# ASF Poetry Thread



## RichKid (15 October 2005)

Thought I'd share one of my favourite poems, being in a time of war, it may help remind us of how terrible it is indeed for the so many thousands that do battle around the globe. If it is so difficult for the combatants imagine how the civilians must be feeling. War is futile. Any comments or observations are welcome, let's keep this thread on poetry and ideas if at all possible.



> The best known poem of the first world war by Wilfred Owen:
> 
> DULCE ET DECORUM EST
> 
> ...


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## Julia (17 October 2005)

Rich,

I read your war poem  yesterday and the images it evokes have stayed with me all day.
Thank you for posting it.

Usually I think we regard the most enduring poetry as that which is as powerful as the one you've contributed.  However, I think there's also a place for the wry observation, or whimsy.

Below are a few of my old favourites from I think the 60's and 70's.

"A nun in a supermarket
standing in the queue
Wondering what it's like
To buy groceries for two"

  - Adrian Henri
________________________________________

" At Lunchtime - A story of Love"

When the bus stopped suddenly to avoid
damaging a mother and child in the road, 
the young lady in the greenhat sitting opposite
was thrown across me, and not being one to
miss an opportunity i started to makelove
with all my body.

At first she resisted saying that it was too early in the morning and too soon
after breakfast and that anyway she found
me repulsive.  But when i explained that
this being a nuclearage, the world was going
to end at lunchtime, she took off her greenhat,
put her busticket in her pocket
 and joined in the exercise.

The buspeople, and there were many of them,
were shockedandsurprised and amused and annoyed, but when the
word got around that the world was coming to an end at
lunchtime, they put their pride in their pockets with their bustickets and
madelove one with the other.  And even the busconductor,
being over, climbed into the cab and struck up some sort of
relationship with the driver.

Thatnight, on the bus coming home,
wewere all alittle embarrassed, especially me and the younglady
in the greenhat, and we all started to say in different ways howhasty
and foolish we had been.  Butthen, always having been a bitofalad, i stood up and said it was a pity that the world didn;t nearly end every lunchtime and
that we could always pretend.  And then it happened.......

Quick asa crash we all changed partners
and soon the bus was acquiver with white
mothballbodies doing naughty things.

And the next day
And everyday
In everybus
In everystreet
In everytown
In everycountry

people pretended that the world was coming
to an end at lunchtime.  It still hasn't
Although in a way it has.

-  Roger McGough
(the punctuation and spacing are Roger's)

________________________________________________

"Sad Aunt Madge"

As the cold winter evenings drew near
Aunt Madge used to put extra blankets
over the furniture, to keep it warm and cosy.
Mussolini was her lover, and life
was an oufoffocus rosy-tinted spectacle.

but neurological experts
with kind blueeyes
and gentle voices
small white hands
and large Rolls Royces
said that electric shock treatment should
dothe trick
it did...

today after 15 years of therepeutic tears
and an awful lot of ratepayers' shillings
down the hospital meter
sad Aunt Madge
no longer tucks up the furniture
before kssing it goodnight
and admits
that her affair with Mussolini
clearly was not right
particularly in the light
of her recently announced engagement
to the late pope."

- Roger McGough
_________________________________________________

"Party Piece"

He said:
Let's stay here
Now this place has emptied
& make gentle pornography with one another,
While the partygoers go out
& the dawn creeps in
Like a stranger.

Let us not hesitate
Over what we know
Or over how cold this place has become,
But let's unclip our minds
And let tumble free
The mad, mangled crocodiles of love.

So they did,
Right there among the woodbines and guinness stains,
And later he caught a bus and she a train
And all there was between them then
was rain."

-  Brian Patten

_____________________________

Julia


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## wayneL (17 October 2005)

Obvious suspects for any Aussie are poem from Banjo Patterson. A couple of my fav's are  "Clancy of the Overflow" and "The Man From Snowy River"...both of which I can recite off by heart:



> I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
> Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
> He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
> Just on spec, addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow"
> ...







> There was movement at the station, for the word had passed around
> That the colt from Old Regret had got away,
> And had joined the wild bush horses -- he was worth a thousand pound,
> So all the cracks had gathered to the fray.
> ...


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## It's Snake Pliskin (17 October 2005)

Richkid, 

I'm not much of a poetry man I must admit. However I do like The Man From Snowy River.

I'll have a go at a poem for you all.

I'm a poet and I don't know it
I like red and bread 
Trees are green and so is grass, 
though when on fire, black
Chinese food and Indian food really kicks arse, 
it's much better than the grass
I didn't trade Babcock and Brown this year, oh no I didn't
Vegemite is black, the same as burn't grass
But if you don't eat it  your mother will kick you in the arse
I must go now to feed my cow, Oh yes yes yes,
the stock market is all but a guess!


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## Bronte (18 October 2005)

Excellent thread RichKid,
My contribution:

SEA FEVER by John Masefield

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again,for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume,and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And a quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over. 


Submitted to memory many years ago.....


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## Julia (18 October 2005)

Bronte said:
			
		

> Excellent thread RichKid,
> My contribution:
> 
> SEA FEVER by John Masefield
> ...





Thanks, Bronte.  Rereading this brought back lots of memories and the pleasant realisation that most of it had actually been committed to my memory also.

Julia


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## Bronte (18 October 2005)

You are welcome Julia
It is a lovely poem.


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## GreatPig (18 October 2005)

Julia said:
			
		

> At Lunchtime - A story of Love



I remember that! It was an awful long time ago though (and the world still hasn't ended ).

I'm quite a fan of Winnie-the-Pooh poems :



> Isn't it funny
> How a bear likes honey?
> Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
> I wonder why he does?
> ...




Also by A. A. Milne: BAD SIR BRIAN BOTANY



> Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on;
> He went among the villagers and blipped them on the head.
> On Wednesday and on Saturday, but mostly on the latter day,
> He called at all the cottages, and this is what he said:
> ...




And the poem that's stuck with me the most? T.S. Eliot's McCavity The Mystery Cat, which we learnt in primary school and had to recite at our end-of-year function one time:



> Macavity!
> 
> Macavity's a mystery cat; he's called the hidden paw
> For he's the master criminal who can defy the law
> ...




And finally, who can forget The Owl and the Pussycat, by Edward Lear. For this one I'll just provide a link, since it includes a few drawings.

Cheers,
GP


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## Double Six (18 October 2005)

Just a taster .....


To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.





.


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## 2020hindsight (19 October 2006)

Here's a web link to a poem - plenty of them around these days.  
"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost - the concept fascinates me  plenty of relevance to trading there too lol. 
http://www.bartleby.com/119/1.html

PS Adam Lindsay Gordon is a favourite of mine as well - 
THere's a poem "Wolf and Hound"  at http://www.imagesaustralia.com/adamlindsaygordon.htm
Its a true story of how he captures a bushranger "in his lair".  
I've posted excerpts from his poems about horseriding elsewhere around here.  This is not necessarily one of his better poems - but shows the depth of his experience  - a boxer as well - and he once arrested a man by pretending a stick pushed into his back was a piston ( he had forgotten his lol).  Brave dude .
"ALG: He arrived in Adelaide in 1853 he was 20 years old and within a few days he joined the South Australian Mounted Police.  Two years later in 1855 he resigned and became a horse breaker and steeplechase rider.  He soon gained a reputation  as being the best and most daring non-professional steeplechase rider in the colony."[/QUOTE]

PS Thanks Joe and Rich for setting me straight - pointing me to this thread - I just knew if I started a new thread I'd be doing the wrong thing lol. (Call it premonition - or call it 100% success rate in screwing up on those sort of things lol.


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## 2020hindsight (19 October 2006)

I tried to mimic Robert Frost with this one - at least the concept of the road not taken - BTW, the concept wasnt original when Frost wrote his either. 

TO WALK THE PATHS AGAIN 

To walk the paths again my friend, to walk the paths again,
To take the uphill path my friend, instead of through the glen,
Or maybe find some truth my friend, on why the paths of men
Gang aft’ a'glay, as oft' they do, it's all beyond our ken.
	And would we choose the self-same path again?
If "here and now" was somehow "there and then"? 

Sometimes when I am half in trance I retrace steps of old,
When I was young and liked to dance, and brasher praps and bold,
When there were risky things I chanced which I let Fate unfold,
And some delivered cactus plants, where they had promised gold.
	Ahh, paths can get so complex, even cold,  
And much is lost to moss,  and much to mould. 

To walk some different pathways chaps, or follow different yearns,
To set a different campfire praps, without so many burns,
To make a better damper with the skills of one who learns,
To sidestep indigestion traps and other like concerns.
	Ideally - using "hindsight maps" - return
And make the right decision at each turn. 

Life's like a dodgem car careering, foot flat to the floor,
And little time to "twig" the steering, taking hits galore,
And doors have opened left and right, and options by the score,
……But …I have used THIS path my friends, 
THIS set of doors around THESE bends
And there's NO way doors come again, 
-	And I'm THIS path, - And I'm THESE doors.
-	And I'm THESE strengths and I'm THESE flaws 
-	And I'm THESE footprints through the moors
-	And I'm effect; and I am cause.


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## 2020hindsight (19 October 2006)

I guess many remember the poem "Beth Gelert" - or "Gelert" as per the following webpage:-  i believe it means "faithful Gelert" in Welsh, but I might be wrong.   This webpage even has a photo of Gelert  which is interesting because the poet died in 1834   It also seems to have the option of hearing it read to you. (not that Ive cracked that bit of technology yet, lol)

Wikipedia >> "William Robert Spencer (1769 - 1834), poet, educated at Harrow School and the University of Oxford.  He belonged to the Whig set of Charles James Fox and Sheridan. He wrote graceful vers de sociÃ©tÃ©, made translations from BÃ¼rger, and is best remembered by his well-known ballad of Gelert. After a life of extravagance he died in poverty in Paris."

yet I find elsewhere that "He published several books relating to missionary work in India; on his return to England in 1849 he was appointed assistant to the bishop of Bath and Wells, and in 1860 became chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral" - So what I want to know is "who says that was a life of extravagence" lol. -maybe he liked to finish off the altar wine singlehandedly.

"He was an accomplished writer of "occasional" verse, which was warmly praised by Scott, by Christopher North and by Byron, who placed him in the same rank as Moore, Rogers and Campbell"  I never knew Roger Moore wrote poetry!

http://www.spokenpoetry.co.uk/gelert.htm

An excerpt :- ( but I wont tell you the ending :- bloody brilliant ) 
But if you love dogs - this one is a must.  (imho)  , cheers

Unpleased, Llewellyn homeward hied, When, near the portal seat,
His truant Gelert he espied Bounding his lord to greet. (probably wagging his tail ?)

But when he gained the castle-door, Aghast the chieftain stood;
The hound all o'er was smeared with gore; His lips, his fangs, ran blood.


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## wayneL (19 October 2006)

I am going to speak to Joe to see if we can name 2020 as "Official ASF Poet". 

Whadaya  think 20?


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## 2020hindsight (19 October 2006)

THe following is a true story - I met Patch and her owners at the vet's where I had taken my dog for something I thought was important - but unlike them I left with my dog beside me,  and much sobered by the experience.  I wrote this for them, not that I pretend it has merit - but some may be able to relate to it.  When people are mourning they appreciate any simple thought irrespective of technical or artistic merit ( imho).

PATCH, THE BRAVE 
(A true story - New Year’s Day 2004.)

They live in the bush on ten acres unsawn, Where the lower Nepean tracks,
And the house is a refuge surrounded by lawn, With a fence where the wilderness backs,
And the summer was hot and the dogs were all sleeping - The noted exception was Patch,
Who was barking excitedly “here boss !!” and leaping, Disturbing the televised match.

The man of the house in a mood opaque, Came out to review the commotion,
And there he discovered she’d bailed up a snake, Which approached the house with its potion,
And SNAKE went for MAN!!! - so DOG went for SNAKE!!! And wife in a panic called “PATCCHHHHH !!!!
Come here girl, My God!! Inside!! For your sake !! Please, dear – this heathen despatch.!!”

He circled the thing like boxers in ring,   And twice it coiled back and struck,
He jumped for the spade which he knew he had lain  In back of the old pick-up truck,
With one short sharp blow he let the snake know  Its number was definitely up,
But now – to the dog – my God!,  the dog!  Who had loved them since she was a pup.

They phoned and they watched for an hour or two, She followed and licked their hand,
They prayed as she circled beside his shoe -  They knelt in the hourglass sand.
A small clue that things weren’t all right – and sad - A hint of thick fleam in a cough - 
And her eyes looked up, with a “help me Dad –  For my breathing gets just a bit rough”.

They drove and they dreamed “may the the dog be unstung”, But the dog grew progressively weak,
She sat in one place and bled in one lung, And licked them both on each cheek.
The vet had a sigh, and a kindly lance, And offered to soften the bill - 
But softly she left us, her last gentle glance, Protective and loving still.

THAT’s why we call them “Man’s best friend” - 	THAT’s why they sleep on the hearth,
And those warm echoed bonds so bountifully mend Through the years as they sleep in our heart.
THAT’s why we treasure their every pricked ear As they “walk the watch” up the street
Cos they teach us love’s rhythms, just they can hear - 	And they’re here to help give us that beat. 

So many shared smiles, yet diverse our styles, Let’s hope paths convergent meet.


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## wayneL (19 October 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> THe following is a true story - I met Patch and her owners at the vet's where I had taken my dog for something I thought was important - but unlike them I left with my dog beside me,  and much sobered by the experience.  I wrote this for them, not that I pretend it has merit - but some may be able to relate to it.  When people are mourning they appreciate any simple thought irrespective of technical or artistic merit ( imho).
> 
> PATCH, THE BRAVE
> (A true story - New Year’s Day 2004.)
> ...




Lovely work 20/20....and I think I got sand in my eye....


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## 2020hindsight (19 October 2006)

wayneL said:
			
		

> I am going to speak to Joe to see if we can name 2020 as "Official ASF Poet". Whadaya  think 20?



Lol spoken like a true dog lover Wayne 
Now if you were a cat lover you'd be throwing tomatoes lol ( or is it tomatos ? - mmm have to ask Dan Qualye lol)

PS - I can't tell you how much I'd like to read others ideas of poetry favourites btw.  lol.  

PS I really liked the Great Pig's post below
"I am Sir Brian!" (sper-lash)
"I am Sir Brian!" (sper-losh!)
"I am Sir Brian, as bold as a lion -
Is anyone else for a wash?"
lol - funny as!


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## new girl (19 October 2006)

wayneL said:
			
		

> I am going to speak to Joe to see if we can name 2020 as "Official ASF Poet".
> 
> Whadaya  think 20?





Agree.

He should also be allowed to bend the rules a bit like ramping because he does it with a 2020 style.

You know life is not fair, smart, great sense of humor and a poet? 

I  AM  JEALOUS.


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## Dukey (19 October 2006)

Here's one of my all time favourites, from the back catalogues of the coolest of cats   : Bob Dylan ... 
Of course songs are just rythmic poems....  
Dylan was and is greatly influence by Verlaine and Rambaud; and of course Woody Guthrie, Hank Williams and Many others. Robert Frost too i think.

One Too Many Mornings   (1964)

Down the street the dogs are barkin'
And the day is a-gettin' dark.
As the night comes in a-fallin',
The dogs 'll lose their bark.
An' the silent night will shatter
From the sounds inside my mind,
For I'm one too many mornings
And a thousand miles behind.

From the crossroads of my doorstep,
My eyes they start to fade,
As I turn my head back to the room
Where my love and I have laid.
An' I gaze back to the street,
The sidewalk and the signs,
And I'm one too many mornings
An' a thousand miles behind.

It's a restless hungry feeling
That don't mean no one no good,
When ev'rything I'm a-sayin'
You can say it just as good.
You're right from your side,
I'm right from mine.
We're both just one too many mornings
An' a thousand miles behind.

   Bob Dylan
---------------------------

I'm sure we've all been there ... wherevever _that_ is ??!! 

Thers plenty more where that came from ...http://www.bobdylan.com/songs/


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## 2020hindsight (19 October 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> Agree.... (various compliments)....JEALOUS.



Lol - ty New Girl - you left out most of the adjectives I get around here - or at work for that matter lol - "useless, stupid, crazy" lol - but I take refuge in quotes like :-

A man is infinetly more complex that his own thoughts.
What be-eth a man if he hath not a little madness ( or a lot lol)


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## 2020hindsight (19 October 2006)

Dukey said:
			
		

> Here's one of my all time favourites, from the back catalogues of the coolest of cats   : Bob Dylan ...
> 
> For I'm one too many mornings
> And a thousand miles behind.
> ...




Gr8 m8 - brilliant - GOTTA be a Robert Frost influence youre right ..

The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, 
But I have promises to keep, 
And miles to go before I sleep, 
And miles to go before I sleep. 


http://quotations.about.com/cs/poemlyrics/a/Stopping_ByWood.htm


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## new girl (19 October 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> Lol - ty New Girl - you left out most of the adjectives I get around here - or at work for that matter lol - "useless, stupid, crazy" lol - but I take refuge in quotes like :-
> 
> A man is infinetly more complex that his own thoughts.
> What be-eth a man if he hath not a little madness ( or a lot lol)





They’re all jealous 2020.

They have nothing going for them except that stupid job. Creative people need to be crazy and a little lazy. Don’t waste your life working, become a comedian/finance commentator. 

You can't be uglier than coshy (not sure about the spelling)! If that boring geek can make it, believe me you can.


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## Dukey (19 October 2006)

Yep - similar tone huh.
Bobs 'Chronicles' are a great read - a similar feel in some places to his songs - just prose not poetry. Some good 'BOB' movies recently too - Masked and Anonymous is a hilarious (in a wierd kinda way) spoof of the US gone wrong. Heartily recommend it. Havn't seen Scorcese's effort yet.... soon


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## 2020hindsight (19 October 2006)

One for Mother Nature, my heroine , like Wordsworth.  I wonder what Wordsworth would have had to say about global warming    woops dont go there 2020! last time you went there you got a black eye lol.  But even politics - and hopefully religion - are covered by a poetic licence on this thread  (that's so isnt it Joe?? - unless of course its judged to be ramping Mother Nature lol.)

IF I WERE GOD 

If I were the God of Light ..in the Christian twist of the word,
And some Bishops pretended I’d said that a gay man's excluded, or “Heaven’s deferred”,
I’d probably question their motives..and tell them their vision was blurred, 
Or lacking in empathy, praps homophobic, and certainly downright absurd.
	We’re no two the same .. so let’s tone down the blame..
(And judging ..and sledging ..and pastlife redredging)
And the heat and the hate incurred.

If I were the God of Love..as the Islamic followers say,
And men draped in BLACK!! said that wives should be stoned, if suspected of going astray,
And just on the word of some madman..and quoting My name all the way,
To kill her by pellets from rampaging zealots, - I’d probably lean towards “nay”.
	- You’ll guess how I dress, from my rainbow caress 
of my wife-world, my life-world, my not-without-strife world,
So lovingly sculptured  from clay.

If I were the God of the Righteous, and I mean in the global sense
And somebody said that the answer was “might” , and that killing was not an offence,
Or a volunteer bomber could somehow find “Bliss”, from the moment of impact and hence-
I’d prob’ly say “Son, just give-it-a-miss, ..and don’t be so God-damned dense!.”
	Salvation my boy is a well informed joy, 
(Enlightened, less frightened, and ranting-much-quietened,)
where you argue – like gents - at the fence.

If I were the God of the Living, ..and somebody came up and said
That some quote from some Biblical text or Koran..predicted some horrible dread,
Abandoned by Keeper, some monster Grim Reaper who mega-throws worlds on their head ! - 
I’m here     just ignore it    (cos I’ve never saw it), and don’t be so easily lead.
	Predictions like that .. when the world was flat.. 
		(Begotten, forgotten, from-some-old-dude’s-jottin’)
are inept (you can take it as read).

But…But…But (sigh)
But If I were the Mother of Nature, ..and my world was a breaking shell,
And someone was pouring black oil on my birds…and poisoning, slowly, the well,
And deserts were growing like wildfire.. and wildfires were burning like Hell, 
I’d be just a tiddy- wee-bit concerned, …And I’d probably opt to sell !! 
	Or make a new pact to clean up my act, 
(this dome, my home, where I love to roam)
and try to make patient well;
	And stare down their eyes when they rabidly foam , 
while ringing some Heavenly bell.

Lol inevitably I hav to make a stack of "edits"  - everything I do is "work in progress", and never quite the FINAL draft lol. 
Like I sat beside a Portugese banker at a wedding once - for conversation I said " sorry I don't know much about Portugal - except that I believe that you dont kill the bull yes?  He answered  - "yes you're right, we never finish anything we start in Portugal lol."


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## Dukey (19 October 2006)

Nice one 20!!　great wit and very relevent!...  
Unlike this effort of mine - which i just found in 'my back pages' - Just realised I writ it when i was about 22 - and scared the Sh%! out of myself realising that was 17 years ago!!   
Sorry if
its
abit
stilted like...
-------------------------
A Life Cycle / Perpetual Human Motion	(EVB)
--------------------------------------------------
The moon - it comes 
on nights so still
round as yolk of egg though pale
a smallish chunk of terra-firma
flung by earthly catastrophe

Or perhaps by chance, a seeding vessel
from galaxies far away
that sowed the seeds of life on earth
that man may have his day
. . . . again.

Could it be 
that we 
will do the same
when our time on earth runs dry
we'll pack our bags and head for space
- an interstellar caravanserai

We'll heave-to by a likely lump
and wait till dawn is nigh
then sow the seeds of life 
again
as a new sun 
illuminates
a new blue sky

And so ...
on and on we'll crawl
through  a swirling sea of years
creating, then destroying,
life.
Then moving on... 
we'll shed no tears.

But without death there is no life
without yin... no yang
We just move on
and round
and round
and the circle
remains 
the same.

(ahhh . . . .   men !)

-----------------
 
Gotta go eat sushi!!!!! 明日ね！


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## 2020hindsight (19 October 2006)

Dukey said:
			
		

> Sorry if its a bit stilted like...
> -------------------------
> A Life Cycle / Perpetual Human Motion	(EVB)
> --------------------------------------------------
> The moon - it comes , on nights so still , round as yolk of egg though pale



Man o man ! that is fantasstic !!


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## 2020hindsight (20 October 2006)

Dukey said:
			
		

> The moon - it comes on nights so still, round as yolk of egg though pale



Dukey, since you introduce the subject of astronomy ... here's a couple of poems , also of questionable quality.  Lets just call this amateur hour lol. 

Somewhere I wrote (when I committed my first 50 poems to print) that 
" Fifty odd poems about this and that, Well certainly odder than most, 
Nothing to really write home about, And certainly nothing to boast, 
Tug at your heartstrings, or tug at your lead, But Most of em breezy and light, 
And those that are heavy or hard to read , It’s because they were easy to write." 

Continuing in this vein lol:- 

Fifty odd poems when you add ‘em all up (+)
The product of what I think (x),
The critics divided twixt “maybe” and “nup” ( / )
Or whether they bloodywell stink,   
Or whether you somehow could rescue the page
If you’d just take away the ink ( - ) 
Or the sum of decreasing mental age (- - -)
And increasing time to think. ( + + +)
 - But in truth it’s a square on an empty stage  ( ^2)
and a cubic TV on the blink ( ^3)

here are some that were PARTICULARLY easy to write lol.

PS If you say that "astronomer" and "Jeronimo" dont rhyme - well its a lot bludy closer than your poem lol.

FIND YOUR STAR AND GIVE IT NAME 

Met an old astronomer , Sat me down and pointed skyward 
"There's the clues Jeronimo" , ... Searched the darkness for more firewood. 

Clue to life is search the night sky , Find your star and give it name 
Search your soul and set your sights, and Let your star define your aim. 

Next trick son is find the Pointers , Limits like celestial gates 
Left and right like Pope's annointers, Goalposts like Magellan's Straights. 

Last one boy is find your cross - its Crux to some and crutch to others - 
Learn that you're your moral boss - and Go with truth and help your brothers,  
( sisters, wives and even mothers)

And another (A comparison of Romance and Reality) :-
SCRAP METAL 

Tell me your story small piece of scrap metal, jagged and rent from some hull,
Satelite glory? or broken old kettle? Something exciting or dull?
(have you) Seen the world from 10,000 miles high, or just from a kitchen stove?
did you Guess what a buzz it would be to fly? - or the pantry your furthest rove?

did aDrenoline thrill you, who knows maybe kill you? did you Whirl like a wide eyed dreamer?
did they "Tea-cosy frill" you, or praps "window sill" you, did you boil like a two-pot screamer?
did you Find romance in your time allotted? and travel mid languages foreign?
did your Master's dance with each space-beep spotted, - or your cosy just doubled as sporran?

Tell me your story , my new-found friend, just How have we spent our life?
Relishing height in each new bound, friend? or Just steering clear of strife?
Relishing moments of sunshine and warm, - and the LIGHTNING flash - Natures wild language?
or Relishing praps just the END of the storm? - or maybe - a corn relish sandwich? 

Soared where the wedge tailed eagle goes? or Paced out some cage like a turkey?
well ME? I'm a bit of both I suppose (WHETHER REAL OR IMAGINED GETS MIRKY )
Moments of boredom or moments of bliss, Moments worth ten times gold,
In the end my friend it has come to this - Your story remains untold!

Epilogue (written by a Realist):-

You think it's romantic? It's a serious case!!! I have to be crisp and specific!!
There's Fe3 O4 all over the place (that's rust to you unscientific!)
It's OBVIOUSLY kettle you flaming great drip !! There's even a tealeaf this corner !!
And chances of satellite here !!! GET A GRIP!!, Strick your thumb back in , Lill Jack Horner!!

AND TRY TO BE MORE SCIENTIFICALLY PURE !! YOURE TECHNICALLY LACKING JACK HORNER!!


----------



## Dukey (20 October 2006)

Back from sushi...man that was good. Aussie sushi train just don't cut it when you've got the real thing!!

Taa - '20' - glad you like it! - surprised - more like...
I'll show you my VOGON   poetry if you show me yours!!!


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## Dukey (20 October 2006)

20 - sounds like we're turned on by the same things!! damn scary that.
... 'boil like a two pot  screamer'  - gotta love it!!!

here goes - Vogon Alert.... :alien2:  :ald: 
--------------------
WARNING: If death occurs - discontinue use.
--------------------

Ode to a Twisted Heap of Scrap Metal		(April 1994)
------------------------------------------------

Rest in peace
Oh great white Super Bug

Young Ferdinand Porsche
awaits you in the mystic
clouds of twighlights highway

May your oil remain clean and viscous
May they always use straight 40 wt.
as I did

I know you liked it that way

May your wheels run true
on the golden paved highways
of heavenly transportation

and may you never be parked out in the cold
emptiness of the void
but instead have your own place
in Nature-gods great garage

Fear not my car
for all will be well

be assured that although you were metal
and I am flesh
we transcend these limitations
I will hold you dear in my heart
till we meet again

I loved you
like no other car

	Oh, and by the way St. Peter
	She takes only silicone brake fluid
	and rock and roll

Goodbye


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## 2020hindsight (20 October 2006)

Dukey said:
			
		

> 20 - sounds like we're turned on by the same things!! damn scary that....Ode to a Twisted Heap of Scrap Metal
> Fear not my car, for all will be well, be assured that although you were metal
> and I am flesh, we transcend these limitations, I will hold you dear in my heart
> till we meet again
> ...



M8 lol - that's hilarious ROFL.  
But you're right it's scary  - 
Similarities - title , off the deep end romantically speaking lol  (eat your heart out Byron, Robbie Burns etc lol)
Differences - almost everything else 

Speaking of Robbie Burns - see if you can work out what the hell he's been drinking here lol:-
http://www.robertburns.org/works/147.shtml
PS - Im taking the p*** lol.  I havent got a clue .

but I really like the old stalwart:-
http://www.robertburns.org/works/75.shtml

Hell I'm off - enough of this !! lol  thanks btw 

PS YOU CAN TAK' OUR LIVES -  YOU CAN EVEN TAK' OUR LIBERTY -  BUT YOU CANNA TAK' OUR HAGGIS!!


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## Dukey (20 October 2006)

Yep - I'll check it out.

see you 'Ron'.


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## RichKid (20 October 2006)

This is a great thread guys, here's another one from Batleby.com, seems a bit like prose but on point, the road less travelled isn't always that obvious: 

"Wherever a man separates from the multitude, and goes his own way in this mood, there indeed is a fork in the road, though ordinary travelers may see only a gap in the paling. His solitary path across lots will turn out the higher way of the two."

ATTRIBUTION:	Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), U.S. philosopher, author, naturalist. “Life Without Principle” (1863), in The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, vol. 4, p. 466, Houghton Mifflin (1906). http://www.bartleby.com/66/56/59956.html


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## yogi-in-oz (20 October 2006)

.....cancer and death visited our family again, this week.

Writing the eulogy for today's funeral has demanded
some introspection about our own mortality, that we
often try to delay in our own lives.

Here's a small part of a tribute to a special man and
his humour, courage, love and dignity, in the face of 
impossible odds:


            'Bye Joe.

"Bye Joe, take care" were my final words
And he shook my hand with firmest grip,
The measure of a man.

Our eyes met for one last time
And with words unspoken, we both knew,
That the time had almost come,
For Joe to meet the Father, Spirit and the Son.

In hospital, he sat upon the bed, 
Not wishing to lay down.
The pain to his family obvious,
But never did he frown.

Instead, he showed us the courage 
That we will all hope for, at that time,
When God says, "It's time to go."
Joe said, "Hold on mate, next round is mine."

Love, compassion and devotion
Are traits, that Joe gave us, all.
And in the face of death he showed,
How to overcome that final hurdle.

With inner strength and dignity,
Lots of courage and a smile for all,
He left the family numbed,
As he answered God's final call.

Farewell to a generous soul,
Who lived life, in the fullest measure,
Both in his work, but most especially,
In his leisure.

Many thanks, Joe.

=====
 yogi 
16.10.2006
=====


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## RichKid (20 October 2006)

That is quite moving Yogi, you obviously have a talent there, but more to the point, I think you have helped make the passing a little bit easier to cope with, sounds like Joe was quite a man, my condolences to you and all the family.


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## Dukey (20 October 2006)

I'll second those comments Rich : Thanks Yogi or sharing your touching eulogy. May we all have Joe's strength and dignity when the time comes...
Thanks Rich too for starting this interesting/thoughtful/amusing thread.

And - 2020 - Whatever Robert Burns was drinking (link above) - He'd obviously had a skin-full when he wrote that!!  Guess he liked his haggis too. And thats about as much detail as i can glean without a year long study!!  - though its more fun if you imagine a wild scottiish accent...


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## 2020hindsight (20 October 2006)

Thanks Yogi - you are still thinking of your friend this evening I am sure.  This is the flip side of life isnt it.  The serious and the sad stuff.  

Here's a eulogy of sorts - to a miscarried child. As seen from the (imagined) perspective of a mother who has just lost her baby, and being visited by doctors nurses etc in hospital (as someone I know was).

IF EVER YOU'VE FELT SADNESS.

if speak you must then gently please, I'm feeling kinda low,
padre doctor nurse whoever, say your piece and go
if ever you've felt sadness, then maybe you will know
if ever you've felt pain of loss when Fortune was your foe -
remember then and recognise my plea.

just yesterday I beamed with joy and shared life with my own
your scraping ugly instruments have left me all alone
my soul is absent escort to a far and final home
where his spirit source of so much joy can roam -
if ever you've felt sadness, leave me be.

I guess in truth I'm miles away him cradled in my arms
we're walking through the valley like the shepherd in the psalms
we're walking past still waters and it's peaceful and it's calm
his spirit's with me yet with all his charm -
so excuse my lack of answer or alarm.

praps his tiny brief existence wasn't futile, all in vain, 
though histories will come and go not mentioning his name
warm tears the only remnants of his sojourn that remain
and memories of inward smiles, now pain. -
praps God knows what he's doing - He'll explain.

and no doubt time and love will conquer sadness
tomorrow I will kindle warmth and cheer
but for the moment let me make my parting
with someone very small and very dear

and no doubt destiny will one day compensate
and one day I will hold his brother here
but if you've ever grieved then praps you'll bear with me
and leave me with his memory and this tear.


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 October 2006)

see if this style reminds you of anyone  ..

http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/gordonal/poetry/fromthewreck.html

From the Wreck by A L Gordon 

Excepts:-
There was bridling with hurry, and saddling with haste, 
   Confusion and cursing for lack of a moon; 
"Be quick with these buckles, we've no time to waste;" 
   "Mind the mare, she can use her hind legs to some tune." 
"Make sure of the crossing-place; strike the old track, 
   They've fenced off the new one; look out for the holes 
On the wombat hills." "Down with the slip rails; stand back." 
   "And ride, boys, the pair of you, ride for your souls." 

In the low branches heavily laden with dew, 
   In the long grasses spoiling with deadwood that day, 
Where the blackwood, the box, and the bastard oak grew, 
   Between the tall gum-trees we gallop'd away -- 
We crash'd through a brush fence, we splash'd through a swamp -- 
   We steered for the north near "The Eaglehawk's Nest" -- 
We bore to the left, just beyond "The Red Camp", 
   And round the black tea-tree belt wheel'd to the west -- 

We cross'd a low range sickly scented with musk 
   From wattle-tree blossom -- we skirted a marsh -- 
Then the dawn faintly dappled with orange the dusk, 
   And peal'd overhead the jay's laughter note harsh, 
And shot the first sunstreak behind us, and soon 
   The dim dewy uplands were dreamy with light; 
And full on our left flash'd "The Reedy Lagoon", 
   And sharply "The Sugarloaf" rear'd on our right. 
A smothered curse broke through the bushman's brown beard, 
   He turn'd in his saddle, his brick-colour'd cheek 
Flush'd feebly with sundawn, said, "Just what I fear'd; 
   Last fortnight's late rainfall has flooded the creek." 

Black Bolingbroke snorted, and stood on the brink 
   One instant, then deep in the dark sluggish swirl 
Plunged headlong. I saw the horse suddenly sink, 
   Till round the man's armpits the waves seemed to curl. 
We follow'd, -- one cold shock, and deeper we sank 
   Than they did, and twice tried the landing in vain; 
The third struggle won it; straight up the steep bank 
   We stagger'd, then out on the skirts of the plain. 

The stockrider, Alec, at starting had got 
   The lead, and had kept it throughout; 'twas his boast 
That through thickest of scrub he could steer like a shot, 
   And the black horse was counted the best on the coast. 
The mare had been awkward enough in the dark, 
   She was eager and headstrong, and barely half broke; 
She had had me too close to a big stringy-bark, 
   And had made a near thing of a crooked sheoak.

But now on the open, lit up by the morn, 
   She flung the white foam-flakes from nostril to neck, 
And chased him -- I hatless, with shirt sleeves all torn 
   (For he may ride ragged who rides from a wreck) -- 
And faster and faster across the wide heath 
   We rode till we raced. Then I gave her her head, 
And she -- stretching out with the bit in her teeth -- 
   She caught him, outpaced him, and passed him, and led. 
etc etc  

http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/gordonal/selectedalg.html

"Gordon was the first Australian poet to be read by the ordinary man. His riding rhymes were an important factor in the creation of the Australian ballad by Paterson and others. Perhaps H.M. Green speaks for the reader when he writes, '... we read Gordon "not for the fine phrases, but for the directness of some cry, and above all for the breadth and effectiveness of any utterance ... taken as a whole". And we read him because even if we ourselves are not hunters, sportsmen, soldiers, adventurers, he uncovers some underlying stratum of such men in us, opening up to us the road of adventure and blowing over it the wind of romance.'

personally  I really like his poems.


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 October 2006)

A couple of poems by AL Gordon ; (just to keep things next to relevant posts) -  I've typed em so pls excuse the typos. 

YE WEARY WAYFARER, Fytte VI
POTTER's CLAY [An Allegorucal Interlude]

Though the pitcher that goes to the sparkling rill 
Too oft gets broken at last,
There are scores of others its place to fill 
When its earth to the earth is cast;
Keep that pitcher at home, may it never roam,
but lie like a useless clod,
Yet sooner or later the hour will come 
When its chips are thrown to the sod.

Is it wise, then, say, in the waning day,
When the vessel is crack'd and old,
To cherish the battered potters clay ,
As thoughit were virgin gold?
Take care of yourself, dull, boorish elf,
Though prudent and safe you seem,
Your pitcher will break on the musty shelf
And mine by the dazzling stream.

and another  - you can feel the horse hard held approaching a jump -

from YE WEARY WAYFARER, Fytte VII
.........
Oh the vigour with which the air is rife !
The spirit of joyous motion;
The fever, the fullness of animal life,
Can be drained from no earthly potion!
The lungs with the living gas grow light, 
and the limbs feel the strength of ten,
While the chest expands with its madd'ning might 
GOD'S GLORIOUS OXYGEN.

Thus the measured stroke, on elastic sward,
Of the steed three parts extended,
Hard held, the breath of his nostrils broad,
With the golden ether blended;
Then the leap, the rise from the springing turf,
The rush through the buoyant air,
And the light shock landing - the veriest serf
Is an emperor then and there......


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 October 2006)

TITANIC (Wrong boat, wrong time, wrong attitude)

Its a Heaven-sent night to be out on deck, and we're hundreds of miles from shore,
No radar invented but what the heck, the Captain's been this way before,
The pride of his eye, the pride of the fleet, and the White Star line and all,
And there's only one pride that he's yet to meet, that's the one that preempts a fall.

Hey look Bergermeister that berg of ice, just out of the blue so romantic,
The Captain must know the stakes and the dice, or forgotten he's in mid Atlantic?
Cos the way that I see it, - the speed we are going, - that half hidden monster ahead,!!
There's just a wee chance , without to-ing and fro-ing of a....."CRUNCH!!" woops, and stopping dead.

It's a beautiful night, but I must go inside, this lean's the champagne I assume,
But Im also concerned at the rising tide in the starboard engine room,
That's funny?? That funnel just went up in smoke ! and now we're splitting in two!
Ah those deckchairs are crooked! and Im a neat bloke, it'll give me something to do.

And the strains of the hymn "Abide with me" I hear some heroes playing,
St Peter - tune in!! and confide with me, Mate where do I go for "weigh in"?
And a handful of lifeboats bobbing like cork, watch the stern disappear from view,
And unless you can walk the watery walk, Move on to a world of dark blue.

...................

There's right and there's wrong and there's "wronger" dude - Wrong boat, wrong time, wrong attitude,
Too little perhaps the longitude, and far too lax the latitude, 
And too much ice with the whiskey dries, and too many people got wet
And far too cocky the hype and the cries that was sold as such a safe bet.

And too determined a win to record, for a maiden voyage and fastest,
And too many omens simply ignored,  that rebounded and made it the lastest,
And "full speed ahead" despite the warning that icepacks were hunting in threes,
And far too long before daylight's dawning, and far too cold the seas.

And it just goes to show that we don't always know what's around the next bend (just as well)
Cos it's moist underfoot (neath the undertow) and it's not "all's well" neath the swell, 
And three hours ago we were laughing flatchat, in a floating hotel unsinkable,
Now courage and curtains are where it's at, and its all so damned unthinkable.

..........................

"The Captain advises he'll have to abstain from the 10:00 pm party upstairs
Cos he's busy with mops where someone complained, and he's having to lead the prayers"
Twas one hell of a debrief in Heav'n to report, that night the Titanic sank
While the sinkable boats came home to port from the self same Newfoundland bank, 

And  1500 found a new home, on the lonely Newfoundland Bank.


----------



## yogi-in-oz (21 October 2006)

..... many thanks for the kind words, folks !~!

have a great weekend

  yogi


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 October 2006)

yogi-in-oz said:
			
		

> .....cancer and death visited our family again, this week......a tribute to a special man and his humour, courage, love and dignity, in the face of impossible odds...   thanks, folks !~!



Yogi, Im going to risk it and throw in one more sad one - I hope someone responds with a light hearted poem .  

