Poetry Thread !!

Lets have one !
My english teacher at junior Skool was called Barry Halpin , ( a story in itself Google is your friend here ! ) lessons consisted of either Music or him reading us a poem ! this one I will always remember


I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the
club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me,
with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me,
on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk
to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light
in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words
when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me,
my treason engendered by traitors beyond me,
my life when they murder by means of my
hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when
old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains
frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white
waves call me to folly and the desert calls
me to doom and the beggar refuses
my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God
come near me.
I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my
humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton,
would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with
one face, a thing, and against all those
who would dissipate my entirety, would
blow me like thistledown hither and
thither or hither and thither
like water held in the
hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

 

Mary Shelly

To The Moon

And, like a dying lady lean and pale,
Who totters forth, wrapp’d in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber, led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,
The moon arose up in the murky east,
A white and shapeless mass.

Art thou pale for weariness
Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless
Among the stars that have a different birth,
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

 

Ode to a Goldfish

Oh
Wet
Pet

 

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I'm schizophrenic
And so am I.

 

A beautiful butterfly came floating by
And landed on my cheek just a smidgen from my eye
I said to my little friend
Get the fuck off me, bug!

 

Innocent days when I at least
Resembled not so much the beast
Recede from me like memory;
Like most of you; like most of me.

 

Beautiful that the hands of the sisters death and night
Incessantly softly remold again and ever again
The face of this soiled world

 

A cold wind blows through the crumbling halls.... crying your name..... a name never heard.

Fractured walls no longer able to hold the weight of thousands of years, shift subtly in the darkness.
​

The ancient home stands briefly, with no support, dark windows crack suddenly, foundations crumble without a sound.​

Dust............

​

This, the winds scatter to the four corners.......​

​

Will anyone wonder, in their passing, what once stood so proudly on this vacant lot?​

​

Did they ever see the warm glow on a winters night, showing through the stained glass of the old house........
the beauty, the magistry and detail..... the unique quality and the depth.​

​

Or did they only see it as later ages shown, a place to be feared, shunned, ridiculed.....​

​

a haunted memory of what was supposed to be?​

jfw 2008
​

 

On the Move
BY THOM GUNN
The blue jay scuffling in the bushes follows
Some hidden purpose, and the gust of birds
That spurts across the field, the wheeling swallows,
Has nested in the trees and undergrowth.
Seeking their instinct, or their poise, or both,
One moves with an uncertain violence
Under the dust thrown by a baffled sense
Or the dull thunder of approximate words.

On motorcycles, up the road, they come:
Small, black, as flies hanging in heat, the Boys,
Until the distance throws them forth, their hum
Bulges to thunder held by calf and thigh.
In goggles, donned impersonality,
In gleaming jackets trophied with the dust,
They strap in doubt – by hiding it, robust –
And almost hear a meaning in their noise.

Exact conclusion of their hardiness
Has no shape yet, but from known whereabouts
They ride, direction where the tyres press.
They scare a flight of birds across the field:
Much that is natural, to the will must yield.
Men manufacture both machine and soul,
And use what they imperfectly control
To dare a future from the taken routes.

It is a part solution, after all.
One is not necessarily discord
On earth; or damned because, half animal,
One lacks direct instinct, because one wakes
Afloat on movement that divides and breaks.
One joins the movement in a valueless world,
Choosing it, till, both hurler and the hurled,
One moves as well, always toward, toward.

A minute holds them, who have come to go:
The self-defined, astride the created will
They burst away; the towns they travel through
Are home for neither bird nor holiness,
For birds and saints complete their purposes.
At worst, one is in motion; and at best,
Reaching no absolute, in which to rest,
One is always nearer by not keeping still.

 

I'm not an alcoholic
Just a really heavy drinker
Or an intellectual
Just a real deep thinker
So stick that in your pipe and smoke it
Paris is welcome to the Spring.

 

Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
I'm schizophrenic.
And so am I.

 

Roses are black
Violets are blue
And if you won't love me
You will be, too.

 

mine was mr hooper. he was a year from retirement, about 15 years too late. he was deaf and pretty much completely oblivious to anything that happened. i remember he used to give us multi-page tests; i would do one page and my friend would do the other, and then i would just tear apart the two pages, blatantly get up and walk across the room and swap pages, then we would copy each other's work and swap back. not that the class was hard enough to warrant cheating, but it was just interesting to see what we could get away with in front of this guy.

 

My english teacher my junior year is who turned me on to poetry. She was wonderful. She would read poetry to us in this big, dramatic voice and made it all sound so good and compelling.

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In elementary school forced fed all of the local writers and poets such as Emily Dickinson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Robert Frost, Daniel Webster….etc…

 

I was reading poetry as my first reading books.
The Norse tales were all poetry. I learned the gods prefer to speak in poetry. If you want a conversation you best start conversing in poem.

