Poetry - just for the sake of it!
- marymary
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 15584
- Joined: December 31st, 2009, 7:59 pm
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
I, Too, Sing America
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
Langston Hughes
I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, am America.
Langston Hughes
- Little John
- member
- Posts: 16399
- Joined: January 2nd, 2010, 1:46 pm
- Location: SE London
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
That could work (thought not quite so well) in a lot of countries. thank you.
Yes this is the real "Little John" (or it could be "colin")
- marymary
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 15584
- Joined: December 31st, 2009, 7:59 pm
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
Words Are Ours
In the beginning was the word
and the word is ours:
the names of places,
the names of flowers,
the names of names,
words are ours.
Page-turners
for early-learners
How to boil an egg
or mend a leg
Words are ours
Wall-charts
Love hearts
Sports reports
Short retorts
Jam-jar labels
Timetables
Words are ours
Following the instructions
for furniture constructions
Ancient mythologies
Online anthologies
Who she wrote for
Who to vote for
Joke collections
Results of elections
Words are ours
The tale's got you gripped
Have you learned your script?
The method of an Experiment
Ingredients for merriment
W8n 4ur txt
Re: whts nxt
Print media
Wikipedia
Words are ours
Sub-titles on TV
Details on your cv
Book of great speeches
Guide to the best beaches
Looking for chapters
on velociraptors
Words are ours
The mystery of history
The history of mystery
The views of news
The news of views
Words to explain
the words for pain.
doing geography
Autobiography
What to do in pay-phones
Goodbyes on gravestones
Words are ours.
Michael Rosen
In the beginning was the word
and the word is ours:
the names of places,
the names of flowers,
the names of names,
words are ours.
Page-turners
for early-learners
How to boil an egg
or mend a leg
Words are ours
Wall-charts
Love hearts
Sports reports
Short retorts
Jam-jar labels
Timetables
Words are ours
Following the instructions
for furniture constructions
Ancient mythologies
Online anthologies
Who she wrote for
Who to vote for
Joke collections
Results of elections
Words are ours
The tale's got you gripped
Have you learned your script?
The method of an Experiment
Ingredients for merriment
W8n 4ur txt
Re: whts nxt
Print media
Wikipedia
Words are ours
Sub-titles on TV
Details on your cv
Book of great speeches
Guide to the best beaches
Looking for chapters
on velociraptors
Words are ours
The mystery of history
The history of mystery
The views of news
The news of views
Words to explain
the words for pain.
doing geography
Autobiography
What to do in pay-phones
Goodbyes on gravestones
Words are ours.
Michael Rosen
- marymary
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 15584
- Joined: December 31st, 2009, 7:59 pm
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
Machine
Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.
The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.
So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante's heaven, and melt into the air.
If it doesn't, of course, I've fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsicordists prove
Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.
by Michael Donaghy
Dearest, note how these two are alike:
This harpsicord pavane by Purcell
And the racer's twelve-speed bike.
The machinery of grace is always simple.
This chrome trapezoid, one wheel connected
To another of concentric gears,
Which Ptolemy dreamt of and Schwinn perfected,
Is gone. The cyclist, not the cycle, steers.
And in the playing, Purcell's chords are played away.
So this talk, or touch if I were there,
Should work its effortless gadgetry of love,
Like Dante's heaven, and melt into the air.
If it doesn't, of course, I've fallen. So much is chance,
So much agility, desire, and feverish care,
As bicyclists and harpsicordists prove
Who only by moving can balance,
Only by balancing move.
by Michael Donaghy
- marymary
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 15584
- Joined: December 31st, 2009, 7:59 pm
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
Dew-drop and Diamond
The difference between you and her
(whom I to you did once prefer)
Is clear enough to settle:
She like a diamond shone, but you
Shine like an early drop of dew
Poised on a red rose petal.
The dew-drop carries in its eye
Mountain and forest, sea and sky,
With every change of weather;
Contrariwise, a diamond splits
The prospect into idle bits
That none can piece together.
Robert Graves
The difference between you and her
(whom I to you did once prefer)
Is clear enough to settle:
She like a diamond shone, but you
Shine like an early drop of dew
Poised on a red rose petal.
The dew-drop carries in its eye
Mountain and forest, sea and sky,
With every change of weather;
Contrariwise, a diamond splits
The prospect into idle bits
That none can piece together.
Robert Graves
- marymary
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 15584
- Joined: December 31st, 2009, 7:59 pm
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
The Dug-Out
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadowed from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head . . . .
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.
