Poetry, the rhymes we love for the literati here Options

[spacemonkey]

Just did a quick search on the forum and it appears we've got no thread for our favourite pieces of poetry. Considering this carefully, I decided to start one. One of my favourites is as follows.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Dylan Thomas - 1951

[m0r1arty]

Love his work!

And he was a drunken Welshman like you good self!

Here's mine

Closed like confessionals, they thread
Loud noons of cities, giving back
None of the glances they absorb.
Light glossy grey, arms on a plaque,
They come to rest at any kerb:
All streets in time are visited.

Then children strewn on steps or road,
Or women coming from the shops
Past smells of different dinners, see
A wild white face that overtops
Red stretcher-blankets momently
As it is carried in and stowed,

And sense the solving emptiness
That lies just under all we do,
And for a second get it whole,
So permanent and blank and true.
The fastened doors recede. Poor soul,
They whisper at their own distress;

For borne away in deadened air
May go the sudden shut of loss
Round something nearly at an end,
And what cohered in it across
The years, the unique random blend
Of families and fashions, there

At last begin to loosen. Far
From the exchange of love to lie
Unreachable insided a room
The trafic parts to let go by
Brings closer what is left to come,
And dulls to distance all we are.

By Philip Larkin, dies 1985, quite alot of good stuff actually!

-m0r

[spacemonkey]

Yeah, he did a good job on a lot of his work.

[Hobbes]

Try Saul Williams, he's an excellent modern poet.

[Ingram]

A few of my favourites, nothing really modern at all:

"The Flea" by John Donne
The whole conceit is just excellent, a great example of metaphysical poetry.

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot
My first real experience of analysing allusions, Eliot once said that "Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal". He was a very mature poet.

This post has been edited by Ingram: Aug 10 2005, 11:21 PM

[PrincessKate]

First, a li'l lighthearted love poetry:

After the Lunch
-Wendy Cope

On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes,
The weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove,
And try not to notice I've fallen in love.

On Waterloo Bridge, I am trying to think,
"This is nothing - you're high on the charm and the drink."
But the jukebox inside me is playing a song,
That says something different, and when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair,
I am tempted to skip. "You're a fool." I don't care.
The head does it's best, but the heart is the boss,
I admit it before I am halfway across.

Love it because the rhythm is excellent.

This post has been edited by PrincessKate: Aug 10 2005, 11:29 PM

[superfurryandy]

Death Stands Above Me - Walter Savage Landor

Death stands above me, whispering low
I know not what into my ear
Of his strange language all I know
Is, there is not a word of fear


A Somewhat Absent Minded Attempt to Be Politically Correct - John Hegley

Someone I don't know that well
tells me they have a little boy.
"Oh yes," I enquire, "and how old is he or she?"

[Zoe]

I've already posted a few of my favourites over in quotes, but they're more than worth a repeat:

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell;
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

[kateykinz]

My favourite is the Road Not Taken by Robert Frost because it represents how I try to live my life and what I feel about travelling.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that, the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

[Igmeister]

My favorite is 'Song of Myself' by Walt Whitman, a cool American dude with a great beard.


I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.


It goes on a bit longer than this but for reasons of time, space etc.

[Sean of the Dead]

This one isn't necessarily my favourite, but it did reach me on some deep, emotional level.

Mario
By Seth "Fingers" Barkan

King of Plumbers; cartoon hands
white gloves, a psychotic
jumping thing made of big
slabs of solid colour punctuated
by black lines, giving him features;
old hand... old hand...the saviour
of the princess, hero of the mushroom kingdom,
commander of the psychotic and useless power of Yoshi,
a creature so dumb and pointless that,
only you, my little mustachioed Italian freak,
would dare punch it in the back of the head
as if to say
"ready the toungue
prepare to fire!"
mounted like a monkey on a dog at a rodeo;
you bastard, sent him, after jumping - to his death,
using his doomed back for leverage.

Jump those pits, flee into the safety
of those green pipes, spit those shells,
send up the flag at the castle of every kingdom,
for, I, the liberator, the conquering Italian hero,
have returned, again and again and again;
we're going to make millions doing this!
you and me, kid, millions.

Taken from Blue Wizard Is about to Die!: Prose, Poems, and Emoto-Versatronic Expressionist Pieces about Video Games, 1980-2003

[Igmeister]

Read this the other day, and it had a bit of an effect on me.

'Survivors' by Siegfried Sassoon



No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
Of course they’re ‘longing to go out again,’—
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.
They’ll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,—
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they’ll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter’d all their pride...
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

This post has been edited by Igmeister: Aug 29 2005, 05:20 PM

[billypig]

I like Thomas Gray's 'Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard' because, if you really look at it uncynically it does simply spell out that all that we are will count for nought but not to find that worryingly sad for each life is worth what it is. It's quite long for a poem but it is easy to read.