Alrhough these days my poetry is the rap, I don't know how the gods take to it really.

 

The Norse Gods are inflexible and will look upon you unfavorably, but you always have a friend in Yahweh the God of Hip Hop & Rap

 

i think that's pretty typical...

I AM SAM. I AM SAM. SAM I AM.

THAT SAM-I-AM! THAT SAM-I-AM! I DO NOT LIKE THAT SAM-I-AM!

DO WOULD YOU LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM?

I DO NOT LIKE THEM,SAM-I-AM.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.

WOULD YOU LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE?

I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I WOULD NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

WOULD YOU LIKE THEM IN A HOUSE?
WOULD YOU LIKE THEN WITH A MOUSE?

I DO NOT LIKE THEM IN A HOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A MOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

WOULD YOU EAT THEM IN A BOX?
WOULD YOU EAT THEM WITH A FOX?

NOT IN A BOX. NOT WITH A FOX.
NOT IN A HOUSE. NOT WITH A MOUSE.
I WOULD NOT EAT THEM HERE OR THERE.
I WOULD NOT EAT THEM ANYWHERE.
I WOULD NOT EAT GREEN EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

WOULD YOU? COULD YOU? IN A CAR?
EAT THEM! EAT THEM! HERE THEY ARE.

I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT, IN A CAR.

YOU MAY LIKE THEM. YOU WILL SEE.
YOU MAY LIKE THEM IN A TREE!

I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT IN A TREE.
NOT IN A CAR! YOU LET ME BE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM IN A BOX.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A FOX.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM IN A HOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A MOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

A TRAIN! A TRAIN! A TRAIN! A TRAIN!
COULD YOU, WOULD YOU ON A TRAIN?

NOT ON TRAIN! NOT IN A TREE!
NOT IN A CAR! SAM! LET ME BE!
I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT, IN A BOX.
I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT, WITH A FOX.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM IN A HOUSE.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM HERE OR THERE.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM ANYWHERE.
I DO NOT EAT GREEM EGGS AND HAM.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

SAY! IN THE DARK? HERE IN THE DARK!
WOULD YOU, COULD YOU, IN THE DARK?

I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT, IN THE DARK.

WOULD YOU COULD YOU IN THE RAIN?

I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT IN THE RAIN.
NOT IN THE DARK. NOT ON A TRAIN.
NOT IN A CAR. NOT IN A TREE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM, YOU SEE.
NOT IN A HOUSE. NOT IN A BOX.
NOT WITH A MOUSE. NOT WITH A FOX.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM HERE OR THERE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE!

YOU DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM?

I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

COULD YOU, WOULD YOU, WITH A GOAT?

I WOULD NOT, COULD NOT WITH A GOAT!

WOULD YOU, COULD YOU, ON A BOAT?

I COULD NOT, WOULD NOT, ON A BOAT.
I WILL NOT, WILL NOT, WITH A GOAT.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM IN THE RAIN.
NOT IN THE DARK! NOT IN A TREE!
NOT IN A CAR! YOU LET ME BE!
I DO NOT LIKE THEM IN A BOX.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A FOX.
I WILL NOT EAT THEM IN A HOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM WITH A MOUSE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM HERE OR THERE.
I DO NOT LIKE THEM ANYWHERE!
I DO NOT LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM!
I DO NOT LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM.

YOU DO NOT LIKE THEM. SO YOU SAY.
TRY THEM! TRY THEM! AND YOU MAY.
TRY THEM AND YOU MAY, I SAY.

sAM! IF YOU LET ME BE,
I WILL TRY THEM. YOU WILL SEE.

(... and he tries them ...)

SAY! I LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM!
I DO! I LIKE THEM, SAM-I-AM!
AND I WOULD EAT THEM IN A BOAT.
AND I WOULD EAT THEM WITH A GOAT...
AND I WILL EAT THEM, IN THE RAIN.
AND IN THE DARK. AND ON A TRAIN.
AND IN A CAR. AND IN A TREE.
THEY ARE SO GOOD, SO GOOD, YOU SEE!
SO I WILL EAT THEM IN A BOX.
AND I WILL EAT THEM WITH A FOX.
AND I WILL EAT THEM IN A HOUSE.
AND I WILL EAT THEM WITH A MOUSE.
AND I WILL EAT THEM HERE AND THERE.
SAY! I WILL EAT THEM ANYWHERE!
I DO SO LIKE GREEN EGGS AND HAM!
THANK YOU! THANK YOU, SAM I AM.

 

I dunno, I always thought Oden would get a kick out of my rhymes, Loki too, yeah I can see him having a laugh.