Siegfried Sassoon
Why do you lie with your legs ungainly huddled,
And one arm bent across your sullen, cold,
Exhausted face? It hurts my heart to watch you,
Deep-shadowed from the candle's guttering gold;
And you wonder why I shake you by the shoulder;
Drowsy, you mumble and sigh and turn your head . . . .
You are too young to fall asleep for ever;
And when you sleep you remind me of the dead.
Siegfried Sassoon
- marymary
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 15584
- Joined: December 31st, 2009, 7:59 pm
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
IF YOU CAME
If you came to my secret glade,
Weary with heat,
I would set you down in the shade
I would wash your feet.
If you came in the winter sad,
Wanting for bread,
I would give you the last that I had,
I would give you my bed.
But the place is hidden apart
Like a nest by a brook,
And I will not show you my heart
By a word, by a look.
The place is hidden apart
Like the nest of a bird:
And I will not show you my heart
By a look, by a word.
Ruth Pitter
If you came to my secret glade,
Weary with heat,
I would set you down in the shade
I would wash your feet.
If you came in the winter sad,
Wanting for bread,
I would give you the last that I had,
I would give you my bed.
But the place is hidden apart
Like a nest by a brook,
And I will not show you my heart
By a word, by a look.
The place is hidden apart
Like the nest of a bird:
And I will not show you my heart
By a look, by a word.
Ruth Pitter
- marymary
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 15584
- Joined: December 31st, 2009, 7:59 pm
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
Jabberwocky
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
by Lewis Carroll
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand;
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
by Lewis Carroll
- Little John
- member
- Posts: 16399
- Joined: January 2nd, 2010, 1:46 pm
- Location: SE London
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
I already did Jabberwocky. But the rest of them were good.
Yes this is the real "Little John" (or it could be "colin")
- marymary
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 15584
- Joined: December 31st, 2009, 7:59 pm
- marymary
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 15584
- Joined: December 31st, 2009, 7:59 pm
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
THE SOUND OF RAIN
recalls home.
My finger,
Writing on the wet window
The same letters our fathers taught us
has moved on,
and sketches the road-side shrine
where a Supreme God resides.
Walking out of doors
Wearing skin leavened by the sun,
My tongue erodes into the
Shrill orient of my neighbours
lolling at the fence,
Who greet me, and ignore me.
With the evening light
Mosquitoes, vampires of the hot season
Rise up,
To sip my sweet foreign blood,
Toads belch to their beloved's,
Fat divas of the drains.
Under a low white moon
The padi sings of its home,
A song that bites sharper than the
Cruel steel knots of this fence.
Dr Robert James Berry
recalls home.
My finger,
Writing on the wet window
The same letters our fathers taught us
has moved on,
and sketches the road-side shrine
where a Supreme God resides.
Walking out of doors
Wearing skin leavened by the sun,
My tongue erodes into the
Shrill orient of my neighbours
lolling at the fence,
Who greet me, and ignore me.
With the evening light
Mosquitoes, vampires of the hot season
Rise up,
To sip my sweet foreign blood,
Toads belch to their beloved's,
Fat divas of the drains.
Under a low white moon
The padi sings of its home,
A song that bites sharper than the
Cruel steel knots of this fence.
Dr Robert James Berry
- marymary
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 15584
- Joined: December 31st, 2009, 7:59 pm
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
From This Day Forward
Author Unknown
From this day forward,
You shall not walk alone.
My heart will be your shelter,
And my arms will be your home.
Author Unknown
From this day forward,
You shall not walk alone.
My heart will be your shelter,
And my arms will be your home.
- Little John
- member
- Posts: 16399
- Joined: January 2nd, 2010, 1:46 pm
- Location: SE London
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
Sounds like a song lyric.
Yes this is the real "Little John" (or it could be "colin")
- marymary
- Global Moderator
- Posts: 15584
- Joined: December 31st, 2009, 7:59 pm
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
All Is Well
Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household world that it always was,
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It it the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near,
Just around the corner.
All is well.
Henry Scott Holland
Death is nothing at all,
I have only slipped into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other, that we are still.
Call me by my old familiar name,
Speak to me in the easy way which you always used
Put no difference in your tone,
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together.
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me.
Let my name be ever the household world that it always was,
Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of shadow on it.
Life means all that it ever meant.
It it the same as it ever was, there is unbroken continuity.
Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near,
Just around the corner.
All is well.
Henry Scott Holland
- Little John
- member
- Posts: 16399
- Joined: January 2nd, 2010, 1:46 pm
- Location: SE London
Re: Poetry - just for the sake of it!
If I had a pound for every time I've heard that at funerals........................
Yes this is the real "Little John" (or it could be "colin")