc]

UK GIN DEPENDENCE PARTY

We’re not fascists, are we, dear?
Bring that bottle over here.
Now. Where was I? Enoch Powell?
Damn this irritable bowel!
Do you play goff? Come down the club.
Just a snifter, lovely grub……
What, no blazer? Borrow mine.
Chin chin. Maggie, ‘79!

Now. Where was I? Nigel Farage.
Dear! More bottles in the garage.
Really don’t want to disparage
But he should pronounce it Farridge.
Agincourt and Waterloo
Showed those Frenchies what to do.
Entente Cordiale - bloody shame.
Wonder how he got that name?

Now. Where was I? Edward Heath.
Awful man with awful teeth.
He’s the one who started this -
Led us into the abyss.
It would have been so much easier
To have teamed up with Rhodesia.
Bloody Poles. This gin is strong!
Oh, it’s vodka. Got that wrong…..

Now, where was I? Fascists? No.
I fought them, I’ll have you know.
Well, I nearly did – too young.
Something’s happening to my tongue!
Bloody Poles. I need a kip.
Do have one more. Just a nip….
Upstairs, ere my senses fail.
Eileen, where’s the Daily Mail?

One last parting shot, young man:
Country’s going down the pan.
Anyone with half a brain
Is selling up and orf to Spain.
Part of that’s in Europe, true -
But not the bit we’re going to.
Bloody Poles. My poor old head…..
See yourself out. Orf to bed!

Attila the Stockbroker.

 

[Withnail]

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite.

If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.

 

[Spelunker]

In memory yesterdays events and that big band that is now gathering in Heaven/Hell

Horse Latitudes

When the still sea conspires an armour
And her sullen and aborted
Currents breed tiny monsters
True sailing is dead
Awkward instant
And the first animal is jettisoned
Legs furiously pumping
Their stiff green gallop
And heads bob up
Poise
Delicate
Pause
Consent
In mute nostril agony
Carefully refined
And sealed over

 

[John Marwood]

Barely a twelvemonth after
The seven days war that put the world to sleep,
Late in the evening the strange horses came.
By then we had made our covenant with silence,
But in the first few days it was so still
We listened to our breathing and were afraid.
On the second day
The radios failed; we turned the knobs; no answer.
On the third day a warship passed us, heading north,
Dead bodies piled on the deck. On the sixth day
A plane plunged over us into the sea. Thereafter
Nothing. The radios dumb;
And still they stand in corners of our kitchens,
And stand, perhaps, turned on, in a million rooms
All over the world. But now if they should speak,
If on a sudden they should speak again,
If on the stroke of noon a voice should speak,
We would not listen, we would not let it bring
That old bad world that swallowed its children quick
At one great gulp. We would not have it again.
Sometimes we think of the nations lying asleep,
Curled blindly in impenetrable sorrow,
And then the thought confounds us with its strangeness.
The tractors lie about our fields; at evening
They look like dank sea-monsters couched and waiting.
We leave them where they are and let them rust:
'They'll molder away and be like other loam.'
We make our oxen drag our rusty plows,
Long laid aside. We have gone back
Far past our fathers' land.
And then, that evening
Late in the summer the strange horses came.
We heard a distant tapping on the road,
A deepening drumming; it stopped, went on again
And at the corner changed to hollow thunder.
We saw the heads
Like a wild wave charging and were afraid.
We had sold our horses in our fathers' time
To buy new tractors. Now they were strange to us
As fabulous steeds set on an ancient shield.
Or illustrations in a book of knights.
We did not dare go near them. Yet they waited,
Stubborn and shy, as if they had been sent
By an old command to find our whereabouts
And that long-lost archaic companionship.
In the first moment we had never a thought
That they were creatures to be owned and used.
Among them were some half a dozen colts
Dropped in some wilderness of the broken world,
Yet new as if they had come from their own Eden.
Since then they have pulled our plows and borne our loads
But that free servitude still can pierce our hearts.
Our life is changed; their coming our beginning

 

[Withnail]

The Horses

I was going to point out that you posted this poem on the very first page of this thread, then i decided not to.

Then i couldn't stop thinking about the difference in punctuation betwixt that one and this - viz one continuous block in this one, but line breaks in the first. The only version i've found, with an admittedly minimal amount of looking, online has been of the latter continuous block 'o' verse variety - did you add the line breaks in the first one yourself or is that the 'proper' version?

Curiosity got the better of me.

 

[John Marwood]

I was going to point out that you posted this poem on the very first page of this thread, then i decided not to.

Then i couldn't stop thinking about the difference in punctuation betwixt that one and this - viz one continuous block in this one, but line breaks in the first. The only version i've found, with an admittedly minimal amount of looking, online has been of the latter continuous block 'o' verse variety - did you add the line breaks in the first one yourself or is that the 'proper' version?

Curiosity got the better of me.

It always helps if you sing a poem to the Beastie Boys to make sure it scans

I have soundproofed my basement for the consideration of others

 

[Withnail]

It always helps if you sing a poem to the Beastie Boys to make sure it scans

I have soundproofed my basement for the consideration of others

Well that clears that one up - many thanx.

 

[Withnail]

13.

who knows if the moon's
a balloon,coming out of a keen city
in the sky - filled with pretty people?
( and if you and I should

get into it,if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people

than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away sailing into a keen
city which nobody's ever visited,where

always
it's
Spring) and everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves

p.1954


e e cummings

 

[Withnail]

Digging

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound
When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:
My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds
Bends low, comes up twenty years away
Stooping in rhythm through potato drills
Where he was digging.