This one's about my father who also died of cancer - way back.  I was just a kid, youngest of 3.   I barely remember him - but everything I DO remember is in superlatives.  I've tried to put myself inside his head during the last few weeks that he faced (also with tremendous courage - just as your friend Joe).  Noone - but noone - saw him cry, but I explore the possibility that there may have been a tear or two when he was alone, maybe on watching a sunrise, - just as there are often tears at any family farewell - any separation of whatever duration - and not knowing when or if we will meet again 

FAREWELL, BUT MY LAST FAREWELL. 

My children, we've travelled a few short miles - 
Look there.. we can still see the start.. 
I know you won't understand what I say, 
But this is where I must depart. 

It's not that I choose to abandon, 
Unload any load onto you. 
Come , while there's time - feel the warmth of my breast, 
You'll hear my heart breaking in two. 

But my body is tired and cannot keep up, 
And I have no choice but to rest, 
And this side road is short to the top of this hill, 
(Please courage - just one more test.)

And beyond that hill to a world unknown, 
For there's nothing to say on the sign, 
Who knows ?, perhaps there's a war over there, 
But Im told there's a Father who's kind. 

And never forget as you travel life's paths, 
- As is the good fortune of men - 
That Im travelling a road - somewhere, worlds apart - 
And that maybe we'll meet again. 

And my love will always be with you, 
And my hopes for you fill the years, 
And I sign this pact that I trace on these sheets, 
With the salt of these pillowed tears.  

As I say above, I hope someone responds with a light hearted poem .  But its a free country and people can respond any which way they like, comedy , tragedy, etc - after all, poetry (like opera) isnt a "one trick pony".

PS Epilogue (from a note by an Aunt, - Perhaps young kids who have lost a parent might find some comfort in these words - I sure have  ):-
"There will I know be moments of sadness and great loss ; but... 
if you can put beside these - 
all the good times you have had together - 
I am sure - 
that you will find - 
that you have gained - 
more... 
than you can ever lose."


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 October 2006)

Hindsight vs Foresight... 

SITTING IN TRAINS 

I like to face forward in trains, - to look to my future-to-be;
To otherwise sit is to watch what has been  - it's all in the past you see, 
It's not that the past isn't precious, I treasure each grand memory,
Unique mine alone, but they're safe set in stone,
And living there constantly sounds like a drone
They're always accessible via "head-phone"
And dialing it works like a T.
…..I Like to watch where the NEXT seeds will be sown
As well as admiring the tree.

The mem-ries I've buried in layers - the layers I've buried in years
There's mem-ories there that I really do care for, and others that tackle my fears,
But diggin em up gets addictive, the mixture of laughter and tears,
Unique mine alone but I've buried that bone
(I mean in the canine sense, not Al Capone);
	While diggin em up sets a warm fuzzy tone
The next cashcrop gets in arrears. 
…….I'll unbury them - like a gift left alone -
In time - more mature - with some beers. 

I like to face forward in trains - behind us is all in the past,
On yachts I will blow on the gyb or the main - while sighting ahead through the mast,
I even face forward when rowing - it's ethically pure if not fast 
	The past is a heap of indelible stains -  
	The present's restricted by "no-passing" lanes
	Just look to the future, and…. "let go the reins !! "
And "face the next turn not the last….."
……......
This lady reached back to me.."You!! - .. making brain noises !!
That was your station you passed !!. "


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 October 2006)

http://www.poetsgraves.co.uk/Classic Poems/Southey/the_inchcape_rock.htm
http://www.poemhunter.com/p/m/poem.asp?poet=6688&poem=28859
(Two alternative websites - take your pick) 

Here's one for folks who remember the quote "Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair".

Website reads :-  ‘By east the Isle of May’, says he, ‘twelve miles from all land in the German seas, lyes a great hidden rock, called Inchcape, very dangerous for navigators, because it is overflowed everie tide. It is reported in old times, upon the saide rock there was a bell, fixed upon a tree or timber, which rang continually, being moved by the sea, giving notice to the saylers of the danger. This bell or clocke was put there and maintained by the Abbott of Aberbrothok, and being taken down by a sea pirate, a yeare thereafter he perished upon the same rocke, with ship and goodes, in the righteous judgement of God.’ – STODDART’S Remarks on Scotland.


THE INCHCAPE ROCK 
by Robert Southey

... just the last few verses (best to get the full story on the web)...

‘Canst hear,’ said one, ‘the breakers roar? For methinks we should be near the shore.’ 
‘Now where we are I cannot tell, But I wish I could hear the Inchcape Bell.’

They hear no sound, the swell is strong; Though the wind hath fallen they drift along, 
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,― ‘Oh Christ! It is the Inchcape Rock!’

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair; He curst himself in his despair; 
The waves rush in on every side, The ship is sinking beneath the tide.

But even in his dying fear One dreadful sound could the Rover hear, 
A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell, The Devil below was ringing his knell.


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 October 2006)

You'll be pleased to know that im gonna limit myself to four (4) posts without someone else saying some bludy thing ( even if it's SHUDDUP!! - WHO NEEDS THIS CRAPP!!) . 

Thought for the day ( in closing ) I'd like to suggest that any who wish post an original poem about the ASX - you've got to the end of October - no rules (other than stick roughly to the topic) - and a prize? Im checking , but I think I can organise 300,000 shares in TLS for starters ! - (well at least that might get them moving !?) lol - By the end of the month, they'll be giving em away anyways.

Here's one written to a galloping rhythm.   Pathetic compared to the masters like ALG and Banjo - but there you go.  

JACKAROO vs OLD BULLOCK DRAY

A galloping sound was alive in the ground
And the henhouse in chaos the hoofbeats in flight
And a rapid fire clopping with no hint of stopping 
And rapid fire cries of the young maiden’s plight,
And just out of town the crescendo invaded 
The sleeping young jackaroo’s half naked dreaming,
He jumped to the window to see legs akimbo
And bolter and duststorm and girl by now screaming

With no thought of dacks he just ran to make tracks
And he jumped on his horse, it was eighteen hands high,
And he gave it a kick and they took off so quick 
That some leghairs got caught – hairy saddle, bald thigh.
And he galloped full bore (minus leghairs - times four)
Till the tortured young lass he did briefly espy, 
And he caught up beside her and smiled to confide her
And slowly the screaming relaxed to a sigh.

Well they fell off at last, (she had headlocked him fast),
And they fortunate fell in a big pile of hay
And they both bumped their funny bones - humerus fabulous
Laughter ensued as they pantingly lay,
And their pulses were racing – like – right off the tracing
On impulse he bellowed “let’s kiss! – here !! TODAY !!!”
To which she replied that her boyfriend ( she lied)
Would “be catching up soon – in his old bullock dray”.

So the moral of stories like this (there are lots)
Is that galloping’s fun and it thrills and excites,
But when trottin out ladies who much prefer trots and/or
Bulldust and stuff- SKIP the heroic heights – 
And if ever you’re sleeping and screams come a-creeping
Upsetting your optimist-dream-laden-night
Don’t bother to jump up and rescue the lass
There’s a bullock dray soon – so let HIM set it right. 

Ahh shucks - Im gonna slip another one in (under Joe's radar)..
It's about my granpa,  a real character - who was an expert horseman, breaker, could light a cigarette on a bucking horse etc - but then had to adapt to this new beast called the car ...  Had to go up this hill in reverse at night (strongest), and made his wife (my gran) precede him on foot with her hem up over her head to show the white petticoat ( he had damn all taillights)..


PETTICOAT HILL TRAVERSED IN THE DARK

Here's a story handed down -  must be true,  my Granma told me - 
Of my Granpa so renowned, and my Gran whose arms enfold me,
'Bout the time they climbed the hill, in the dark, some place remote,
Made it up like Jack and Jill, courtesy of petticoat.

Granpa was a mighty man, legs were somewhat horseback- bowed,
Born beside the passing Ghan, where the Channel Rivers flowed,
Lucky me to meet this giant, (older - in a quieter mode),
Patron Saint of "self reliant", Patron saint of "no fixed road".

Granma was so neat and dainty, More at home in churchhall choir,
Married him to make him sainty, 'stead she scored baptismal fire,
Told these tales of horse and cattle, how he rode into the bar, or
Tried his best to fit a saddle to this new beast called a "car".

There's this hill that needs traversing, Driving his new fangled Ford,
Strongest gear was when reversing, Sadly that meant lights ignored,
Gramps told Gran (a brainstorm burst) " Pull your dress up at the back"!
Petticoats would walk on first, He would follow up the track.

Backed the car up to the hill - Gran in place, the hem he spied, 
Told her "that's it - show the frills!!" - Told her to advance a stride,
Sure, the slightest gleam was showing, If he squinted through the dark,
But they needed to get going, so he shouted "Take your Mark!!" .

Yelled to Gran to up the pace - pitchest black the night owl hooted,
Suddenly became a race - throttle down, - and Granma scooted.!!
Safest place was through the ferns, hopeful not to be run over,
Hem-high scamper took some turns, mumbling "Hell with you, Red Rover !!"

Granpa just kept charging backwards, followed dodges back and forth
Bit surprised at twisting trackwards, nonetheless he charged on - North!!
….Made that crest (by pity's sake), now the hillside sports two paths -
One straight up that most would take, one my grandpa's aftermath.

That's ONE story handed down -  must be true my Granma told me - 
Of my Granpa so renowned, and my Gran whose arms enfold me,
'Bout the time they climbed the hill, in the dark, some place remote,
Made it up like Jack and Jill, courtesy of petticoat.


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## 2020hindsight (22 October 2006)

Class Action signed by Joe said:
			
		

> SHUDDUP!! - WHO NEEDS THIS CRAPP!!




Thanks for your message.  And thanks for your support even if its a bit qualified.   But Im a perpetual optimist, and Im sure you really like poetry deep down.  And Thanks for beaking the 4 max post rule  - (private messages also count btw


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 October 2006)

Here's one I wrote for this thread 

A PLACE WHERE PIGEONS CAN MAKE SENSE OF STATUES

there’s a statue over yonder where the pigeons like to rest
and they make their small deposits on the General’s medalled chest 
and they team up all day long but in the end it’s second guessed 
that they love the stoney Gen’ral for his big plumed crest.

And the pigeons all take turns to be the central one who talks
and who struts the genral’s braid or sword and pecks and points and squawks 
with his bird brain making theories bout some item where he walks
“CRIKEY  – HERE’s another concept -  from the world of general dorks” 

now that Gen’ral to a pigeon is a giant mystery
(though the Gen’ral couldn’t giv a hoot -  he’s out cold - history)
And its much the same for human pigeons - likes of you and me
that we ‘ccasion-ly should question “general earth” and “general free”.

…………..........
In my humblest opinion, we should take a random break
between piling up portfolios and watching how they bake 
between learning how to look at graphs that experts kindly make
(that as far as I can see resemble - most of all - a snake ?)

just a mental cup of coffee, just a different type of thought
after nervous tonnes of toffee wishing “sell” was bludy “bought”
after watching your life savings fast approaching bludy nought, - (maybe 
wishing that you’d robbed that bank – so what if you’d been caught.)

cos we sit for bludy hours watching one or other trend
and we summons wizard powers that the downward graph will bend
and we’re fearing that that expert tipper had us for a lend
or your broker’s phoneline cra-c-k-led  - and “sit tight” came out as “spend” 

so this table in the chatroom is for anyone who cares 
for a bit of lateral thinking perhaps beyond their diving shares
and few arguments – rare clashes – praps some sordid love affairs
but it’s mostly poems and promises (and bashing heads with chairs)

just a mental cup of coffee where you spill the mental beans
using English rarely exercised by Kings or proper Queens
can be poetry or prosey from mature age or your teens
or a quote that Wrangler tattoo-ed on your first blue pair of jeans

like, we’re all on earth together, and we share the air today 
- we’re both ripening and rotting as old Shakespeare used to say
but we’re so damned blessed to be possessed of  “passions in the play”
and the mission and the fishing - and saliva’s wide-arced spray.

....................
But I make this bet, - the statuette that we call life will stay
“general mystery” to you and me – despite what pigeons say!


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## 2020hindsight (23 October 2006)

Thought for the day...Call it "Open Air Opera" 
Something to STIR THE BLOOD (Man I would pay double to watch a rugby match in Cardiff Arms Park and hear the Welsh in full flight) :-  PS I don't have a drop of Welsh blood in me btw.

http://www.contemplator.com/tunebook/wales/landof.htm

LAND OF MY FATHERS

The land of my fathers is dear unto me
The land of the poets, the land of the free
Her patriots and heroes, her warriors so brave
For freedom their life's blood they gave.
Wales! Wales!
Pledged am I to Wales
Whilst seas surround
This land so proud
Oh, long may our old tongue remain. 

Hen Wlad fy Nhadau
Mae hen wlad fy nhadau yn anwyl i mi
Gwlad beirdd a chantorion, enwogion o fri
Ei gwrol rhyfelwyr, gwlad garwyr tra mad
Tros ryddid collasant eu gwaed.
Cytgan:
Gwlad, gwlad, pleidiol wyf i'm gwlad
Tra mor yn fur
I'r bur hoff bau
O bydded i'r heniaith barhau.

etc lol - rhyfelwyr?  - please escuse typos lol.

PS "O bydded i'r heniaith barhau" - gee doesnt that just get you here !!    :viking:  reminds me of the time I hit my thumb with a hammer lol :swear: 

"Jerusalem" isn't bad either of course.  Must say you'd have to wonder at William Blake wanting to build Jerusalem in England ?? - musta been a masochist.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alan.stuart/music/lyrics/jerusale.html 

JERUSALEM
Written by William Blake

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green
And was the holy lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen

And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills
And was Jerusalem builded there
Among those dark Satanic mills

Bring me my bow (my bow) of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spears o'clouds unfold
Bring me my chariot of fire

I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my (my) sword sleep in hand
'Til we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land
'Til we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land

Then there's Flower of SCotland of course - says that its a relatively recent song

http://www.geo.ed.ac.uk/home/scotland/songs/flower.html

written by Roy Williamson (1937 - 1990)  Half of the Scottish folk band "The Corries" who, in the 1960's, wrote "Flower of Scotland", which has subsequently been adopted as Scotland's unofficial National Anthem.

O FLOWER OF SCOTLAND

0 Flower of Scotland,
When will we see
your like again,
That fought and died for,
Your wee bit Hill and Glen,
And stood against him,
Proud Edward's Army,
And sent him homeward,
Tae think again. 
etc etc  

Then of course there's "Once a Jolly Swagman" lol

or even :- "Life is Great in the Sunshine State, every Queensland heart would agree ..."


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## 2020hindsight (23 October 2006)

Editor's Note (re last post) - always assuming anyway READ the last post lol - or could give a shinbone..:- Just to clarify for those who like i's crossed and t's dotted ...

"Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau" is the national anthem of Wales, written and sung in the Welsh language with words written by Evan James in 1856 and set to music by his son, James James, both residents of Pontypridd, Glamorgan, and first printed in Well St, Ruthin, Denbighshire.

There are several translations according to "Wales on line", some of which are "fairly free" translations - 

http://www.walesonline.com/info/anthem.shtml
the one in previous post is "literal" translation (pretty close to it anyway).
Here's one of the fairly free ones:-


LAND OF MY FATHERS (2) 
The following is a fairly free translation:-

O land of my fathers, O land of my love,
Dear mother of minstrels who kindle and move,
And hero on hero, who at honour's proud call,
For freedom their lifeblood let fall.

Wales! Wales! O but my heart is with you! 
And long as the sea 
Your bulwark shall be, 
To Cymru (Cumbria) my heart shall be true. 

O land of the mountains, the bard's paradise,
Whose precipice, valleys lone as the skies,
Green murmuring forest, far echoing flood
Fire the fancy and quicken the blood.

For tho' the fierce foeman has ravaged your realm,
The old speech of Cymru he cannot o'erwhelm,
Our passionate poets to silence command
Or banish the harp from your strand. 

In summary, it seems the Welsh poets would rather die than switch to writing in English - or give up writing about "Gwlad, Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau"
  - you wonder why you get an eyeful of spittel when you talk with a welshman.

PS Question :- if the music was written by James James - then do they call him "Jimmy Jimmy" for short?)

PS  - and by comparison "Life is great in the sunshine state - is the anthem of Qld - and was written by Fred Dag whilst picking pineapples in his shorts on a beautiful sunny day in mid winter   I can see it now - Wales vs Qld at Cardiff Arms,   - and 30 Queenslanders competing with the Welsh male choir before the match ....


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## 2020hindsight (23 October 2006)

10 points for anyone who can follow a thread through this thread lol - but here's one written before the Wallabies played the Poms in the last world cup - and more generally about Aus-Pom rivalry 

PREPARE FOR A THUMPING GOOD END

It’s the land of the convict in rattling chains,
And the land of his jackbooted jailer,
As to which was the less corrupt remains
A mystery for even the bailer,
It’s the land of a people who let go the reins,
And the cheers for a wild Peter Lalor,
And his oath of allegiance if Destiny deigns,
And his blistered spade-hands for loud hailer.

“Eureka!” they shouted, “Eureka!” the yell,
With a new-found emboldened erectness,
To Hell with the law cos the lawmen smell,
To Hell with politic correctness,
We’re here till they ring out our dying bell,
So bugger it lads, go for broke,
And if they imprison us just go and tell em
The whole thing was just a huge joke. 

It’s the land of the landed gentry son,
And the land of the goldrush hordes,
And the race-off to own the Bentley son,
As to whether it’s laymen or Lords,
And you had to be tough both mentally son
And a back like a raft of ripchords, - 
Yet to move on, like brothers, half-gently son,
As the prince and the pauper downed swords.

It’s the land of the hero of World War 1,
And the land of the mother proud,
And the times she could boast what a brave, brave son,
And the times she could weep out loud.
It’s the land of a handful of Battle of Brittainers
Most of the Rats of Tobruk,
And their old mate’s (those gumption-filled never-say-quittener’s)
Names in the Doomsday Book.

…..
Ahhh, the future is all about planting and wheat,
And the past is all about “gone”,
And the melting pot bubbles not missing a beat,
And ignores the buried bone,
And the future is all about teamwork and goals,
And the teammates relying upon
The role of each player as life unfolds,
And so on – and on – anon.

It’s the land of a youth so privileged and free,
And the small percentage who know it,
And the football uncouth, and the Wishing Tree,
And the time to nurture and grow it,
And our roots may be planted with English hoes,
But you wanna know something, my friend?
If the Wallabies take on the English Rose
Prepare for a thumping good end.


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## 2020hindsight (23 October 2006)

RichKid said:
			
		

> Thought I'd share one of my favourite poems, being in a time of war, it may help remind us of how terrible it is indeed for the so many thousands that do battle around the globe. If it is so difficult for the combatants imagine how the civilians must be feeling. War is futile. Any comments or observations are welcome, let's keep this thread on poetry and ideas if at all possible.




 Rich - (your first post on this thread - my guess is your ideas are reinforced ? ) here's one about a digger going off to war. - leaving behind wife and (in particular) a child - ahead lies mustard gas, cannon, shrapnel, and bullets - and hopeless odds.    Bit like your poem by Wilfred Owen - but less graphic.  Still I sympathise with any soldier or indeed serviceman (especially parents) going to war.  


> Owen:-
> "If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
> Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
> Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
> ...





IF THE WAR HADN’T GOT IN THE WAY 

Its just a wee skirmish child over in France, Dad’s back in six months or a year,
A skirmish? Well that’s where grown men do a dance , With canon and rifle and spear,
Six months? The time child to read you the tale of Alice’s Wonderland queer,
And look after your Mum cos she’s just a bit pale, And try not to learn the word fear.

Mustard gas son? Why it’s yellowish green, That drifts down on you in your trenches
Blisters? Those things  on your lungs and your spleen, As you splutter on blood-muddied benches,
But don’t worry my boy, Daddy’s got this mask, and this armour, and bulletproof dentures
And this halo (I wish) that solves the task Of Living through such misadventures.

Here’s a gift to keep you amused my boy, Till I RUN back one bright sunny day,
But.... in case I don’t then remember this toy, Each night when you kneel to pray,
How we planned to do all those things so keen, When fathers and children play,
And the miriad things that might have been, Had the war not got in the way.

I go now my child though I’d much prefer , To watch you sleep and just stay,
Your small babe’s dreams and your sleeping purr, And your tiny nest of hay,
And I go now child though my heart is in two, And I go to meet my frey,
And if I should die with my hair so dark, It’s that you may grow to be grey.

..............
They say that we give “our all”, my son, but y’know… that’s not quite true
For our spirit becomes ten feet tall, my son, And a part of it lives on in you,
And I’ll be there to answer your call, my son, If it’s nigh-on the last thing I do,
But I’d much rather “be there” my small, ..  wee, ..   son , And to teach you to tie your shoe.

Digger Smith of course is one of the classics

DIGGER SMITH by C.J. Dennis 
IX. THE BOYS OUT THERE 

"Why do they do it? I dunno,"
   Sez Digger Smith. "Yeh got me beat.
Some uv the yarns yeh 'ear is true,
An' some is rather umptydoo,
   An' some is -- indiscreet.
But them that don't get to the crowd,
Them is the ones would make you proud."

With Digger Smith an' other blokes
   'Oo 'ave returned it's much the same:
They'll talk uv wot they've seen an' done
When they've been out to 'ave their fun;
   But no word uv the game.
On fights an' all the tale uv blood
Their talk, as they remark, is dud.

It's so with soldiers, I 'ave 'eard,
   All times. The things they 'ave done,
War-mad, with blood before their eyes,
An' their ears wild fightin' cries,
   They ever after shun.
P'r'aps they forget; or find it well
Not to recall too much uv 'Ell.

An' when they won't loose up their talk
   It's 'ard for us to understand
'Ow all those boys we used to know,
Ole Billo, Jim an' Tom an' Joe,
   Done things to beat the band.
We knoo they'd fight; but they've became
'Ead ringers at the fightin' game.

Well, wot I've 'eard from Digger Smith
   An' other soldier blokes like 'im
I've put together bit by bit,
An' chewed a long time over it;
   An' now I've got a dim
An' 'azy notion in me 'ead
Why they is battlers, born an' bred.

Wot did they know uv war first off,
   When they joined up? Wot did I know
When I was tossed out on me neck
As if I was a shattered wreck
   The time I tried to go?
Flat feet! Me feet 'as len'th and brea'th
Enough to kick a 'Un to death!

They don't know nothing, bein' reared
   Out 'ere where war 'as never spread --
"A land by bloodless conquest won,"
As some son uv a writin' gun
   Sez in a book I read --
They don't know nix but wot they're told
At school; an' that sticks till they're old.

Yeh've got to take the kid at school,
   Gettin' 'is 'ist'ry lesson learned --
Then tales uv Nelson an' uv Drake,
Uv Wellington an' Fightin' Blake.
   'Is little 'eart 'as burned
To get right out an' 'ave a go,
An' sock it into some base foe.

Nothin' but glory fills 'is mind;
   The British charge is somethin' grand;
The soldier that 'e reads about
Don't 'ave no time for fear an' doubt;
   'E's the 'eroic brand.
So, when the boy gets in the game,
'E jist wades in an' does the same.

Not bein' old 'ands at the stunt,
   They simply does as they are told;
But, bein' Aussies -- Spare me days! --
They never thinks uv other ways,
   But does it brave an' bold.
That's 'arf; an' for the other part
Yeh got to go back to the start.

Yeh've got to go right back to Dad,
   To Gran'dad and the pioneers,
'Oo packed up all their bag uv tricks
An' come out 'ere in fifty-six,
   An' battled thro' the years;
Our Gran'dads; and their women, too,
That 'ad the grit to face the new.

It's that old stock; an', more than that,
   It's Bill an' Jim an' ev'ry son
Gettin' three good meat meals a day
An' 'eaps uv chance to go an' play
   Out in the bonzer sun.
It's partly that; but, don't forget,
When it's all said, there's something yet.

There's something yet; an' there I'm beat.
   Crowds uv these lads I've known, but then,
They 'ave got somethin' from this war,
Somethin' they never 'ad before,
   That makes 'em better men.
Better? There's no word I can get
To name it right. There's somethin' yet.

We 'ear a lot about reward;
   We praise, an' sling the cheers about;
But there was debts we can't repay
Piled up on us one single day --
   When that first list come out.
There ain't no way to pay that debt.
Do wot we can - there's somethin' yet


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 October 2006)

I like that quote I heard on the ABC this morning (driving to work)..
someone questioning the data coming out of Canberra - something like :-

unemployment figures far too good, you optimistic clowns -
and the GDP growth equal nonsense - cept it's too far down - 
and confusion reigns supreme they say - all logic's been and gone - 
if you're not confused this morning, you dont know what's going on!  

PS A bit more nonsense :- Speaking of confusion - James James wrote the music of Land of My Fathers.  There's a pommie I know of, (true story) -  name of Thomas Thomas.  His father was also Thomas Thomas.  And guess what ( you probly guessed) so was his grandfather named Thomas Thomas.    When asked (over a beer) what his son was called - he breathed a sigh of relief and smiling broady said "mate, I've got three daughters "    (gotta work out a way to split those coins and post 1cent only


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## rub92me (24 October 2006)

*Haiku*
Can we but dream of
A day without hindsight posts
Time will tell us all
: Just kidding, you're a great bard.


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## Judd (24 October 2006)

It may not be poetry in the true sense but it does have a certain feeling

Dear Captain
My name is Nicola  im 8 years.old.  this is my first flight but im not scared.  I like to watch the cloulds go by.  My mum says the crew is nice.  I think your plane is good.  thanks for a nice flight dont f u c k up the landing.  Luv Nicola xxxx


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## 2020hindsight (24 October 2006)

Thanks for the encouragement rub  - and really appreciate the fact that you broke the 11 post sequence.  Btw - the incoming private post #44 was a forgery I think - and if I find out who did it, I'll report him to Joe immediately.
And thanks for not spitting the dummy and really telling me what you thought of my poetry.  lol.

Judd, youre  right - classic "twist in the tale" .  
I reckon the ABC comment was similar in a way - Don't want to labour the point, but I mean .... "ABC:- Unemployment unrealistically optimistic, GDP growth unrealistically pessimistic, very confused signals coming out of Canberra, IF YOU'RE NOT CONFUSED THEN YOU DONT UNDERSTAND WHAT's GOING ON."  

Hek - there's no way you can labour over what makes a joke a joke, or prose prose, or poem poem , or wit wit,  or half half,  or full full, or half wit, or  ...ahhh SHUDDUP!!!    "A Prose by any other name would smell as sw.." ahhh SHUDDUP!!! 

mmm, Sorry I seem to be having this problem with my alter-ego here.   - better change tacs.  

I'm a technocrat btw, just happen to like the english language and poems and jokes and stuff - I mean not sure you could have a thread like this in pigeon english for instance lol.    In German? maybe - but then the German sense of humour differs from ours - 
You know the one about the Hare and the Tortoise?  well in German it goes something like:-

"Ein Hare bin outswellen mit der chesten mit grossen braggin unt boastin,  etc etc ", anyway the tortoise accepts the challenge - and obviously the hare thrashes the tortoise - germans prefer their fables to end logically  - and concludes "der turtler ist ein dumkopf ja?"   
(since we're not supposed to speak other than english thats "the turtle is an idiot yes?"   Well I gues it illustrates that you shouldnt assume that a joke in English will translate into german for instance.   
PS If any Germans reading this - no offense meant - I'm sure that German jokes dont always translate very well into English either lol. 

thanks for the chat folks.  As for the string of posts, well Noirua has 150 bludy snakes someone out there - and I personally prefer poems and jokes to bludy snakes lol.

mmm here goes .."lik lik big-pela-ears-he-run-long- ground, he talkim lik lik pela-he-carry-bucket-on-head, he say - you me hav bet , me beat you runhim that pela hill oba dare.  etc etc ... woops Im way way outa my depth here lol." ahhh SHUDDUP!!!


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## 2020hindsight (24 October 2006)

http://www.skygod.com/quotes/flyingjokes.html#high

WHY I WANT TO BE A PILOT.  Pilots don't need much school. They just have to learn to read numbers so they can read their instruments.   Pilots should be brave to they won't get scared it it's foggy and they can't see, or if a wing or motor falls off.

Captain Oveur: "Ya ever been in a cockpit before?
Joey: "No sir, I've never been up in a plane before!
Captain Oveur: "Ya ever seen a grown man naked?
”” from the 1980 movie 'Airplane.'

Doctor Rumack: "When are we going to be able to land?
Ted Striker: "I can't tell.
Doctor Rumack: "You can tell me, I'm a doctor.
Ted Striker: "I don't know.
Doctor Rumack: "Well, can't you take a guess? 
Ted Striker: "Not for another two hours.
Doctor Rumack: "You can't take a guess for another two hours? ”” ditto.

They're beeping and they're flashing. They're flashing and they're beeping! I cant stand it anymore, they're blinking and they're flashing. ”” Buck Murdock, in the 1982 movie 'Airplane II, The Sequel.'

Both optimists and pessimists contribute to the society. The optimist invents the aeroplane, the pessimist the parachute.  ”” George Bernard Shaw

The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage. ”” Mark Russell

Buttons . . . check. Dials . . . check. Switches . . . check. Little colored lights . . . check.  (from 'Cavin and Hobbes.')

Leader, bandits at 2 o’clock!
Roger; it’s only 1:30 now””what’ll I do ‘til then? - ditto

Our headline ran, "Virgin screw British Airways." We'd have rather preferred 'British Airways screws Virgin,' but we had to run with the facts. - ”” News Editor, 'The Sun' newspaper.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the very first Fokker airplane built in the world. The Dutch call it the mother Fokker.   ”” Custodian at the Amsterdam aviation museum.


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## 2020hindsight (24 October 2006)

This is one of my favourites:-
a) first the poem, then 
b) the story of the poet, 
c) some humerous takes
http://www.skygod.com/quotes/highflight.html

HIGH FLIGHT
”” John Gillespie Magee, Jr

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, ”” and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of ”” wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .

Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew ””
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

B. THE POET :- During the desperate days of the Battle of Britain, hundreds of Americans crossed the border into Canada to enlist with the Royal Canadian Air Force. Knowingly breaking the law, but with the tacit approval of the then still officially neutral United States Government, they volunteered to fight the Nazis.  John Gillespie Magee, Jr., was one such American. Born in Shanghai, China, in 1922 to an English mother and a Scotch-Irish-American father,.....

On 3 September 1941, Magee flew a high altitude (30,000 feet) test flight in a newer model of the Spitfire V. As he orbited and climbed upward, he was struck with the inspiration of a poem ”” "To touch the face of God."   Once back on the ground, he wrote a letter to his parents. In it he commented, "I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed." On the back of the letter, he jotted down his poem, 'High Flight'.

Just three months later, on 11 December 1941 (and only three days after the US entered the war), Pilot Officer John Gillespie Magee, Jr., was killed. The Spitfire V he was flying, VZ-H, collided with an Oxford Trainer .... At the enquiry a farmer testified that he saw the Spitfire pilot struggle to push back the canopy. The pilot, he said, finally stood up to jump from the plane. John, however, was too close to the ground for his parachute to open. He died instantly. He was 19 years old.

http://www.skygod.com/quotes/flyingjokes.html#high
There's a stack more on that website - including some humerous takes...

1. Pilots must insure that all surly bonds have been slipped entirely before aircraft taxi or flight is attempted.
2. During periods of severe sky dancing, crew and passengers must keep seatbelts fastened. Crew should wear shoulderbelts as provided.
3. Sunward climbs must not exceed the maximum permitted aircraft ceiling.
4. Passenger aircraft are prohibited from joining the tumbling mirth.
5. Pilots flying through sun-split clouds under VFR conditions must comply with all applicable minimum clearances.
etc etc 

PS "It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed" ... You'd have the say the man was truly "high"  on flying when he wrote it.  Who says you need drugs in life.


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## 2020hindsight (24 October 2006)

Here's one I wrote for my daughter who was into wizard books at the time (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, etc)  

BOOK MEETS GIRL

Like an orphan left unmothered on the library shelf unread,
Sat a small book partly smothered by the bigger books instead,
And its gems were undiscovered, from some crazy poet's head,
And it sadly sat unlovered, and it's little heart, it bled.

Ahh, it wasn't Henry Lawson, with his wit that rocked the bar,
And it wasn’t Smokey Dawson with his grin and grand guitar,
And it wasn't Banjo Patterson, nor Scott nor Lochinvar, 
But maybe it didnt matter that it wasn't such a star.

And the dust collected weekly, and the months turned into years
And the little book sat meekly, and it held back welling tears,
Oh its eyes would rise obliquely every time a child appears,
Just to fall again as quickly, to its neighbour volume's jeers.

By the luck of some great cosmic ray, a bolt from who-knows-where,
The little book fell down one day, the lady found it there,
"The boss finds this  - there's hell to pay - its user card is bare!!
We'll sell this book come Saturday, and I'm too rushed to care."

It went on sale exceeding fast, the cheapest there, ten cents,
A little girl was walking past, and spied it through the fence,
And book-and-girl were both aghast, their first-sight-love immense,
And ten cents later, die was cast on all that's happened hence.

.................
Amongst its gems her favourite poem would give a ghoul a fright!
Half lightning flash, half Thunderdome, dark wizards in half light, 
And book-and-girl entwined would roam with knuckles waay past white,
And arm-in-page they'd read this poem and raid the fridge each night.

Ahh, it wasn't colt from Old Regret, or Man from Iron Bark, 
But old regrets had disappeared, like blacksmiths in the dark - and
It wasn’t Clancy Overflow, his thumbnail dipped in tar, 
Just the overflowing vegemite - and grins from ear to jar.

I dare you all to take a look into the land of dreams,
Or find yourself a ten cent book on wacky wizard themes,
It's very hard to 'throw the hook' once you are hooked it seems,
(Just plug your ears for girl-and-book's ten trillion dollar screams).


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## 2020hindsight (24 October 2006)

Sorry folks - here's another serious one, WWII this time.   This bloke's a hero of mine. Maybe I should relate a story in a lighter vein - by way of introduction.  Once when Weary was driving his family to the beach (his sons were kids), they started asking "dad can we have an icecream, dad can we etcetc ". So Weary stopped and was about to back into a space when a smart alec in an open sports car slipped in and stole the spot.  Weary walked up, asked him to leave - when he didnt, lifted him up by the throat and clocked him on the nose.  (There were two sides to Weary lol).  By now the boys didnt want their icecreams!!  Weary (having parked the car in the vacated spot) would hear none of it - "YOU'RE HAVING AN ICE CREAM AND THAT's THAT !!" lol - paraphrased, but that's the ghist of the story.   His boys had many stories - to say nothing of the work he did after the war with Columbo Plan doctors etc - Aussie of the Year etc etc - Such a man - Such a bludy saint.  Actions vs words etc.  

WEARY DUNLOP – WHAT A MOUNTAIN 

Weary Dunlop - what a mountain, bit like Saint but more like God
Drank at some brave hearted fountain, kindest steps that ever trod.
Weary says that we’ll all live, just Eat your foodbowl – scraps we crave
So what, we’d fall through a sieve,  just Eat the gravy, beat the grave. –
Light you may be, fight the grave!

Build their bloody railroad fellows, Eat your pride and spit your oath,
Skip the foreign foreman’s bellows,  Watch your mates, you can’t watch both.
Crosses strewn around their bridge,  Don’t ask numbers, don’t ask why,
End to end to Hellfire ridge,  Up and down the River Kwai. – 
Quiet witness, River Kwai.

That’s it boys just smile at bayonet, Mateship transcends bamboo jails,
Mateship’s real, no need to feign it,  Never falters, never fails.
Sickbed grins will full explain it, All the more for Heaven’s porch,
Freedom Day will ne’er unchain it, Even with an oxy torch – 
Even Hellfire’s oxy torch.

Malaria so varied yellows, Ulcerated cratered legs,
Cholera  you cruel gallows,  Food like discard zoocage dregs.
Haunting  - how I hear the murmur, Grinning mates from Weary’s days,
Buddies who I left in Burma,  Smiling out of Buddhist haze – 
Smiling out of memory’s haze.

Modern man, though full-on tired, will  Never know that tree within,
Weary knew it and inspired 	Countless men so free from sin.
Find some damned excuse to laugh at Every curse the jungle bowls,
Find the strength to lift your half of  Mates on hearse of bamboo poles – 
but for fortune, reversed roles.

Weary’s doctrine – give out, give it, Weary doctored on till dawn. 
See out one more day boys, live it,  Don’t give in though weak and worn.
Spare a thought for Weary’s soldier, Plodding on through darkest night - 
“See the gleam boys – there I told ya, Weary’d take us to the light !! -  
Weary’d somehow make it right”.

Spare a thought for Weary’s soldier, Plodding on through darkest night –
“Plead my case if needs be, Weary – Give me my last bath of light.?” – 
Bathed in blessed mountain light.

PS Im fairly sure I'm right here - but on only about the third or fourth time Weary pulled on a Rugby Union jersey, he played for the Wallabies lol.


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## 2020hindsight (25 October 2006)

http://www.kipling.org.uk/kip_fra.htm
An old favourite from praps a bygone age of moral ethical analysis..

IF  (by Rudyard Kipling)

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream -- and not make dreams your master;
If you can think -- and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings -- nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run --
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And -- which is more -- you'll be a Man, my son!

PS  I just wish he added .." and if you can't be perfect, then at least admit it" lol.

PS "If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;"
NOW there's a concept for the ASX - and the ASF I guess


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## 2020hindsight (25 October 2006)

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=1
Some of the greatest speeches you could ever read - I knew a fellow used to be one of the coaches of a rugby union team - used to read Churchill all the time - btw, the team was the Wallabies lol 
PS I invite people to find the sentences that most appeal to them ..

http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=422
You Do Your Worst - and We Will do Our Best"
A tonic for today by Winston S. Churchill

"Prepare yourselves, then, my friends and comrades, for this renewal of your exertions. We shall never turn from our purpose, however sombre the road, however grievous the cost, because we know that out of this time of trial and tribulation will be born a new freedom and glory for all mankind."  

All mankind?  a novel concept


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## 2020hindsight (25 October 2006)

Amateur hour - yet again.  I'd like to say this was written by one of my kids, but I think I wrote it once when I'd had a few to drink  

THE KOOKABURRA’S CALL	

In the morning you hear them,  the kookas loud laugh, and a
Full bellied laugh it is too,
Like a joke told with tears of  “enuf enarf”
Such jokes in the morning? You’d have to be darf! 
It sounds like a mad pterodactyl’s “barf”, 
Or a “gone-bezerk-Kalimazoo”.
“Try a little Half Half Half Half  - and multiply it by a Two Two Two Two.”

No matter if you’ve had a massive all-nighter
	praps drinking straight schnapps from a shoe,
He lets rip, the blighter, that raucous “inviter”
You’re suddenly smiling, your hearts feeling lighter
And whether you’re lover or whether you’re fighter
The sky is a brighter blue.
“Cook Cook Cook  Cook you lazy blighter,  Feed the bloody Crew Crew Crew”

How dare you laugh you crazy bird, 
the world in its currrent plight,
Such laughs are  reserved for the quite absurd,
Or a pie in the face of your favourite nurd
Or for slap-stick or bunfights or punchlines deferred
Twards the end of a drunken night
“Car, Car , Car, Car where’s a bludy taxi when you’re lost your Shoe Shoe Shoe.”

Its been proven by playwrights and men outta town
and the comedy festival crowd,
When you bend your head back - dont look sideways or down 
When you put on a smile and take off that ole frown,
When you steer clear of backstreets of local renown
That laughter is best when it’s LOUD.
“What a bludy Lark Lak Lark – get outta bed and bludy Laugh Laugh Laugh.”


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## 2020hindsight (26 October 2006)

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16362/16362.txt
CJ Dennis on hypocrisy:-

THE SECOND RHYME OF SYM 
from ThE Glugs of Gosh, By CJ Dennis

"Now come," said the Devil, he said to me,   With his swart face all a-grin,
"This day, ere ever the clock strikes three,    Shall you sin your darling sin.
For I've wagered a crown with Beelzebub,  Down there at the Gentlemen's Brimstone Club,
I shall tempt you once, I shall tempt you twice,   Yet thrice shall you fall ere I tempt you thrice."

