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Favourite poems

Enter here to talk about books, art, literature, film, TV and anything else to do with popular culture.
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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#281 Post by Alan H » January 30th, 2011, 5:23 pm

Latest post of the previous page:

Happy birthday to Animist and Alan's mum!
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

lewist
Posts: 4402
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 8:53 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#282 Post by lewist » January 30th, 2011, 5:35 pm

Alan H wrote:Happy birthday to Animist and Alan's mum!
Birthday greetings to both indeed. I have met Alan's Mum and I find it hard to believe she is 83! :party:
Carpe diem. Savour every moment.

Vicky
Posts: 561
Joined: August 30th, 2010, 9:48 am

Re: Favourite poems

#283 Post by Vicky » January 30th, 2011, 5:43 pm

Happy birthday, animist and Alan's mother! It's my son-in-law's birthday,too. He's 39 today.

Here's another Wendy Cope. I hope the poets of the forum aren't too upset by this one!

The Reading

In crumpled, bardic corduroy,
The poet took the stage
And read aloud his deathless verse,
Page by deathless page.

I gazed at him as though intent
On every word he said.
From time to time I'd close my eyes
And smile and nod my head.

He may have thought his every phrase
Sent shivers down my spine,
Perhaps I helped encourage him
To read till half past nine.

Don't ask what it was all about -
I haven't got a clue.
I spent a blissful evening, lost
In carnal thoughts of you.

Fia
Posts: 5480
Joined: July 6th, 2007, 8:29 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#284 Post by Fia » January 30th, 2011, 8:11 pm

Birthdays in the poem thread.
I guess whatever must be said
must be said in rhyme
pleasing length of line
I'll try - but writing poetry
is not exactly my cup of tea.

Animist is 64
and Alan's Mum a few years more
Their Mums knew the exquisite pain and pleasure
of bringing new life in is beyond measure.
What would they make of such longevity?
Better do this with brevity
The poem's got worse
and you'll all curse
so suffice it to say
A Very Happy Birthday. :party:

Crossposted to see another one too
to Vicky's son in law
Happy Birthday to you
if any more are posted
make your own poem up - I'm toasted :redface:

hey - I haven't written a poem since 1972. Now you know why :laughter:

Fia
Posts: 5480
Joined: July 6th, 2007, 8:29 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#285 Post by Fia » January 30th, 2011, 8:14 pm

And I'm enjoying the Wendy Cope, thank you :D

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Val
Posts: 749
Joined: October 6th, 2007, 10:56 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#286 Post by Val » January 30th, 2011, 8:45 pm

here for Fia is a Wendy Cope for Valentine's Day

My heart has made its mind up
And I'm afraid it's you.
Whatever you've got lined up,
My heart has made its mind up
And if you can't be signed up
This year, next year will do.
My heart has made its mind up
And I'm afraid it's you.

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animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#287 Post by animist » January 30th, 2011, 8:55 pm

Our day's almost gone, there's not much time;

And unlike lovely Fia, I am simply crap at rhyme.

So thanks to all who wished us three well;

Nice that on this day our birthdays fell!

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Alan H
Posts: 24067
Joined: July 3rd, 2007, 10:26 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#288 Post by Alan H » January 30th, 2011, 9:33 pm

:clap:
Alan Henness

There are three fundamental questions for anyone advocating Brexit:

1. What, precisely, are the significant and tangible benefits of leaving the EU?
2. What damage to the UK and its citizens is an acceptable price to pay for those benefits?
3. Which ruling of the ECJ is most persuasive of the need to leave its jurisdiction?

Radius
Posts: 133
Joined: January 25th, 2011, 5:54 am

Re: Favourite poems

#289 Post by Radius » January 31st, 2011, 5:39 pm

animist wrote:as I don't speak German I am only getting a general idea that this is about the Black Death :laughter: - I listened and laughed at the video. Suppose plague is one way of reducing the population, if that's your main goal in life, Rad
I'll translate the whole thing into English when I have time

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animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#290 Post by animist » February 1st, 2011, 8:29 pm

see what you atheists think of this Stevie Smith poem; sounds the right sort of God, imo!


My Heart Goes Out

My heart goes out to my Creator in love
Who gave me Death, as end and remedy.
All living creatures come to quiet Death
For him to eat up their activity
And give them nothing, which is what they want although
When they are living they do not think so.

LosingFaith
Posts: 27
Joined: February 8th, 2011, 6:47 am

Re: Favourite poems

#291 Post by LosingFaith » February 8th, 2011, 10:17 pm

You Can't Win With Original Sin

You can't win
You can't win with Original Sin.
It doesn't even matter how intelligent of kind you may have been.
You just can't win.
It was all over before it began-
You just can't win.

I was dead-
I was dead before my life had begun.
I was dead,
Because of something my great-great-great grandparents had done.
Adam and Eve didn't do any wrong-
They were set up by God all along.
They couldn't win.

I've been told
I must believe on Jesus Christ to be saved;
But first,
I must admit that I am totally depraved.
Before you go pointing that finger of blame,
Just remember that Eve Was Framed!
She couldn't win.