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea,
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,
And leaves the world to darkness and to me.

Now fades the glimmering landscape on the sight,
And all the air a solemn stillness holds,
Save where the beetle wheels his droning flight,
And drowsy tinklings lull the distant folds:

Save that from yonder ivy-mantled tower
The moping owl does to the moon complain
Of such as, wandering near her secret bower,
Molest her ancient solitary reign.

Beneath those rugged elms, that yew-tree's shade,
Where heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow cell for ever laid,
The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.

The breezy call of incense-breathing morn,
The swallow twittering from the straw-built shed,
The cock's shrill clarion, or the echoing horn,
No more shall rouse them from their lowly bed.

For them no more the blazing hearth shall burn,
Or busy housewife ply her evening care:
No children run to lisp their sire's return,
Or climb his knees the envied kiss to share,

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield,
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their team afield!
How bow'd the woods beneath their sturdy stroke!

Let not Ambition mock their useful toil,
Their homely joys, and destiny obscure;
Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smile
The short and simple annals of the Poor.

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power,
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th' inevitable hour:-
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

Nor you, ye Proud, impute to these the fault
If Memory o'er their tomb no trophies raise,
Where through the long-drawn aisle and fretted vault
The pealing anthem swells the note of praise.

Can storied urn or animated bust
Back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?
Can Honour's voice provoke the silent dust,
Or Flattery soothe the dull cold ear of Death?

Perhaps in this neglected spot is laid
Some heart once pregnant with celestial fire;
Hands, that the rod of empire might have sway'd,
Or waked to ecstasy the living lyre:

But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page,
Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage,
And froze the genial current of the soul.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathom'd caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden, that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood,
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell, guiltless of his country's blood.

Th' applause of list'ning senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbad: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Far from the madding crowd's ignoble strife,
Their sober wishes never learn'd to stray;
Along the cool sequester'd vale of life
They kept the noiseless tenour of their way.

Yet e'en these bones from insult to protect
Some frail memorial still erected nigh,
With uncouth rhymes and shapeless sculpture deck'd,
Implores the passing tribute of a sigh.

Their name, their years, spelt by th' unletter'd Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey,
This pleasing anxious being e'er resign'd,
Left the warm precincts of the cheerful day,
Nor cast one longing lingering look behind?

On some fond breast the parting soul relies,
Some pious drops the closing eye requires;
E'en from the tomb the voice of Nature cries,
E'en in our ashes live their wonted fires.

For thee, who, mindful of th' unhonour'd dead,
Dost in these lines their artless tale relate;
If chance, by lonely contemplation led,
Some kindred spirit shall inquire thy fate, --

Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,
Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn
Brushing with hasty steps the dews away,
To meet the sun upon the upland lawn;

'There at the foot of yonder nodding beech
That wreathes its old fantastic roots so high.
His listless length at noontide would he stretch,
And pore upon the brook that babbles by.

'Hard by yon wood, now smiling as in scorn,
Muttering his wayward fancies he would rove;
Now drooping, woeful wan, like one forlorn,
Or crazed with care, or cross'd in hopeless love.

'One morn I miss'd him on the custom'd hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree;
Another came; nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he;

'The next with dirges due in sad array
Slow through the church-way path we saw him borne,-
Approach and read (for thou canst read) the lay
Graved on the stone beneath yon aged thorn.'

[feck off!]

Read this the other day, and it had a bit of an effect on me.

'Survivors' by Siegfried Sassoon
No doubt they’ll soon get well; the shock and strain 
  Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk. 
Of course they’re ‘longing to go out again,’— 
  These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk. 
They’ll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed       
  Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,— 
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they’ll be proud 
  Of glorious war that shatter’d all their pride... 
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad; 
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

That's in my top 3.

[feck off!]

Hire Car by John Cooper Clarke

double park - don't lock the door
push the pedals through the floor
give it loads and then some more
it's a hire car baby


grip the stick - grind the gears
watch that distance disappear
never yours in a thousand years
it's a hire car baby


hire-car, hire-car
why would anybody buy a car?
bang it, prang it, say ta ta
it's a hire car baby


bad behaviour on the street
save yourself a couple of sheets
collision rate keeps it sweet
it's a hire car baby


show this motor no respect
bump it, dump it, call collect
what else do the firm expect
it's a hire car baby


drive the fucker anywhere
just like you don't care
put it down to wear and tear
it's a hire car baby


pray the person who hired it last
didn't drive it quite so fast
this dakarum dodgem doesn't last
it's a hire car baby


try not to kill yourself
or injure anybody else
don't forget to fasten your belts


rent it, dent it, bang it, prang it
bump it, dump it, scorch it, torch it
crash and burn it, don't return it
lost deposit, let 'em earn it
who cares, it's on the firm
it's a hire car baby