"Begone, base Devil!" I made reply--   "Begone with your fiendish grin!
How hope you to profit by such as I?    For I have no darling sin.
But many there be, and I know them well,  All foul with sinning and ripe for Hell.
    And I name no names, but the whole world knows     That I am never of such as those."

"How nowt' said the Devil.  "I'll spread my net,      And I vow I'll gather you in!
By this and by that shall I win my bet,    And you shall sin the sin!
Come, fill up a bumper of good red wine,  Your heart shall sing, and your eye shall shine,
    You shall know such joy as you never have known.    For the salving of men was the good vine grown."

"Begone, red Devil!" I made reply.    "Parch shall these lips of mine,
And my tongue shall shrink, and my throat go dry,    Ere ever I taste your wine!
But greet you shall, as I know full well, A tipsy score of my friends in Hell.
    And I name no names, but the whole world wots    Most of my fellows are drunken sots."

"Ah, ha!" said the Devil.  "You scorn the wine!    Thrice shall you sin, I say,
To win me a crown from a friend of mine,    Ere three o' the clock this day.  
Are you calling to mind some lady fair?  And is she a wife or a maiden rare?       
'Twere folly to shackle young love, hot Youth;    And stolen kisses are sweet, forsooth!"

"Begone, foul Devil!" I made reply;      "For never in all my life
Have I looked on a woman with lustful eye,      Be she maid, or widow, or wife.
But my brothers!  Alas! I am scandalized   By their evil passions so ill disguised.
    And I name no names, but my thanks I give   That I loathe the lives my fellow-men live."

"Ho, ho!" roared the Devil in fiendish glee.   "'Tis a silver crown I win!
Thrice have you fallen! 0 Pharisee,   You have sinned your darling sin!"   
"But, nay," said I; "and I scorn your lure.  I have sinned no sin, and my heart is pure.   
Come, show me a sign of the sin you see!"    But the Devil was gone . . . and the clock struck three.


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## 2020hindsight (26 October 2006)

MATTERS OF THE HEART 

by Way of preamble, it’s easy to gamble, when dice are odds-on and it’s wise
and your Head’s in control, and the facts are in BOLD and they’re easy to rationalise,
but Where do you start with affairs of the heart, like two lovers’ tortured goodbyes,
	who Needs to be chaste, its such a damned waste
	they Much prefer lock-jawed and wrestle-embraced
	(you Try it on strangers you’re sure to get maced)
and a Needing, bleeding, and frenzied-feeding  -  pleading trust in their eyes.
(As long as they don’t get to actually breeding before’n they formalise).

cos you Haven’t felt warmth till you’ve been there child, tho’ you’ve sat in front of the fire,
nor Shared in so dizzy a dream there child, with your heart on so swinging a tyre,
if Only one knew how to “beam there” child, one would yell from the highest spire,
	but Rational thoughts – in love – distorts,
	and the Two don’t combine well by all reports,
	you just Give of your soul and your innermost thoughts,
and be Blissfully, wis(t)fully, ultralong kissfully - glissfully lost in the mire.
(you could Bottle and bank it and make a pile - Swissfully – selling to the highest buyer).

hey- it’s Not always happy, - it sometimes turns blue, and painful those hearts that are hurt,
you can Go lose umbrellas – or even a shoe -  or, Hell, even go lose your shirt!,
but to Lose in love is to lose your sun, and leave you to blabber and blurt,
	and to Lose a lover with clinging last clenches,
	is Enough to melt hearts and to cause such wrenches,
	that you Feel like go-finding some long lonely trenches, 
and get Hopelessly, mopelessly, Bishop-and-Popelessly, copelessly buried in dirt.
(we’ve All been there child, let’s hope that you soaplessly “unearth” and “pristine revert”.)

and it’s True – or praps not - that the heart was involved (though you’re playing with fire for a cert)
with your First young kiss when your head first revolved – or a simple smile or a flirt, 
cos your Heart clicks in when you least expect, while pretending to be inert
	and Instantly takes on a passionate warm
	and Equal inclined to find sunshine or storm - 
	and it Never pretended that Peace was the norm
not to Play, not to stray, not to make your soul pay, nor to stay on guard and alert,
(but you’ll Follow with strength of a bullock dray, and despite the risk of a hurt.)

you’ll Go though life day by day my child, and it’s all from a standing start,
then you’ll Learn you’ve a Cupid at bay my child, and you’ll feel the point of his dart,
And you won’t always do what you’d reason was right, or what was particularly smart,
	And from countless splatters, when your world just shatters,
	Or in fits of love when you’re mad as hatters,
	You’ll find that the soul of what really matters
Are the trusting, lusting, and love-till-you’e-busting, -  gusting affairs of the heart
(which, in time, with age, becomes “love-till-you’re-rusting”, but keep that old horse  before cart)


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## 2020hindsight (27 October 2006)

FUNNY HOW FASHIONS HAVE SHIFTED 

I'm of Italian extraction, Opera brings me to tears, 
Julius Caesar was one of my Grandaddy's Uncle's etcetera's peers; 
Funny how fashions have shifted, Passions have changed through the years, 
I like the opera, he liked the roaring of Gladiatorial cheers. 

I'm of a Grecian extraction (Ode more than this Grecian urns), 
Plato, my forebear, refused to make argument, Till one defined all one's terms; 
Funny how fashions have shifted, Sometimes it even unlearns, 
My wife can argue on nothing till morning, to Hell with Platonic concerns. 

I'm of Egyptian extraction, Trinket sales on Golden Mile, 
Ramses the third was my distant Great-greatuncle, (There was a ruler with style!); 
Funny how fashions have shifted, Sphinx watching on all the while - 
I like to punt on a gullible tourist trade, He the Royal Punt on the Nile. 

I'm of a Kenyan extraction, Homo and Rectus were ‘rels’, 
I like to scout o'er the great broad savannah while Staying at five star motels; 
Funny how fashions have shifted, New-fangled whistles and bells, 
I use a camera to search out wild animals, They used a rock axe and yells.

I'm from Neanderthal's hometown, We both like party and rave, 
I like my beard trimmed a neat Van-Gogh goatie, He didn't like much to shave; 
Funny how fashions have shifted, Subtle things how we behave, 
I met my wife in a nightclub in Dusseldorf, He clubbed his wife in some cave. 

Of all my distant relations, First was the miracle son,
I get to exercise 10 zillion body cells, Proto the Zoan had one; 
Funny how fashions have shifted, Proto you son of a gun, 
He didn’t get to have one raw emotion, I write strange ditties for fun.


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## 2020hindsight (27 October 2006)

NO REGRETS 
http://www.talkinbroadway.com/talkin/piaf_trib.html
Edith Piaf was born in France in utter poverty. At the age of 12 she was blind, but miraculously regained her sight. Later on in life, she was blinded again, but the same thing happened, and her sight was restored. She literally sang for her supper in the streets of Paris during the Second World War. She then led a life of prostitution on the streets of Pigalle (a section of Paris). Still, she sang, and Parisians began to take notice of this extraordinarily gifted songbird. To make a long story short, she became a very famous chanteuse of France during the time that Judy Garland (America) and Marlene Dietrich (Germany) were enjoying fame. Her songs epitomized the vulnerability of France (then German occupied) and a nation rushed to her ... adored her, loved her. Her voice was inspired by God and she could sell a song like no one in this century. In short the nation of France was in love with their very own Edith Piaf. She appeared on stage in a plain black dress, a harsh spotlight on her, and she just sang her heart out. Audiences cried, laughed, and cheered. She became known as The Little Sparrow. 

Her fame spread throughout the world and she appeared in concerts in London, New York and just about every major city in the world. Her songs were in French, but audiences understood, even if they could not understand the language, such was the power of her delivery. 

But drugs, booze, and multiple marriages took their toll on Piaf. She aged rapidly, sinned in the eyes of the very Catholic French, and lost popularity. Her health was never very good to begin with. But, she possessed that stage magic!    In the 60's, she had a pop hit in America called "MILORD" which was played on all the top 40 stations. I wonder if they knew then that it was about a prostitute and her client if they would have played it. 
.....
France was outraged by her behavior in marrying a much younger man, especially in her state of health. Still, she did what she wanted to do. She partied hard, drank, the drugs, the young men ... but she was seeking love and she was desperate for it. And to do this in America .. well, Frenchmen were furious with her. 

She contracted to do a concert toward the end of her life in Paris ... still knowing how her people were still fuming with her. And she pulled a coup d'etat even after being warned not to do what she was about to do. She walked out on stage in that black dress ... that small spotlight .. and opened her show with a new song that was penned for her by Dummont/Vaucaire, part of her writing friends. 

She sang ... NON, JE NE REGRETTE RIEN ... (NO, I regret Nothing!) ... she floored the audience and they fell in love all over again. The song is highly personal and roughly translates to "I have no regrets. The past is forgotten. I don't need my memories. I'm starting all over again....with you."

NO REGRETS

No! No regrets  - No! I will have no regrets
All the things  -  That went wrong
For at last I have learned to be strong

No! No regrets - No! I will have no regrets
For the grief doesn't last  -It is gone
I've forgotten the past

And the memories I had  - I no longer desire
Both the good and the bad - I have flung in a fire
And I feel in my heart - That the seed has been sown
It is something quite new - It's like nothing I've known

No! No regrets  - No! I will have no regrets
All the things that went wrong - For at last I have learned to be strong

No! No regrets  - No! I will have no regrets
For the seed that is new - It's the love 
that is growing for you

Gee this internet is good  - you find out the story behind the song - you hear the song again - it just means so much more


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## Julia (27 October 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> NO REGRETS
> http://www.talkinbroadway.com/talkin/piaf_trib.html
> Edith Piaf was born in France in utter poverty. At the age of 12 she was blind, but miraculously regained her sight. Later on in life, she was blinded again, but the same thing happened, and her sight was restored. She literally sang for her supper in the streets of Paris during the Second World War. She then led a life of prostitution on the streets of Pigalle (a section of Paris). Still, she sang, and Parisians began to take notice of this extraordinarily gifted songbird. To make a long story short, she became a very famous chanteuse of France during the time that Judy Garland (America) and Marlene Dietrich (Germany) were enjoying fame. Her songs epitomized the vulnerability of France (then German occupied) and a nation rushed to her ... adored her, loved her. Her voice was inspired by God and she could sell a song like no one in this century. In short the nation of France was in love with their very own Edith Piaf. She appeared on stage in a plain black dress, a harsh spotlight on her, and she just sang her heart out. Audiences cried, laughed, and cheered. She became known as The Little Sparrow.
> 
> ...





Lovely summary of Piaf's life, 2020.  I'm not sure exactly why, but I find some common quality in her and Billie Holliday - a sort of sultry underlying sadness.

Julia


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## 2020hindsight (27 October 2006)

This post is more about memories we file away with a song or a poem or whatever, "associations" stored - some we hold dear, some I guess we would prefer to forget but cant  - This particular song has damn all literary merit, but for me it qualifies as a part of a "magnificent" memory.  I once heard it sung by a group of about 10 or 15 kids in the 60's.  They were orphans and, somehow or other, us students were giving them a day out - a hayride of sorts - anyway these kids just broke into song as we were driving down the road, ... and I've never forgotten it!   They had spirit those kids I'll give em that!  

A WORLD OF OUR OWN 
Close the door, light the light; we're staying home tonight,
Far away from the bustle and the bright city lights.
Let them all fade away; just leave us alone,
And we'll live in a world of our own. 

We'll build a world of our own that no one else can share;
All our sorrows we'll leave far behind us there.
And I know you will find
There'll be peace of mind
When we live in a world of our own.

Oh, my love, oh, my love, I cried for you so much;
Lonely nights without sleeping while I longed for your touch.
Now your lips can erase the heartache I've known;
Come with me to a world of our own.
etc "

Website ( lost the link):- The Seekers set out on their trip of a lifetime playing their own way on a P & O cruise ship. They had no idea what they were in for.   Bruce Woodley:- "We arrived there for the sound check and there's a chalk board out the front that said, 'Tonight The Seekers by Public Demand'. It didn't get any better than that. That night we followed the Bingo. This fellow comes on in front of the curtains and says in this heavy Yorkshire accent, 'It has come to my attention, certain of our members have been seen relieving themselves against the west wall of the club. It's bloody disgusting and it's got to stop. Ladies and gentlemen, The Seekers'"  etc etc lol.

...Then folk singer, Dusty Springfield, caught their act and mentioned it to her brother, Tom. ...'I'll Never Find Another You'... and the rest is history


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## 2020hindsight (27 October 2006)

Julia said:
			
		

> Lovely summary of Piaf's life, 2020.  I'm not sure exactly why, but I find some common quality in her and Billie Holliday - a sort of sultry underlying sadness.  Julia



Julia - not a word of my post about Piaf was original of cors  cept last sentence.  

I don't know about her and Billie Halliday having things in common - but I know she and I do....take the excerpt for instance ,  lol


			
				2020hindsight said:
			
		

> She aged rapidly,...




You're right, you can hear that underlying sadness in someone's voice, difficult to feign it , the real thing that is.  Sorry I'm a bit of a novice on Billie but I agree black american jazz singers do "sultry" and "sad" pretty damned well. 

I'll be honest with you, the best female voice for me is Shirley Bassey. (with Piaf and Judith Durham) With your kind permission, I was just gonna post one more - call it a "trilogy...".  

IF YOU GO AWAY 
http://www.songsofshirleybassey.co.uk/song/sng67008.html
Jacques Brel wrote the original French version "Ne Me Quitte Pas" ..born in Belgian and became one of France's most beloved and enduring musical figures ...
Rod McKuen, penned the English words to this song ...900 songs .....His poetry is studied in schools, colleges, ..around the world.  ....After Rod McKuen had received the test-pressing of the album "And We Were Lovers" including Shirley's version of his song, he wrote to Shirley Bassey: 

Dear Shirley, 
It's been a bang-bang day. Too much work. Too much work undone. An hour ago, the test pressing of your album arrived and I used it as an excuse to begin unwinding. Maybe it's the scotch. Maybe it's the time of evening and the fact that I'm by myself - whatever, i am unwinding and next to me is that probing, prying voice of yours - now warm, now cold as an iceberg, coaxing out my song and a brilliant programme of other tunes.   Thank You for singing If You Go Away. Thank you for doing something different with it. Also, thank you for singing everything you sing. Most of all, thank you for being beautiful always and in all ways - and tonight, thanks for helping me to let go. 
I love you, 
Rod McKuen 

IF YOU GO AWAY 

If you go away, on this summer day 
Then you might as well take the sun away 
All the birds that flew in the summer sky 
When our love was new and our hearts were high 
When the day was young and the night was long 
And the moon stood still for the night birds' song 
If you go away, if you go away, if you go away 

But if you stay, I'll make you a day 
Like no day has been or will be again 
We'll sail the sun, we'll ride on the rain 
We'll talk to the trees and worship the wind 
Then if you go, I'll understand 
Leave me just enough love to hold in my hand 
If you go away, if you go away, if you go away 

If you go away, as I know you will 
You must tell the world to stop turning till 
You return again, if you ever do 
For what good is love without loving you 
Can I tell you now as you turn to go 
I'll be dying slowly till the next hello 
If you go away, if you go away, if you go away 

But if you stay I'll make you a night 
Like no night has been or will be again 
I'll sail on your smile, I'll ride on your touch 
I'll talk to your eyes that I love so much 
But if you go I won't cry 
Though the good is gone from the word goodbye 
If you go away, if you go away, if you go away 

If you go away as I know you must 
There'll be nothing left in the world to trust 
Just an empty room full of empty space 
Like the empty look I see on your face 
I'd have been the shadow of your dog 
If I thought you might have kept me by your side 
If you go away, if you go away, if you go away 

Concerning the French version:-
http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=3202327
One bloke says that the French is better - "McKuan changes the desperate "Don't leave me" to the rather pathetic "If you go away" ".    Personally mate, I really like McKuen's words, but true the French and the Italians can get a lot of emotion into a song.    

PS I have a friend who married an Italian lady who does the housework with a string of operas - BLARING - she cries after vacuuming the lounge, she laughs after washing the dishes, then she cries again after doing the ironing then etcetc. -and so on "till the end of an average day" lol.


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## 2020hindsight (28 October 2006)

For reference, lyrics to "Ne me quitte pas" (allegedly) translated directly in English:  ("allegedly" - because , as the bishop said to the actress, I dont do french).  Much more powerful than McKuen's lyrics... ?
I'll let you folk be the judges. (that's assuming youcan be bothered reading it lol - personally I think it gets better as it progresses - true there is more passion in this version - call it wild lateral thinking looking for crazy romantic comparisons - but I still like the subtlety of McKuen's "if you go away ..."I'll be dying slowly" - and hell when its sung by Bassey, God save the Queen would come out passionate  - probably even sexy lol)
http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=3202327 

Don't leave me.  We must forget
all that can be forgotten,  that already has passed away.
Forget the times  of misunderstandings,
and the times lost  trying to know how
Forget those hours  which sometimes killed
in attacks of "whys"  the heart of happiness.
Don't leave me.  Don't leave me.
Don't leave me.  Don't leave me. 

I'll cover you  with pearls of rain
from countries  where it never rains.
I will dig the earth  until my death
to cover your body  with gold and lights.
I will make a land,  where love will be king,
where love will be law,  and you my queen.,  DLM etc

DLM.   I'll make up  crazy words  that you'll understand.
I'll tell you   about the lovers  who have twice seen  their hearts catch fire.
I'll tell you  the story of this king who died from not  being able to meet you., DLM etc 

We often see   the fire erupt  
from the ancient volcano  we once thought too old
It is shown that  lands that were burned
gave more wheat  than the best April.
And when the evening comes  with the sky blazing
-- the red and the black --  which doesn't blend., DLM etc 

Don't leave me.  I won't cry anymore
I won't talk anymore  I will hide there.
To watch you   dance and smile
and to hear you  sing and then laugh.
Let me become  the shadow of your shadow,
the shadow of your hand,  the shadow of your dog.  DLM etc 

Sorry correction - I believe it was the Actress to the Bishop - you know how liberated Bishops are these days.


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## 2020hindsight (28 October 2006)

"as the mufti said to the actress?"  
maybe "as the actress said to the mufti?"
..Naaah just doesnt ..... sound right.  (yield not into temptation)


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 October 2006)

KRXG    (Xanana GusmÃ£o)
a) a letter to a young fan, who b) wrote him a poem
then c) XG's story, and d) one of his poems + excerpts from a website.

LETTER TO MARTA B. NEVES, LISBON
My very dear Marta, (a child who had written to him in prison)
Thank you for your poem and, above all, thank you for your sensitivity to the struggle of the Maubere people.  At your age, most East Timorese children are already contributing to the struggle in one form or another.

I have lots of stories, many of them based on my own experiences, which highlight the participation of the children of East Timor. If you would like, one day, I will tell them to you. Today I don't have time to do so. As you know, I am in the prison of a colonialist and repressive regime. A place where I am not permitted to do much except to mix with other prisoners and listen to their tales of crimes not committed. The conclusion they would have one reach is that they are in fact not guilty and that, had they had sufficient money to pay the judges, the sentence they received would have been far less severe.

Thanks to the poems, letters and solidarity of children of your age, I have every faith that I will survive the next 17 years which remain of this most cruel and yet, at the same time, beautiful experience of my life.   And it is, dear Marta! Have you ever heard it said that prisons were made for people? Well, here I am and I must tell you that I have learnt so much, and there is still much to learn. I am certain that you will now be asking me: "learn what?" 

Well, to struggle, my dear! And I know that you and "many, many other" Portuguese children are with me in this struggle to bring to an end the war in East Timor.   With kisses of love,  KRXG,  Cipinang, 9 October, 1995

GRANDFATHER CROCODILE (by young Portugese child)

The legend says - and who am I to disbelieve!
The sun perched atop the sea - opened its eyes
and with its rays  -indicated a way
From the depths of the ocean  - a crocodile in search of a destiny
spied the pool of light, and there he surfaced

Then wearily, he stretched himself out - in time - and his lumpy hide was transformed  - into a mountain range
where people were born - and where people died
Grandfather crocodile
””the legend says - and who am I to disbelieve
that he is Timor!

http://www.etan.org/et2003/september/21-30/21intrvw.htm

POET, painter, pumpkin farmer. These are the only titles Jose Alexandre 'Xanana' Gusmao really wants on his business card these days.  'Independence is like a blank piece of paper where we can write our dreams, and dream of happiness for our children.'   But 25 years of dodging bullets from the Indonesian Armed Forces in storm and shine, and then fighting to stay sane in a prison cell no bigger than a grave, have put paid to that wish.

On May 20, 2002, Mr Gusmao, 57, became the first democratically-elected President of Timor Leste .....But the man who fought a guerilla war for its freedom tells Sunday Review: 'A few months after the presidency, I still felt that I was not the right man to be President. I never studied to be a President, I studied to be an engineer! I'm not the right man for the job.'   ..........laughs...  'Although I don't think I am the right man for the job, I'm trying to learn to be a good President.'

....Journalist John Pilger wrote in Britain's Guardian newspaper in December 1995: '(Mr Gusmao) became a Pimpernel figure, eluding capture for more than a decade. In their frustration, the Indonesians deployed a tactic known as 'the fence of legs'.  'They forced tens of thousands of old people, women and children to march through the jungle in all conditions, 'sweeping' the undergrowth for guerillas and calling on them to surrender.'   Instead, the marchers whispered warnings in Tetum, their mother tongue, to Mr Gusmao and his fighters, thus saving them.

Published in that same article were excerpts from Mr Gusmao's war diary, which included these lines:  'Six weeks of pain and daily fighting. I couldn't sit down, I couldn't stay standing up and I couldn't bear to lie down. I used to roll around on the ground as if possessed. How I cried!'

What a world away that was from his carefree teenhood, when he was given the nickname Xanana from the 1970s American rock-and-roll show, Sha Na Na (which is how Xanana is pronounced).....In July 2000, he married Ms Kirsty Sword, 37, an Australian undercover agent for the East Timor resistance movement who went by the codename Ruby Blade.  She met him in prison in 1994, and their love blossomed through a flurry of letters. ...two sons.

But while Mr Gusmao spent years running through streets slippery with the blood of friends and foes, ruthlessness has no place in his book.  He has forgiven the pro-Jakarta militants who massacred the East Timorese in the thousands and urged the latter not to retaliate against them.  As he puts it: 'We have to remember that it was a foreign occupation and we fought for our own destiny. It was that for which we suffered, and we should accept that.  If not, we keep trying to deny the values of what we fought for in the first place.'  He stresses: 'Now, we must keep the past in the past. We must honour all this sacrifice. We all suffered. We have already got our objectives.  Now, we must look to the future, learn how to solve problems, how to send our children to school. "

....
Call him Asia's Nelson Mandela, and he chafes.   'I don't agree. I can only learn from him. He is my inspiration.  'You cannot compare the student to the teacher,' he says.   He then lets on - with a laugh - that when Mr Mandela visited him in prison in 1997, the legendary freedom fighter asked him: 'Xanana, what are you trying to do?'  Mr Gusmao recalls: 'His words that will always stay with me were that there is the need for dialogue and the need for tolerance.

'That has helped me very, very much. We cannot get all we need, but we achieve what we can through dialogue and listening.'   These days, his aides tell Sunday Review, he spends three weeks in a month walking Mr Mandela's talk by going over Timor Leste's hills and vales to hear his people's grouses.  
'He calls it his open presidency programme,' says his media relations officer, Ms Elizabeth Exposto.

Foremost on his mind is building as many schools and hiring as many teachers as quickly as possible for Timor Leste's one million people.   He says: 'More than half of my people are under 20 years of age, so East Timor is a very young nation indeed. We will have a bright future if we have education.'  Businessweek reported that his 'smooth leadership style' and 'moral authority' is helping the United Nations rebuild and improve the quality of life in Timor Leste.

POET-WARRIOR Jose Alexandre 'Xanana' Gusmao began writing poems as a boy and won a national prize for poetry in 1975. He continued to write and paint throughout his seven years in prison from 1992 to 1999. Here is one of his works:

POETIC JUSTICE.    MY SEA OF TIMOR

If I could capture between my fingers the sighs of the sea and share them with children,
If I could caress with my fingers the wave's gentle breeze and feel the hair of children, 
If I could feel between my fingers the kiss of the foam and hear the laughter of children, 
If I could touch with my fingers the sleep of the sea and coax to slumber the eyes of children, 
If I could take between my fingers pretty little shells and make of them necklaces for children

Oh, sea of mine! why do you wait? why don't you give? why don't you feel? why don't you hear?, 
Immersed in my thoughts I was suddenly shaken From the sea, my sea, Out of the bellies of ships, tremors came, 
I looked at the erupting sky and the size of the sea were cries of agony the gentle breeze the smell of dust and blood the kiss of the foam the death-rattle the sea's slumber. the pebbles of the gravestone and the pretty shells traced the destiny of the Homeland!

- Cipinang Prison, Jakarta October 8, 1995

There's a stack more of poems by him AND OTHERS  here :-
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7112/poems_frconten.htm

THE FIGHTER WHO FELL  By XG
....Throughout the peaks and plains of Timor 
The life-bloood flows 
And animates the bones 
Of the fighters who fell 

HOWL 
by Emma Lawrence
....ten thousand people a year
is thirty a day
is one death every forty-five minutes
for a generation
in a country smaller than tasmania their
six litres of blood each
would be just over a million
litres of oil, but
3.25 billion dollars will buy you
quite a showbag
with an unused conscience thrown in


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## 2020hindsight (28 October 2006)

HEROES .  Gusmao, and Mandela - the closest things to statesmen since Churchill.  All three are mentioned on "heroes" website - with Ghandi, Churchill, Oliver Tambo, Ataturk, Nancy Wake etc etc:-
http://www.moreorless.au.com/heroes/gusmao.html



> PS For a bit of fun check your synergy rating with famous people :-
> http://www.topsynergy.com/famous/default.asp
> http://www.topsynergy.com/famous/Xanana_Gusmao.asp
> http://www.topsynergy.com/famous/Nelson_Mandela.asp
> ...



Extracts from a letter by Gusmao to Convention 1998:-



> Dear Compatriots,
> 
> Who would have thought that it would take the East Timorese 24 years to realize that we have wasted so much moral, psychological, intellectual and political energy since the Carnation Revolution? It has taken us far too long to acknowledge the just principles of our struggle. ..... It has taken us far too long to realize that we were riding in different compartments of a single train, running along the same track harbouring the same desires, the same determination to win........
> 
> ...




Mandela likewise :- similar sentiments:-
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1990/
http://www.anc.org.za/ancdocs/history/mandela/1990/sp900225-1.html



> Friends, comrades, and the people of Natal, I greet you all. I do so in the name of peace, the peace that is so desperately and urgently needed in this region.
> 
> In Natal, apartheid is a deadly cancer in our midst, setting house against house, and eating away at the precious ties that bound us together. This strife among ourselves wastes our energy and destroys our unity. My message to those of you involved in this battle of brother against brother is this: take your guns, your knives, and your pangas(1), and throw them into the sea. Close down the death factories. End this war now!
> 
> ...


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## 2020hindsight (28 October 2006)

Here's one I saw on that site, (by EB - presumably one of XG's fighters ?) but I've juggled the words a bit to more resemble AL Gordon. Apologies EB. 
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHil...ms_frconten.htm

Orig poem called LONGING 

How I long, how I long, for the pillows of my dreams
How I long for the cushion where I'll sleep
How I long, how I long , for the peace of moonlit beams 
And the haven of a nest where I can creep.

I will sleep, I will dream, I will fly, fly up high
Climb Ramelau mountain in its cloud,
I will climb through its steam, I will reach the peak and cry
I will shout, I will scream out oh so loud.

I will face that moonlit beam , and ill whisper to my God
Give me wings please, and teach me how to fly,
I want to leave (in my dream), Leave these trails that I've trod
I can't stand it anymore,  and I cry.

So much pain, so much sound , of such grief,  so much blood,
I can hear the screams of comrades getting near ,
Walls are closing all around, Squeezing, sucking like the mud
Draining all from me that God and I hold dear.

How easy it would be, to just drop from this earth
Through the jungle’s misty tangle – disappear 
And that breeze that from the sea , brought my soul here at my birth
Take my body now, but let my soul stay here.


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## 2020hindsight (29 October 2006)

http://www.absolutelyrics.com/lyrics/view/bee_gees/new_york_mining_disaster_1941/
I wonder if this song rings truer and more meaningful - at least to Aussies - post Beaconsfield. (but probably to yanks as well).

NEW YORK MINING DISASTER 1941
by the Bee Gees.

In the event of something happening to me, 
there is something I would like you all to see. 
It's just a photograph of someone that I new. 
Have you seen my wife, Mr. Jones? 
Do you know what it's like on the outside? 
Don't go talking too loud, you'll cause a landslide, Mr. Jones. 

I keep straining my ears to hear a sound. 
Maybe someone is digging underground, 
or have they given up and all gone home to bed, 
thinking those who once existed must be dead. 

AUSSIE version,  post Beaconsfield:-

I keep straining my ears to hear a sound. 
Maybe someone is digging underground, 
AND WE'VE BEEN posted on the pub-wall "LOST AND FOUND"!!
and so many beers set up - we might get drowned!!.  

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200610/s1775332.htm


> Mr Webb was at a workplace safety forum today with survivors from other major workplace disasters.  He spoke about carrying plenty of baggage since Beaconsfield, and how the task of writing a book about the ordeal brought it all back to him and Mr Russell.   "We sort of had a bad time when we went to write a book," he said.  "We thought, what a good idea, we'll write a book, and not sort of thinking of the implications of writing a book as in reliving the moments and Larry.   "That was a pretty rough week."




If ever I meet those blokes (Brant Webb and Todd Russell), I'll be asking them to go shares in a lottery ticket.


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## 2020hindsight (29 October 2006)

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/6732/files/valor_read.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/6732/files/valor_dunbar.html
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Aegean/6732/files/valor_barton.html (be warned - this is a long poem)
Some great poems that came out of the Americal Civil War. - the mothers and the minorities.

http://www.diggerhistory.info/pages-heroes/monash.htm
Interesting to read about Sir John Monash - (some say he won WWI) :-
http://www.theage.com.au/news/Revie...004/11/25/1101219665809.html?from=moreStories  (Monash: The outsider who won the war)

Field Marshal Montgomery, the famous British army commander in the Second World War (a junior officer in the First World War), later wrote: "I would name Sir John Monash as the best general on the western front in Europe. "

"The main thing is always to have a plan; if it is not the best plan, it is at least better than no plan at all". Monash

Monash wanted to move away from what he considered to be outdated British tactics, believing that "the true role of infantry was not to expend itself upon heroic physical effort, not to wither away under merciless machine-gun fire, not to impale itself on hostile bayonets, but on the contrary, to advance under the maximum possible protection of the maximum possible array of mechanical resources, in the form of guns, machine-guns, tanks, mortars and aeroplanes; to advance with as little impediment as possible; to be relieved as far as possible of the obligation to fight their way forward".
"Monash's first battle as corps commander, a minor one at Hamel, was a spectacular success. The battle plan combined an innovative approach to the use of aviation and armour with the most detailed artillery and administrative preparations yet. This was but the first of a series of great victories, on which Monash's reputation as a great commander now rests. His next battle was a larger one, incorporating all the innovations of Hamel, at Amiens on 8 August 1918. Few battles of the war were so successful, the Australians and Canadians driving all before them. Some 7,925 prisoners were taken and 173 guns were captured was the corps rolled over the German gun lines. In the wake of the victory, Monash was created a Knight Commander of St Michael and St George (KCMG) by King George V in a ceremony at his headquarters at Bertangles."

Monash clashed with the British theorist, Lieutenant General Sir Ivor Maxse over the role of technology. Maxse still thought in terms of a battalion's strength being in its manpower, and that a battalion of 900 was essential. Monash believed that its strength was in its firepower, and had calculated that a battalion of 700 would be just as effective, as the majority of its firepower came from is automatic weapons. Events proved Monash correct.

The role of the Australian Corps in 1918 was indeed a remarkable one. Comprising only 9.5% of the BEF, it captured 18.5% of the German prisoners, 21.5% of the territory and 14% of the guns captured. This represented an effectiveness 1.95, 2.23 and 1.47 times that of the British Army average.

In 1930 he was conferred with the full rank of General, the first Jew in any army to attain that rank. Monash was once described by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George as ‘the most resourceful General in the British army.’ The Times correspondent Liddell C Hart assessed that Monash would have become commander-in-chief of the combined Allied forces had the war lasted beyond 1918.   

AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE  OI OI OI

PS Readers who cling to the simplistic view that British commanders in World War I were bunglers and butchers will find comfort in the hoary old story of Allied infantry as "lions led by donkeys", a story now retold with Monash instructing the donkeys how to win a war. Others, I fear, will recognise another example of what Robert Rhodes James called "a kind of nationalistic paranoia". - ahhh bugga it , SO WHAT 
AUSSIE AUSSIE AUSSIE  OI OI OI


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## 2020hindsight (29 October 2006)

At this time of year, we are preparing both for the Melbourne Cup - and Remembrance Day -  Let's remember both 
Cut to the fourth verse of the poem below if you are in a hurry - East London (lol - need a new compass) East London to a shattered-Luftwafe-demolished-brick, you will recognise it.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/binyon.htm
http://www.anzacs.org/fallen.html



> Laurence Binyon (1869-1943), the poet and art critic, was born in Lancaster in 1869.  He worked at the British Museum before going to war, having studied at Trinity College, Oxford where he won the Newdigate poetry prize.  Whilst on the staff of the British Museum he developed an expertise in Chinese and Japanese art.
> 
> Aside from his best known poem For The Fallen (1914), most notably the fourth stanza which adorns numerous war memorials, Binyon published work on Botticelli and Blake among others.  He returned to the British Museum following the war.  His Collected Poems was published in 1931.




FOR THE FALLEN 
Laurence Binyon (1869-1943) 

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, 
England mourns for her dead across the sea. 
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit, 
Fallen in the cause of the free. 

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal 
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres, 
There is music in the midst of desolation 
And a glory that shines upon our tears. 

They went with songs to the battle, they were young, 
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. 
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted; 
They fell with their faces to the foe. 

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: 
Age shall not weary them, nor the years contemn. 
At the going down of the sun and in the morning 
We will remember them. 

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again; 
They sit no more at familiar tables of home; 
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time; 
They sleep beyond England's foam. 

But where our desires are and our hopes profound, 
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight, 
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known 
As the stars are known to the Night; 

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust, 
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain; 
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness, 
To the end, to the end, they remain.

See Also :-
http://www.rockies.net/~spirit/remember.html   (Canadian) 
PS Good luck on the Cup. - just... spare a thought for the diggers 

Wowo Ive learnt somethin - the correct words are "nor the years contemn" ,  initially I thought it was a typo 
http://www.wewillrememberthem.co.uk/ - hey the Poms think it's condemn as well - I dont feel so bad after all


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## 2020hindsight (29 October 2006)

http://www.anzacday.org.au/anzacservices/ADcommemservice/hymns.html

LEST WE FORGET (Recessional)
Rudyard Kipling

God of our fathers known of old
Lord of our far flung battle line
Beneath whose awful hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine -
Lord God of hosts be with us yet
Lest we forget - lest we forget.

The tumult and the shouting dies
The captains and the kings depart
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice
A humble and a contrite heart
Lord God of hosts be with us yet
Lest we forget - lest we forget.

Even the second verse of "Austrayl-yins all eat ostriches" 

LOL. if you want the full hymn - try this one.
http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Kipling/index.htm

PS The church maintains (probably correctly ?) that "Thine ancient sacrifice" applies to JC and not to the fallen.
Incidentally Recessional = a hymn that accompanies the exit of clergy from church - everyone knows that lol - I've known that for oooh - 3 minutes 

If you're real keen check also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recessional_(poem)

http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Kipling/Epitaphs.htm
Best Kipling you've ever read!!



> A SON
> My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I would I knew
> What it was, and it might serve me in a time when jests are few.
> 
> ...


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## 2020hindsight (29 October 2006)

RAPED AND REVENGED
Rudyard Kipling

One used and butchered me: another spied
Me broken - for which thing an hundred died.
So it was learned among the heathen hosts
How much a freeborn woman's favour costs.  

Whilst this is strictly written in a war setting, I wonder if other more recent commentators realise that rape is a no-no.
http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Kipling/Epitaphs.htm
(almost the last poem)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ode_of_Remembrance = the twofold origins of the Ode of Remembrance.


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## 2020hindsight (30 October 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> Wowo Ive learnt somethin - the correct words are "nor the years contemn" ,  initially I thought it was a typo
> http://www.wewillrememberthem.co.uk/ - hey the Poms think it's condemn as well - I dont feel so bad after all



We need a volunteer - someone brave enough to ask the RSL which is correct ,  contemn (meaning nor the years despise / scorn) 
- or condemn (nor the years blame / find guilty).   
PS If you havent guessed I have a lot of time for diggers and the RSL. - just dont have enough courage for this mission.
http://www.firstworldwar.com/poetsandprose/binyon.htm 

WHEN DUTY MEETS FLOOD

An order came through on the phone to young Jimmy, Some Digger up Darling way - just back of Bourke - 
"And hurry son, pack it and send it by sundown,  Without it I'm sunk 'cause the pump just won't work." 
"It fits on the handle, the one that you push on, The pulling side's perfect - I don't need the kit ! 
There's no sense in wasting 'cause wanting can follow, The rest of it's pristine - I just need one bit" 
"The price is outrageous - what, two dollars fifty! -  But Noah's on standby, my back's to the wall - 
I think it's the model before the Big Mopper, Before World War 1, son - when duty was all." 

Now, floods had been raging for nigh on a fortnight, The whole of the Darling was deeply immersed, 
But Jimmy decided he'd do as was bidden - What Diggers would do if the shoes were reversed. 
He donned an ole trenchcoat and Wellies and waders, He fitted his scooter with waterwings too, 
Like James Bond's intrepid amphibious duckling, He set off through rain that was falling like stew. 

He ploughed through the creeks that were running a banker, He raced along cliffedges, floods on all sides. 
He dodged the great deluge of cascading debris, He island-hopped treetrunks mid waterfall rides. 
And after a night of incredible courage And hundreds of miles through the torrents and churn, 
Eureka - he shook the old hand of the Digger, And ooohh - what a grin he received in return.  

"Now sit with me son while I demonstrate will power 
learnt pumping trenches at each bugle call." 
.... 
He fitted the part, and he pumped till the flood 
receded by inches, then metres, then mud, 
with blisters on blisters he finally stud - 
and smiled through loose dentures like bull chewing cud, 
.... 
"A breeze after Flanders - no bullets no blood - 
But that was when duty was all."


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## 2020hindsight (30 October 2006)

I liked that comedian a month or two back- Commenting about trends in music - 

60's :- Songs you could sing along with :-
http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/shrek/imabeliever.htm
http://www.stevesbeatles.com/songs/love_me_do.asp
a few protests thrown in :-  Dylan, Baez, PPM, Seekers etc etc 

Really good songs when we're crowded around the piano for a singalong at the retirement home - whenever that may be ....

BUT Can't you just imagine the kids of the Naughties (2000's), i.e. modern kids , singing along around the piano with walking sticks and wobbly old voices:-
"F*** y** I won't do what you tell me 
F*** y** I won't do what you tell me " -   
http://www.ratm.net/lyrics/kil.html


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## 2020hindsight (30 October 2006)

http://www.amazon.com/Rehearsals-Re...B00004YL2J/ref=pd_sim_m_7/102-7499340-0833719
click the song – it plays a verse or two 

Disc 1 - song 10 - Rehearsals for retirement  (not that I can afford to retire for 20 years)
Disc 2 is by far the best XX better.
Mona Lisa,  Buddy Holly, Elvis, A Fool such as I etc


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## 2020hindsight (30 October 2006)

THERE BUT FOR FORTUNE 


> http://web.cecs.pdx.edu/~trent/ochs/lyrics/there_but_for_fortune.html
> Includes the French version – appears to have followed from the English original –  for a change.  Phil's comments about this song from Sing Out:    "Based on the saying, 'There but for the grace of God,' the song was written while driving to Lincoln, Nebraska. This is one of the few cases in which I had the melody written first and was able to write the words in less than ten minutes.  …There are some live records of Phil introducing this song as being written by Joan Baez... this is a joke; Phil did write it.