The kind of God
Who's so insecure that he needs to send me to hell
Is the kind of God
Who'd probably get a kick out of damning all the Christians as well!
It was all over before it began-
I was doomed in the fall of man.
But as a skeptic I must insist,
Adam and Eve didn't really exist,
And neither does God, then, for that matter,
And until the day that old myth is shattered,
We can't win.
No, we just can't win.

by Dan Brown

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Alan C.
Posts: 10356
Joined: July 4th, 2007, 3:35 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#292 Post by Alan C. » February 8th, 2011, 10:28 pm

Nice one LosingFaith but two glaring typo's (I assume it's a copy paste, so not blaming you :) You will find there are quite a few pedants on here (for better or for worse) :)
Abstinence Makes the Church Grow Fondlers.

LosingFaith
Posts: 27
Joined: February 8th, 2011, 6:47 am

Re: Favourite poems

#293 Post by LosingFaith » February 20th, 2011, 8:45 am

You Can't Win With Original Sin by Dan Barker. :laughter:

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animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#294 Post by animist » March 1st, 2011, 7:54 pm

Just seen this one by Geoffrey Taylor: "Cruel, Clever Cat". It uses the confusion over the word "bated" (short for "abated"), versus "baited", to good comic effect:

Sally, having swallowed cheese
Directs down holes the scented breeze
Enticing thus with baited breath
Nice mice to an untimely death.

Marian
Posts: 3985
Joined: August 23rd, 2009, 2:25 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#295 Post by Marian » March 2nd, 2011, 4:02 pm

Man is fool
When it's hot,
he wants it cool.
When it's cool,
he wants it hot.
Always wanting what is not.
Transformative fire...

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getreal
Posts: 4354
Joined: November 20th, 2008, 5:40 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#296 Post by getreal » March 2nd, 2011, 8:17 pm

This would lose something if the words were just printed here. Better read by the poet himself :wink:
"It's hard to put a leash on a dog once you've put a crown on his head"-Tyrion Lannister.

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getreal
Posts: 4354
Joined: November 20th, 2008, 5:40 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#297 Post by getreal » March 2nd, 2011, 8:28 pm

I haven't listened to this for about 25 years. Found it today and it still sends shivers dowm my spine.



Beasley Street by John Cooper-Clarke. Utterly chilling indictement of Thatcher's 80s. Is history about to repeat itself?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZymVWuM ... re=related
"It's hard to put a leash on a dog once you've put a crown on his head"-Tyrion Lannister.

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animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#298 Post by animist » March 4th, 2011, 9:08 pm

In the context of dictators, human and divine, I like this poem by Kingsley Amis; it is called "The Voice of Authority: a Language Game".


Do this. Don't move. O'Grady says do this,
You get a move on, see, do what I say.
Look lively when I say O'Grady says.

Say this. Shut up. O'Grady says say this,
You talk fast without thinking what to say.
What goes is what I say O'Grady says.

Or rather let me put the point like this:
O'Grady says what goes is what I say
O'Grady says; that's what O'Grady says.

By substituting you can shorten this,
Since any god you like will do to say
The things you like, that's what O'Grady says.

The harm lies not in that, but in that this
Progression's first and last terms are I say
O'Grady says, not just O'Grady says.

Yet it's O'Grady must be out of this
Before what we say goes, not what we say
O'Grady says. Or so O'Grady says.

thundril
Posts: 3607
Joined: July 4th, 2008, 5:02 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#299 Post by thundril » March 9th, 2011, 1:00 am

Yes. Kingsley Amis. A reactionary old curmudgeon, but I've always had a certain fondness for this one;
Something Nasty in the Bookshop; Kingsley Amis.

Between the Gardening and the Cookery
Comes the brief Poetry shelf;
By the Nonesuch Donne, a thin anthology
Offers itself.

Critical, and with nothing else to do,
I scan the Contents page,
Relieved to find the names are mostly new;
No one my age.

Like all strangers, they divide by sex:
Landscape Near Parma
Interests a man, so does The Double Vortex,
So does Rilke and Buddha.

“I travel, you see”, “I think” and “I can read"
These titles seem to say;
But I Remember You, Love is my Creed,
Poem for J.,

The ladies’ choice, discountenance my patter
For several seconds;
From somewhere in this (as in any) matter
A moral beckons.

Should poets bicycle-pump the human heart
Or squash it flat?
Man’s love is of man’s life a thing apart;
Girls aren’t like that.

We men have got love well weighed up; our stuff
Can get by without it.
Women don’t seem to think that’s good enough;
They write about it.

And the awful way their poems lay them open
Just doesn’t strike them.
Women are really much nicer than men:
No wonder we like them.

Deciding this, we can forget those times
We stayed up half the night
Chock-full of love, crammed with bright thoughts, names, rhymes,
And couldn’t write.

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animist
Posts: 6522
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 11:36 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#300 Post by animist » March 9th, 2011, 9:18 am

great, Thundril, that's one of the few poems posted by someone else here that I've known. Interesting what you say about Amis in relation to this very pro-female poem (early one, I think). He went thru a Communist stage before going the other way, and on women too he seemed to go in a negative direction - his novel "Stanley and the Women" was incredibly misogynist

Laurence
Posts: 27
Joined: July 22nd, 2011, 6:38 pm

Re: Favourite poems

#301 Post by Laurence » August 4th, 2011, 1:01 am

great poems gathered together here

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