The coarse boot nestled on the lug, the shaft
Against the inside knee was levered firmly.
He rooted out tall tops, buried the bright edge deep
To scatter new potatoes that we picked,
Loving their cool hardness in our hands.

By God, the old man could handle a spade.
Just like his old man.

My grandfather cut more turf in a day
Than any other man on Toner's bog.
Once I carried him milk in a bottle
Corked sloppily with paper. He straightened up
To drink it, then fell to right away
Nicking and slicing neatly, heaving sods
Over his shoulder, going down and down
For the good turf. Digging.

The cold smell of potato mould, the squelch and slap
Of soggy peat, the curt cuts of an edge
Through living roots awaken in my head.
But I've no spade to follow men like them.

Between my finger and my thumb
The squat pen rests.
I'll dig with it.

p. 1964

SEAMUS HEANEY

 

[Withnail]

To Autumn

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.


JOHN KEATS
p. 1820

 

[Merckx]

.

 

[Nicedave]

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community. Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views, For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink
. The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace: when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population
, Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their education.
Was he free? Was he happy
? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

The Unknown Citizen

W H Auden

 

[Withnail]

The Hollow Men

Mistah Kurtz -he dead.

A penny for the Old Guy

I

We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
As wind in dry grass
Or rats' feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom
Remember us - if at all - not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men
The stuffed men.


II

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams
In death's dream kingdom
These do not appear:
There, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind's singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.

Let me be no nearer
In death's dream kingdom
Let me also wear
Such deliberate disguises
Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves
In a field
Behaving as the wind behaves
No nearer -

Not that final meeting
In the twilight kingdom


III

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

Is it like this
In death's other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.


IV

The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river

Sightless, unless
The eyes reappear
As the perpetual star
Multifoliate rose
Of death's twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.


V

Here we go round the prickly pear
Prickly pear prickly pear
Here we go round the prickly pear
At five o'clock in the morning.

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow
Life is very long

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is
Life is
For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.


p. 1925

T S ELIOT

 

[Withnail]

Councillors should consider themselves custodians of local assets, instead of behaving as if the town centre is their own Cash in the Attic hunting-ground.

Death the Leveller​

THE glories of our blood and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armour against fate;
Death lays his icy hand on kings:
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked scythe and spade.

Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield—
They tame but one another still:
Early or late
They stoop to fate,
And must give up their murmuring breath
When they, pale captives, creep to death.

The garlands wither on your brow:
Then boast no more your mighty deeds;
Upon Death's purple altar now
See where the victor-victim bleeds.
Your heads must come
To the cold tomb:
Only the actions of the just

Smell sweet, and blossom in their dust.​

​

J SHIRLEY​

​

p. 17th C​

 

[John Marwood]

Men and Moisturising

A dinna wanna
Ya dunna wanna

Why shudda
Dunna be daft

By Lentheric

 

[arthur]

Warning - When I Am an Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple. one of my favorite poems i try to live like that now

I want my son to read it at my funeral. I also want:

God's Garden
THE Lord God planted a garden
In the first white days of the world,
And He set there an angel warden
In a garment of light enfurled.
So near to the peace of Heaven,
That the hawk might nest with the wren,
For there in the cool of the even
God walked with the first of men.
And I dream that these garden-closes
With their shade and their sun-flecked sod
And their lilies and bowers of roses,
Were laid by the hand of God.
The kiss of the sun for pardon,
The song of the birds for mirth,--
One is nearer God's heart in a garden
Than anywhere else on earth.
For He broke it for us in a garden
Under the olive-trees
Where the angel of strength was the warden
And the soul of the world found ease
Dorothy Frances Gurney

 

[Withnail]

Nox Nocti Indicat Scientiam

WHEN I survey the bright
Celestial sphere;
So rich with jewels hung, that Night
Doth like an Ethiop bride appear:

My soul her wings doth spread
And heavenward flies,
Th’ Almighty’s mysteries to read
In the large volume of the skies.

For the bright firmament
Shoots forth no flame
So silent, but is eloquent
In speaking the Creator’s name.

No unregarded star
Contracts its light
Into so small a character,
Removed far from our human sight,

But if we steadfast look
We shall discern
In it, as in some holy book,
How man may heavenly knowledge learn.

It tells the conqueror
That far-stretch’d power,
Which his proud dangers traffic for,
Is but the triumph of an hour:

That from the farthest North,
Some nation may,
Yet undiscover’d, issue forth,
And o’er his new-got conquest sway:

Some nation yet shut in
With hills of ice
May be let out to scourge his sin,
Till they shall equal him in vice.

And then they likewise shall
Their ruin have;
For as yourselves your empires fall,
And every kingdom hath a grave.

Thus those celestial fires,
Though seeming mute,
The fallacy of our desires
And all the pride of life confute:—

For they have watch’d since first
The World had birth:
And found sin in itself accurst,
And nothing permanent on Earth.

c. 17thC

WILLIAM HABINGTON

 

[proactive]

Here's to screwy Dick
The guy with the cork screw prick.
He spent all his life in a futile hunt
Searching for a girl with a cork screw cunt.
When he found one he fell over dead
The damned old bitch had a left hand thread.

Anon

 

[Gramaisc]

Oh Michael Gove
please come to Hove
and stick your head
in a gas stove
On second thoughts
I just don't care:
feel free to do
it anywhere

Attila the Stockbroker.