> http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/20/messages/548.html
> THERE BUT FOR THE GRACE OF GOD GO I - "On seeing several criminals being led to the scaffold in the 16th century, English Protestant martyr John Bradford remarked, 'There but for the grace of God, goes John Bradford.' His words, without his name, are still very common ones today for expressing one's blessings compared to the fate of another. Bradford was later burned at the stake as a heretic."




Typical example (from the web - or a thousand headlines from newspapers) of how this phrase is used nowadays - not quite the “pure” interpretation as intended by Phil Ochs, or expressed by Joan Baez or Marianne Faithfull or PPM etc I suggest (But this casual comment on "true talk" is delightfully candid, and probably pretty accurate I guess):-



> http://truetalk.typepad.com/truetalk/2004/12/there_but_for_f.html
> Simply put: the rewards of "cheating" are now so great, "playing fair" seems impossible for many of us. I don't believe it's because they are "morally inferior" human beings. I believe it's because we're creating a world that is increasingly difficult for "morally average" human beings to navigate.
> And so, I reflect back on Baez's lyrics for that great song:
> 
> ...





> http://www.shmoozenet.com/yudel/mtarchives/001433.html
> I know there’s a lot of Dylan in the air these days, and I’m happy about that…. But … I found myself thinking about someone else, an almost-forgotten contemporary of Dylan: Phil Ochs.
> 
> Show me an alley, show me a train,
> ...




Typical Newspaper Headline :- Leader, Saturday April 12, 2003, The Guardian 

There but for fortune 
Only the UN can restore order in Iraq 

There is no single explanation for the looting and lawlessness which has swept through Iraq's cities in recent days, etc etc


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## 2020hindsight (30 October 2006)

The heart has its reasons which reason does not understand. Blaise Pascal 1623 - 1662 (and toast can have raisins, and the raisins dont understand why they're there either  ) 

The world is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel . Horace Walpole 1717 - 1797  (The world is a western to those who "think", and a thriller to those who are "sexy", and an anticlimax to those that just "think" they're "sexy").

In each human heart are a tiger, a pig, an ass and a nightingale.  Diversity of character is due to their unequal activity.  Ambrose Bierce.  ( I watched this girl walk past the other day, and the tiger said "look at that ass", and then this bludy pig and I had a fight over her, and then I spent the "night" in "gale".)


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## 2020hindsight (30 October 2006)

MY MATE, WILL SHAKESPEARE    	
let’s DisaPpear inTo some Shakespeare Verse
And see if we can make the margins rhyme,
At worst, we’ll make them marginally worse
At best, mark you, we’ll probably mark time,
McDonaldbain, Macbeth, McDad, McDave
Four Big Macs of their day say last goodbyes,
For bony thinner Shakespeare, one last rave,
	(For Thicker-Shakes, it’s ninety cents with fries).

Example – “harken digger!, wherefore dagger!”
“dog-gone it Doug? Again you’re on your ear?”
“I’m stabbed, I’m stuffed, I step, my final stagger,
‘Twill be ‘twards the fridge for one last beer.”
My guess is that you get the picture clearly - 
You’re not obtuse, and these are not acute
The cute ones I suspect were written beer-ly
The obtuse ones I flushed right down the chute.

Hamlet soliloquising:-	To be or not to be that is the question
		The bloody answer seems to be the hitch
Ahhh great – a coin – bet -  “heads or tails?”, Sebestion
We’ll either go home poor or filthy rich.

Hamlet Reproaching the Queen:-	Such an act that blurs the grace betrothed
Of modesty; calls virtue hypocrite
Makes marriage vows as false as dicer’s oaths
Ahh – double 6 !!! well now we’re in the ****  !!

Macbeth:-	If done, when ‘t is done, then ‘t were well,  done quickly
		Participants contributing as one,
Now “up and doing” for the well done quickie
		And alternating “down and being done”. 

Macb:-		Is this a dagger which I see before me?
The handle toward my hand – come let me clutch!
Ahhh no , it’s just that dead-cheap Scotch you pour me
And some dead Scotsman had me by the crutch.

Macb:- 		I’ve Done the deed – did You not hear a noise?
Lady Macb:- 		I Heard the owl scream and the cricket’s cry!
Macb:- 		Reminds me, I should Be out with the boys
and What’s the score?
Lady Macb:- 					– bout 2 for 25.

Merchant of Venice:-	The quality of mercy is not strained 
It droppeth as the gentle rain from Heaven
I just wish mercifully it bloody rained
Before our team got ducks, and all eleven.

The Tempest:-	We are such stuff as dreams are boldly made of
And our little life is rounded with a sleep
I just wish I could turn the neighbour’s maid off
Instead of counting 50,000 sheep.

Midsummer Night’s Dream:-	The course of true love never did run smooth
A bit like my old Chev, it needs some flattery
You miss ‘em when they’re missing - that’s the truth
(Maybe I’ll check the spark, and then the battery.)

Romeo and Juliet:-	But soft, what light from yonder window breaks
It is the east and Juliet is the sun
Arise fair sun, and kill the envious moon
Ahhh – let’s just go to my place, have some fun.

Romeo: What shall I swear by?
Juliet:  Do not swear at all
Or if thou wilt swear by thy gracious self
And if thou wilt, Viag-aras on call - 
And swearing - wash your mouth – soap’s on the shelf.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet
So Romeo would were he not Romeo called
Still smell like rotting fishheads round his feet.

Twelfth Night (Duke on Music):- If music be the food of love play on
Give me excess of it – and surf and sun!
The appetite may sicken and so die
But me, I’m sticking round for some more pie.

Julius Caesar (Mark Anthony):- Friends Romans Countrymen, lend me your ears
I’ve gone and left my hearing aid at home
And futile if I’m deaf to rousing cheers
And damn it all, the best seats in the dome.

And Brutus was an honourable man
So buy his snakeoil – 20 bucks and bottled
But Mark the word of Anthony, his fan,
You turn your back, you’re liable to get throttled.

For I have neither wit nor words nor worth 
Action nor utterance, nor the power of speech
To stir men’s blood -  except perhaps in mirth
Or when my bloody beer is out of reach. … etc etc 

-----------------------------------

AND SO FROM HOUR TO HOUR …    	
From Billy Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” (Jacques):-	

And then he drew a dial from his poke….	
And looking at it with lacklustre eye
Says very wisely “It is ten o’clock……		
Thus may we see” quoth he “how the world wags..”

“Tis but an hour ago since it was nine
And after one hour more ‘twill be eleven”
And 9 hours hence ‘twill be mmmm ….err….nineteen ?
And 87 prior ‘twas only …seven.?

And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot
And thereby hangs a tale and lots of tripe
And such words mean the least when there’s a lot.

The question is I guess which is the faster
Which, ripening or rotting, takes the lead
The thing determines which one is the master
Is whether we eat onions or birdseed.

And so we “let er rip” - if given rope,
And reap our wild oats where the wild oat grows,
And under grip of grape we probably grope,
But who-the-Hell remembers days like those.

And so we pass through life like someone blind,
Or live to make a pass at someone blond,
And so we stretch out here our wayward mind,
And way-out minds in stretcher wards respond.

And so ducks search with bill and two web feet
We search the web to duck or foot the bill
And so beetroot and corn and sugarbeet
It’s corny but you can’t beat sugar still.

We laugh up high, or chortle near the grass,
Or just say “hi” or “ ‘lo” when laugh’s a chore, 
The moral?  lest a door we hopeful pass? -
Just hope to pass on mor-a-less a-doored!

We gaze half glazed into our crystal balls
And ball into our crystal, whining tears,
And tare into our wine in waterfalls, 
And fall from swinging crystal chandeliers.

And so we hourly quote the bloody raven,
And so we rave and party with the owl,
And so we foul up days spent daylight saving,
And save the nights for something really foul.

We “will” the clock to scamper through the daytime,
But will the clock slow down when it is night ?
There “won’t” be any clocks up there in “praytime”,
So “clock on” friends, delight in all de’ light.  

Forget what I was drinking when I wrote this - damn it all, Ive tried to remember SOOO many times 
I should expain it's a poem about daylight saving, as the last verse clearly explains.
Sorry folks - I read this quote " a little madness in the spring is wholesome even for the king - Emily Dickinson 1830 - 1886."  (trouble here is that mad kings tend to catch real bad cases of that particular flue) I think I sorta got carried away with the concept.     

"most men are within a finger's breadth of being mad - Diogenes 412 - 323 BC"  and then ... "men have different width of fingers - 2020 "


----------



## 2020hindsight (31 October 2006)

PARENTS BLESSINGS. 

Here Child some wine for the dust on your tongue 
Pride of our vineyard, kissed by the sun, 
And bread that was made by your mother - my wife - 
To a recipe old as the gospel of life. 

And also some how-to's and where-to's and whys, 
Some figures and facts and a few white lies, 
Some rules you'll find useful, and some you'll amend, 
And some you'll reject, and others you'll bend. 

All that is a matter for you and the years, 
And the forests of life that have yet to be cleared, 
But hidden with love in this bread and this wine, 
Forget you not this single line 

That our hopes for you are a life fulfilled, 
And of forests of wheat on fields well tilled 
Where the sun rises hearty and sets with a goal 
For tomorrows of hope and a happy soul..... 

Life is our gift to you, sweet child of mine, 
Go live it , and here.... 
Some bread and some wine.


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## 2020hindsight (31 October 2006)

TRANSLATIONS
I wish to introduce you to the website http://translation2.paralink.com/  which very kindly translates things into other languages for you.
Here I have to be candid - I can speak barely three words of French (namely Eiffell Tower, and Peugeot) , but...

I went to the famous translation website - famous? well my teenage daughter says - it's dead simple dad - just go to this bludy website and stop hassling me  ..... and it came up with the following translation of Dusty Springfield's Colouring Book:-
a) the English
b) the French
c) the English as recycled - lets call it the Fringlish, TAKE 1
d) ditto TAKE 2

PS I am reminded of the story of the engineer who used a computer to translate "hydraulic ram" into Russian , and it came out the equivalent of "water buffalo". 



> a) the English
> MY COLOURING BOOK
> http://agnetha.net/ALBUMS/SONGS/mcb.html
> Dusty at her lustiest
> ...






> b) In FRENCH:-
> http://babelfish.altavista.com/babe...y+springfield/my+colouring+book_20043818.html
> 
> Crayons prÃªts ?  Crayons ready?
> ...






> c) In FRINGLISH:-
> 
> For those who fancy colouring books
> And lots of people do
> ...






> d) FRINGLISH TAKE 2:-
> .....
> It is the arms which held it and touch it
> Lost it of a manner or of other one
> ...




 Gotta get the website on a good day - 
PS Spare a thought for Realist trying to chat up some Dutch girl with his multilingual talents lol.  Still maybe her French is as good as his.

PS I've seen Last Tango in Paris -No wonder French people spend so much time making grunting noises etc - nothing else they say makes any sense !! lol


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## 2020hindsight (1 November 2006)

http://www.lyricsondemand.com/soundtracks/l/lesmiserableslyrics/redandblack-theabccafelyrics.html
Red - the blood of angry men!
Black - the dark of ages past!
Red - a world about to dawn!
Black - the night that ends at last!

TEAM COLOURS

There's a green that you find on a Wallaby’s shirt,
With it's various faded, and various dirt,
-And the overlaid gold of the wattle tree, 
-And “Australia Fair” sung almost in key,
-And the mem-ries flow back to my wonky knee,
-(And the barroom throws flack at the wonky TV) 
And my senses on special alert !!
...
But I doubt a non-Aussie ' d be able to see
The passion to what I referred.

And the same thing happens for English teams,
When the red rose blooms and they dream their dreams,
-And no quarters asked and no quarters given,
-And the teams and the fans find their “reason  for livin”
-When the six backs line up in seventh Heaven,
-(and the six packs line up from Dover and Devon)
And Life is much more than it seems.
.....
And the flags are hoisted like madmen – Driven to 
Swinging sweet chariot screams.

And the Kiwi’s black magic it runs in their blood,
Like the silver fern in the South Island mud,
-And the black from the depths of their pupilled eyes,
-And the warpaint pitch, and the warrior cries, - 
-And the haka-filled nostils like apple pies
-(I don’t mean in content, I mean in size)
and their teeth, full tattooed by stud.
.....
But the point I would make is the fans all rise 
When the AllBlack and Visitors “thudd-d”.

For the team is worth more than the sum of the parts,
And there’s something remains when the team departs,
-And the fans dream their dreams in colours that burn,
-And they sleep in their graves with their flag and their urn,
-And they’ll be the same when next life they return,
-(Green and gold, or red rose, or silver fern)
Cos the colours are seen with their hearts;
.....
“Just a colour you say? an excuse to play?”
Nuh  - it’s where a REAL life starts.


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## 2020hindsight (1 November 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> TRANSLATIONS
> I wish to introduce you to the website http://translation2.paralink.com/  which very kindly translates things into other languages for you.
> Dusty Springfield's Colouring Book:-
> a) the English
> ...




PS Just for fun I translated Fringlish TAKE 2 into French - THEN back to English - call this :-



> e) Fringlish Take 3
> It is the arms which held it and contact it
> Lost it of a way or of other one
> Colour them areas now
> ...




and finally this is what happens when you go once more but via Spanish ( i.e. English > French > Spanish > English)
 :-



> FRINGO-SPANIOLA Take 4
> They are the arms that had it and the contact this
> Lost that thing about a route or of other one
> ColorÃ©elos the regions now
> ...




Wow - those French and Spanish girls sure have a way with words lol.
Sweatheart ... sing me that song about the vegetables again ..pppffft.. lol


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## 2020hindsight (1 November 2006)

> The King And I Lyrics -
> SOMETHING WONDERFUL (LADY THIANG)
> 
> This is a man who thinks with his heart,
> ...



http://www.lyricsdownload.com/the-king-and-i-something-wonderful-lyrics.html
I was thinking.. although this was written about an arguably difficult person ( in the form of the Siamese King) - I wonder if it applies for others - (and I want to propose this as humbly as possible), I was thinking of home carers for instance (you brave and tireless people).  "Every now and then , he'll do something wonderful".


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## 2020hindsight (1 November 2006)

A WALK WITH BUDDHA

Little flower, 
Waving in the breeze...you've got me on my knees... I need a favour please. 
Teach me on symmetry...teach me your reality...live and breathe with me - 
Share my existence.  :70: 

Little butterfly, 
Winging gently by... wanderer on high... painting on the sky. 
Where's it being planned?... where's the promised land?... take my outstretched hand - 
Share my existence. 

Fellow traveller, 
Walk with me this mile...chat with me a while...maybe share a smile... 
Moderation friend, salutation friend,  toleration friend,  
Share my existence. 

Little cloud, 
Content to just recline... rollover... realign...hey point me to the sign. 
Teach my mind to soar...trip the cages door...say , is there any more 
... or just existence?  :engel: 
Share my existence... 
Share our existences.


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## 2020hindsight (1 November 2006)

This one is a bit like the Kookaburra poem - seriously trivial.  
Probably inspired by Kendalls Bellbirds 
http://www.mountainman.com.au/kendall.html
Read the Whipbird before the Bellbird  - people are not happy when they are subjected to such anticlimaxes 

THE WHIPBIRD AND HIS WHIP 

Sometimes I get lethargic and I pause for mental snack,
It's not I'm short of energy or anything I lack,
It's just that I can daydream like I'm on the bloody crack,
	"Get up" he calls , "get out there on the track!
	Until you've done a day's work DONT COME BACK!!"

And sometimes two or three of them will take up chorus chants,
As if I'm supposed to drop all else and do a little dance,
I do my best, get out of bed, and pull on coat and pants,
	I do my best to shape up and advance,
	Or do the hero thing and take a stance.

Sometimes I'm writing, - stare "half willed" - and anchored to the spot,
And feeling like the ink has spilled and it's one giant blot,
I hear this bird, this postel sh**, I mean this pistol shot,
	That little bird who whips with all he's got, 
"THIS MUTINY WILL END!" - like Bligh on pot!.

I hear that small task-master's call afloating from the creek
And then I start again afresh - with smile upon my cheek.
I love that little whipbird for his sense of humour streak
	I love his motivation and mystique
	That little crack that echoes from his beak. 

He pricks your poet's conscience with his little bit of fun
He makes you feel as useless as a blind man with a gun
Although that's one sure way to get the sighted men to run,
I'm only tempry blinded by the Sun, 
And Mother Nature melting all as one…
[ And Mother Nature calling to her son.]


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## 2020hindsight (1 November 2006)

HOW DO YOU MEASURE LOVE, GRASSHOPPER?

General:-
How do you measure love, grasshopper? is it Something you weigh on a scale,
or Something you rate as “par” or “above”, or Something you buy on sale,
is it Light that is only revealed when its lost, or the Source from whence it once shone,
or the Depth of some fathomless hole - and its cost – that is Only revealed when it’s gone.
	sure the Depths of that darkness are real and yet,
	you Don’t know the odds until bets are bet,
	you’ll Know what I mean if you’ve lost a pet
who was Loved and then moved on.

Pet:-
as a Pet-owner then, is it energy given to Mutual wagging of tails,
or do Horse-lovers judge the worth of their love, by the Height of some steeplechase rails,
or the “Heil-boss-well-met” when you put on their reins (and it never rains but it hails ), 
or just Sad that you miss ‘em -  extinction or kiss ‘em – including koalas and whales.
	sure the Depths of that love are tested so oft,
	when they Piss on the daisies, or buck you right off,
	but you Miss em like hell with that last mortal cough,
and if That isn’t love, I’ll eat snails. 

Close Friend:-
as a Friend might surmise, is it waveheight blue? on a Sea otherwise inert?
or Moisture contained in a breeze over dew,  that was Otherwise dusty and dirt?
some Lilt in a voice like a laughing trill, that was Otherwise prone to blurt,
or the Tilt of faces wanting nil, but a Friendly aversion to “hurt”.
	and the Salt of a tear wiped off a cheek,
	and a Whisper in ear, just - “friendly speak”,
	and Hands holding hands for a day - or a week,
and Eyes that don’t want to avert.

Lover:-
as a Lover might claim, does some bell ring aloft, that Deafens all else for miles,
or some Pure sweet smell of some rosebud soft, that Blooms like the beaming of smiles,
is it Fire that is quelled by naught but flood, - praps a Flood sweeping caution and fear,
or a Compass that somehow gets into your blood, and you Steer where your heart wants to steer.
	there’s a Maze of paths that all become one,
	like kaLeidoscopes, or a bottle spun,
and Total impromptu, it prompts you to run,
with a Steering wheel heart and a CHEER.

Married Couple (Then and Now lol):-
How do you measure love, grasshopper? – the Height to which you can jump?
the Breadth of your arms as you run to engage, or your Lips when you crash with a thump,
or in Quieter years with their autumnal hue, when the Red blood like good wine mellows,
or some Blacksmith’s hearth glowing old but true, and Only our memories for bellows.
	no more Half-crazed-entreating like harpstring’s hum,
	no more Pitter-patter-beating of bongo drum,
	you just Pat her on the seating, and you cll her “mum” 
and False teeth get entwined with jellos.


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 November 2006)

I am 100% confident that we can all relate to this one  :-
cheers 2020.

LONG LOST FRIENDS

I Wonder what happened to "long lost Bill", cos I Haven't had message or card,
we Never were much with phone or quill, since those Jamcans and string in the yard, 
must be Twenty odd years since we last shook hands, twenty Years since we laughed and sparred,
and I'm Not sure that anyone understands, we were Mates with the same brush tarred. 
.....and I Haven't heard hide nor hair of the man, and my Conscience is taking it hard.

it's Not like the mailman was scalped by Injuns, or Cobb and Co's broken a dray,
or the Windjammer's lost amidst mutinous winge-ings, or Shipwrecked  and drowning in spray,
no Pirates who hide in the Indies Dutch, made the Postman walk the plank
guess we Just forgot how to keep in touch, and we've Only ourselves to thank.
......but the Friendship's still there and worth just as much, and the Trust is still safe "in the bank".

ahh, we Both go about (no doubt) our bussiness, for our Daily morsel of bread,
there's Mowing the lawn and the daily dizziness of Keeping a roof overhead,
and no Doubt our ships will collide one day, (and I hope 'fore our time runs out),
and we'll No doubt fight for the right to pay, for the First of many a shout.
.....how we've Changed so little; yet much to say - and those Old times to talk about.

I Find it really (yet yearly) amusing, that we Let this happen at all,
that we Gamble the risk of permanent losing such Friends through no reason at all,
blame the Pseudo race through the daylight hours, and the Changing faces around us, 
and the Memories - vivid yet fading flowers - that Again will bloom'n astound us 
.....and the Friendship estranged, rekindled for hours, and our Tardiness will confound us. 

we'll both Wonder what happened to Tom and Vince, and all those mates of our youth,
we were Kinsmen akin to the Student Prince, though our Singing was more uncouth, 
no Doubt we'll meet up after changing some tyre, so the Course of true friendship runs smoother, 
and the Stress of the meeting will no doubt require some Liquid refreshment for soother.
.....and some Ale to put out our conscience's fire, "and to Absent friends - here's to ya!".

a Procession of parted and "discarded" mates, go Drifting on past my brain,
no Doubt we'll meet up at the Pearly Gates, and I'll Catch up with most again,
but ..Just in case I'm delayed in the sack, or some Traffic jam up in the sky,
I'll Take the precaution of trying to track down these Souls BEFORE I can fly, 
....Now let's see, - he's a Smith - and he's from across town, till he Moved to some place near Bondi ( or was it Bulli, or maybe Wolvi ? 

If this poem gets anyone thinking about sending Xmas cards this year then I hope that someone is me - I'm the world's worst.


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## 2020hindsight (2 November 2006)

THE HEARTBEAT OF THE BATTLEFIELD DRUMMER BOY

they found Bits of his drum on the old battlefield, four Centuries after the fact
with its Shoulderstrap rotting with blood congealed, and a Slice where a sword had hacked,
'twas a Job he'd been handed, his destiny sealed, "to Keep morale intact",
- and he'd Marched out in front with the cards he was dealed
- and he Gave it his best, though hed rather have reeled
- and he Drummed till the yells in his ear canals peeled
and he Honoured his boyhood pact.

if you Knew where to look, and you knew how to read, the Footprint signs hidden below
then you'd Find where his small boots confrontd the steed, of some Giant and mounted foe,
and he'd Shook in the stare of the murderous breed who had challenged his drumstick's blow,
- but one Swipe of that sword made the red blood bleed,
- and he'd silenced the heartbeat, the home teams lead
- and the boy's so-small soul had so-soon been freed
to some Place where the bravest go.

no more "Rat-a-tat-tat", amid battlefield yell, to "ADVANCE" or to "HOLD THAT DAMNED LINE!!!"
no more Marching down hills to the bloodiest Hell, where each five of us faced nine,
and the Plaque-stone now shows where the drummer boy fell, where Now grows that aging pine,
- but it's "twigs" lie uneasy, and hard to quell, 
- ahh , it's after the fact and the funeral bell,
- but at Dusk there's a drumming ( you'd swear ) in the dell,
.....
and his brave little footprints SHINE.

see them FACE ever FORWARD, to drum his own knell,
and they terminate there - by the shrine.

Fear and childhood.  
http://www.lyricsdownload.com/the-king-and-i-i-whistle-a-happy-tune-lyrics.html
Here's a song from the King and I - makes a change from "F*** y** I wont do what you tell me" lol - my kids are SOO sick of me using that example of modern music lol.  But it's a great song if you have young kids 



> Whenever I feel afraid, I hold my head erect
> And whistle a happy tune, So no one will suspect , I'm afraid.
> 
> While shivering in my shoes , I strike a careless pose
> ...




Here's another old favourite - I had to sing this every flaming night to my kids when they were young. (I have two boys btw) - AND YET to this day they act "as a team" - DESPITE my hopeless singing voice lol. 

http://www.rich.durge.org/rolf/boys.html


> In 1969, during a tour of Arnhem Land with his wife and daughter, Rolf briefly stayed with a man called Ted Egan. Ted sung him this song, which Rolf recorded on tape. When he got back to England and talked his television producer into using the song, Rolf discovered he had lost the tape! Rolf rang Ted, twelve thousand miles away in Canberra, and got him to sing the song over the phone. Alan Braden arranged the song for the TV show, and the audience reaction was so marvellous that Rolf decided to record it. This song was top of the hit parade for seven weeks over Christmas 1969.
> 
> Two little boys had two little toys ,Each had a wooden horse
> Gaily they played each summer's day , Warriors both of course
> ...




PS I have heard a theory - not at all sure how true or generally applicable - that SOMETIMES (once? twice?) the drummer boys were spared - to be the one to return to tell their superiors of the massacre.


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## 2020hindsight (2 November 2006)

Speaking of my hopeless singing voice - (doesn't stop me from trying incidentally  - especially when I'm  walking the dog at night.  I wrote this over a few nights of walking past a particular set of gum trees in our winding tree lined street - where there is this streetlight and lots of shadows of branches 

"An analysis of life is never complete without contemplation of the inevitable."  - quote by.. (buga'ed if I know - lets' say anon)

PRAPS AS I’M SINGING ONE MORE TONE-DEAF TUNE

Praps it will be on a cold grey morn, When I have to face my last test,
Praps it will be as some child is born, And placed on some warm mother's breast;
	Praps only then as the fog is lifted,
	I'll get to see where my lifeboat has drifted,
	Get to give thanks for this time Ive been gifted,
Move on from blissful to bless'd.

Maybe like Tennyson, tide turning out, Maybe as sandbags cave in,
Maybe I'll learn what it's all been about, and find a new meaning of win;
	Maybe alone, as I sit and wonder,
	Hopefully smile at each joy and blunder,
	Score one last goal  - as the skids go from under -
A well-earned penultimate grin.

Praps in the midst of banana and cream, or Walking barefoot through dry sand, - or
As I reflect on some child-held dream, or dream how I held my child's hand;
	Maybe while lost in the joy to have been  -
	Loved and been loved, sensually keen -
Even found warmth on the internet scene -  
It's left me e-sensually tanned .

Praps it will be on some City to Surf, enJoying its pure afterglow,
Praps while I rest on some warm sunlit turf, or Crash in some dumper's cool flow;
	Praps when the sensual stuff's at it's height,
	That's when St Peter appears bathed in light, - (I'm
	Hoping he'll tell me I got it half right,   )
And that's when he'll say "mate, let's go".

A streetlamp - perhaps amongst bluegums - gives up, and Shadows revert to the moon, and
In that calm setting I'm walking the pup, and Singing one more tone-deaf tune;
	Praps as it flickers, my song ends abrupt, or 
	Once again damned middle C goes corrupt,
	The shadows change watch – my Last Supper supp’t 
But… Preferably later than soon .


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 November 2006)

Of all the songs that can be "gender-bended" for a singer of tfhe opposite sex - the easiest would have to be "SHE" by Aznavour. I mean all the female singer has to do is swap HE for SHE (more or less).  even the phrases are "unisexual" (assuming there's such a word):- 

"HE may be the beauty (feminine) or the beast (masculine) 
may be the famine or the feast, 
May turn each day into a Heaven or a Hell (unisexI guess lol)
HE may be the mirror of my dreams 
A smile reflected in a stream 
HE may not be what HE may seem 
Inside HIS shell.... " 

- dead simple.  Twice as many artists, twice the royalties lol - clever or what. :-   http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gary.hart/lyricsa/aznavour.html
(this site includes a few bars of Aznavour singing). 

SHE (Tous Les Visages de L'Amour)
Written by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer

She may be the face I can't forget 
The trace of pleasure or regret 
Maybe my treasure or the price I have to pay
She may be the song that summer sings 
May be the chill that autumn brings 
May be a hundred different things 
Within the measure of a day 

She may be the beauty or the beast 
May be the famine or the feast 
May turn each day into a Heaven or a Hell 
She may be the mirror of my dreams 
A smile reflected in a stream 
She may not be what she may seem 
Inside her shell.... 

She, who always seems so happy in a crowd 
Whose eyes can be so private and so proud 
No one's allowed to see them when they cry 
She maybe the love that cannot hope to last 
May come to me from shadows in the past 
That I remember 'till the day I die 

She maybe the reason I survive 
The why and wherefore I'm alive 
The one I care for through the rough and ready years 

Me, I'll take the laughter and her tears 
And make them all my souvenirs 
For where she goes I've got to be 
The meaning of my life is 
She....She ,   Oh, she....  

AN EXAMPLE OF A SONG THAT IS DIFFICULT TO TRANSLATE BETWEEN SEXES.
BY CONTRAST , lol - I had an uncle who used to sing the song below  - He was a WWII vet, a funny funny craggy hairy-chested joke-telling bloke - dairy farmer no less - and lol, UNLESS he sang this song to the cows - each in turn - they wouldn't let down their milk !!  I must have heard him sing this 100,000 bludy times lol - one for each cow that I saw him milk ( a small percentage ).  Why am I prattling on like this - well - maybe it'll give a farmer out there a smile  - poor bugas need an excuse -any excuse at the moment.

http://www.lyricsdownload.com/edith-day-alice-blue-gown-lyrics.html


> MY SWEET LITTLE ALICE BLUE GOWN
> 
> In my sweet little Alice blue gown,
> When I first wandered down into town,
> ...




Ahhh, guess you just had to be there !   

BTW - if anyone ever wants words of a favourite song , - just go to Google and request "Shiek from Scrubby Creek lyrics" - example only !! lol - you will I am sure not be interested in that particular song 

PS http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gary.hart/lyricsa/
 is particularly good - you get to hear many of the songs sung.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gary.hart/lyricsb/baddiel.html
Here's a nonsense one about the Poms, gotta feelin it toggles between screens when you click on "3 lions" - enjoy - ignore, lol whatever.
PS Half the websites are USA in origin - have never heard of Rolf Harris - they do however know Roy Rogers and the Richeous Bros lol


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## 2020hindsight (2 November 2006)

Ive already posted this on Bronte's "Advertisement" thread - but what the heck - It is, as I said there , my THEME SONG lol.
http://humor.beecy.net/menwomen/mansong/


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## 2020hindsight (2 November 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> THE HEARTBEAT OF THE BATTLEFIELD DRUMMER BOY
> they found Bits of his drum on the old battlefield, four Centuries after the fact
> with its Shoulderstrap rotting with blood congealed, and a Slice where a sword had hacked,
> ...and the Plaque-stone now shows where the drummer boy fell, where Now grows that aging pine,
> ...



Btw, I wrote this poem soon after the East Timor massacres. 
Having read of the nuns etc killed in their churches - on their knees in prayer - cowardly acts that defy explanation or understanding - I added the following verse ...

A VERSE FOR EAST TIMOR

one could Write the same verse ( perhaps sadder and worse), of the Recent East Timor insanity.
but I Kinda prefer the 400 year hearse, as a buffer against inhumanity,
and the Part of the drummer is played by a nun, or a farmer defending his family,
- and the cavalry cruel will be played by some fool
- who's been taught, oohh such hatred, in some Moslem school
- and machettes for swords, make it all the more brutal
and for drumbeats, the psalms of "the Lamb". 

Here I should quickly add - Xanana G is soo quick to forgive and forget - what a moral GIANT that man is !!!


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## 2020hindsight (3 November 2006)

I'm off to bed 
b4 I go - this flaming website is as old as I am lol.  Even has Winifred Atwell's "somebody stole my gal" - reminds me of country dances I used to go to - "gentlemen, select your partners for an "evening three step" lol"

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/gary.hart/lyricsa/excerpts/
adios amigos
 :viking:  :goodnight


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## 2020hindsight (3 November 2006)

Here's one I wrote - well started - on a flight from Wellington to Sydney - where you virtually fly at "just faster than the sun"  , great flight incidentally, especially at dawn.  Of course you gain two hours .. 2 WHOLE HOURS !  It's like gaining 2 hours of life !! Wait'll you get to my age lol.  Amateur hour yet again folks.  (PS I could add that the rising sun on the clouds is a pretty sight on this flight - these words dont come close to HIGH FLIGHT of cors  - "danced the sky on laughter silvered wings" etc)

THE PARANOID TRANS-TASMAN  PILOT

well in Wellington it's raining and it's 6am and dark,
and the Brakes relax their straining and the roaring motors bark,
and the Pilot points us skyward, with a chuckle half suppressed
through the Atmospheric firewood as he swings her to the west.

and it's Way back there behind the sea a gentle glow appears, 
and the Pilot cunning- mindedly grins quickly back and sneers,
and he Speeds towards the ebony like burglar to his den,
as Werewolves seek remedy from sun that turns them men.

then in Peaks of sleeping vapour, speckled patterns start to glow,
like an Early morning paper or some brail the wind might know,
and the Clouds may drift at harespeed - but they're greying on the top,
and he Leans to boost his airspeed, and he checks his toupee's mop.

now a Sky of mushrooms-random start to grow into the light,
and some Tailfin shadows tandem streak across the wing stretched tight
while the Rest of us are yawning he is stretching out his day,
while the World prepares for morning he is trying to run away.

and he Charges ever racing , teardrop wingfront still in shade,
with the Sun relentless pacing and our screaming intake blade, 
we've been Flying for 3 hours, yet his clock says only one   
and he grins "who said those powers might have left me for my son?!"

it is Seven as he touches down on Sydney airport's pitch,
and he's Cheated full 2 hours in his race across "the ditch",
and I Heard the pilot said it as he walked into the day, 
"That's two Hours I'll keep on credit till I fly the other way!"

"praps I'll Spike the hostie's sherry, lie a bit about my years,
make my Toupee super hairy, whisper nothings in her ears, 
precious Two hours - how I dread it, yet I've fought off going grey!!
- damn it All I'll quickly shed it if I fly the other way".


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## 2020hindsight (3 November 2006)

Here's one about man's appetite for killing animals (Lex Talionis, A moral discourse)- and the challenge to man to give them a fair fight - like one bullet - a bit like the Deerhunter - but hunting a bear outside its cave.

LEX TALIONIS
Adam Lindsay Gordon.

To beasts of the field, and fowls of the air, and fish of the sea alike,
Man's hand is ever slow to spare, and ever ready to strike;
With a licence to kill, and to work our will, In season by land or by water,
To our heart's content we may take our fill of the joys we derive from slaughter.
.........

Shall we, hard hearted to their fates, thus soft hearted shrink from our own,
when the measure we meet is metred to us, when we reap as we've always sown,
Shall we who for pastime have squandered life, who are styled "the Lords of Creation",
Recoil from our chance of more equal strife , and our risk of retaliation?
....

But you've no remorseful qualms or pangs, When you kneel by the grizzly's lair,
On that conical bulllet your sole chance hangs, 'Tis the weak ones advantage fair,
And the shaggy giant's terrific fangs are ready to crush and tear.
Should you miss, one vision of home and friends, five words of unfinished prayer,
Three savage knife stabs, and so your sport ends
In the worrying grapple that chokes and rends :-
Rare sport, at least, for the bear!"

.......................................
Gee I like those words   man being courageous for once.   IMHO, part 1 of the poem ends here ... but he continues ... albeit excerpts given below....with some fatalism, and contemplation of a sudden death such as this, ("sunderings " = as in "rent asunder"),   and perhaps man "in his blindness" doesn't understand that death is "less bitter" than he imagines - (incidentally Adam Lindsay Gordon finally killed himself with a bullet in a wattle grove, after being duped into believeing he could claim his father's inheritance back in England - and ending up broke) :-

Short shrift! sharp fate! dark doom to dree! (=endure)
Hard struggle though quickly ending!
At home or abroad , by land or sea,
In peace or war, sore trials must be,
And worse may happen to you or to me,
For none are secure and none can flee,
From a destiny impending.

..
Then those who listen to sinking ships 
To despairing sobs from their lov'd one's lips,
Where the green wave thus slowly shatters,
May long for the crescent shaped claw  that rips 
The bison into ribbons and strips 
And tears the strong elk to tatters.

Oh ! sunderings short of body and breath !
Oh! 'battle and murder and sudden death!'
Against which the Liturgy preaches;
By the will of a just, yet a merciful Power,
Less bitter, perchance, in the mystic hour,
(When the wings of the shadowy angel lower),
Than man in his blindnes teaches!


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## 2020hindsight (3 November 2006)

from THORA'S SONG
Adam L Gordon 

waiting and watching ever,  longing and lingering yet
leaves rustle and corn stalks quiver,  winds murmur and waters fret,

no answer they bring no greeting,   no speech save that sad refrain
no voice save an echo epeating , he cometh not back again

NOTES on ALGORDON 1833 - 1870 

I can mimic the man as a writer,  though I'm out of my class a a wit
though he'd give me black eyes as a fighter , though a far tougher student of "grit"
and his rhythms uplifting were lighter , and his syllables just seem to knit
and I find to upkeep with the blighter , that I need my infinitives split.

..
a giant of galloping rhymers,  a legend of galloping steeds
forgive any awkward firstliners , and forgive him of any misdeeds
a champ of the prince and the peasant , a genius student of creeds
and Plato and Latin texts pleasant , - this planter of poetic seeds.

...
ahh to have half the skill of this master , or a fifth of his poetic brain
or to write as well slower or faster, or just have him around once again,
whilst most quotes like the breakers disperse, or they melt like sea froth in the rain
his bad and his worse and his worst , are beyond the best Ill attain.

from YE  WEARY WAYFARER FYTTE VIII

Question not but live and labour, till yon goal be won,
helping every feeble neighbour, seeking help from none
Life is mostly froth and bubble , two things stand like stone
KINDNESS in another's trouble , COURAGE in your own.


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## 2020hindsight (4 November 2006)

Let's change tac here ...  On Optimism :-
I have this theory that it's important not to have your expectations set too high :-

MY EXCITING YEAR   

Gee but I’ve had an exciting year,  Now I’m 12 further months down the track, 
The Pis-de-Resistance, the Force-Majeure,  Was my compost heap - out the back.
The thing reeks of rhubarb and rotten old peels, And mushing old radish and grubs, 
And I have to stand guard cos the neighbour steals , - .. BUT (ha) there’s more in my bathroom tubs. 
(Ha, fooled HIM)

Gee but I’ve had an exiting year , With my mild athlete’s foot and my gout,
And my ingrowing toenail that used to grow in , And suddenly chose to grow out.
It’s things like that, right out of the blue , That make life just so worthwhile 
And I thank Heaven hourly, yes it’s true , And my toes break into a smile 
(now to work on their breath!)

Gee but I’ve had an exciting year , With my waterworks problems mended,
I now use the toilet just once after beer , Before it was “ open-ended”,
The doctor explained “it’s like taps need their washers , And firehoses need their ****..”
The poor bugger standing there wearing galoushes , And me trying hard not to mock. 
(taps needing washers indeed lol).

Gee but I’ve had an exciting year  , With this book that I read about Russia
The 4000th  page was perhaps a bit dreer,  And the 5000th  went down the flusher,
But all in all t’was a brilliant read, (By the end I needed an usher)
And it’s tripped my desire for travel (and weed), And for snow, and for girls named Natusha.  
(well I guess it doesn’t really matter what her name is, as long as she 
can say “President thingo” with that sexy accent). 

Gee but I’ve had an exciting six months , Since my snoring was finally sorted,
Nights were an endless procession of grunts , And Lord only knows what I snorted.
But now it’s all over I’ve had my neck fixed , And I wear these tight jocks on my fork,
And if that doesn’t work (results are mixed) , Then my wife has this bloody great cork.
(The jocks usually just change up to G minor – we call it the G string).

Gee but Ive had an exciting 6 weeks , Leading into the Festive Season,
My ‘puter’s been swearing in Latin and Greek , And there’s sparks from the top for some reason, 
The screw on the back is all stripped and seized , But  now I’m only teasin’, -----
I know how tofix a stripped screw ! - in the dark !!
And next year it’s “Strip-Tease-and-Seizin!!”


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## 2020hindsight (4 November 2006)

Folks since we've managed to put on 100 odd posts between us lol, I'm assuming that no-one has gone back to check some of the originals  - so I'm reposting this one that Julia posted :-



> "Sad Aunt Madge"
> 
> As the cold winter evenings drew near
> Aunt Madge used to put extra blankets
> ...




Ignoring the last line about the engagement lol (funny or what) - the fact that they take (TRY to take?  - limited success here lol) the "dreams" out of people like Madge.  - can't be right surely.   (speaking as a potential canditate here - better put my arguments out in the open, before this bit of mental "flue" gets any worse lol,  - the doctor just said he's going "straight" out to get me a "jacket" - at least I think that's what they said ?!).   

Reminds me of the one about "we do not have the same sense of awe and appreciation and majestic reverance for a rainbow as a native - or a young child - because we understand what causes it, light refraction, all those things we learn about in school.  - Sad - We have lost as much as we have gained in the process."  

Stuff it all ...lets have a fight here, scientists take the red corner,  philosophers the rainbow coloured corner!!  (why do I think there wont be any takers lol ) 

PS should I have said "Scientists the black and white corner" maybe? - better watch out here I might find "Faith" lol. - gonna be difficult fighting myself whilst representing both corners - maybe that's the source of all these voices I keep hearing.  

Lol - nice to see that Madge still kisses the furniture good night btw, even if it isnt tucked up in covers.


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## Bronte (4 November 2006)

Bronte said:
			
		

> Excellent thread RichKid,
> My contribution:
> 
> SEA FEVER by John Masefield
> ...



Some great poetry here 2020
Thank You


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## 2020hindsight (4 November 2006)

Bronte - the SEA , I love it !!  Did a bit of sailing - three yacht trips - here's some verses (again from memory) - let's call em extracts from a poem I wrote that went on for bloody pages - seriously I was stoked at the time - about 6 pages - after sailing from Philippines to Palau  - while a typhoon was going from Palau to Philippines lol - spending a few days trying to dodge the  thing - in the end we pretty much went through the eye lol - weird, wind coming from East, waves from North etc (i.e. 90 degrees) - things changing so quickly.  Incidentally I doubt that much of the following is the actual words I wrote at the time - but when you experience an emotion like that you never forget "the mood" 


THE SEA 

Out with the wind and a crested sea , Out with the forces wild 
Out with the gods that have tested me, So oft since a sawn-off child 
Out with the spray and the will to be free, Out with this verse half-compiled, lol
Out with the love of the "verb to be", and to Hell with the lubber's life mild.

Flapping of sail and the masthead sigh, And the wail of a tort-stay-note 
power unfathomed to landlubbers shy,  Power that grips on your throat - 
Traces of sky as one gunnel rides high, While the other is thrashing the moat
As it ploughs through the sea, it is do-or-die , And its man against god against boat.

Ahh the moon can look down with her virgin's frown, on the likes of you and me,
She's accused of making some folk fall down, in a "swoon", so refined, "to a tee..." 
.........
But ahh the sea, the mighty sea, the ever pregnant sea
that makes love with each tide, like a newly wed bride , and pregnant she ever will be.!!


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## 2020hindsight (4 November 2006)

woops , - forgot which hemisphere, lol.  better correct it b4 I'm caught out.
anticlockwise means mmm, lets see , big hand on the three, mmm,  and the waves comes from where the wind used to be so -  shudda been
"wind from west, waves from north"  
PS sometimes the sea is becalmed - has a touch of the doldrums lol - I guess on those occasions she's saying she has a headache - and isn't really interested in love today - still I'd prefer to wait for her mood to pick up, - permitting sail - that to resort to a power boat.


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## 2020hindsight (4 November 2006)

THE FORSEEABLE AND THE UNFORSEEABLE FUTURE

I plan to head out across the bar, while the tide is at optimum full, 
and to take on THOSE waves, I can see where they are, that are charging in like a bull, 
Then....
I'll guess that I'll kick her..., which way? maybe straight?,  maybe rips are from windward or lee?
Cos those factors are fickle - I'll have to wait, That's as far as I can foresee.

Way out there there's bound to trial and panic, curry and flurry, why shout it?
And what can we do? you'll just go insanic, why hurry to worry about it?
And most would agree that most of the time, that life's an aggreeable smoocher, 
And it's wasted worry to dread the climb to an unforseeable future. 

And maybe twill be on a starboard tack and maybe twill be on a port,
But at least and at last I'll hopefull come back, and it won't all have been for naught,
Who knows I might need a week in dry dock, for the odd repair (or a suture),
But..
I'm hopefully strengthened from shake and shock, for the next unforseeable future.


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## 2020hindsight (4 November 2006)

THE RAINBOW LASSOO

I have this little question mark that twists my brain around,
It's triggered by a misty park, where drops of rain abound,
Like - why the rainbow isn't tethered pot to elusive pot?
- permitting me to reap wet weathered
- GOLD beyond that hedgerow hethered !
- GOLD beyond my dreams full feathered !!!
SADDLE BAGS ALL BULGING LEATHERED !!!!!
MINE!! ALL MINE !!, THE LOT!!!!!

The leprechauns they laugh they lilt, they steal the rainbows anchors,
(and only if you're free from guilt , you see these gilt-edged bankers)
they much prefer us red and blue , and running in the mist
- and out there with a big lassoo
- and chasing rainbows me and you
- and doing things that madmen do
and shaking clench- ed fist!

- and buying shares in oil and goo
- alternate cries of "Whopp de DO!!"
- and weeping when we're in a stew
I think you get the ghist.


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## 2020hindsight (5 November 2006)

EINSTEIN EXPLAINED IT QUITE SIMPLY.

Newton believed if you sat under apple trees, Apples would fall on your head,
Personally I can relate to that theory, Gladly I’d take it as read.
Einstein went on to say, if one explodes, then E = m times c ‘sqed’,
So .. now I chew apples exceedingly gently, and bunches in treetops I dread.!!

Old Galileo would take up his telescope, Stare at the shadows on Venus,
Calmly predicted the sun was the centre, (inStead of some Pope or his 'genus' **),
[ editors note - ** = those ambivalent about going to heaven can improvise ]
Einstein went on to say - stare out for long enough, Something quite horrid and heinous, the
Back of our heads somehow comes into view, and - Turn around quickly  - we’ve seen us!!

Harrison mastered the Royal Naval timepiece, his Clocks milli - second to none,
One twin-son sailor could trip to the tropics, (you Just point the clock to the sun),
Einstein went on to explain in great detail - that Were this twin shot from a gun, then
Speed-of-light-logic decrees when he flew past, his Brother was old but him young!!

I like the idea of fishing, Spin a few yarns and wide tails,
I like to make-believe holding my fishes to Show they were damned nearly whales,
Einstein would have me face forward, (Given the windspeed in gales),
Otherwise fishes would foreshorten speedwise, iMagine elliptical scales !!

Black holes are mean cosmic cannibals, Eating up prodigal suns,
Light rays refuse to escape from their surface, mmm -Much like my burnt raisin buns,
Einstein explained it quite simply, "Teaspoonfuls weigh in the tons",
Denser than rockcakes, - can you imagine it ??! - Crushed by a handful of crumbs!!

Then there’s our old friend Prof Heizenburg, He of uncertainty theory,
States in a nutshell precision in speed means that Place and position get bleary,
That should imply a policeman might cry, even make cycle cops teary!
"Sir you were booked at precisely mack 1.5....Streetname’s been entered as ‘??query’". !!

Hard to imagine how they would have felt, exPlaining to men (stubborn mules!),
After they’d preached of their blackholed, uncertaintized, relative, fringe-dwelling rules,
Can’t you just picture it, Einstein and Herzy, Wobbling around on barstools,
"Audience laughed ven there vasn’t a joke, - Mein Gott!!  vott a kreat pack of fools!".


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## 2020hindsight (5 November 2006)

LESSONS FROM THE INMATES OF THE ARK

Teach me (first steps) how to count, teach me ABC,
Teach me M  that stands for monkey, how to climb a tree;
-Teach me 'bout the 3 small pigs,
-Warn of wolves and Mr Bigs,
-How to join in playground gigs, 
Bullies, friends and me.

Take a tired tardy tortoise, take a boasting hare,
Teach me that a puffed-up chest is just a bag of air;
-Teach me how to persevere,
-Dawn till dusk till goal is clear,
-Humbly face flamboyant sneer,
Bravely face a dare.

Take a slab of sleeping grizzly, take some bullhorns large,
Teach me when to hibernate, teach me when to charge;
-Teach me horse’s flowing manes,
-Over fields where freedom reigns,
-Teach me Clydesdale’s willing chains,
Pulling on a barge.

Teach me porpoise sense of humour, leaping sunlight beams,
Teach me antlike industry to play my part in teams;
-Teach me canine gratitude,
-Cute koala attitude 
-Longitude and latitude of 
Gum-tip flavoured dreams.

As my education blossoms, teach me ways of dove,
Teach me truth and honesty as seen from up above;
-Teach me to out-fox the beagle,
-Teach me to out-dove the eagle,
-Teach me gentle, teach me regal,
Teach me how to love.

Let me learn to sing with whales,  echo-friendly bark,
Teach me twenty thousand tales of inmates of the Ark;
-Let me learn to know them better, 
-Whether whale or Irish setter,
- Make “EXTINCT” a silent letter- 
Then I’ll disembark.


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## 2020hindsight (5 November 2006)

I'm just posting a few poems here that I have already posted in other threads. Trust that's ok Joe. This is one I wrote after I tried to sell imported solar powered windmills etc (toys) in the 80's - lost a lost of money- the concept was a bit new then - I'm a hopeless salesman lol - but maybe I learnt a better lesson. 

THE SUNSHINE SALEMAN

Lady would you like to buy the soul of a sunrise, Chirping from the treetops, yodelling its birth; 
Melt in the mellow of its crystal fragrance - Christened with a dewdrop - Guess how much it's worth. 
Well....Normally they retail for about ten a penny, Depending on the packaging and somewhat on the style, 
But.. mmm. 'Sposing that you promise to embrace it just a moment, 
It's yours...for the price of a wakening smile. 

Lady can I tempt you with the nectar of a noontime , Listen to the honeybees, busy buzzing by.. 
"Bright gold sunshine lady, hug yourself an armful , Flowers at your ankles, Fire in the Sky" 
Well.. Normally again it is really quite expensive, Litres cost a Lire, and a gallon costs three, 
But .. mmm 'Sposing that you promise to look just once skyward, 
and Tune in to the laughter.. then its all yours free. 

Lady have you watched in the sobbing of a sunset , How Apollo staggers , how his blood spills, 
Nestles in his grave in the far horizon , Bitter sweet death in the western hills. 
Now.. Best price I can give you on the master's magic - Last rites included - is a dime for two; 
But.. mmm 'Sposing on your face I see just one tear of gratitude - 
My sale has been rewarded, and that tear will do.


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## 2020hindsight (5 November 2006)

This one also posted elsewhere.  I always wanted to say "tone up the E string and tone down the hate" - but as usual there were constraints imposed due to squeezing it into a "few lines of verse".  

HOW DO YOU JUDGE 

How do you judge a small boy, born in bedlam, and brought up on bullet and bomb,
And forced to take sides since his age 4 or 5, with rebel or junta or com - 
how Different from sons who grabbed rusty old guns, and told to report to the Somme?
yet They were our heroes - Aussies or Austrian, Prussian or Polish or Pom?
	Empathy mate, he’s a victim of fate,
	Teach him guitar 'stead of military gait,
	Half a chance gladly, he'd tone down the hate
Gladly swap rifle for song.

How do you judge when a father steals bread, and feeding his child’s his objective,
How do you measure the pain in his head, against some divine law directive, 
how Different from coots who wear grey flannel suits, and somehow avoid the detective?,
and Rob us all blind, and yet they can find a loophole from public invective?.
	Empathy, friends, for the child must be fed,
	Half a chance, gladly, he's elsewhere instead,
	Tolerance, friends, the alternative's ‘dead ‘
and Hunger is hardly elective.

How do you judge an old man wearing rags, who reckons he lived to the letter, 
Alternative place or alternative race, it all could have been so much better,
Alternative time he’d be getting by fine, instead he’s a vagrant and debtor,
how Different from chaps where the dice won perhaps? - but dice have made him a regretter.
	Half a chance gladly he’d rise from the mud, 
	Guilty but huge mitigations m’lud,
	Empathy - there but for fortune’s my blood (brother)
Him wearing rags, me jet setter.

What do we do with this empathy savoured, and tolerance practiced in kind?
Live 20 lives which are various-flavoured, and give twice the kindness you find,
Only so much that one mortal can do - even one kindness-inclined,
Only so much  - but a thought born of fairness will help keep your goalposts aligned -  
	Follow the truth (and on this never budge)  
	Constantly giving your conscience a nudge,	
	Walk a brief mile in his shoes, don't prejudge, (and let)
Prejudice wither on vine.


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## 2020hindsight (5 November 2006)

Rather than continue to "repost" poems already here on other threads - here's a new one - light hearted for a change   (I should add - they don't come any lighter than this lol)

THE X-RATED GOSSIP MAGAZINE

there's this Mag that they sell at the Best and Less, X-Rated and full of hot gossip,
but Y one would buy it is anyone's guess, I'd rather play poker or tossup!
"what Happens in back seats"; "Madonna with big teats", and "Harry caught kissing the cooks",
please Lord, will the tell us, the reason they sell us, these Twisted excuses for books!

I Read just one story, half love yarn, half war-y, and Three-quarteres sad soapie serial, 
he Kissed her, he pissed her off, then it got gory, now Ain't that just front page material !
he Fed 'er on stir fried, and bed er on Smerfhide, he Lead 'er on something quite shameless,
and Julia roberts has a "habit" with hobbits, and - She was so totally blameless!

this Mag's monthly feature - some lessons to teach ya - "have Sex on a sixty foot swing" !
one Problem, uncanny, if you fall on your fanny, it Loses a bit of its zing!
and Features on lost love, and creatures who lust love, and Filmstars caught bonking in trees, 
and Liz takes here chance with her eighteenth romance, and Britney plays rabbit for cheese.

the Centrepage folds out - with "Tom Cruise just holes out, with new girlfriend Miss "such-and such"
and There's sweet Nicole at the Hollywood Bowl, all gift-wrapped with bows  round her crutch, -
each Cameraman fights for exclusive first rights, to a Weekend of snipering royals,
a Pat for red setter, he met her, he let her, -  and, ooops, now she's sporting these boils. 

the Pages are usual-ly filthy from prying, from fingers of curious wowsers,
too Stingy to offer to actual buying both Petrol and "goss" "at the bowsers";
"bill's Marriage has split up"; "some Stage girl's ass lit up"; and "Tommy Jones straddling his wife", 
the Sleeze they could edit out- she-Said-it,  he let-it-out,  C'Mon there lads - please .. "GET A LIFE!"


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## 2020hindsight (5 November 2006)

Finally one about discipline! and today's disobedient kids! and electric eels !! - (those things used for unbocking sewer pipes) 

CORN KERNELS FOR THE COLONEL

i’ve Just come from wrestling an electric eel
down the Side where the loo flush goes
it’s One of those jobs where you work by feel
with a Peg on the end of your nose
then you Wash your hand – and you wash your hands – 
And then, after you burn you clothes,
then you Wash em again – and again – and again, 
Then? You wash em again I suppose.

now to Recap slightly, when I was a lad
i was Forced to eat my corn,
and to Chew it up well, or my folks got mad,
and it Couldn’t be thrown on the lawn,
and if Needs be – DISCIPLINE such as it was -
i was Locked in the loo till I ate it
so i Ate it all up, as much as it was
(though i Still close my eyes and hate it).

my unDisciplined kids have been told “CHEW YOUR CORN”
yet – There,  floating past, today,
was a Grain pristine as the day it was born
not Chewed – not any which way – 
so NOW, there’s a RULE – and Im gonna be strict !!
that i Stand and inspect at the drain
and if ANY darned grain flushes by intact
They can damned-well chew it again !!


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## 2020hindsight (5 November 2006)

TYPICAL OLD FASHIONED LOVE AFFAIR - 16th CENTRURY.

they Met in their teens when the world was green, and their Heads were impetuous yet,
and the Sad forebodings to them unseen, of Montague and Capulet,
and it Grew from fling to zing to keen, to Flames of eternal debt,
till those Flaming brothers intervene, on behalf of the the Gang and the Jet.

at Threat from the mother, of pain to the other, they Parted reluctant sad,
one Day had elapsed - how they missed one another, to a frenzy bordering mad!!,
"THIS SHOULDER", he pleaded to bullying brothers, "CUT IT OFF!! if you so abhore them !!
for it's Wet from her teardrops cried in her blubbering, Sobs - and I ADORE THEM!"

"Cut off my hands!" he insisted again, for they Only want to mould her!
"Cut off my arms!" while I'm locked in this den, for they only want to enfold her!,
"CUT OUT MINE EYES!! poor excuses of men, for they only want to behold her,
"and Do it all now in preference to then - 'fore I Get another hour older."

.............
Well.. she Pictured it all in her fair young mind , that he'd Been severely reduced,
Legless, shoulderless, armless, blind - and she'd STILL NOT been seduced !!
"Poison me brothers!", she said to her kin -.... "ahhh Give that cup here you great NONG!"
then she gulped it - twas real !! - the poison went in !!,
THEN ...the trick knife didn't go "sprong" !!!!!. 

Bleeding and pleading and dying and dead, pitied and sorely shaken up,
her Last dying gasp as he leant o'er her bed.. 
............."Today too late I have waken up"
"Of COURSE they were right !! I now confess, when they Said it would all end in strife,
and i TRIED to tell you - but oh NOOO, you knew best!!....Bloody men, bloody mess, bloody life.!!"

After which ...HE leant back, bellowed "HELL WITH THE REST, SAINT PETER!! who needs formal wife!!
Please mate - best honeymoon suite - two guests!!!" ,
......... and he plunged in his heart with his knife.


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## 2020hindsight (5 November 2006)

One for the forthcoming Ashes matches - apologies it's a bit long, but difficult to drop off any verses without losing the plot - (the doctor sez I lost the plot a long time ago)  

JIMMY AND THE BULL (TEQUILA MOCKING BULL)

young Jimmy Bean was third bat for the local cricket team, and When he put on baggy hat, he’d always rise like cream, 
and When he took the field he’d turn a nightmare to a dream,  a Little overfull of self-esteem -   ……
but…Want some action ? – call for Jimmy Bean.!

now Tommy Sly had been twelfth man for 13 years or more, he’d Tired of bringing drinks out for that tiresome-stuffed-shirt-bore,
he’d Tired of faking niceties with ever-grinning jaw,  but Tommy knew of Jim’s Achille’s flaw – 	….	
as Two-pot-screamers went, he'd win for sure !

when Chance came he was ready, how revenge would taste so sweet,  he Waited till young Jimmy was full thirsty from the heat,
he Knew that Jimmy loved to gulp the icy liquid treat -… 	he Filled the bottle with tequila neat,
..........and Watched and waited from his ringside seat. 

young Jim was none the wiser as he took a giant sip,  he Drained the bottle ultra dry, and licked the final drip,
“that Water’s something elsh, my boy”, he slurred his final quip,  and Tommy grinned and bit his upper lip;…..		
“I strangely feel I'm on Safari trip”.!!

in Midst of pinkish elephants, he cursed and shook his head,  “the Sights you see in Summer ! – must’ve fallen outta bed! ”
and draggng bat, he took the field, his eyeballs flashing red,  “oK schaps, lesh resume the mash”, he said,….	
“so Led err rippp!!”   :silly: - and in the bowler sped.

as Ball came zooming into sight, tequila took control,  he Suddenly wore Spanish tights in some weird Bullfight role,
and instantly his hanky changed to Matador’s red stole!!  he Cried “OLE” and whirled his cloak with soul -….. 	
and Wickets smashed as redball took its toll. 	

a Burping hiccup bubbled up and, staring bleary-eyed, the Laughing fielders doubled up with chuckles he espied.
and No way any Matador could tolerate his pride, so Trampled on – He took a giant stride,……		
and Kicked the nearest fielder up the Clyde.

“now Hang orn,  thatt's nort cricket!!” said the umpire with a pout,  “and Furthermore, when bails come orrff you’re very clarely out!!”;
“ahh – Don’t tork bulldust” said young Jim “Thas not what itsh about !!
"There’s bludy BULLS man, BIG ONES all about!! 
This calls for men of courage – hearts of Stout!!!”

...............
It Happened that a Brahman bull escaped that very day, and Wandered to the cricket pitch and into Jimmy’s fray,
and Half the fielders soiled their pants, and some went instant grey, and as the other players ran to pray	,		
DEFIANTLY, ALONE JIM YELLED .... “OLE!!!”		

the Bull caught sight of Jim’s mad stare, and hanky in the sun,  and Clawing dust returned the dare, and snorted like a gun,
and Rounded on this Don Quixote with his 20 ton,  and Thundered down the bowler’s starting run, !!
and Thundered down the 20 yards as one. !!

With head like charf, and legs like mince, and feeling not one pain, Jim Sidestepped unconvincingly, as steed went past like train,
and Poked it with a wicket when it charged in yet again,  and yet again “take that , and that", yelled “touchÃ©” with each feign 	
and finally the poor ole bull it did a hamstring strain,  and Finally ….it chose to just -  abstain……..,		
“next Time” it puffed “I’ll pick on someone sane”!.

from Safe-enclosured clubhouse floor, high in the Member’s stand,  the Other teammates watched in awe at Jimmy’s efforts grand,
and Now he’s hailed as hero for his mighty courage gland, and No more bulls nor “Cloud Nine Cuckoo Land”,….	
and Neat tequila’s definitely banned.

at Day’s end Jim knew little – just one God Alghty blurr, the Pitch was deeply furrowed and the whole thing strewn with fur,
but Jimmy argued gallantly a case of “Force Majeure”,  and Next week they resumed at “where-we-were” …. 	
that Drink’s-break – when young Jim began to slur.


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## 2020hindsight (5 November 2006)

ALCOHOL vs ADRENALIN

Thoughts on Jimmy's courage :-
1. Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice - Samual Johnson 1709-1784(or drunken stupidity in Jimmys case  )
2. The more wit, the less courage. -  Thomas Fuller 1608 - 1661 (someone once told me that the best I could hope for was 50-50, i.e. half-courage, and half-wit.)
3.  Courage is walking naked through a cannibal village - Leonard Louis Levinson   -  (whereas a half wit walks fully clothed into a shower). 
4. The nation had the lion's heart. I had the luck to give the roar. - Winston Churchill. (and he was pissed a lot of the time ) - imho sir. - sorry irrelevant and irreverant 
5. In the following, Gordon compares two types of courage,  one from the stimulant of the bottle, one from the stimulant of the "saddle tree" (I would say a comparison of  alcohol vs adrenelin :-  the second you like to remember - the first you strictly cant forget because you cant bludy remember it in the first place !!) :-

on Booze vs Exhileration :-
from YE WEARY WAYFARER, FYTTE III
A Treatise on the Vine Tree vs the Saddle Tree. - Adam Lindsay GORDON

I reMember some words my father said, when I was an urchin vain,
god Rest rest his soul in his narrow bed, these ten long years have lain
when I Think one drop of the blood he bore, this faint heart surely must hold
it May be my fancy and nothing more, but the faint heart seemeth bold.

he Said that as from the blood of the grape, or from juice distilled from the grain,
false Vigour, soon to evaporate, is leant to nerve and brain,
so the Coward will dare on a gallant horse, what he never would dare alone,
beCause he exults in a borrowed force, and a hardihood not his own.

and it May be so, yet this difference lies 'twixt the vine and the saddle-tree,
the Spurious courage that drink supplies, sets our baser passions free,
but the Stumulant which the horseman feels when he gallops fast and straight,
to his Better nature most appeals and charity conquers fate. 

as the Kindly sunshine thaws the snow, even malice and spite will yield
we could Almost welcome our mortal foe, in the saddle by flood and field
..........
now Tell me for once old horse of mine grazing round me loose and free,
does your Ancient equine heart repine for a burst of such companie...


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## 2020hindsight (5 November 2006)

THE HORSE's PERSPECTIVE !!
How strongly can I recommend you read this poem. ? let's just say it is a classic - the horse's perspective of a cavalry charge. !! 
"And there may be more links ’twixt the horse and his rider
    Than ever your shallow philosophy guess’d. "

Herewith some excerpts :-
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/w...dsay/verse/SeaSpraySmokeDrift/kettledrum.html

LAY OF THE LAST CHARGER  (A.L, Gordon)

one Line of swart profiles and bearded lips dressing,
    one Ridge of bright helmets, one crest of fair plumes,
one Streak of blue sword-blades all bared for the fleshing,
    one Row of red nostrils that scent battle-fumes. 
........

One was there leading by nearly a rood,
    Though we were racing he kept to the fore,
Still as a rock in his stirrups he stood,
    High in the sunlight his sabre he bore. 

Suddenly tottering, backwards he crash’d,
    Loudly his helm right in front of us rung;
Iron hoofs thunder’d, and naked steel flash’d
    Over him””youngest, where many were young
..........

our Numbers were few, and our loss far from small,
    they could Fight, and, besides, they were twenty to one;
we were Clear of them all when we heard the recall,
    and Thus we returned, but my tale is not done. 

for the Hand of my rider felt strange on my bit,
    he Breathed once or twice like one partially choked,
and Sway’d in his seat, then I knew he was hit;””
    he Must have bled fast, for my withers were soak’d, 

and Scarcely an inch of my housing was dry;
    i Slacken’d my speed, yet I never quite stopp’d,
ere he Patted my neck, said, “Old fellow, good-bye!”
    and Dropp’d off me gently, and lay where he dropp’d! 

ah, Me! after all, they may call us dumb creatures””
    i Tried hard to neigh, but the sobs took my breath,
yet i Guess’d gazing down at those still, quiet features,
    he was Never more happy in life than in death. 

..........
scoff, Man! egotistical, proud, unobservant,
    since I with man’s grief dare to sympathise thus;
why Scoff?””fellow-creature I am, fellow-servant
    of God, can man fathom God’s dealings with us? 

the Wide gulf that parts us may yet be no wider
    than That which parts you from some being more blest;
and there May be more links ’twixt the horse and his rider
    than Ever your shallow philosophy guess’d. 

you are Proud of your power, and vain of your courage,
    and your Blood, Anglo-Saxon, or Norman, or Celt;
though your Gifts you extol, and our gifts you disparage,
    your Perils, your pleasures, your sorrows we’ve felt. 

we, Too, sprung from mares of the prophet of Mecca,
    and Nursed on the pride that was born with the milk,
and Filtered through “Crucifix”, “Beeswing”, “Rebecca”,
    we Love sheen of scarlet and shimmer of silk.

we, Too, sprung from loins of the Ishmaelite stallions,
    we Glory in daring that dies or prevails;
from ’Counter of squadrons, and crash of battalions,
    to Rending of blackthorns, and rattle of rails. 

in All strife where courage is tested, and power,
    from the Meet on the hill-side, the horn-blast, the find,
the Burst, the long gallop that seems to devour
    the Champaign, all obstacles flinging behind, 

to the Cheer and the clarion, the war-music blended
    with War-cry, the furious dash at the foe,
the Terrible shock, the recoil, and the splendid
    bare Sword, flashing blue, rising red from the blow. 

..............
did he See? could he feel through the faintness, the numbness,
    while Linger’d the spirit half-loosed from the clay,
dumb Eyes seeking his in their piteous dumbness,
    dumb Quivering nostrils, too stricken to neigh? 

and What then? the colours reversed, the drums muffled,
    the Black nodding plumes, the dead march and the pall,
the Stern faces, soldier-like, silent, unruffled,
    the Slow sacred music that floats over all! 

......

it May be,””we follow, and though we inherit
    our Strength for a season, our pride for a span,
say! Vanity are they? vexation of spirit?
    not So, since they serve for a time horse and man. 

they Serve for a time, and they make life worth living,
    in Spite of life’s troubles””’tis vain to despond;
oh, Man! WE at least, WE enjoy, with thanksgiving,
    god’s Gifts on this earth, though we look not beyond. 

you Sin, and you suffer, and we, too, find sorrow,
    perChance through your sin””yet it soon will be o’er;
we Labour to-day, and we slumber to-morrow,
    strong Horse and bold rider!””and who knoweth more?


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## insider (6 November 2006)

Beans BEans they're good for your heart
the more you eat the more you fart

CHARMING


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## insider (6 November 2006)

You can try different variations...

shares shares they're good for your heart
the more you buy the more you fart :


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## 2020hindsight (6 November 2006)

insider said:
			
		

> Beans BEans they're good for your heart
> the more you eat the more you fart  CHARMING



Lol, vitamin F mate - works a charm.  

FOOD for ACNE and ZULUS.

If we read what we're pitched, food is protein-enriched
So we'll flatten our feeble opponents,
And its only a matter - without getting fatter -
(and planning and forethought - and fish without batter)
of feeding our fragment components.

Once a vitamin A kept my acne at bay
now a B helps my back in romance,
and a vitamin C keeps me calmly carefree
- but a D makes me drop all and dance.
And a vitamin E keeps my eyelids goo-free
and an F keeps be flatulent - frugal,
and a G helps my golf, helps my hipsters revolfe,
And an H helps me swim like Geoff Hugal.

And a J keeps the jetpropelled motor in tune,
and a K keeps me kool under stress,
and the L lets me love neath the ivory moon
till the Missus's makeup's a mess.
For the Potion of life is a passionate wife,
and a Quid for each time that I've said it,
and a vitamin T is the tonic we see,
(assuming no crosseyes and sobriety)
when we wink to each other - on credit.

And if that doesn't work, then Viagras the lurk
As the smiling results are attested.
Or - there's one final lulu - that's used by the Zulu,
(they sell it in drums called "labido refueloo")
(it's made from the bladders of warthog and mooloo)
[editor's note:...large herbivore, moos, rhymes with zulu]
(it was much in demand by those men who play "pu-loo"
[editor's note:...snobbish game played on horses,ditto]
...
but careful, you might be arrested.


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## 2020hindsight (6 November 2006)

I don't know if you remember, but the latest war on Iraq was announced just b4 the Daylight saving weekend, 2003. - when the clocks are wound back 1 hour. Like, we live the same 60 minutes twice. (like in the autumn/fall - as in "Spring forward, Fall back").

THE HOUR OF WISDOM

What did you do with THAT hour, my friend 
That they granted us all last night?
The "lonnng" weekend that they give us each year
When they tell us the clocks just aren't right?
Well, me, I dreamt me a word : "de-ja-vise"
Its a mixture of de, ja, and vu, 
And the verb to be, and the will to be wise, 
And the skill to revise in review.

So at 2am Mickey's big hand is wound back 
And a full 60 minutes is turned,
And I dreamt the next hour, every thought intact, 
Cos I'd done it before and I'd learned.
- Like at 1.15a the first time round, 
I stood on a floorboard that creaked
So at 1.15b, there was no single sound, 
- I knew where to tread cos Id peaked.

And at 1.20a I took the left road, 
And at 1.20b took the right,
And at 1.30a I found myself lost, 
And at 1.30b saw the light.
And at 1.40a the words came out wrong, 
And at 1.40b they were kinder,
And in all "second takes" I rewrote my mistakes, 
Where I’d tied up my thumb as reminder. 

With this power, we get it so right, my friend
So different when second guessed, 
But the word only lasted THAT hour, my friend
And I’m back in confusion confessed.
There was just one more - they were closing the door
On my dream that was turning to smoke,
Cos with one second more - someone started a war, 
And the second time round, 
...I just cant be sure, 
...Did they do it again, please please I implore,
Noooooooooooo, my wisdom was gone
....I awoke.

PS It was only "Fall" for Sth hemishere - maybe USA didnt have the luxury of such a hour of wisdom.


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## 123enen (6 November 2006)

Found this on the web. Written by a 14 year old girl.


"HI, my name is Cortney Creamer. I live in Mansfeld Ohio. I am 14. Here is a poem I wrote.

Was the night before Christmas, he lived all alone
In a one bedroom house made of plaster and stone. 
I had come down the chimney with presents to give
And to see just who in this home did live. 

I looked all about, a strange sight I did see
No tinsel, no presents, not even a tree.
No stocking by the mantle just boots filled with sand
On the wall hung pictures of far distant lands.

With medals and badges, awards of all kinds.
A sober thought came through my mind. 

For this house was the home of a soldier.

once i could see clearly, the soldier lay sleeping, silent, alone
curled up on the floor in this one bedroom home.
the face was so gentle, the room in such disorder
not how i pictured the home of  a soldier.

was this the hero of whom i'd just read? 
curled up on a poncho, the floor for a bed?
I realized the families that i saw this night 
owed their lives to these soldiers all willing to fight. 

soon, round the world the children would play 
and grownups would celebrate a bright christmas day. 
they all enjoyed freedom each month of the year
because of the soldiers like the one lying here.

I couldn't help wonder how many lay alone, 
on a cold christmas in a land far from home.
the very thought brought a tear to my eye
i dropped to my knees and started to cry. 

The soldier awakened and i heard a rough voice, 
"santa don't cry, this life is my choice.
I fight for freedom, i don't ask for more
my life is my god, my country, my corps.
the soldier rolled over and drifted to sleep
I couldn't control it, i continued to weep. 

I kept watch for hours, so silent and still
and we both shivered from the night's cold chill.
I didn't want to leave on that cold, dark night
this guardian of honor so willing to fight.

then the soldier rolled over, with a voice soft and pure whispered, "carry on santa, it's christmas day: all is secure.
"one look at my watch and i knew he was right.
"merry christmas my friend and to all a good night.""


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## 2020hindsight (6 November 2006)

123enen said:
			
		

> Found this on the web. Written by a 14 year old girl.



Gr8 poem 123 - I think I'd add the word "allegedly" written by 14 yr old.

Why do I think probably older? 15 at least lol?
words like "corps" - of course tieing Santa to recognition of the military ... mmm incrediblly politically savvy kid lol. 

eg "I fight for freedom, i don't ask for more
my life is my god, my country, my corps."

BUT I'd prefer not to be the one to get political on this thread tho
We've gotta try to keep at least one thread around here neutral to that sorta thing.  
Gr8 poem mate - lets assume 14 yr old, and very patriotic - as kids tend to be in USA.  - Not much different to CJ Dennis's "Digger Smith" - and soldiers who returned home from WWI to live a reclusive life. (poor bugas - we owe em bigtime)  post #49 :-

"But there was debts we can't repay
Piled up on us one single day --
When that first list come out.
There ain't no way to pay that debt.
Do wot we can - there's somethin' yet"

PS wierd isn't it -  If that poem had started "my name is charlie and I live in Bourke" then I probably wouldnt have challenged it as I did - what is it about US credibility at the moment? - I probably owe that kid from Ohio an apology


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## 2020hindsight (7 November 2006)

seriously trivial cra* this one  - but then again maybe some housewife out there can empathise with this poor chicken lol.

MOTIVES OF ROAD CROSSING CHICKENS 

Why did the chicken cross over that road? There's one I've pondered before -
Can't recall what the right answer was then, Sure that I'm still quite unsure. 
Maybe a poem can discover the cause, Sprawling in wild speculation; 
Superimpose some old jaywalking laws, Cross-refer chicken migration. 

Easiest answer is this side's pecked out, There it's much greener and wormier; 
Lacking such evidence this is in doubt, Why not adventurous journeyer? 
Praps it's a call from a far distant friend, Drives on each homesickened leg; 
Praps in her henhood her heart needs to mend, Henhood regression to egg. 

Praps she's rebelled, tired of munching on meal, Spitting out eggs in some hut; 
'Part from the fact that it drains all her zeal, Eggs are a pain in the butt. 
Praps she read somewhere that traveled minds broaden, Gain almost mystic dimension; 
Praps she's discovered some gap in the cordon, Praps pure escape's her intention. 

Praps she's just itchin' to leap from some kitchen bench, Worldly ways make worldly wise; 
Praps its an eyeful of Eiffel inspires her, That and a hundred odd spires. 
Praps she's just tired of a life passing by, like Trucks on a long endless run; 
Beethoven had just one UNfinished symphony, She's now Hell bent to have none. 

Who knows "the why" in that small chicken breast,  Prancing on drumsticks like Sherpas? 
But .. 
Certain I am that its genesis rests in some Fowl   or impeckable   purpose.


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## 2020hindsight (7 November 2006)

GOLD BLUDY FEVER

Johnny found a gold pan , lying near a stream,
Johnny shook some mud around & thought he saw a gleam,
Pulse became a Latin dance and life a grinning dream,  
Since then Johnny's featured in a mental health scheme.!! -
Double check the barricades and lock the little lever,
Johnny's gotta bad case of gold bludy fever.

Billy found a slot machine and stuck in twenty cents
Watched eleven little lemons line up like a fence
Coin-tray just kept overflowing, even filled the Gents,
Billy got a funny look… - then popped his common sense !!- 
Straight jacket over here, he's singing like a diva,
Here's another case of the gold bludy fever.

Dave and missus found a seat be-side the roulette table
"Check out all the colours here!" he said to his Mabel,
Put on all his chips like a tower of bludy Babel, and 
THAT's where it landed! - and they all became unstable.!!
Tie em up with two inch rope and hide the meat cleaver,
Two more blatant cases of the gold bludy fever.

Molly found a ticket in a lot-to draw,
Headed home and kicked the TV, guess what sight she saw?,
There were all her numbers rolling out the little door,
Now she's in a home crying 	"MORE MORE MORE!!"
Pick up any telephone and tell the nice receiver,
”GIVE A BLUDY MISS TO THE GOLD BLUDY FEVER".

Get a dose of common cold, 	lasts about a week,
Get a dose of flu' you'll find you're temporary "meek",
But get the ole gold fever, you'll go madder than a Shiek,
And then it's all downhill my friend, you're past your bludy peak.!!
Work from nine to five my friend, like eager bludy beaver,
Forget the bludy gold or you'll catch its bludy fever.


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## 2020hindsight (7 November 2006)

TRICKS I PICKED UP AT THE BOOKSHOP 

Once at the bookshop I spied a wee book - "How to get wealthy - Please buy it" 
Nothing to lose so I took a wee look  - Spasms took hold and my ears and nose shook, Hip-pocket nerve just came right off the hook , 
Cross-eyed I yelled out " I'LL TRY IT !!". 

Next morning early I jumped out of bed, with Gold pan and ripe for adventures 
Ran to some creek where some local path lead , Swirled the pan twice and then threw back my head , "Gold EVRYwhere !!!... woops - forget what I said" , 
There staring back were my dentures... 

Tried the casino (I'd practiced my dice) , Craps table onslaught my plan, 
Thought to myself well a 6 would be nice , Shane-Warne-like runup with spin should suffice , After I'd leg-breaked three chairs, then two vice 
squad and , Bouncers appeared - and I ran. 

Next door had bandits (one armed) like a zoo , (no members badge so I made up one) 
Found me a lever, said "this one will do" , Lemons went blurring past, oranges too , No coins came out so I staged a small coup, 
Half-nelson tortured, it paid up one. 

Walking back homeward I found me a school , Held on some Sundays on corners 
Some call it "Two-up" - all male as a rule , Someone said "throw the coins skyward you fool" , Heaved , and they landed in some neighbour's pool, 
I Left them all looking like mourners. 

Ready to give up, I found some old shares, Thrown out - some company was folding ; 
Went to the board meeting , one of three there , Someone elected me GM and Chair , Next day they struck oil god-Only-knows-where , 
Four million bucks I was holding. !!

so…..Now I am writing my own book (or three) , "How to get wealthy - I did it" 
..."Carefully constructed, this book holds the Key, Follow the wisdom and rules to a tee".. (Some say that luck played a small part for me , 
- But don't expect me to admit it.)


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## 2020hindsight (8 November 2006)

SEVEN DAYS TO MAKE IT, SEVEN DAYS TO BREAK IT.

On Monday I woke to a world of “green”
And I walked in a forest grand,
And the trees were as tall as I’d ever seen,
So I felled the whole lot with one hand;

On Tuesday I thought about CO2,
But the weather was too damned hot,
So I sat in my airconditioned zoo,
And I revved ‘em for all that they’ve got;

On Wednesday I looked at my acres of  dust,
and my bores and my roots and my toil,  
But I must've screwed up cos a salty crust
was killing my rooted soil.

On Thursday I drove in my 5 litre bus,
Cos there’s plenty of oil!! – it’s my turn !!
And the birds can get plastered with thick black pus,
And so what if the oilwells burn;

On Friday I didn’t recycle because
I treated it all as a joke…….
And on Saturday, Hell, the wheels fell off,
And on Sunday ……it went up in smoke.


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## 2020hindsight (8 November 2006)

THE QUANDARY OF THE SILENT TREE IN THE FOREST, 

if a “Tree should fall” in some far off sprawl,
was a Sound made unless it was heard??
if I live, deaf and dumb, in the bush unsawn,
do I Sing my songs undeterred,
and if Song to be sung isn’t heard to be sung,
is it Song or merely mime?
and if Mime isn’t  seen, is it mime or dream,
and if Dream, is it mine or thine??


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 November 2006)

REUNION OF MANKIND

supPosin’ you found a Blarney stone,  that granted one wish if you ask
like a Gifted year on permanent loan , and nothin too great a task,
I Wonder which option of thousands we’d choose , and if Bronze or silver or gold
or Affairs of the heart or courage or booze,  or Whether it’s humble or bold.

a Family reunion is one thought that comes , to Mind – coz it matters to me
and my Granfathers’ dads and my grandmothers’ mums , and Back through the family tree,
and Each little branch and leaf and twig ,  and Paleozoan “thing”
and Peasant and pauper and pirate and prig ,  and Kinsman and knight and King.

for my Grandfather’s grandfather’s grandfather’s dad , was a Grandson himself in his day,
and I’m Sure that he finds it a wee bit sad , that he Didn’t meet us on the way,
so we’d Give him a place at  the head (near the men’s) , with a Big stick to bang on the ground
and a Hearing aid maybe and bifocal lens , and a Map of the world that is round.

and we’ll Roll the dice for a year long since gone , and the Theme would regress to suit
but the Gallery of offspring would still tag along , and could Watch to discuss and to “root”
“good to Meet you old man”, “take a seat here near Gran” , “what an honour madam to shake hands”
“wow the Same nose and chin”, “why, hellooo Gunga Din”, “my-o My ! – from so many far lands”.

and we’d Chat on regardless for months at a time , and of Things that we’d learnt from life
with Grandpa Neandathol learning to mime , and Promising “me no club wife”,
and Attillah the Hun would be served only “lights”  , and he’d Grin at his varied descendants
with some Businessmen there mid the fiercest fights , and some Nun’s here adjusting their pendants.

yep I Reckon I’d really enjoy such a year , if my Wish could come true as described
but withOut it I’ll just have to smile through my beer , and to Talk to my “fellow-imbibed” 
and to Listen to strangers and people I meet , - no Help from such kind wishing wells
and in Any case, .....
Hell, the “man in the street”  , is Probably one of my rels!!!. 

(SURE to be one of my rels,  more like, lol) 
PS Everything's relative as they say.
Where I come from everyone's a relative as well.
Go to family reunions to pick up chicks lol.


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 November 2006)

ADVICE TO AN HEIR TO FICKLE FORTUNE

Son I recall a good year maybe two -you were just a child at my knee
and the land that we see which Ill give to you is the same that was given to me
In those years my boy we'd just fenced the back paddock with gum posts and strained the barbed wire 
But then son no sooner we laid down the mattock - than that was the year of the fire.

Son I recall when we built the top shed, and we'd spent all our funds on planting
The sun got so hot that the calves dropped dead, and the dogs just sat around panting
We watched as the shoots came up and then wilted, and fell back as infants slain
And that was the year that the billabong silted, and the first of ten without  rain.

Son I must leave now, good luck on this plot, just bury me, six feet of toil
Near where my father was laid to rot, though his soul lives on in this soil
The year that he died son, the rainclouds went mad, and wept till the land became mud
And it kept on raining till good turns bad - and that was the year of the flood.

Son I must leave now, good luck on this plot, I hope it gets kinder with time
Son dont forget that the sheep must be shot, when the salty ground looks like lime
Son dont forget that the first sign of strife is dead trees - like those over there - 
And son, for God's sake - though it costs you your life - dont pass to your son to bear.

....
son, make a vow on the kiss of your wife ...dont pass to your son and heir.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 November 2006)

http://www.stlyrics.com/songs/j/joseph15191/pharaosdreamexplained406661.html
Speaking of biblical predictions of drought durations etc...and of course the grasshopper mentality of preparing for it.
When you sing this you have to impersonate Elvis - Hencewise (I guess?) it's titled the Song of the King 

SONG OF THE KING (to JOSEPH)

Well I was wandering along by the banks of the river - When seven fat cows came up out of the Nile, uh-huh
And right behind these fine healthy animals came - Seven other cows, skinny and vile, uh-huh
Well the thin cows ate the fat cows which I - Thought would do them good, uh-huh
But it didn't make them fatter like such - A monster supper should
Well the thin cows were as thin - As they had ever, ever, ever been
.....
Well this dream has got me baffled - Hey, Joseph, won't you tell me what it means?
Well you know that kings ain't stupid - But I don't have a clue
So don't be cruel Joseph - Help me I beg of you

Well I was standing doing nothing in a field out of town - When I saw seven beautiful ears of corn, uh-huh
They were ripe, they were golden and - You've guessed it, Right behind them came seven other ears, Tattered and torn, uh-huh - 
Well the bad corn ate the good corn - They came up from behind yes they did
Now Joseph here's the punch line - It's really gonna blow your mind, baby - 
Well the bad corn was as bad as it had ever, ever ever been - 
....
Well this dream has got me all shook up - Treat me nice and tell me what it means....
Hey, hey, hey Joseph !!!!
Won't you tell poor old Pharaoh !!!!
What does this crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy dream mean?
Oh, yeah 


PHARAO's DREAM EXPLAINED  (JOSEPH)

Seven years of bumper crops are on their way - Years of plenty, endless wheat and tons of hay
Your farms will boom, there won't be room - To store the surplus food you grow
After that, the future doesn't look so bright - Egypt's luck will change completely overnight
And famine's hand will stalk the land - With food an all-time low
Noble king, there is no doubt - What your dreams are all about
All these things you saw in your pajamas - Are a long range forecast for your farmers
And I'm sure it's crossed your mind -What it is you have to find
Find a man to lead you through the famine - With a flair for economic planning
But who this man could be
I just don't know - Who this man could be
I just don't know - Who this man could be
I just don't know


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## 2020hindsight (9 November 2006)

THE PERSON WHO NEVER MADE A MISTAKE

they Call him the guy immune from mistakes, he's one of the brightest of men,
he Watches his wife as she irons and bakes , and scalds her hand yet again,
"how Stupid" he said to her "I don't come close, to even the slightest burn!!"
so she Tied his leg to the ironing board post, and told him politely "YOUR TURN!"

i've Paid for the right (though through different toil ), to make my share of mistakes
and for Every gold ounce (or barrell of oil) I dug up a mountain of fakes
and so Many live castle-bound, drawbridge-raised, and hope it will all "go away",
and they Fear a decision and easily phased, with the risk of it going "a-gley".

and the Man who never made one mistake, made NAUGHT (or somehow deferred em),
or the Poli that never lost one debate, it's prob'ly cos no-one heard em,
- there's No-one who erred not once in his life,
- be it Staunch theologian - or surgeon with knife
- be it Howard or Blair ....
......... or Dubya's wife!!
reductio ad absurdum.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 November 2006)

Andrew Lloyd Webber .  You hear the songs - they are brilliant in themselves!! - the words are also magic  
As for the second poem "past the point of no return" - I'd say even Lord Byron never got close to this sorta passion lol.  

PS When they bring the Phantom to Sydney, at least we'll have enough in the budget to get the poor ole Phantom a full mask and not just a half like he had to make do with in Melbourne l 



> WISHING YOU WERE SOMEHOW HERE AGAIN - (Lloyd Webber)
> 
> You were once my one companion . . .you were all that mattered . . .
> You were once a friend and father - then my world was shattered . . .
> ...





> http://www.lyricsdownload.com/webber-andrew-lloyd-the-point-of-no-return-lyrics.html
> PAST THE POINT OF NO RETURN (ditto)
> PHANTOM:-...
> 
> ...





> TELL ME ON A SUNDAY (ditto)
> 
> Don't write a letter  - when you want to leave
> Don't call me at 3 a.m. -from a friend's appartment
> ...


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## 2020hindsight (10 November 2006)

Greatest contradiction of the 20th Century - How Michael Crawford could play the role of Frank in "some Mothers do have em - and also the Phantom. 
- and as he said "also in West Side Story - but , just like the Phantom, they wanted me to play a Jet" - funny funny dude and so bludy talented 
Man's a genius!  And when he sings any of Webber's songs (brief sample only in previous post) ... sheesh - such artistry. (imho)


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## 2020hindsight (10 November 2006)

DON’T FOLLOW ME, I'M LOST

Don't follow me, I'm lost-  
Unless you want to try to find, Some freedom from the daily grind, Some place where you can stretch your mind
Or like a salad tossed.

Don’t follow me, I jaywalk,
I usually have my pup in tow, Or viceaversa - hard to know, "Philosophising" as we go
our "easy-lead-astray walk".

Don’t follow me, I'm lost,
I'm walking through a jungle green, The vines are like Jack's tangled bean, It's like a towering wide-eyed dream
Into a land of moss.

Don’t follow me, I'm spaced out,
‘Specially on a sunny day, When dogs and men come OUT TO play, and poetry comes INTO play
and all is interlaced.

Don’t follow me, I'm lost,
Especially when the sunlight rays, Are torchlights through the leafy maze, And as I walk through greens ablaze
It's like a Heaven crossed.

Don’t follow me, I'm dizzy
I force myself to make the time, To taste the fruit of every vine, These gifts of all the Gods combined
And weren't they ever busy.

Don’t follow me, I'm lost,
Especially when I stand in ferns, Just where the creekbed gurgling turns, The soulfood that my heart so yearns
And I am left engrossed.

Don’t follow me, I turn,
When even puppy shows concern, Some relic there, some Grecian urn, I let the trekking brief adjourn 
I let the memory "burn".

Don't follow me, I'm drunk
Intoxicated by the sound, Of Mother Nature all around, And Buddha chanting through the ground
the mantra of a monk.

Don’t follow me, I stray,
My puppy tugs, her eyes are glowed, She's chasing leaves back up the road, The next life she'll be frog, me toad -
If Buddha gets his way. 

Im sorry if these rude retorts 
Have caused offence - on second thoughts.. 
By all means walk with me - but know
That "lost" is standard "Way-To-Go".

By all means walk with me - and yes,
I'm lost, and love it I confess,
I kneel at Nature's altar… blessed,
And (when I'm lost)… I'm twice caressed.
....

And (when I'm lost)… obsessed.


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## 2020hindsight (10 November 2006)

SPIDER AT DUSK

'Twas almost dark when I got home from work, for my customary walk in the bush,
Just a brief exchange with my god - and a gork -  and the joy of the evening shush,
And the leaves were moist from a drizzle of rain, and the air was crisp and fresh,
But there.... confronting my face - so plain, was a dewy and spidery mesh.

I knew my dinner was cooking at home, it was bound to be more than I need,
and this poor little spider was forced to comb the forest air for a feed,
And had I not seen him, his web so exposed, and completely blocking my path,
His chances of rebuilding web 'fore he dozed, would be zilch in that aftermath.

Imagine the work of that web in the sky (for the scrappy meal of a moth),
maybe Three foot wide, maybe five feet high, to break it, imagine the wrath,
My dinner would be a lump of beast, and some corn and some pasta and salad,
And the sad comparison - moth to feast - and to break it! how cruel and invalid.

I surveyed his workmanship there in the gloom, - and WHAT had i done today?
and a voice said "Loafer! - return to your room!, and EARN your curds and whey!"
And I turned and returned to my evening chores (for the day had been far from productive),
But at least I had learnt one of Nature's laws, from my eight legged friend, so constructive.

.....
I had learnt the WILL of those cute hairy paws, 
The patience and SKILL in that gossamer Gauze
Bob the BRUCE, you DILL! Go win your wars !
...
It was all so damned instructive !!!


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 November 2006)

Way back there (#40) I posted a poem that my dad might have written to me.  Here I guess is a reply of sorts. - I mention it purely because it is surely a common wish, a common phenomenon, a common "dream" - to look at a photo of someone who has "shuffled off this moral coil", and to "will them back, if willing could".  - Hopefully I avoid being maudlin  - (as in "excessively sentimental"  , dictionary.com) - last thing I intend. Photo was black-and white .  There was also a tree that he sketched - also black-and-white.   I guess the conclusion is that most memories are in black-and-white, whereas life is in colour.

THE BLACK AND WHITE PHOTO

I stand now where my father stood,
When he sketched through that autumn hot,
And I’d will him back if willing could,
But it can’t, so I’ll will him not;
But I’d love to have watched him pencilling tones
And his ink, and his softer side,
And to tell him the colourful comfort zones,
When I wear his name with pride.

I gaze now where my father gazed,
	Where stood that majestic tree,
Unlike its sketch, now almost erased,
Now a black and white memory;
Just a hint of its former handsome self,
That he sketched as he “convalesced”
And subject and author, like shoemaker’s elf
Have departed at first light, blessed.

I gaze back now at his photo’s gaze
Beside his sketches so wise
And his varied tones in their various greys
And the flashes of light in his eyes,
It’s as if his final sketch was himself,
Like a leaf from that autumn tree,
But it sits, black-and-white, on a lonely shelf,
With his father before him – and me.

The corner is dimly lit – near the phone
And I smile expecting a ring,
But those beautiful colours of autumn are gone
Now the winter awaits a spring;
It’s a waste of good time, and I shouldn’t so think,
But I long to take out the glass pane,
And I long for some magical life-coloured pink
And to paint Dad - and tree - again.

Just some magical life-giving life-coloured ink
	That would pour while we laughed in the rain.


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 November 2006)

THE RUGBY RAINBOW  

in Art, it’s the black of a deep despair, or Otherwise various purples,
in the Bush it’s the charcoal that follows the flare, in Banking it signifies surplus,
in Magic - the colour of evil or error,  in Metals the colour of lead,
but in Rugby the colour of Kiwi terror, cos the Buggers are raw-meat-fed.

in Art it’s the green of youth and trees, and there’s Much in spring it resembles,
to the Greeks (long ago) it meant victories, in Precious stones, its emeralds,
to Some, the symbol of grass and jokes, when the Traffic lights work, it means “GO”,
on the Rugby field, it’s those Wallaby blokes, and the Smoke when their earlobes glow.

in Art, gold’s the glow of Apollo’s Sun,  the Gilt of a valued letter,
while Yellow might mean, well, foolish or fun, the Deeper the gold, it gets better,  
in Spain it’s the executioner’s cloak, and he’s Deaf to the cries for mercy,
and for Omelettes you need a broken yoke,  and for Rugby supreme - a gold jersey.

in Art it’s the colour of blood or gore,  of Fortitude, courage, or bold,
in Love, it’s the colour of deep or pure, or our Heart as we reach to enfold,
in Metals the colour of iron annealed,  the Weapons with which we make war,
and in Rugby the rose of the men of steel, as the Balmy tonsils roar.

in Art it’s the colour of purity, truth,  just as Jesus is painted in whites,
in Precious stones, it’s the pearl in its booth, one of Nature’s most beautiful sights,
in Metals, its silver, but let’s not suppose that Second best prize is conceded,
cos in Rugby its covered with blood - and a rose,  and bare Flesh, before they’re defeated.

so they Take to the field, and the crowd is immersed,  with their Colours “nailed to the mast”
and Who is the first to yield to thirst? and Who is the last to outlast?
and they Smash, and they crash, and they make their dash, and it Blurrs in one bloody great “blue”
cos it’s All abot having a bloody great bash,  in a Bloody great “rainbow stew”.


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## 2020hindsight (10 November 2006)

THERE'S PUDDLES IN THE CREEK  

There's puddles in the creek Mum and there's music in the air,
The dog has gone so loopy it's out-looping Fred Astaire
And I'm not talkin jive, I'm talking Highland fling with flair 
So fling your shoes and join her flight from care, - 
The God of dogs has heard her little prayer.

There's puddles in the creek Mum and it's London to a brick,
It's full of extra vitamins, we'll never more be sick,
It looks and tastes like caramel, you close your eyes and lick,
	At least it's wet, at least it doesn't stick
	So come and dance the ankle-tapper quick.

There's puddles in the creek Mum and a few of 'em are linked,
The crows are crowing loudly it’s the best they've ever drinked,
The grass is green as dollarsigns just when we thought we're sinked,
The brinksmanship's the closest that we've brinked
I just wish dry old creekbeds were extinct. 

A week ago the creekbed was a pile of thirsty stones
A lizard oversunbaked here, and that's his pile of bones
But now the creek is humming like a choir of Xylophones
And birds and lizards staking out their zones, 
 	A mad cacophony of joyous tones.

There's puddles in the creek Mum, and the drought has "sorta" broke
Its just as well cos we were next to go right up in smoke
We almost had to tell the bank to go to hell (and stoke)
And pack up camp and join the city folk
But thanks to puddles that was just a joke.

There's puddles in the creek Mum and the dust has left the trees,
The air is full of moisture and a pleasant zephyr breeze,
The creek smiles as I humbly bend and muddy up my knees … 
	And meanwhile dog lines up a tree and pees - 
No longer need the trees chase dogs for these.


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 November 2006)

Here's another letter (1920) from one of those winging bushies  - asking for a handout 
(Henry Lawson to Clarence James Dennis)
http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/libraries/rare/lawson/dennisfull.html

By the way, here's another earlier letter (1915) - where Dennis asks Lawson for a hand.  "written in response to Dennis's request for Lawson to write the Foreword to the first edition of The Sentimental Bloke".  Helping old buddies out 
http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/authors/denniscj/letters/tocjd/hl19150326.html

I guess since Dennis has no descendants, he was fairly wealthy, whereas Lawson wasnt - the squirrel and the grasshopper I guess. 



> http://www.cultureandrecreation.gov.au/articles/lawson/
> Lawson was born on the Grenfell goldfields in New South Wales on 17 June 1867. He was the son of a Norwegian seaman, Niels Larson, who later changed his name to Peter Lawson.
> 
> In Henry's early years, the family lived on a poor selection in the Mudgee district. Lawson suffered from deafness and was often teased as a result.
> ...




Interesting that in that first letter above, Lawson puts the case that he needs bush clobber - because he would be ASHAMED to go about in a suit looking like a someone from the city.  With some of the attitudes us cityfolk have expressed about the bush, I would be too lol.


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 November 2006)

Clarence (Clarrie or Den) Michael James Stanislaus Dennis was born in Auburn, South Australia on September 7, 1876, to James Dennis and his second wife Catherine. For reasons that are unclear, though which are probably due to the boy's and the mother's ill-health and frailty, Dennis was looked after in his early years by his mother's aunts who lived nearby. In 1883, James Dennis took up the lease on a hotel in Gladstone in South Australia's mid-North and, a couple of years later, moved again, this time seven miles further north to the township of Laura, and the Beetaloo Hotel. 

Dennis's mother died in 1890 leaving his father with 3 sons and a hotel to look after. This was never going to work successfully so two of Kate's unmarried sisters left their home in Mintaro (in the Clare Valley) and moved to Laura to help with the children's upbringing. For some time in his teens Dennis attended the Christian Brothers' College in Adelaide but had returned to Laura by the age of 17. At that time he took a job as a clerk to a local solicitor, and it was during this period that he published his first poem, when 19, titled "The Singular Experiences of Six Sturdy Sportsmen" - which concerned the exploits of Dennis and a group of his mates when lost in the Beetaloo Hills just outside Laura. The verse was published in the local Laura newspaper The Laura Standard. Some time later he worked on the staff of the Critic, an Adelaide weekly newspaper. By the age of 21 he was back in Laura working as a barman in his father's hotel, .....
etc etc -  left Laura for Broken Hill in NSW. etc became writer for Bulletin etcetc. heaps of books.  etc  - At least you know where he learn this okker'isms. 

e.g. "Fellas of Australia, blokes and coves and coots, 
shift your bludy asses, move your bludy boots
get a bloody move on, and get some bloody sense
and learn the bloody art of self de-bloody fence! "
(for memory and probly full of inaccuracies. Also from memory written leading into WW1)

Here's a poem he wrote for kids:-

THE ANT EXPLORER

Once a little sugar ant made up his mind to roam--
To fare away far away, far away from home.
He had eaten all his breakfast, and he had his ma's consent
To see what he should chance to see and here's the way he went--
Up and down a fern frond, round and round a stone,
Down a gloomy gully where he loathed to be alone,
Up a mighty mountain range, seven inches high,
Through the fearful forest grass that nearly hid the sky,
Out along a bracken bridge, bending in the moss,
Till he reached a dreadful desert that was feet and feet across.
'Twas a dry, deserted desert, and a trackless land to tread,
He wished that he was home again and tucked-up tight in bed.
His little legs were wobbly, his strength was nearly spent,
And so he turned around again and here's the way he went--
Back away from desert lands feet and feet across,
Back along the bracken bridge bending in the moss,
Through the fearful forest grass shutting out the sky,
Up a mighty mountain range seven inches high,
Down a gloomy gully, where he loathed to be alone,
Up and down a fern frond and round and round a stone.
A dreary ant, a weary ant, resolved no more to roam,
He staggered up the garden path and popped back home.  

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/16251/16251.txt
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/16251
If you want the full book I suggest download the 103kB uncompressed version


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## chops_a_must (11 November 2006)

Sorry, but I enjoy Ginsberg:

_I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by 
              madness, starving hysterical naked, 
       dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn 
              looking for an angry fix, 
       angelheaded hipsters burning for the ancient heavenly 
              connection to the starry dynamo in the machin- 
              ery of night, 
       who poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat 
              up smoking in the supernatural darkness of 
              cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities 
              contemplating jazz, 
       who bared their brains to Heaven under the El and 
              saw Mohammedan angels staggering on tene- 
              ment roofs illuminated, 
       who passed through universities with radiant cool eyes 
              hallucinating Arkansas and Blake-light tragedy 
              among the scholars of war, 
       who were expelled from the academies for crazy & 
              publishing obscene odes on the windows of the 
              skull, 
       who cowered in unshaven rooms in underwear, burn- 
              ing their money in wastebaskets and listening 
              to the Terror through the wall, 
       who got busted in their pubic beards returning through 
              Laredo with a belt of marijuana for New York, 
       who ate fire in paint hotels or drank turpentine in 
              Paradise Alley, death, or purgatoried their 
              torsos night after night 
       with dreams, with drugs, with waking nightmares, al- 
              cohol and **** and endless balls, 
       incomparable blind; streets of shuddering cloud and 
              lightning in the mind leaping toward poles of 
              Canada & Paterson, illuminating all the mo- 
              tionless world of Time between..._


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 November 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> Sorry, but I enjoy Ginsberg:
> 
> _I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by
> madness, starving hysterical naked,
> ...



_

Sheesh - seriously mmm different lol.
Well sure is a change from the ANT EXPLORER bak there lol.

Here's one I wrote when I was a bit younger - quoted here from memory... just the ghist - It's bludy depressing (bit like yours lol).  Sorry I can't condone drugs   I have seen a friend of one of my teenage sons go down with schizophrenia - I've also spoken to Afghan friends who say that it's well known that heavy users end up as mental cripples,  -  I specially can't condone CIGARETTE companies who are no better than common pushers imho.

THE PUSHER 

In the hurly burly torture - down the backstreets of debauchery
malevolent and menacing the pusher makes his way
they say he's blind to agony, the bodies on the balconies 
the dirt and the depravity, the victims of his play.

The hookers dotted on the street they watch his progress sunken cheeked
a few shake uncontrollably, they call him by to deal
one blind to caution counts her bills from laddered stockings edged with frills 
and gets her shot of countless kills, her brow sweats with its feel.

.........
The morning sun across her floor reveals an arm stretched out for more
a needle still impinging, and a tiny pinhole "gash"
She's neither sad, nor strictly soiled - she's simply   "had her old age foiled"
they carry her outside uncoiled - while pushers count their cash_


----------



## chops_a_must (11 November 2006)

I agree, and that is actually pretty good, I must admit.

Well, if you look at the problems with amphetamine use, as compared to opiate addiction, like the afghans have trouble with, I would rather deal with the opiate problems. (I'm guessing the schizophrenic was a speed addict.)

Not only are you more likely to develop mental problems on speed, you are likely to die in your 30s of heart problems. Bill Burroughs for instance, a well known heroin addict, lived into his 80s. The longevity of opiate addicts doesn't seem to be as much of a problem.


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 November 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> Well, if you look at the problems with amphetamine use, as compared to opiate addiction, like the afghans have trouble with, I would rather deal with the opiate problems. (I'm guessing the schizophrenic was a speed addict.)



It was only pot m8 - This is a common misconception - pot is perfectly capable of inflicting "split personalties".  (well that's the bottomline, but..)

They go on about subtle stupid distinctions that the pot only "TRIGGERED" the disease - it was already there as a latent problem - But the bottom line? the kid wouldn't have the problem today (nor in the future) if he'd stayed away from pot. 

You wanna know what a lovely kid he was? how talented? And by contrast .. now? - the medications help of course  - and he's still a fighter.  But my wife and this kid's mother have cried together many times  

PS - here's something I posted on another thread :-  "all my arguments with "fuddy duddy oldies" in those days defending it (pot) were also nonsense. Weed is not recommended! Sorry If you're a hash smoker - but thats one of the lessons life has taught ME at least."

PPS As much as I'm enjoyinag a CONVERSATION in here lol, I wonder if drugs are getting off the subject of poetry - maybe deserve a THread of their own IF anyone wants to continue it 

- I was trying to keep the site a-political   as if that theory's got a snowball's chance in Hell around here lol.  (see #45 if you're interested in a long winded poem that says the same thing but takes half an hour to say it lol)


----------



## chops_a_must (11 November 2006)

Marijuana
Five percent of long term users,
Will end up getting mental bruises.
Would it not have come to the fore?
Maybe, but it was not there before.


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 November 2006)

http://www.bushpoetry.com.au/masterpoets/MasterPoetsHome/DennisCJ/tabid/682/Default.aspx

Here's one of Dennis's later posts ( must be  the Harbour bridge was only built in 1932 from memory - well after WW1 when he became famous anyways.  Concerns a dream in which Dennis chats with Gov Phillip about Sydney's growth - while looking at the bridge from Lady Macquarie's chair .  This is an excerpt only

I DIPS ME LID   CJ Dennis,  Except only.

I'd strolled about the town for 'arf a day 
Then dragged me carcase round the 'arbor way 
To view the Bridge from Dame Macquarrie's Chair 
Then parks me frame, an' gits to thinkin' there- 
Thinkin' of older days; an' I suppose 
I must 'ave nodded orf into a doze. 
Nex' thing I knoo, ole Phillip come an' sat 
Beside me, friendly like, an' starts to chat. 

"Young sir," 'e sez.  "You, too, in sheer amaze 
Look upon this, and hark to other days, 
An' dream of this fair city's early start. 
In which ('e bows) I played my 'umble part- 
My 'umble part - a flagpole an' a tent." 
"Come orf!" sez I. "You was a fine ole gent. 
Reel nob.  I've read about the things you did. 
You picked some site." ('E bows. I dips me lid). 

"Young sir," 'e sez.  "I've dwelt in spirit 'ere 
To watch this city waxin' year by year: 
But yesterday, from a mere staff, a tent, 
Wonder on wonder as the swift years went- 
A thrivin' village, then a busy town, 
Then, as a stride, a city of renown. 
Oh! what a wondrous miracle of growth 
Think you not so?" "Too right," I sez.  "My oath!" 

"I've watched, young sir," 'e sez.  "An' I 'ave feared 
Sometimes; feared greatly when ill days appeared. 
Yet still they fought and wrought.  I had small need 
To doubt the great heart of this sturdy breed. 
Black war has come.  Yet, over half a world, 
Their sons into that bloody fray they hurled 
And still they triumphed.  Still their lodestar shone." 
"Sure thing," sez I. " They kep' on keepin' on." 

"Young sir," 'e sez.  "The tears well in my eyes 
When I behold von arch that cleaves the skies - 
That mighty span, triumphant, where we view 
My old friend Darwin's vision now made true: 
'There the proud arch, Colossus-like, bestride 
Yon glittering stream and bound the chafing tide! 
'Twas so he dreamed a few short years agone. 
Spoke truly, sir; they keep on keeping on." ... etc


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 November 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> Marijuana
> Five percent ....



Lov it lol - good one 

PS If I ruled the world - lol - every post in here would contain SOMETHING in either poetry or prose - BUT one man's idea of prose is another man's idea of ...mmm .. a ramble through the dictionary lol.  

Like the bloke who put down the phone book after a couple ofdays reading ..."mmm interesting set of characters !!! , but the plot was a bit thin "


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 November 2006)

Apologies to that funny dude who sings this on the Optus ad lol (you know the one - Great Wall of China...mm to keep out the err RABBITS - yep big problem rabbits .. in China"
http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/i/ivebeeneverywhere.shtml

1. AUSTRALIAN VERSION: (Geoff Mack) (1959)

Well, I was humpin' my bluey on the dusty Oodnadatta road,
When along came a semi with a high and canvas-covered load.
If you're goin' to Oodnadatta, etc etc 

Cause I've been everywhere, man,
I've been everywhere, man.
etc etc 

I've been to Tullamore, Seymour, Lismore, Mooloolaba,
Nambour, Maroochydore, Kilmore, Murwillumbah,
Birdsville, Emmaville, Wallaville, Cunnamulla,
Condamine, Strathpine, Proserpine, Ulladulla,
Darwin, Gin Gin, Deniliquin, Muckadilla,
Wallambilla, Boggabilla, Kumbarilla,
I'm a killer.
....etc etc 

I've been here, there, everywhere
I've been everywhere

********************
2. I'VE BEEN EVERYWHERE, Kiwi Version , Adapted by John Grenell 1966

Well I was hitching a ride on a winding Hokitika road etc etc 
...I've been to
    Kaparoa Whangaroa Akaroa Motueka
    Taramoa Benmore Pongaroa Horoeka
    Rimutaka Te Karaka Whangarei
    Nuhaka Waimahaka Motuhura Waikaka
    Motonui Hokonui Papanui Wainui
    Matawai Rongotai Pikowai I'm a guy. 
Ch. I've been everywhere, man . . .

  .....  Taupo Timaru Oamaru Tihoi
    Awanui Wanganui Pauanui lot o' hooey

  .....    Waitaki Pukaki Taranaki Te Kauwhata
    Ropata Ikowai Waitemata what's the matter. 

.......    Tapanui Porinui Tawanui Otahuhu
    Ruatapu Mosgiel Whareroa that's for sure. 

  .......     Waimea Waharoa Dannevirke Ngahere
    Gordonton Oban Kingston how ya been.  etcetc

********************
3.  I'VE BEEN EVERYWHERE  - Johnny Cash version

I was totin my pack along the long dusty Winnamucka road
When along came a semi with a high canvas covered load
If your goin' to Winnamucka, Mack with me you can ride
... etc

I've been to:
Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota
Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota
Whichta, Tulsa, Ottowa, Oklahoma
Tampa, Panama, Mattua, LaPaloma
Bangor, Baltimore, Salvadorm, Amarillo
Tocapillo, Pocotello, Amperdllo
I'm a Killer

Devil's Lake, Crater Lake
For Pete's Sake

Diamondtina, Pasadena, Catalina
See What I Mean(a) 

Souix City, Cedar City, Dodge City
What A Pity

************************
4.  BUT lol.....the BEST by a country mile would have to be this one by a stupid idiot named Bond... lol - Graham Bond - no not the bloke with the amphibious jetski that flies - the one with the boxing glove and the Shirley Temple wig lol.  Pretty talented bloke for an architect  - and that's high praise comin from an engineer lol.   
Check out pages 6 and 7 of this lead  :-
http://www.naa.gov.au/publications/memento/pdf/memento31.pdf
Youuuuuuuu   Guessed it . lol

Ive been tooooo...............
...........
Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong 
Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong 
Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong 
Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong 
Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong 
Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong 
Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong 
Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong Wollongong 
etc etc 

annnnnddddd.................
...........
Dapto !!!  

PS comparing the Aus and the Kiwi and the US versions - you'd have to say the the aboriginal and maori placenames are more "suited" with their multiple syllables.


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 November 2006)

http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1173517
The Aunty Jack Show was one of Australia's best loved television sketch comedy series, running from 1972 to 1973 on Australia's national broadcaster ABC. In the anarchic vein of Monty Python, its title character was a motor-cycling transvestite boxer.  At the end of each show, the moustachioed Aunty Jack would make the terrifying statement: 

Goodbye, me little lovelies! And don't forget to tune in next week to the show, because if you don't, I'm going to come round to your house, and I'm going to rip your bloody arms off. And I will too. Don't forget it.

*At risk of involuntary amputation from a hirsute hermaphrodite*, (LOL)  all of Australia watched in nervous fear. After the first episode went to air, the ABC received over a thousand *complaints from its traditionally conservative audience regarding the violent drag queen*. According to director Maurice Murphy, the show *only survived because the children * of ABC executives pleaded for a stay of execution. 

The Aunty Jack Show starred Grahame Bond as Aunty Jack, Rory O'Donoghue as Thin Arthur, John Derum as Narrator, and Sandy Macgregor as Flange Desire. Also involved in the production was Peter Weir, who went on to become director of Picnic at Hanging Rock, Gallipoli and Dead Poet's Society. The second series saw the departure of John Derum and the introduction of of Garry McDonald, who played Kid Eager, and introduced Australia to the character of Norman Gunston. 

In a testament to Australia's musical preferences and the ongoing popularity of the show past its denouement, the album Aunty Jack Sings Wollongong was released in 1974. The single and theme song from the series Farewell Aunty Jack reached Number 1 and stayed in the Australian music charts for 22 weeks. 



> FAREWELL AUNTY JACK Grahame Bond, Rory O'D
> 
> Farewell, Aunty Jack, We know you'll be back
> Though you're ten feet tall you don't scare us at all
> ...




crazy drummer goes crazy at this point..- really starts "losing it"....
guitar says .....If he goes I'm goin with him ..!!!
(sorry that was from the muppets lol.......)
forget I said that 




> *OOOHHHHHHHHHHHH  FAREWELL Aunty Jack*
> Don't you know you'll be back
> Though you're ten feet tall you don't scare us at all
> You're big, bold and tough
> ...




Actually Rory O'Donoghue was a bludy good singer


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 November 2006)

GRANPA'S HOKEY POKEY KNEE

My ole Granpa was "the man", legs were somewhat horseback- bowed,
Born beside the passing Ghan, where the Channel Rivers flowed,
I recall but little of him, just his grin said "pleased to meet ya"
Body mainly bone and skin, - then this knee that sorta featured.

One thing I recall for sure, Granpa's knee was "in your face"
He would line up with the door, knee would line up any place,
Knee would do the hokey-pokey when he put his best foot forward,
Buckle like a hinge that's broke, then he'd grin and "hokey" doorward.

Used to ride a horse "full bore" - was he larrikin or lawman(?),
Like the Henry Lawson Law, "make 'em buck and teach 'em Mormon"
Used to pick the rabid horse, cigarettes for when it rears,
Make the bucker show remorse, "light it as it changes gears".

Once I asked my Gran the question, how he came to be this way,
How his knee was sorta destined, to flip-flop twixt "Z" and "K",
Gran explained he'd been a party to a pub-floor test of strength,
Two men push and pull so hearty till some knee decreased in length !!!

Wide-eyed, childlike, this amazed me, Pubfloors conjured scenes of woe,
Thoughts of bent knees sorta phased me, - made a mental note "say no!!"
....
Now Im older I feel certain - twas his lifestyle catching up
Granpa probly crashed while flirtin - tryin to get his car to buck.


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 November 2006)

WALLS

you Find them lining rooms and halls, Of houses boasting warmth within,
First things first when freedom calls - Get yourself a set of walls,  Home to memory's scribbled scrawls, 
Get a timber skin.

the Sentiments of those inside , can Permeate each wooden pore,
Listen as the memories ride -Round this room they laughed and cried, Listen as some blushing bride,
was Carried through the door.

and Maybe bumps where children fell, Babies first steps, wide-eyed wonder
Thrills that you can almost smell, Leaping hearts remembered well, Little signs of "show-and-tell",
Childhood memories boom like thunder.

Sometimes too you see walls wince, and Catch a breath, some subtle pain -
Loved ones who have moved on since, Read the walls for subtle hints, Old eroding finger prints
that Won't return again.

and Sometimes too you hear them sing,  Where Courage overcomes the sigh, 
Hear the happy sleighbells ring , When they do their Xmas thing, Feel the warmth that carols bring
from Happy passers-by.

and Maybe empty houses now - Walls can only reminisce,
Fondest greetings, welcome, ciao,  Cutest curtsey, gentle bow, Danced embraces, lover's vow,
Sealed with gentle kiss.

and Then there's Hamlet's ghostly Dad, Countless more who nightly walk -
Apparitions crude and sad, Hide in walls of any "pad",  Never speaking - drive you mad!! 
Ahh, if only walls could talk


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 November 2006)

INSTINCT SOULS and BIRDDOGS 

I spied a brown hawk on a hovering stalk, As he straightened and swooped for some feast,
And I wondered who learned him, and what birthright earned him, 	The power and skills of the beast,
And it’s London to brick that he knew as a chick, Or perhaps from some parent deceased,
That you swoop or you die, with a sharp beak and eye, As your latent hawk skills are released.

I saw a white dove, that pure symbol of love, Who so gracefully slipped through the sky,
And she flew to her nest, to the ones she loved best, That her hungry young tribe wouldn’t cry,
And I watched oh so slow, as they formed a small row,  On a wee little branch nearby,
And from somewhere within came a flight instinct grin - They somehow decided to  fly!.

My dog watched them both with a soft whimpered oath, 	And she stopped in her tracks in the dirt,
-- Tail as straight as a die, -- and one foot bent and high !  Like a motionless arrow alert.
And I haven’t a clue where she learnt what to do,  But it wasn’t from me that’s a cert,
And I guess some subliminal signal from mum, Has entrenched and refused to revert.

We learn half our ways under parental gaze, The other half’s there on day one,
And millions of creatures have dozens of features, And all someone’s daughter or  son,
The lion kills true, as his parent’s did too,  With a soul - cruel - akin to a gun,
While the soul of a deer knows only to fear,  And its legs know only to run.
..............
And hawk and dove and parents may die ,  But the soul will live on in the son.
..............
And the soul of the dog knows to serve, and to try,  And to lick at your hand – and have fun.


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 November 2006)

Serious amateur hour with this one  
A PUPPY's PERSPECTIVE 

The wrought iron men have their i(r)on the (w)rorts, and real estate's real overstated, 
and Hollywood's all about sex on the screen , and sex on a screen's overrated, 
…..But puppies know only to live by one rule - to serve and deserve us - we're fated. 

The Bond market's marked down with undies and jocks, with most of the stockbrokers broke, 
The stocktaker's taken most all of the stocks, and comedy's 'coming a joke; 
…..But my little puppy's in love with my socks, the same smell that makes the kids choke. 

The Railways are off the rails, ferries are sunk, and Airlines are up in the air. 
The trams can't think laterally, taxis talk bunk, and driving is driving us spare; 
…..But my little puppy she nests in my junk, and smiles at the foot of my chair. 

And vet'rinry service has gone to the dogs, and retailing tails out of fashion, 
and dogfood's rejected by most thinking mogs as "goo" and/or "lacking in passion"; 
…..But my little dog friend, she smiles as she bogs in, ecstatic with life and her ration.

The weight losing outlets are making a loss, and tree-lopping's sure hit its peak. 
While wholesaling holes keeps a council job poss-ible, backyard's are gettin real bleak; 
…..But - find an old bone - and she's straight to the boss, and plants a big lick on my cheek. 

When Pamela Anderson takes to the floor, the nightclub's in need of a lawman, 
Her knockers have broken three ribs and a jaw, and KO'ed three grooms and a doorman; 
…..But wagging a tail when you stand side-by-paw, is real and sincere as a Mormon, 
…..So puppies remind us of good times of yore, So puppies make princes of poormen.


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 November 2006)

And more amateur yet ... (if you can believe it) - might give someone a smile , who nose, someone out there might be REALLY desperate for a joke? lol.

SCHREK One-Point-Five

now This is a story you just may have heard - 
it’s aBout “Sleeping Beauty Meets Frog”
this Witch spiked her schnapps, she was shaken not stirred, 
she was OFTEN in trouble - or trouble deferred -
that Night she was OFF’N her face we’ve heard !!  now she’s Sleeping it OFF ON a log.
(and a low log at that - How else is the frog going to jump up to her, stupid?)

she Lay with such beauty so superimposed - and he Hopped on her nose and he smiled 
her Eyes were like – were like – well,  actually closed - (she’d Been asleep probly six months he supposed)
and Only the hint of a snore as she dozed, 
and her Hair?   well – six months?  - superwild (of couse it was wild! – cripes you’re stupid!)!.

the Frog carefully turned to see lips so red
- by Now slime all over her face 
and he Pictured them frogmarching up to be wed
and he Pictured them both in his slimy-creek-bed   
(well – her place, or mine, whatever -  some of ‘em get so fussy)
and he Pictured the wonderful offspring they’d shed
off- Springing all over the place. (And stop jumping on your sister). 

and Yes - as he leant out to kiss her so soft
and Yes (sigh) -  at the moment of fusion
as he Dreamt of the girls he had wined, dined or troughed
(that’s  eating at McDonalds – with or without fries  - haven’t you been around?!)
- as the Six months of BO presented a waft -
as a Bloody great flash from some Heavenly loft 
	went off  “BOOM” -  so too the illusion.!! (sheeeesh).

cos she Wasn’t a frog and she wasn’t a girl
and she Didn’t have glamour bestowed
“well Hi – my name’s Toadstool - she sat with a whirl
and Come here you gorgeous, you frog-a-al-pearl 
I Much prefer action than poems and spirl
cos I’m Just one horny young toad!”.

and they Jumped and they humped all the way to the sunset
	their Thighs became massive from kickin’
till they Sadly ran into a Chef from the gunset
and in Time they became,  well, the toast of the funset
- and Poetry wise,  well, the toast of the punset -
and their Drumsticks?  they toasted like chicken.

so if Ever you’re eating a French coussine
and you’re Trying out frog’s legs and snail
just reMember the moral – when the future’s unseen  
and you’re Kissing a blind date that might just turn green
that you Might get so horny and dangerously keen 
	that your Getaway means might fail!
(that’s his legs for chrissake stupid! – do I have to explain everything)!.
so the Fairy’s tailend ?– tale ends?  woops  - I mean  
So the End of this fairy tale.

And dont bludiwell larf - or I'll jump right outta this monitor! ....and rip your bludy arms off!! - specially you, stupid.!!


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 November 2006)

PS before you read too much here - I would summarise this as an unsuccessful attempt to translate Nessum Dorma into English   (but to be fair, you at least get a ghist I spose lol)



			
				2020hindsight said:
			
		

> TRANSLATIONS  ... website http://translation2.paralink.com/  which very kindly translates things into other languages for you.
> ....PS I am reminded of the story of the engineer who used a computer to translate "hydraulic ram" into Russian , and it came out the equivalent of "water buffalo".



Sadly I had to go Italian > Russian > English.
Gotta feeling that we've ended upwith another "hydraulic ram/buffalo" here lol 

NESSUM DORMA, ITALIAN:-

Nessun dorma!   Nessun dorma!
***Tu pure, o PrincipeSSA,***
Nella tua fredda stanza guardi le stelle,
Che tremano d'amore e di speranza!

Ma il mio mistero Ã¨ chiuso in me,  
Il nome mio nessun saprÃ !
No, no, sulla tua bocca lo dirÃ²,
Quando la luce splenderÃ !

Ed il mio bacio scioglierÃ .
**Il silenzio che ti fa miA!**

[Choir:] Il nome suo nessun saprÃ !
E noi dovrem ahimÃ¨ morir, morir!
Dilegua o notte!
Tramontate, stelle!
Tramontate, stelle!
All' alba vincerÃ²!
VincerÃ²! VincerÃ²!


NESSUM DORMA, RUSSIAN :-

Никакой спите!  Никакой спите!
*** Ты также, или Принцесса, ***
В твоей холодной комнате он смотрел на звезды,
Что дрожат любви и надежды!

Но моя тайна закрыта во мне,
... etc etc 

*************
NESSUM DORMA, ENGLISH

Any sleep!   Any sleep!
*** You also, or Princess, ***
In your cold room it looked at stars,
That shiver love and hope!

But my secret is closed in me,
My any name will know!
No, no, about your mouth I it shall tell,
When light splendera!

And my kiss will dismiss.
** Silence which is done to you by mine! **

[Kojr:]  Its any name will know!
And we dovrem ahime to die, die!
Dilegua or night!
Tramontate, stars!
Tramontate, stars!
In a dawn I shall be on

"Tramontate stars ???"  lol

"No, no, about your mouth I it shall tell, When light splendera!"   - oh you sweet talker you lol.

PS Here's another clue :- Dictionary.com gives no help for "tramontate",  BUT 
"transmontane". means :-
1. being or situated beyond the mountains.  
2. beyond the Alps as viewed from Italy; transalpine.  
 - so I guess that's what they mean - like, the stars are somewhere over in Switzerland lol.
?? maybe he's saying " pis* off to Switzerland stars !!" ?


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 November 2006)

http://www.sing365.com/music/Lyric.nsf/Nessun-Dorma-lyrics-G4/366FEAA32DCB5D9B48256FCF0014153D

Found a better translation  

NESSUM DORMA

No man will sleep! No man will sleep! (elsewhere "no one must sleep")
No man will sleep! No man will sleep!
You too, o Princess,
in your virginal room,  (elsewhere "cold room"?)
watch the stars
trembling with love and hope! 

But my secret lies hidden within me,
no one shall discover my name!
Oh no, I will reveal it only on your lips
when daylight shines forth!
And my kiss shall break
the silence that makes you mine!

Nobody will discover his name
And we shall have to die, alas! Die!

Depart, o night! Set, you stars!
Set, you stars! At dawn I shall win! (elsewhere "I shall conquer")


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 November 2006)

THE ECONOMY

I live up on a mountain far away from all the strife
We live beside a fountain, there’s just me and Flo me wife
- Some dollar coins for countin when we play a round of whist
- But even those could go and not be missed
- there’s options like strip poker – get me ghist 

I grow me own potatoes and I make potato wine
It tastes a bit like bathwater (at least the bath was mine)
- The other day I braved the world and took a trip to town
- I read the bloody headlines with a frown
- Some Noah says we’re all about to drown!

“Economy’s in chaos and the whole things built on sand 
The mindset of a yo-yo held by some sadistic hand
- The bubbles gonna burst unless the pressure cooker melts
- And bulls must learn to tighten up their belts!!
- And bears should stay asleep – or  they’ll be pelts!!"

I raced back home to missy and I called an urgent meeting
I chaired (well strictlly woodlogged – cos it’s what we use for seating)
- “That’s it my dear there’s no more bloody bubble baths round here
- They’re gonna burst – and somehow that means fear.
- And – er - careful with the pressure cooker, dear."

And as for bulls we have a few we use em for their excrement
We use it on the cornpatch like I read in the Ole Testament
- Well HELL I fitted them with belts- till they stopped making goo!!
- (Maybe economists should be belt fitted too.
- They’d maybe stop to think before they moo.)

I called in five economists and they gave five opinions
And one more to adjudicate – a sixth – (of fifteen trillions)
- And – JUST before the meeting ended and they all departed
- Then SUDDENLY !! the bull-belt broke and farted!!
- This GIANT MOOing - like the earth had parted !!!
..........
(And that's the best opinion since we’d started.!)

They all said “ HELL an omen!" And they grabbed their mobile phones
“buy TLS and West Australia" – all excited tones
- “and don’t stop there – buy USA - and England and Japan!!" 
- And next day ? guess what paper headlines ran? 
- “The markets up bigtime – and to a man!!

So now they ring me sometimes – ask me what’s my bull’s advice?
Commissions just keep pooring in , it's great,  my beer’s on ice
- And sometimes too they give me tips-  like, swap your shorts for longs, 
- But Jesus, then they’re  mixed up with me thongs!!
- And good news is , strip poker's going strong


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 November 2006)

Franklin D. Roosevelt: Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.  (like when you get out of bed on the other side !!) 

Izaak Walton: Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy.  (well I'll give you a case of bourbon and a packet of marlboro for good health for a start cough cough)

Jane Austen: Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does. (ahhh - it's music to my ears when friends ask me for a fifty till payday)

Ralph Waldo Emerson: Money often costs too much. (yep - yesterday I paid 3 perfectly pristine bigmac vouchers for a stupid 10 bucks!!)

Thornton Wilder: Money is like manure; it's not worth a thing unless it's spread around encouraging young things to grow.  (kids - get away from that manure and tomato-looking-bush thingy!! and come over here and study your maths!!)

Henry Fielding (1707 - 1754) If you make money your god, it will plague you like the devil. (This from a man who hadn't even heard of AUSTRALIA !! let alone the ASX!! lol  - "will plague you like PLAQUE without colgate!!")

C K Chesterton: The golden age only comes to men when they have forgotten gold.  (and where they hid their easter eggs!)

Pablo Picasso: I'd like to live like a poor man - with lots of money. (and a coupla billionaire concubines thrown in? - whose dad owns a paint supply shop)

Albert Camus: *"It's a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think that they can be happy without money."  * (In that case call be a snob )

Richard Armour :-
The money talks, 
I'll not deny,
I heard it once,
It said "goodbye" 
(and it usually adds "and I'm not coming BACK!!)


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 November 2006)

Here's a poem about an old house painter named John. I met him when he advertised to sell his manual car - turned out he needed to get an automatic - because one shoulder had cancer.  Then, lol rather than take things easy, he fitted this new car with power steering, - and helped us with any problems we had with his old car as well .   The fact that the car he sold us was a bit of a lemon (through bad luck as much as anything) is irrelevant - we got to meet John  
(PS he particularly didnt like the new style petrol pumps becos you couldnt buy just a few components to repair them  that old car was held together with wire and hundreds of home made bits he'd invented lol) 

OLD JOHN  	

I first met Old John on a downhill slope, Though you’d barely know it to meet him,
A painter, enthused and brimming with hope, And a wonderful grin in his greeting,
And he sold me a car, well an old bomb at least , Though to him was like a blood brother,
And we chatted like guests at a wedding feast, As ones overcome by a youthful yeast, And each nut and each bolt in the rusty old beast
Triggered stories of this or the other.

And I bargained him down a few bucks on his price, Nine fifty ($950) the deal was set,
I didn’t exploit him, the man was too nice, But the petrol gauge said “barely wet!”
It was one of those cars where the value ranged, In phase with the gas level reading,
But I sensed it then that my life would be changed, Priorities questioned and rearranged, And my newfound friend would soon be estranged,
And his time was rapid receding.

He used to spar with a punching ball, Yet he had the kindest laugh
Till his shoulder refused to heed the call , And hung like a thin bag of charf
And he’d made a bench of wood in the shed, Where his tradesman skills were vented, 
And a vegie patch with a broadbean bed, And the spare parts strewn where the brakes were bled, And you’d watch your step and you’d watch your head
Or you’d likely get em dented.

The reason he’d sold me his ‘Maggie’, his mate, Was an upgrade to automatic,
Cos his shoulder was just a bit lame of late, And his gearstick skills quite erratic,
“This is Sally” he said “my NEW Sigma wagon, And the twin except for the gears,
But she’s not up to Maggie, her chin keeps sagging, It could be the carby I carved from a flagon - , And here’s some spare parts all wrapped in raggin
- And the parting, it brings me to tears.”

Well the first week home the Welshplug blew, And the head cracked something cronic,
And the oil turned into a milky stew, And it coughed with a plague bubonic,
And Old John came round and helped us to strip, The motor – each element parted,
“That’s the crankshaft boys, where the horses grip, Ahh listen – the music as oildrops drip, And watch that that old timing gear doesn’t slip
Or we’ll never get her restarted.

Then a month went past and the gearstick broke -Came out like a magic wand,
If you hadn’t met John you’d suspect a sick joke, And you’d start to think you’d been conned,
But I ran into John in the hardware shop, And he said, ‘Wow! Let’s go look!
Cos I bet it’s the blue nut stripped and gone pop, By the way those beans are a fine fine crop, Any walls to paint? Any trees to lop?”
-	But he knew that car like a book.

He was right of course and we fixed it up , Right there on our kerbside lawn,
Just a hint of remorse that he’d sold his pup, But no hint for himself to mourn,
And his shoulder now needed power steering, And he’d worked it out and he’d fitted it,
And I found it so blessedly warm and endearing, That his attitude grew from courage not fearing, And despite the bell of his sixth (6th) round nearing,
He’d tackled the task and outgritted it.

Then a month (last week) a call from his brother, And sadly he had to relate,
That Old John passed away and from what I can gather, He’d known of his imminent fate,
Yet each time I met him his eyes just glowed, With a grin and a “How are the boys?
Would you like the house painted? or furrow hoed?  Or a horse to be broken ? or front lawn mowed? And How’s old Maggie sharing the load?
- She was one of my favourite toys.”

I can see him in overalls – patches sewed, With all of his gentle poise,
Just the kindest man – and how much it showed, And painting the gates of his new abode,  And cracking some winged chariot’s code, 
And adjusting its tappet noise.  :engel:


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 November 2006)

Another lady who has made a real go of life , (and who also incidentally sang "No Regrets" with tons of soul), probably the sexiest thing to come out of Wales since Jonah lol, and also had a gr8 sens of humour (see last song) :-



> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Bassey
> Bassey was born in Tiger Bay, Cardiff to a Nigerian father who was a seaman, while her mother came from Yorkshire, Northern England. She grew up in the notorious working-class district of Tiger Bay, Cardiff, as the youngest of seven children. Her father left when she was two years old.
> 
> Bassey first found employment packing in a local factory when she left school at the age of fifteen. She enjoyed singing while she packed enamel pots, and to supplement her wage she sang in local pubs and clubs. In 1953, she signed up for the revue Memories of Jolson, a musical based on the life of Al Jolson. She next took up a professional engagement in Hot From Harlem, which ran until 1954.
> ...




Can't understand that !! See if you can see what's suggestive about it ?? :- 

http://lyricsplayground.com/alpha/songs/b/burnmycandle.shtml
BURN MY CANDLE (AT BOTH ENDS)  (Parker)
Shirley Bassey

Who's got a match for a strikin', Don't say it all depends
Who wants to help me burn my candle, at both ends

Who's got a light he's hidin', under a bush or fence
Who wants to help me burn my candle, at both ends

It's possible, it may not last a night
While it burns, what a wonderful light

Who'd like to play with fire , After they make ammends
Who wants to help me burn my candle, at both ends

Who doesn't mind a reaper, after he's sewn wild oats
Who wants to take a chance and help me, burn my boats

Who's not a look, then leaper , Wanting a warning note
Who wants to take a chance and help me, burn my boats

There's 'S' for Scotch, that's so direct , And for straight and simple sex
"I" for invitation to, a close relationship with you
"N" for nothing bad nor less, "S-I-N", that's sin, I guess

Who's got a good ignition, Waiting for dividends
Who wants to help me burn my candle, at both ends

It may not last, but it's all in the game, my friend
And while it burns, what a fabulous flame

Who has an inhibition, Who has a notch, that's on the handle
Open my door, and spun the scandal
Who wants to help me burn my candle, at both ends!



> http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/music/sites/shirleybassey/
> She says...
> "Nobody's doing what I do. And the voice, sometimes it even takes me by surprise. I think, "God, where does it come from?" Nobody in my family sings, nobody from my mother's side. We don't know about my father's side. There was probably some ancestor out there chanting for rain with this powerful voice centuries ago."
> We say...
> ...




http://www.mp3lyrics.org/s/shirley-bassey/nobody-does-it-like-me/
IF THERE'S A WRONG WAY TO DO IT

If there's a wrong way say it, and a right way to play it. Nobody does it like me!
If there's a wrong way to do it, A right way to screw it up! Ha! Nobdody does it like me!
I've got a big loud mouth, I'm always talking much to free.
If you go for tact and manners, better stay away from me!
If there's a wrong way to keep it cool, a right way to be a fool, Nobody does it like me!

I hear a love song or ballad,  I toss like a salad. Nobody tosses like me!
And when my evenings get tougher, I just take two buffein' And drink a hot cup of tea!
Last night I met an old aquaintence, at a fancy corner pub, 
He said 'come on let's have some supper,' then he used my credit-club!
If there's a wrong way take a guy , the worst way to make a guy! Nobody does it like me!

If there's a wrong bell I ring it. A wrong note I sing it! Nobody does it like me!
If there's a problem I duck it. I don't solve it I just muck it up! Nobody does it like me!
And so I try to be a lady, I'm no lady I'm a fraud! And when I talk like I'm a lady, What I sound like is a broad! 
If there's a wrong way to get a guy, the right way to lose a guy! Nobody does it like me!

Nobody does it NO!  Nobody does it, Nobody does it like me.

What a great Dame she is !!

Heaps of other brilliant songs of course :- (I who have nothing, Send in the clowns, The first time ever I saw your face etc etc)
http://www.mp3lyrics.org/s/shirley-bassey/
http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Boulevard/8612/shirley.html
http://www.channel4.com/history/microsites/R/real_lives/shirley.html  - she ignores racial slurs and bigotry in Wales and USA


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## 2020hindsight (15 November 2006)

There was that quote by a prime minister initialls MF that "life wasn't meant to be easy" - subsequently comedians have added "cheesy, breezy, sneezy etc"

I think I heard Fraser correctly once when he explained it was something from a quote attributed to Methuselah (Bible? play?) where he is talking to a young boy, and he adds  "But son, it can be MAGNIFICENT!"

Like finding the punchline to a joke many years later.  I guess when you're 969 yrs old like Methuselah, you'd hava few memories - even if your short term memory was bound to be a bit dodgy  

PS wonder what he died of? - cigarettes finally caught up with him? - maybe a punchup with a Palestinian? - maybe trying position 347 one night?


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 November 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> PS wonder what he died of? - cigarettes finally caught up with him? - maybe a punchup with a Palestinian? - maybe trying position 347 one night?



Or maybe position 969 with his wife and his sister-in-law ?   
You know, you shouldn't push your luck on these astrologically significant milestones!!
Make a mental note people !!! - take it easy on your 969th birthday !!! - check Genesis for the gaudy details !!

ahh to hell with making it rhyme  - its happy hour!


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 November 2006)

Scotsman have a nack for the romantic :- Robert Louis Stevenson' s Tomb in the hills above Apia, Samoa has the following Epitaph:-  such a romantic place , such a great island, in the middle of such a great ocean as the Pacific  - lol and about as far away from "the rest of civilisation" as you could get - I was lucky enough to spend a few years there- scuba, hanggliding, sailing - really tough life.  

"Under a wide and starry sky
dig my grave and let me lie, 
glad did I live and gladly die
and I lay me down with a will

Here be the words you grave for me
"Here he lies where he longed to be
Home is the sailor, home from the sea
and the hunter home from the hill."


THEN AGAIN lol - Here's one of Robbie Burn's poems   PS Why is it that the Scots seem to make "a Haggis" sound like .. well... a Tasmanian Devil at least lol.  (PS this is pretty offal poetry - unless you're into haggis that is ) 

TO A HAGGIS (Robbie Burns)

Fair fa' (*portion) your honest, sonsie (pleasant) face, 
Great chieftain o' the pudding-race! 
Aboon (above) them a' (all) yet tak your place, 
Painch, tripe, or thairm: 
Weel (well) are ye wordy (worthy) o'a grace 
As lang's my arm. 

The groaning trencher there ye fill, 
Your hurdies (loins) like a distant hill, 
Your pin was help to mend a mill 
In time o'need, 
While thro' your pores the dews distil 
Like amber bead. 

His knife see rustic Labour dight, 
An' cut you up wi' ready sleight, 
Trenching your gushing entrails bright, 
Like ony ditch; 
And then, O what a glorious sight, 
Warm-reekin', rich! 

Then, horn (spoon) for horn, they stretch an' strive: 
Deil tak (devil take) the hindmost! on they drive, 
Till a' their weel-swall'd kytes (bellies)belyve (subsequently) 
Are bent like drums; 
Then auld Guidman, maist (most) like to rive, 
Bethankit! hums. 

Is there that owre his French ragout 
Or olio that wad staw (sicken) a sow, 
Or fricassee wad make her spew 
Wi' perfect sconner, 
Looks down wi' sneering, scornfu' view 
On sic (such) a dinner? 

Poor devil! see him owre (over) his trash, 
As feckles as wither'd rash, 
His spindle shank, a guid whip-lash; 
His nieve a nit; 
Thro' blody flood or (before) field to dash, 
O how unfit! 

But mark the Rustic, haggis-fed, 
The trembling earth resounds his tread. 
Clap (as in , the clapper in a mill) in his walie (ample) nieve (fist) a blade, 
He'll mak it whissle; 
An' legs an' arms, an' hands will sned, 
Like taps o' trissle. 

Ye Pow'rs, wha mak mankind your care, 
And dish them out their bill o' fare, 
Auld Scotland wants nae skinking (watery) ware 
That jaups in luggies; 
But, if ye wish her gratefu' prayer 
Gie (give) her a haggis!


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## 2020hindsight (15 November 2006)

Such a great poem this one  - sorry folks, been attacking the home brew again lol.  http://www.robertburns.org/works/75.shtml  - only a truly "soft" heart could empathise with a mouse lol.  

"That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,  Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! "

"Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me, The present only toucheth thee: 
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e. On prospects drear! 
An' forward, tho' I canna see,  I guess an' fear!"

Man's both a gentleman - and a genius 

To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough, 1785
ROBBIE BURNS

Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,  O, what a panic's in thy breastie! 
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,  Wi' bickering brattle! 
I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee,  Wi' murd'ring pattle! 

I'm truly sorry man's dominion,  Has broken nature's social union, 
An' justifies that ill opinion,  Which makes thee startle 
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,  An' fellow-mortal! 

I doubt na, whiles, but thou may thieve;  What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! 
A daimen icker in a thrave  'S a sma' request; 
I'll get a blessin wi' the lave,  An' never miss't! 

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!  It's silly wa's the win's are strewin! 
An' naething, now, to big a new ane,  O' foggage green! 
An' bleak December's winds ensuin,  Baith snell an' keen! 

Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,  An' weary winter comin fast, 
An' cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell- 
Till crash! the cruel coulter past, Out thro' thy cell. 

That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble,  Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! 
Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, But house or hald, 
To thole the winter's sleety dribble, An' cranreuch cauld! 

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane, In proving foresight may be vain; 
The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men,  Gang aft agley, 
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy! 

Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me, The present only toucheth thee: 
But, Och! I backward cast my e'e. On prospects drear! 
An' forward, tho' I canna see,  I guess an' fear!  

PS go to that website - you get a translation for the scottish stuff 
eg bickring brattle = hurrying run
murdring pattle = murdering spade, etcetc 
laith = loath repugnant


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## 2020hindsight (15 November 2006)

Then for a light hearted note :-
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/monty-python/



> ERIC The Half A Bee Lyrics
> Monty Python
> 
> A one... two-- A one... two... three... four...
> ...






> BRUCES' Philosophers Song
> Monty Python
> 
> Immanuel Kant was a real pissant, Who was very rarely stable
> ...




http://www.lyricsdepot.com/monty-python/every-sperm-is-sacred.html
lets not go there lol. - DYOR lol.


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## 2020hindsight (15 November 2006)

http://www.lyricsdepot.com/monty-python/lumberjack-song.html



> LUMBERJACK Lyrics - Monty Python
> 
> I never wanted to do this job in the first place!  I... I wanted to be...
> A LUMBERJACK!
> ...




bludy idiots lol.  - No-one should get away with this irreverance !!!  Furthermore, all lumberjacks should wear veils from now on !!! lol


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## 2020hindsight (16 November 2006)

Lol - It's so hard to restrict oneself to just a few of these - please DYOR lol.
http://www.lyricsdepot.com/monty-python/
DECOMPOSING COMPOSERS -  Monty Python 

Beethoven's gone, but his music lives on,  And Mozart don't go shopping no more.
You'll never meet Liszt or Brahms again,  And Elgar doesn't answer the door.
Schubert and Chopin used to chuckle and laugh,  Whilst composing a long symphony, 
But one hundred and fifty years later, There's very little of them left to see.

They're decomposing composers. There's nothing much anyone can do.
You can still hear Beethoven,  But Beethoven cannot hear you.

Handel and Haydn and Rachmaninov, Enjoyed a nice drink with their meal,
But nowadays, no one will serve them,  And their gravy is left to congeal.
Verdi and Wagner delighted the crowds, With their highly original sound.
The pianos they played are still working, But they're both six feet underground.

They're decomposing composers. There's less of them every year.
You can say what you like to Debussy,  But there's not much of him left to hear.

Claude Achille Debussy-- Died, 1918.  
Christophe Willebald Gluck-- Died, 1787.
Carl Maria von Weber-- Not at all well, 1825. Died, 1826.
Giacomo Meyerbeer-- Still alive, 1863. Not still alive, 1864.
Modeste Mussorgsky-- 1880, going to parties. No fun anymore, 1881.
Johan Nepomuk Hummel-- Chatting away nineteen to the dozen with his mates down the pub every evening, 1836. 1837, nothing. 

sorry - lol - i'M rofl LITERALLY lol.. funny funny dudes. - adios amigos


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## wayneL (16 November 2006)

20/20 Empty your PM's, it's full!


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## 2020hindsight (16 November 2006)

wayneL said:
			
		

> 20/20 Empty your PM's, it's full!



thort you were saying I was full there.  - I was only half full. lol.  When I'm full I start on the "Barrack Room Ballads" . thanks btw.


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 November 2006)

This one concerns the predicament of "a reluctant and rather grumpy optimist"...based on a bloke I know down the road lol 

WHY THE GRASS IS GREENER - THE RELUCTANT OPTIMIST

Why is the grass so God-damned green, since I decided to smile, 
Pain in the ass that it grows so keen, and all on account of my dial,
Kick the damned dog, and stone the damned crows, I’m so sick of starting that mower,
Maybe I’ll frown and sort out the bastard, and then it’ll grow a bit slower.

Why is the sky so God-damned blue, since I decided to laugh
Bloody hot sun, and mowing too, it’s enough to make you barf,
Dog in the way – I could’ve kicked her – making mountains of charf,
Next person gets in the way of my Victa, I’ll cut the bastard in half.

I wanna know why the sun in the morning has got this God-damned hue,
I wanna know why the world without warning can wake to a dream come true
Tell me each day why my God-damned re-borning gets christened with God-damned dew,
Christ it gets tiresome each perfect dawning, It’s enough to make you spew.


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## 2020hindsight (17 November 2006)

COMPULSIONS

I'm a compulsive collector, hoard every chance that I get,
I've got garages and attics just brimming with things that "that I'll get to use yet"
My wife and I have a wager (I got to choose what was bet)
If I can use but just one of those items - she buys me an old concord jet. 

I'm a compulsive corrector, stick in my beak for a dime,
When people tell me a poem or a joke, I join in the punchline - or mime,
People have asked me to P off, go find some mountain to climb,
But I just accept it a gesture of fun, and tell 'em their gestures should rhyme. 

I'm a compulsive door-locker, windows spring-loaded with mace,
Step on my doormat, a beartrap slams shut and a boxing glove smashes your face,
Someone complained to the courthouse - "Twenty days slammer Your Grace?", well
Now I've a sign on the jailbars exclaiming "KEEP OUT !! 'cos this is MY place".

I am compulsively friendly, say "hello" more than is wise,
(Henry the eighth had a little in common but he preferred headless goodbyes).
I like proposals on first dates, caught one last week by surprise,
Then she explained we were already married - so THAT's where I'd seen those blue eyes.
(There before me - when I put on my specs, was the love of all my nine lives).

I'm a compulsive backgammoner, chasing small stones round a board,
Also I like to re-read all the classics like Milton and my gran'ma Maude,
TV then features in our house, footy show here is adored,
So Heaven for me is to read while I backgammon, hearing my footy team's scored.

I find compulsions are good things, let's me fill in idle hours,
Whether it's running around in the nud, or climbing up transmission towers,
No doubt there'll be a big setback, when Buddha turns off my life-powers,
Finally succumbed - there I'll lie at my rest - compulsively pushing up flowers.


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## 2020hindsight (18 November 2006)

THE GHOST OF THE GUM

there’s an Old tree that stands in the gardens botanic
a Gift from some generous tree-god organic
‘twas Standing there long before steamships Titanic
- or tallships – or Cook, or Endeavour.
- and Long before white men so clever.

now Outwardly dead as a dodo on dope
or a Doorbell whose donger has lost its short rope 
and the Average spectator would rule out all hope
- and Cut it up blocksize - and toss’em 
- those Stark limbs, so long without blossom.

now the Arbor - technicians consider it’s plight 
(but they Don’t think like trees – they can only  think “white”)
“it’s Chainsaws at dawn – though it fought a good fight …
- and sadly it’s timely to sever” 
- A new voice warned….. “Never say never!!”.

“Touch not one stick!!” boomed the new voice aloud !
(they Looked around quick – ‘twas a Tree-god with shroud!)
“It’s one of the last of a clump that once towered
- Now ashes to fungus I fear
- but This one still lives!” – (…….and they sneer).

then the Spirit he pointed- a hollow branch high ,
to a Bee hive that buzzed in that bright autumn sky
and he Smiled with the mirth of a man bout to cry
- you could Hear the small bees give a cheer!.
- (as if some had been boozing on beer.)
…………

and That’s what they did,  the white arboritsts choice - 
whether Real or imagined they heard the tree’s voice
and alThough the tree’s dead – you can still hear the noise 
- of those brave little wings on the breeze
- to the blossoms of neighbouring trees.  

i still  Go to the park – sometimes wander on by
and Yesterday heard that old ghost in the sky
“where the Bees from my tree suck, there also suck I
- much as Life can live on in our son
- and our friends and ourselves are as one.”

and So too a man can live on past his prime
(to the Point where he’s out of his tree half the time)
ride these circles of Life (and to hell with the rhyme)
- like this circle we call planet earth
There were trees watching on (but no sign of a dime) 
- giving shade at - that Adam boy’s - birth.

PS The notice at the base of the tree points out that this is a VERY SPECIAL TREE - one of the oldes t on the site - kept because of bees, possums etc. 
The aboriginals used to call the gums the "supermarket tree" (lol  - didnt know there were supermarkets back then  ) - because they  were used for canoes bark for wrapping,  animals honey for drinking etcetc  - to say nothing of warclubs


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 November 2006)

PS The notice at the base of the tree points out that this is a VERY SPECIAL TREE - one of the oldes t on the site - kept because of bees, possums etc. 
The aboriginals used to call the gums the "supermarket tree" (lol  - didnt know there were supermarkets back then  ) - because they  were used for canoes bark for wrapping,  animals honey for drinking etcetc  - to say nothing of warclubs  - This is near the Henry Lawson Gate in the Sydney Botanic Gardens.    

Sorry if this borers you    I took the kids down there once when the bamboo flowered (several year back now) - only happens once every 100 years, I said !!! you'll LOVE it I said !!!  - they were dead bored   - they've never trusted my opinion of "this you've GOTTA see!!" ever since lol.
PS I think I clawed back a few browny points on the day in question by getting them a Cheeseburger at the bludy Golden Arches restaurant - sheesh, kids!!

Here's a PS to the previous poem.- an alternative ending - from an earlier draft .

THE BLACK MAN's VERSION
“this here Tree – we would call it a “market place tree” 
you may Call it a “red gum” – I guess we’ll agree
cos we “re(a)d” it each day for the honey of bee
- and Canoes and for possums and grubs
- and for Shade, and for hunting men’s clubs.

and we Used it for woomeras! - spears like a gun!
at Roos that went jumping where Pitt and George run
and Birds that would nest -  and that was such fun
- cos we Knew that our god was in health
- and we Loved our black lives and our wealth.

that Tree, said the black, is the last to still stand
by this Small winding track on this small block of land
and the Mountains of history’s hourglass sand
- since that Day ….that a ship sailed past 
- and it meant that we’d ”honeyed” our last.


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 November 2006)

Thanks to WayneL for posting this on the music thread - I'm just adding the words - only a few songs have lyrics that stand up to close , distant, or any scrutiny whatsoever, but these are gr8.

WHEN YOU SAY NOTHING AT ALL  
Alison Krauss 

It’s amazing how you can speak right to my heart
Without saying a word you can light up the dark
Try as I may I could never explain
What I hear when you don’t say a thing

The smile on your face lets me know that you need me
There’s a truth in your eyes sayin’ you’ll never leave me
The touch of your hand says you’ll catch me if ever I fall
You say it best when you say nothing at all

All day long I can hear people talking out loud
But when you hold me near, you drown out the crowd
Old mr. webster could never define
What’s being said between your heart and mine


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## 2020hindsight (18 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bNfay6HiUo
Gee whiz this Utube website is good.!! (and gettin better daily) 
(I have this problem - maybe everyone does, but I only know a small percentage of the words of even my FAVOURITE songs) - half the time I have no bludy idea what they're saying - even after 125 playings of the song.
AT LAST between Google and Utube - the problem can be solved  

- and as Bindi Irwin said after her dad's service - I was even allowed to move my finger across the words on the page.  - what a gr8 kid


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HywZvIHCr7A
Lol here's a 6 year old - impersonating a man - impersonating a madman 

CERVANTES 
May I set the stage? I shall impersonate a man. 
Come, enter into my imagination and see him! 
His name... Alonso Quijana... a country squire, 
no longer young... bony, hollow-faced... eyes 
that burn with the fire of inner vision. Being 
retired, he has much time for books. He studies 
them from morn to night and often through the 
night as well. And all he reads oppresses him... 
fills him with indignation at man's murderous 
ways toward man. And he conceives the strangest 
project ever imagined... to become a knight-errant 
and sally forth into the world to right all 
wrongs. No longer shall he be plain Alonso Quijana... 
but a dauntless knight known as - 
Don Quixote de La Mancha! 

DON QUIXOTE 
Hear me now   Oh thou bleak and unbearable world, 
Thou art base and debauched as can be; 
And a knight with his banners all bravely unfurled 
Now hurls down his gauntlet to thee! 
I am I, Don Quixote,   The Lord of La Mancha, 
My destiny calls and I go,  
And the wild winds of fortune  Will carry me onward, 
Oh whithersoever they blow. 
Whithersoever they blow,  
Onward to glory I go! 

SANCHO PANZA 
I'm Sancho! Yes, I'm Sancho! 
I'll follow my master till the end. 
I'll tell all the world proudly 
I'm his squire! I'm his friend! 

DON QUIXOTE 
Hear me, heathens and wizards , And serpents of sin! 
All your dastardly doings are past, 
For a holy endeavor is now to begin , And virtue shall triumph at last! 

(Don Quixote and Sancho Panza mount their horses and set out along a road) 

am I, Don Quixote, The Lord of la Mancha, 
My destiny calls and I go, 
And the wild winds of fortune , Will carry me onward, 
Oh whithersoever they blow! 
...............
Whithersoever they blow, 
Onward to glory I {we} go! 

For a laugh - here it is in Korean
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iraVWQu3Zf8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zo9BLwjZJzk&NR  - Orchestral


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## 2020hindsight (18 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjR5xFZxZK8

IF YOU LOVE ME
(Hymne Ã€ L'Amour)   (M. Monnot / E. Piaf / G. Parsons)

If the sun should tumble from the sky
If the sea should suddenly run dry
If you love me, really love me
Let it happen darling, I don't care

Shall I catch a shooting star
Shall I bring it where you are
If you want me to, I will.
You can set me any task
I'll do anything you ask
If you'll only love me still

When at last, our life on earth is through
I will spend eternity with you
If you love me, really love me
Let it happen darling, I won't care

Also "No Regrets"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzJjbHAlMVI


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## 2020hindsight (18 November 2006)

A few songs from Shirley Bassey :- (most of which already have the words posted on this thread).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=waXPGFBm2CM
burn my candle

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SG3X...ormer Entertainer Vocalist Belter Count Basie
if there’s a wrong way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Pmx...ormer Entertainer Vocalist Belter Count Basie
comedy skit JE T'AIME  with Freddy Star – {Watch it through to the end if you can }

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VP-y...ormer Entertainer Vocalist Belter Count Basie
If you go away

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaVi...ormer Entertainer Vocalist Belter Count Basie
Land of My Fathers 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vV7...ormer Entertainer Vocalist Belter Count Basie
duet withTom Jones


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## 2020hindsight (18 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtsMcGaNk9k
OLIVE TREE
Seekers near Sprinkbrook (pretty close to my old stomping ground).

Tell me white dove where will I find the olive tree  (sure aint in the middle east!!)
for just one branch Id search my whole life through (I'd settle for just an olive off the bludy thing!)
I've heard them say a greener land is waiting there ( where they dont have global warming) 
where people wait and find that dream come true (and only a few of their nightmares)

high flying dove please lead me and Ill follow you (provided you stay pretty close to the helicopter)
above the clouds beyond the stormy sea (lets limit ourselves to Tasmania for the time being)
I long to share a world of sweet contentment there (make that Fiji)
in that bright land where grows the olive tree. (Melbourne? - coupla daze, BUUdiful ) (well as many Greeks as Athens, even if the olive trees seem to hav dipped out),

(copied from song titles sorry for duplication - but this still qualifies as poetry imho)


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## 2020hindsight (18 November 2006)

Billie Holiday
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQTWVgKZtlg&mode=related&search=

Hereshe is at the age of 4 singing the same song (Strange Fruit):-  (o boy, my kids were learning three blind mice at that age)."smell 'v burning flesshhhh"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCJDuHRujjE&mode=related&search=



> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday
> Billie Holiday (April 7, 1915 – July 17, 1959), also called Lady Day (and born Eleanora Fagan Gough), was an American singer, generally considered one of the greatest female jazz voices of all time, alongside Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald.
> 
> Early singing career
> ...



... etcetc  one sad story      When she sings the blues, you know she's been through many a purple patch.  
She only lived to be 44, (probably about this Utube recording?) most of her men were into domestic violence, and she was in drugs, you name it.

STRANGE FRUIT  Lewis allen

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQtDqh7RTXI&mode=related&search=
lousy video, but happier at least ( and relevant?)


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## 2020hindsight (18 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clClMhI-cBY
LOL - this one's a bit confused - Christine (from Phantom) singing (tenor) Nessum Dorma (from Puccini's "Turnadot") to the Phantom    Today the part of Christine is played by Luciano Pavarotti lol.   Words are back there somewhere, but I repeat them anyway.... and take the analysis a bit further:- .. 
(courtesy of Google and YOUTUBE!!! - If you ask me Youtube was worth every CENT of that 2.2 billion USD that Google paid for it !!! BRILLIANT!)

What is it about this song!! and these words !!!  Here are two brief features which use Nessum Dorma as background:-  ice skating   ; and 9/11   respectively.    Perhaps it’s the ending words “I shall conquer”?  or maybe just the magnificent tenor tonsils. ?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq-iv3FQDsY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoKZn65-1jA

Here's an excellent Google site which analyses the song, its meaning, and its literal words (although I suspect words don't count for much in opera - these sorta words are designed for the heart to hear).



> http://home.earthlink.net/~markdlew/comm/turandot.htm
> (the words and meaning of Nessum Dorma) call for a bit of discussion, I think.
> 
> The libretto of Turandot doesn't translate easily because it's so heavily poetic. Not just the lyrics, but the entire plot, which (as many befuddled listeners have complained) doesn't make much sense if taken too literally. Forgive me if I recap most of the plot, but the poetry of the aria is too tied up in the story not to discuss it....
> ...




Elsewhere:-

“Puccini's last opera was left unfinished at his death, and what he had intended to be a final, transcendent love duet was completed by a younger colleague, Franco Alfano. In Peking's Imperial Palace, the fatally beautiful Princess Turandot receives unlucky suitors from far and wide, who must answer three riddles to win her hand””or die. Calaf, son of the exiled King Timur of Tartary, is struck with Turandot's beauty, and ignoring protests from his father and LiÃ¹, the servant girl who loves him, he matches wits with the princess. Although he guesses the three riddles, Calaf offers his life to Turandot if she can discover his secret name. Searching the city in vain, the princess finally tortures faithful LiÃ¹, driving her to suicide. Faced with LiÃ¹'s sacrifice and Calaf's stern devotion, Turandot crumbles, and weeping in Calaf's arms, she declares that his secret name is Love”


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## 2020hindsight (18 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qS5JkZr0tB8
I for one will NEVER hear a better song that this !!  JESSE
Janis Ian wrote this for her cat I believe - but personally I love this (although I hate cats lol).  Janis (Ian) plays the piano for Shirley (Bassey) in this one.  (wonder why she leaves the outside light on for a cat lol?)

JESSE
Jesse, come home  , There’s a hole in the bed
Where we slept , Now it’s growing cold
Hey Jesse, your face , In the place where we lay
By the heart, all apart , It hangs on my heart.

And I’m leaving the light , On the stairs.
No, I’m not scared , I wait for you.
Hey Jesse, I’m lonely , Come home.

Jesse, the floors  , And the boards
Recalling your steps , And I remember too
All the pictures are fading . And shaded in grey
But I still set a place ,  On the table at noon.

And I’m leaving the light , On the stairs.
No, I’m not scared , I wait for you.
Hey Jesse, I’m lonely , Come home.

Jesse, the spread on the bed , Is like when you left
I’ve kept it up for you. , And all the blues and the greens
Have been recently cleaned , And they’re seemingly new
Hey Jes, me and you.

We’ll swallow the light  , On the stairs
We’ll do up my hair  ,And sleep unaware.
Hey Jesse, I’m lonely , Come home.

Here's another she (Janis Ian) wrote "when she went through an awkward stage of her life - when she was short with curly dark hair ":-  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2IGt-3IBPI 
"And those whose names were never called , When choosing sides for basketball." 

AT SEVENTEEN
I learned the truth at seventeen  , That love was meant for beauty queens
And high school girls with clear skinned smiles , Who married young and then retired.
The valentines I never knew  , The Friday night charades of youth
Were spent on one more beautiful , At seventeen I learned the truth.

And those of us with ravaged faces , Lacking in the social graces
Desperately remained at home , Inventing lovers on the phone
Who called to say come dance with me  , and murmured vague obscenities
It isn't all it seems , At seventeen.
.............................
A brown eyed girl in hand me downs , Whose name I never could pronounce
said, Pity please the ones who serve , They only get what they deserve.
The rich relationed hometown queen , Married into what she needs
A guarantee of company , And haven for the elderly.

Remember those who win the game , they Lose the love they sought to gain
Indebentures of quality , And dubious integrity.
Their small town eyes will gape at you , in dull surprise when payment due
Exceeds accounts received , At seventeen.
............................
To those of us who know the pain  , Of valentines that never came,
And those whose names were never called , When choosing sides for basketball.
It was long ago and far away , The world was younger than today
And dreams were all they gave for free , To ugly duckling girls like me.

We all play the game and when we dare , To cheat ourselves at solitaire
Inventing lovers on the phone , Repenting other lives unknown
That call and say, come dance with me , and murmur vague obscenities
At ugly girls like me , At seventeen


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## 2020hindsight (19 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEDz8NG3p-g
Japanese girl sings “at 17”
Evidence that Janis Ian had a big following in Japan.- perhaps due to her perfect diction ? 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmHXRJMxYCQ
tea and symphany.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdiLbw4JC94&mode=related&search=
janis ian – black and white
http://www.janisian.com/lyrics/BlackAndWhite.pdf
Really good stuff ( if you liked Martin Luther King I guess).



> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janis_Ian
> Janis Ian (born on April 7, 1951) is a Grammy Award-winning American songwriter, singer and multi-instrumental musician.
> 
> Biography
> ...




http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=2568  (mainly comments on Society's Child)   eg 
Janis was 13 when she began working on this, 14 when she finished. ..This song is about an interracial romance. Janis was living in an all-black neighborhood in East Orange, NJ, where she was one of 5 white kids in the school. She explains: "I saw it from both ends. I was seeing it from the end of all the civil rights stuff on the television and radio, of white parents being incensed when their daughters would date black men, and I saw it around me when black parents were worried about their sons or daughters dating white girls or boys. I don't think I knew where I was going when I started it, but when I hit the second line, 'face is clean and shining black as night,' it was obvious where the song was going." 
Janis: "I don't think I made a conscious decision to have the girl cop out in the end, it just seemed like that would be the logical thing at my age, because how can you buck school and society and your parents, and make yourself an outcast forever." 
Janis didn't write this about a particular person: "My parents were the complete opposite of the parents in the song. They wouldn't have cared if I married a Martian, as long as I was happy... I felt bad for my Dad because everyone assumed he was a racist." 
...........
"For most of the '90s, Janis dropped this from her set list because no one wanted to hear it, but then a lot of people who grew up listening to it started coming to her shows and asking for it. Many of these people were Vietnam veterans who heard the song because it was widely played on Radio Free Europe and on US military bases. 
....This was inducted into the Grammy Hall Of Fame in 2001. "

http://lyrics.ivory.org/societyschild.html
SOCIETY'S CHILD

Come to my door, baby, Face is clean and shining black as night.
My mother went to answer you know, That you looked so fine. 

Now I could understand your tears and your shame,  She called you "boy" instead of your name.
When she wouldn't let you inside,  When she turned and said , "But honey, he's not our kind." 

She says I can't see you any more, baby,  Can't see you anymore. 

Walk me down to school, baby,  Everybody's acting deaf and blind.
Until they turn and say, "Why don't you stick to your own kind." 

My teachers all laugh, their smirking stares, Cutting deep down in our affairs.
Preachers of equality,
Think they believe it, Then why won't they just let us be? 

They say I can't see you anymore baby, Can't see you anymore. 

One of these days I'm gonna stop my listening, Gonna raise my head up high.
One of these days I'm gonna raise up my glistening wings and fly. 

But that day will have to wait for a while.  Baby I'm only society's child.
When we're older things may change, But for now this is the way they must remain. 

I say I can't see you anymore baby,  Can't see you anymore.
No, I don't want to see you anymore, baby.  

Sorry, can't find the youtube for this song. (but not bad for a 14 year old yes?)

As for her being gay? - anyone that talented can be whatever they like imho.


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## 2020hindsight (19 November 2006)

Seems the seekers just registered that name in time – before “Thrill seekers, attention seekers,  asylum seekers, ghost seekers, etcetc – takes a long time to sort em on google - and also on youtube 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=My5_zSu_LQw  Colours of my life – Seekers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEhCOaIpLow  a world of our own

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HDXX2zjmLM  georgie girl

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pasicxU6tq4  when will the good apples fall

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtsMcGaNk9k  olive tree

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rm1XYUAfhu8  the carnival is over

I have already posted the words for "a world of our own" - those words that gave such heart to those orphan kids  - I wont duplicate yet again.   HECK - three comments!!

1. the demarcation lines between "poetry", "lyrics" and "songs" are getting really blurred (and always were), and 
2. since when do you have to type poetry? - it was originally all handed down by the spoken word - the "bards" etc  - (my excuse for not getting any words for these songs); and
3. You all know the bludy words anyway !

(ps Judith D is singing happier songs at 25 (born 1943, colours of my life recorded 1968) than Billy Holiday was at 4 !! - o boy - times were tough in "the South")


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## new girl (19 November 2006)

This thread has been good to me. Having lost a family member to cancer, witnessed the struggle of another family member with schizophrenia and gone through two miscarriages myself in the last five years, the words posted by some of you on this thread were, to say the least, healing. Don't get me wrong, I live a fantastic life. God’s been good to me and the smiles on my two healthy childrens' faces wipes all the bad memories away  

I always find a positive in any situation. I think this is the best way to cope and since I hate dwelling on the past, especially if it's hurtful, the one I choose to take with me from this thread and would consider my favorite would have to be HE: 

HE (Tous Les Visages de L'Amour)
Written by Charles Aznavour and Herbert Kretzmer

He may be the face I can't forget 
The trace of pleasure or regret 
Maybe my treasure or the price I have to pay
He may be the song that summer sings 
May be the chill that autumn brings 
May be a hundred different things 
Within the measure of a day 

He may be the beauty or the beast 
May be the famine or the feast 
May turn each day into a Heaven or a Hell 
He may be the mirror of my dreams 
A smile reflected in a stream 
He may not be what he may seem 
Inside his shell.... 

He, who always seems so happy in a crowd 
Whose eyes can be so private and so proud 
No one's allowed to see them when they cry 
He maybe the love that cannot hope to last 
May come to me from shadows in the past 
That I remember 'till the day I die 

He maybe the reason I survive 
The why and wherefore I'm alive 
The one I care for through the rough and ready years 

Me, I'll take the laughter and his tears 
And make them all my souvenirs 
For where he goes I've got to be 
The meaning of my life is 
he.....he , Oh, he.....


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## 2020hindsight (19 November 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> This thread has been good to me. Having lost a family member to cancer, witnessed the struggle of another family member with schizophrenia and gone through two miscarriages myself in the last five years, the words posted by some of you on this thread were, to say the least, healing. Don't get me wrong, I live a fantastic life. God’s been good to me and the smiles on my two healthy childrens' faces wipes all the bad memories away  ..... the one I choose to take with me from this thread and would consider my favorite would have to be HE:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CY5vCHMuapY = to harry potter lol  - true this is SHE rather than HE but close.  I'm sure Bassey sings "HE" but can't find it on youtube (as yet).  the author gets the credits anyways.

http://www.salon.com/people/feature/1999/07/15/aznavour/ :- "My shortcomings are my voice, my height, my gestures, my lack of culture and education, my frankness and my lack of personality." So wrote the 26-year-old French singer and songwriter Charles Aznavour one night in 1950, drunkenly brooding over his stalled career. Nothing, he concluded, could be done about his unorthodox voice, whose rasp and keening "Oriental" quality were so different from the smooth, insouciant style of that era's popular chansonniers. Nor was there any solution to the 5-foot-3 Aznavour's height problem: His one attempt to rectify the situation, when he wore elevator shoes for a New York nightclub performance, had been a tragedy of clubfooted slapstick. His frankness: another hopeless case. "I am incorrigible ... I say 'merde' to anybody, however important he is, when I feel like it." 

Interesting that both Aznavour and Piaf are knee high to a French Poodle.

Incidentally - also not bad ...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdbE4Ddd0gU = the hymn of the same name - complete with karioki wall words  (gotta be Polynesia , Tonga maybe (or Hawaii or Samoa etc), round building = Fale, love their church,  I attended once in Tonga - and didnt haver any money to contribute to the bowl lol (was on a yacht and didnt carry money) - so they called out in a loud voice "and the Palangi = whiteman, gives us NOTHING" lol)

PS the poem about the miscarriage I wrote for my wife - she was in hospital and very depressed (as you can imagine) - so I wrote it the night it happened  our first child. (we now have 3 healthy kids to make up for it)
I have to be careful with that poem.  Showed it to someone at work , and turns out they've a number of miscarriages, and no kids to show for it   
PS -  another way to look at it I suppose - so WHAT if I lose on the ASX !!!


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## 2020hindsight (21 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3oO3lbBGJQ - peter paul & mary - with the author Pete Seegar.

At 3m57s , Pete Seegar says " way back in 1955, I came across three lines out of a famous book:-

"_where are the flowers?  the girls have plucked them 
where are the girls? they are all married
where are the men? they're all in the army_" 

I did not REALISE when I put the song together, an ancient ancient question was phrased so poetically"    

WHERE HAVE ALL THE FLOWERS GONE 
words and music by Pete Seeger
performed by Pete Seeger and Tao Rodriguez-Seeger

Where have all the flowers gone?  Long time passing
Where have all the flowers gone?  Long time ago
Where have all the flowers gone?  Girls have picked them every one
When will they ever learn?  When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young girls gone?  Long time passing
Where have all the young girls gone?  Long time ago
Where have all the young girls gone?  Taken husbands every one
When will they ever learn?  When will they ever learn?

Where have all the young men gone?  Long time passing
Where have all the young men gone?  Long time ago
Where have all the young men gone?  Gone for soldiers every one
When will they ever learn?  When will they ever learn?

Where have all the soldiers gone?  Long time passing
Where have all the soldiers gone?  Long time ago
Where have all the soldiers gone?  Gone to graveyards every one
When will they ever learn?  When will they ever learn?

Where have all the graveyards gone?  Long time passing
Where have all the graveyards gone?  Long time ago
Where have all the graveyards gone?  Covered with flowers every one
When will we ever learn?  When will we ever learn?


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## 2020hindsight (21 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmwYpC-s40w&mode=related&search= Mark Wills (who authored) Dont Laugh At Me (see also song lyrics thread for PPM version) - nice song 

Also (similar sentiments) there but but for fortune :-
5 stars:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWPOxb2n0Q8 = there but for fortune , marianne faithfull

3 stars:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iw4xAvm_DXE  =there but for fortune , ppm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrSU571JETk = ditto , joan baez


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## 2020hindsight (21 November 2006)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/arts/articulate/200611/s1793635.htm - palin proud of python

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zey8567bcg&mode=related&search= lumberjack song (words posted back there somewhere )

LOL - here's Realist speaking Dutch lol:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_Gn6a3WbYw&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DkqU-uWojc&mode=related&search= sacred etc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo = the four yorkshiremen 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6Lq771TVm4&mode=related&search= =parrot complaint


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## 2020hindsight (22 November 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> .... - peter paul & mary - with the author Pete Seegar.
> 
> At 3m57s , Pete Seegar says " way back in 1955, I came across three lines out of a famous book:-
> 
> ...




Sorry I had the wrong Youtube lead back there 
 :hide: 
Try again lol - apologies (getting crosseyed).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cLe9pJSRas0


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## 2020hindsight (23 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43J-gYOnLoI

LIGHT ONE CANDLE
Peter Yarrow-  ©1983 Silver Dawn Music ASCAP 

Light one candle for the Maccabee children
With thanks that their light didn't die
Light one candle for the pain they endured
When their right to exist was denied
Light one candle for the terrible sacrifice
Justice and freedom demand
But light one candle for the wisdom to know
When the peacemaker's time is at hand 

chorus:
Don't let the light go out!
It's lasted for so many years!
Don't let the light go out!
Let it shine through our love and our tears. 

Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe
And light one candle for those who are suffering
Pain we learned so long ago
Light one candle for all we believe in
That anger not tear us apart
And light one candle to find us together
With peace as the song in our hearts ....(chorus) 

What is the memory that's valued so highly
That we keep it alive in that flame?
What's the commitment to those who have died
That we cry out they've not died in vain?
We have come this far always believing
That justice would somehow prevail
This is the burden, this is the promise
This is why we will not fail! .....(chorus) 

Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!
Don't let the light go out!

It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness (Chinese Proverb). - PS I think that was before the days of global warming   These days its better to keep cursing the darkness, - so what if you bump into a few things.

As someone posted elsewhere (on youtube - with this song)... 
"Light one candle for the strength that we need
To never become our own foe".

Also with chords:-
http://members.cox.net/billandleann/candle.htm


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## 2020hindsight (23 November 2006)

Concerning the previous post / song, and the opening line...
"Light one candle for the Maccabee children"  - where Maccabee = children of Israel.....
Whilst I'm confident that PP&M were not trying to digress from the peace theme in 100% of the rest of their repertoire, It would have been nice if the words of the song was a bit more .. mmm,  cosmopolitan...
Hence I have added the following verse for PP&M to consider next time they sing it 

PS a couple of points - 1. they are probably referring to the Holocaust of course."right to exist was denied".
2. As Golda Mair said "there won't be peace until we learn to love our children more than we hate our enemies"

Light nine candles for the Middle East children ,  born into one giant jail, !
comPeting disasters, their Crucifix rafters, their Mosque floors, and Walls where they wail  !!, 
FORGET the hereafter!, Let's wish em some LAUGHTER!, and lessen the load on their nails, !!!
Let's walk with these candles, a mile in their sandals! ANd THEN PRAPS ..
the VANDALS will... 

syncopated head toss of those magic, point-underlining blonde Traver's locks  

FAIL!!!!!!


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 November 2006)

Question.  I wonder what the Korean translation (subscript) says lol. 
"Light one candle for the Macadamia children"....?


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## 2020hindsight (23 November 2006)

Here's a pretty hopeless poem - you could probably argue that it's only half completed 
THE IRONY OF HALF COMPLETION

Some days while on a bushwalk I may find some time to kill,
I read a bit of scribbley gum to give my heart a thrill,
I find a feather maybe or some modern ballpoint quill,
And jot some notes till soul has had its fill - Of appetising philosophic krill.

Today I thought I'd pick up any glass I spied around,
An old coke bottle maybe cos there's plenty to be found,
And there - beside the pawprint of my little puppy's bound,
Were several nasty pieces on the ground, - A trap perhaps? For human or for hound?

Some bushcare group had been this way, an honourable pack,
They'd probably found them several paces from the trusted track,
And one had had the bright idea to make a little stack,
And then collect them on the journey back,  -And then? Their memory cells went out of whack.

And one was jagged bottle-end a nasty speculator,
An ambush left by terrorist or maybe puppy-hater?
But more than likely some good deed that he would "finish later",
This well intentioned cruel procrastinator - Awakening this sleeping alligator.

Malevolent these razor teeth, this nest of nasty blade,
And innocent the spreading fern that hid them in half-shade,
And fortunate for me the warning glint a sunbeam made
And pure good luck my puppy's paw's not splayed  -A bloody paw for carelessness - some trade !

It's hard to make some sense of it, especially set to verse,
By half completing something we just make the matter worse,
The act of half completion can turn kindness to a curse,
And half-completed irony turns terse.  - This bushcare ranger danger in reverse.

And so we make these errors that so complicate a life,
These open-ended projects that come back to give us strife
These multi-headed dragons that we slew with trusty knife
But left one head to multiply a-rife
So next time - slay the dragon AND his wife!!


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## 2020hindsight (23 November 2006)

THE SPEED OF LIGHT and other matters affecting the Nuclear Debate.

that Paddy Murphy (crazy fool) – we’d had a beer or three
we'd Done the Guinness - done the fight  - not once did we agree
and Then the conversation turned to nuc-lere energy
and Whether speed of light was “c” or “z” 
and Whether "m-c-squared" was "E" or "D".

young Paddy said he’d prove it that the experts had it wrong
he Asked the publican for torches –two – and nice and strong
and Then we stood at each end of the bar (bout ten foot long)
and Then he says “GET SET ” (like some King Kong)
and Then he yelled “LETS GO ! - the timer’s on!!”

he Switched his torch on – I did too, as soon as I saw “light”
deSpite the fact that he was sloshed and I was “almost” tight
we Timed that light-beam back and forth and got it pretty right
- then Checked the numbers way into the night.
- and Let the torches cool down out of sight. 

and Finally we proved it – “C’ was nowhere near as big
300 thousand Klicks per second !! – (minus zag and zig)!!!
“this Speed of light is 'bout  as fast as Jim O’Lauchlan’s pig !!
said Paddy when he finished doing trig,
or Maybe twice as fast as Irish jig!.

they Can’t get THIS right, what’s their chance of working out the watts?
and Power and amps and stuff like that that ties us all in knots
they Orta concentrate on sums like “join the bloody dots”
or Doin “crosswords made for tiny tots”.!!
the Speed of light's officially EIGHT KNOTS!!

you Ask me they should stick to doing basic algebraic
and Dirty coal - and stuff like that – allegedly archaic
it’s Dirty maybe ( dad would come home looking quite opay-ique)
but Hek this other stuff is "archi-tra-ic”
....
(so me and Paddys gone photo-voltaic  )



> http://www.colorado.edu/physics/2000/waves_particles/lightspeed_evidence.html  How has the speed of light been measured?
> 
> That's a very good question. In the early 17th century, many scientists believed that there was no such thing as the "speed of light"; they thought light could travel any distance in no time at all
> 
> ...



(almost spot on!!!! - not bad for the 1670's sheesh)



> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_light
> The speed of light in a vacuum is an important physical constant denoted by the letter c for constant or the Latin word celeritas meaning "swiftness". It is the speed of all electromagnetic radiation in a vacuum, not just visible light.
> 
> In metric units, c is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second (1,079,252,848.8 km/h). Note that this speed is a definition, not a measurement, since the fundamental SI unit of length, the metre, has been defined since October 21, 1983 in terms of the speed of light: one metre is the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. Converted to imperial units, the speed of light is approximately 186,282.397 miles per second, or 670,616,629.384 miles per hour, or almost one foot per nanosecond




I guess the time to travel the length of Paddys bar would have been ten nanoseconds. or 10

Reminds me - 299-gigametres per second is 1.079 tetrametres per hour!!  
Bloke at work is going to buy a computer with a 1 tetra-byte hard drive!!.    These days we boast - "My computer's got two Gigs!!!"   
Tomorrow we'll be saying "That's nothing - My computer's got two Tets!"


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 November 2006)

War Speeches etc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhYiv6wFBaM =WC comes to power

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0JsPXg-e1s = Winston Churchill "we shall fight on the beaches" - recorded excerpt of speech. (words below)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idEUzGrewlM&NR = roosevelt warns of danger if nazis win 1940

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr-IYTH7okQ&mode=related&search= =hitler - I suggest turn it off after 1  minute max - seriously boring.!

WC ON HISTORY:-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vhYiv6wFBaM&mode=related&search=
"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, "This was their finest hour.""
also
"History will be kind to me for I intend to write it."

WC ON PERSEVERENCE:-
"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old."

WC ON PURPOSE:-
Behind them - behind us- behind the Armies and Fleets of Britain and France - gather a group of shattered States and bludgeoned races: the Czechs, the Poles, the Norwegians, the Danes, the Dutch, the Belgians - upon all of whom the long night of barbarism will descend, unbroken even by a star of hope, unless we conquer, as conquer we must; as conquer we shall.

GWB ON TIDES:-
I think -- tide turning -- see, as I remember -- I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of -- it's easy to see a tide turn -- did I say those words?" --George W. Bush, asked if the tide was turning in Iraq, Washington, D.C., June 14, 2006

WC ON TIDES:-
The gratitude of every home in our Island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world, except in the abodes of the guilty, goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unwearied in their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of the world war by their prowess and by their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm60ZIVnXZw&mode=related&search=
the present in colour - the memories (nightmares on this occasion) in black and white.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqy85jz5lcY&mode=related&search= winston summary


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSNOr26ZbrQ&mode=related&search= so what if its about Beckham and co - the same sentiments apply for the ashes 



> "for without victory there IS no glory...we shall fight on the pitches, we shall SING on the terraces, we shall watch in the pubs!! - and on the plasma screens!! we shall never surrender"  CMON ENGLAND lol.


----------



## pacer (24 November 2006)

There  was a bloke from Perth,
That thought more than he was worth.
He  made a big plunder
Not a big blunder..

And is now sitting here...
and smiling in wonder.........

You guys here give me the motivation and fortitude to cary on and realy enjoy the trading game....Love you all heaps, even if some of you are tossers!.....lol


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 November 2006)

there once was a man from nantucket lol :goodnight 
Hey pacer, big job coming up in Tauranga - $500 million worth of bridges and stuff - btw nothing to do with investment in ASX  

By the way - did you like the story (post #197) of Galileo and his assistant - standing on hills 1 mile apart flashing at each other  - Bludy Italians- never change.lol


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jgf2FeEe0sI&mode=related&search=

HAVE YOU BEEN TO JAIL FOR JUSTICE
 ©2000 Anne Feeney (BMI)

Was it Cesar Chavez or Rosa Parks that day?
Some say Dr. King or Ghandi
Set them on their way
No matter who your mentors are
It’s pretty plain to see
That if you’ve been to jail for justice
You’re in good company

Have you been to jail for justice?
I want to shake your hand
‘Cause sitting in and laying down
Are ways to take a stand
Have you sung a song for freedom
Or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice?
Then you’re a friend of mine

You law abiding citizens
Come listen to this song
Laws are made by people
And people can be wrong
Once unions were against the law
But slavery was fine
Women were denied the vote
While children worked the mine
The more you study history
The less you can deny it
A rotten law stays on the books
‘til folks with guts defy it!

Have you been to jail for justice?
I want to shake your hand
‘Cause sitting in and laying down
Are ways to take a stand
Have you sung a song for freedom
Or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice?
Then you’re a friend of mine

Well the law is supposed to serve us
And so are the police
When the system fails
It’s up to us to speak our piece
We must be ever vigilant
For justice to prevail
So get courage from your convictions
Let ‘em haul you off to jail!

Have you been to jail for justice?
I want to shake your hand
‘Cause sitting in and laying down
Are ways to take a stand
Have you sung a song for freedom
Or marched that picket line?
Have you been to jail for justice?
Then you’re a friend of mine
Have you been to jail for justice
Have you been to jail for justice
Have you been to jail for justice
Then you’re a friend of mine


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 November 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu8JFzSdHn8 = tonite , west side story (relative amateurs)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEY1-v3i98w&mode=related&search= pofessionals (Placido Domingo, Julia Migenes )

The following extract fromWestSide Soryincludes some of this song, but not exact match.  
http://www.seeklyrics.com/lyrics/West-Side-Story/Tonight.html

ANITA Anita's gonna get her kicks Tonight. 
We'll have our  private little mix Tonight. 
He'll walk in hot  and tired, So what? 
Don't matter if he's  tired, As long as he's hot Tonight! 

TONY Tonight, tonight, Won't be just any night, 
Tonight there will be no morning star. 
Tonight, tonight, I'll see my love tonight. 
And for us, stars will stop where they are. 
Today The minutes seem like hours, The hours go so slowly, 
And still the sky is light . . . Oh moon, grow bright, And make this endless day endless night! 

RIFF I'm counting on you to be there Tonight. 
When  Diesel wins it fair and square Tonight. 
That Puerto  Rican punk'll Go down. And when he's hollered "Uncle" We'll tear up the town! 
(RIFF, TONY, and MARIA sing simultaneously) 
RIFF So I can count on you, boy? 
TONY All  right. 
RIFF We're gonna have us a ball.
TONY All right. 
RIFF Womb to tomb! 
TONY Sperm to worm! 
RIFF I'll see you there about eight. 

PS post #115 also refers  
TYPICAL OLD FASHIONED LOVE AFFAIR - 16th CENTRURY.

they Met in their teens when the world was green, and their Heads were impetuous yet,
and the Sad forebodings to them unseen, of Montague and Capulet,
and it Grew from fling to zing to keen, to Flames of eternal debt,
till those Flaming brothers intervene, on behalf of the the Gang and the Jet. etc etc 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8kQN5MmrFc&mode=related&search=  =last scene of west side story


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 November 2006)

Here are a few songs and links associated with the Olympic movement. (and by inference, multiculturalism).  Great ideals - but I suspect some of these ideals only surface every 4 years .   (PS Most of these clips are only worth 20 or 30 seconds worth of viewing - with the possible exception of the *2000 Special Olympics*.   ......watch all 40 seconds of this one!.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sd3anxVMgZY&mode=related&search= kids at 1996 Atlanta Olympics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poSEND5N_lk = 2000 sydney 
“family of children, we come from many different lands"  A lousy song to listen to but the lyrics are pretty unambiguous on the subject of tolerance etc. 

UNDER SOUTHERN SKIES  (Nikki Webster) 
Lyrics by Maria Millward,  Music by Damien Halloran

There's a peace in our hearts and a hope in our hands,
We're the family of children; we come from many different lands.
Our time is just beginning; our race is yet to run,
But if you will take us with you, then we have already won.

Chorus: Under the southern skies,  Together in this land,
Every voice in celebration,  A family hand in hand!
Under the southern skies,  As one we rise,
And turn our eyes to see,   All the wonder of the future
In a world of harmony. 

There's a great spirit rising from the desert to the sea.
As it sweeps across this southern land it calls to you and me:
We're the dreamers and the dreaming; we're the face of things yet to come.
Every child can be a hero if our world can live as one.

Chorus: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Y9k-U67FNg&mode=related&search= =they make you feel different, *Special Olympics 2000*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Q0yhOPO510&mode=related&search= athens 2004

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqdwdYV2F0I = 2006 winter Olympics

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xhxh3expV10&mode=related&search= chinese Olympics 2008


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 November 2006)

A KIND RELEASE AMONGST FRIENDS

we’re Gathered here, my final test, to let me hold your hand,
one Final heartbeat in a breast that’s brave but undermanned,
I’ve Lost all strength, my mortal soul can’t face this savage land,
- I’ve Seen God through this portal hole unmanned,
- how Fast my footing sinks, how quick the sand.

we’re Gathered here, no more no less, to watch my curtain draw,
my Soul seeks haven from this mess, these whips that leave it raw,
a Gentler place where slopes are easy, walking’s not a chore,
- my Knees are tired of crawling cross THIS floor,
- i See a roadway west, and mercy’s law.

they Say that men are thankful when our wings take off at last,
they Say that its more tranquil when our standard flies half mast,
but Please my friends, no flags for me, no tears, no cannon blast,
- i Smile to think of days of laughter past , 
- just Think of me some times - when reel is cast.

just Think of me when you -  perhaps - do things we used to do,
or When we walked through life’s strange maps – or how to tie your shoe,
or How we used to watch the stars  - or maybe make a brew ,
- or Maybe when you advertise for crew,
- i’ll Be there should you need a tip or two. 

i’m Dying here much prouder, flanked by friends - I’ve made my peace,
and Heaven’s call is louder, thanks, this merciful release,
i’m Passing through these clouds and banks of cumulus and fleece,
- now Flanked by friends, soon flanked by winter geese,
- and Pure white doves with halos in the breeze.

i Watched the sunrise dawning – but  I can’t do that a-gen,
there’s Something bout the morning – when the pain is ten times ten,
and Add to that the conscience pains I cause to fellow men,
- how Many lives can my life here upend,
- though Friends like you are oak that never bend.

i Heard the laughing kookaburra - farmer’s dawn refrain,
but Couldn’t plough my crooked furrow – though you took the strain,
i’m Fitted now with wings of love, and taken off the chain , 
- you’re Free my Clydesdale friends, take off your rein,
- i Move on now to find a higher plain.

i Love you folks, I love your jokes, I love your salty eyes,
i’ve Loved my life, with all its strife, to Hell with shy goodbyes!
FAREWELL my friends, here’s luck, adieu, where I go peace will lie,
- and When we meet again in time, I’ll try
- to Recall all the jokes I’ve learnt on high. 

Yes, surely, I’ll run into you, in time,
and surely then we’ll laugh again – sublime.


----------



## constable (26 November 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> A KIND RELEASE AMONGST FRIENDS
> 
> we’re Gathered here, my final test, to let me hold your hand,
> one Final heartbeat in a breast that’s brave but undermanned,
> ...



Nice one 2020 brought a tear to my eye.


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 November 2006)

Met this Kiwi poet/songwriter, techhead, computer whizkid, happens to have a Degree in Theology.  Has produced a CD with 13 exceptional songs -  Bludy genius - really good lyrics, and great songs as well.  Here’s one of the simple ones. 

WHAT IS GOOD
Copyright Tim Page 

Take him out the back and shoot him!
he’s adMitted that he’s done some wrong
but reMember as you pull the trigger
That you’ve done the same thing all along.

Legislation says that we can stone her
so That’s what we’re gonna do
it Doesn’t matter that we’re all
Guilty of the same thing too.

he has Shown you what is good
and what He would advise of you 
to Treat them justly, to show his mercy
with a Measure of humanity too.

Checking out the spec in your eye
stop Looking at the plank in mine
I Only want to see you, I can show you  
I can show you where you’re out of line

Waiter there’s a fly in my soup
but the Camel I don’t really mind
to See it would be to concede 
This is just a case of the Blind leading the blind.

he has Shown you what is good
and what He would advise of you 
to Treat them justly, to show his mercy
with a Measure of humanity too.


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## 2020hindsight (1 December 2006)

I posted this on the lyrics thread - but just in case you missed it  
THIS is a case where the moral of the story whacks you between the eyes - and yet not a word is spoken   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfQMJtilOGg = steven bradbury


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 December 2006)

Latin proverbs.

I wonder how you'd translate " today I did a Bradbury" into Latin 
or maybe 
"when youre down in trouble and your shares are heading south - and nothin , nothin is goin right - just close your eyes, and pray for a bradbury" 

btw, Ducati (if you get around to reading this) - howdy I'd be interested to know what that latin means .. "Multa renascentur quae iam cecidere, cadentque Quae nunc sunt in honore" .

Speaking of Latin quotes , I'd invite anyone to post mottos etc.

There's one I like (from memory).. something about ..."fortes fortunes aduuvaat"  - but I'm bound to have misspelt it, and spellcheck  just went into meltdown, ..."fortune favours the brave."  

I give it 50-50 chance of actually being true in life, lol.  But I like the concept.  If ever I'm brave - eg with a stock purchase - and it doesn't pay off - then  I take comfort in the fact that it wouldve worked if only I was buying shares in the Latin stock exchange.    

The one that I DO know works in life is "luckamus fortunes aduuvaat"  ... which means "fortune favours the lucky"


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## new girl (1 December 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> Latin proverbs.
> 
> I wonder how you'd translate " today I did a Bradbury" into Latin
> or maybe
> ...




Well, you're brave and lucky, both in real life and on this forum, so cheer up 

oh, and talented.


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## 2020hindsight (1 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> Well, you're brave and lucky, both in real life and on this forum, so cheer up



Well lately Ive been lucky youre right - considering I started this investing at the top of the peak in May   As for courage- there's a fine line between courage and stupidity lol. 

Speaking of Latin,  I understand that they're going to make a trilogy based on "Gladiator" with Russell Crowe playing in all three parts.  
a) In Gladiator I he is MAXIMUS,  
b) In Gladiator II he is MIDDLEMUS, and 
c) In Gladiator III he is MINIMUS! 
(just doesnt inspire the same gladiatorial overtones, does it,  lol)

Google gave me websites by the score eg:-
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Latin_proverbs
eg
"A Deo rex, a rege lex
but Presidents are spicks and specks"

Translation: "The king is from God, the law from the king". Attributed to James I of England


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## new girl (1 December 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> Well lately Ive been lucky youre right - considering I started this investing at the top of the peak in May   As for courage- there's a fine line between courage and stupidity lol.
> 
> Speaking of Latin,  I understand that they're going to make a trilogy based on "Gladiator" with Russell Crowe playing in all three parts.
> a) In Gladiator I he is MAXIMUS,
> ...




Don't tell me about May, I panicked and sold, didn't lose but could've made much more  and hence the broker. As for being stupid, I think you have enough common sense for that  

Russell's latest movie (can't remember the name) is different, I kinda liked it. I have a soft spot for Crowe, sh$%@t singer though


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 December 2006)

AUSSIE CITIZENSHIP TEST

Id like you all to raise your hand and sing the national anthem - 
But firstly have a gander - look at all the rest and count'em
If any of you reckon that there's more in here than 4???..
then sorry but youve failed test one - and there's the flaming door.

Now crowd around the three of you and here's a simple question
how many times has Shane Warne been accused of bold incest-ion
And also how do googlies fly when he is on his metal?
You've No idea? well sorry love, try next year's test my petal.

Now...two of yous, and one more test - The Kelly gang was how big?
I'm sorry these are so damned easy - (thats a bludy dig )
1000 you say - damned if I know, - that sure sounds too many !
So sorry mate youre out as well, its surely less than twenny.

OK mate congrats, last one, promise - for the koala bear,
Repeat for me the words intact of "Vance Australia Square"
"Australians all eat ostriches?" - well that'll do for now..
Now here's your piece of fancy paper - face the queen and bow ...

I'd post the    icon, but think this one barely ranks as 1c.   still maybe someone out there is desperate for a bludy smile.

ps see if you can avoid a SMILE AT THIS :-
priceless
http://www.unoriginal.co.uk/footage81_4.html laughing babies

I invite RIR (repartee in reply):-
here's a start 
a) overheared in nursery.. will someone tell those bludy quads to SHUDDUP! sheesh its 9.30am in the MORNIN!
b) - over to you folks 

ps you know the one about the girl who was listening to a lecture when the speaker mentioned "retartee", - 'you know' said the speaker 'the art of giving quick witty answers, frequently attributed to Oscar Wilde.  can anyone think of any examples..'.... quick as a flash her arm goes up..." yep!! my boyfriend he's real good at repartee too. like the other day at the movie cinema, we're waqlking across to our seat in the dark, someone says, "hey get outta my way, I can't see" .. so quik as anything my boyfriend, he's real good at repartee', she hurriedly smiles and continues ' he turns around and says "get fu** ed!!'

ps - newgirl  mornin - yep I agree about russell crowe - hell of an actor , and also his singing voice sounds like nothin you'd find in heaven.


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## 2020hindsight (2 December 2006)

WHEN RETARTEE COMES OUT TO PLAY 

Sometimes my mind goes walkabout - Through awkward words of yesterday 
It loves repeat re-talkabout , When repartee comes out to play. 

I dream my words can be re-said , and crowds are there to hear my quips 
(instead my dog just tilts her head , and ponders why I move my lips). 

My witless banter real-time mode , in daylight rusts at every cog 
when witnessed , quickly overloads , I dream of "run" but barely "jog". 

Like somewhere some girl called me bold- , In "wit-review" I whirled in jigtime 
then flamencoed to her shoulder , "fancy tripping? " .... then tripped bigtime. 

Then she mocked my nose as "beak" , Wit-reviewed I answered grinning 
"Like we should be ...cheek to cheek" , 'stead I stood there double chinning. 

Summary, in realtime screening , Cruel reality is this - 
Repartee escapes my meaning , aims impressive , scores a miss. 

So I have my thoughts to thank , for filling up this jumbled head 
Messy mish-mash memory bank , of Clever things I never said. 

So I live much time reviewing , Things I would have liked to say, - 
When lost chances keep accruing , Repartee comes out to play.


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 December 2006)

These are quotes rather than repartee, but..

http://www.unoriginal.co.uk/oscar-wilde-quotes.html  oscar wilde quotes 

A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world. . - Oscar Wilde

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars. - Oscar Wilde

A banker is a fellow who lends you his umbrella when the sun is shining, but wants it back the minute it begins to rain. -Mark Twain


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## 2020hindsight (3 December 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Latin_proverbs
> eg  "A Deo rex, a rege lex"  Translation: "The king is from God, the law from the king". Attributed to James I of England



There are also some "mock quotes":- 

Carpe jugulum   ..Translation: "Go for the throat."   
The title of a Terry Pratchett novel and the motto of the Von Magpyr family of vampires in that novel. 

Carpe noctem. ...Translation: "Seize the night." 
Dean Koontz, Seize the Night (1998)  Also a title of a song in the Jim Steinman musical Tanz der Vampire 

Carpe pugam. ...Translation: "Grab ass." 
Cave ne ante ullas catapultas ambules. ..If I were you, I wouldn't walk in front of any catapults. 

Da mihi sis bubulÃ¦ frustrum assÃ¦, solana tuberosa in modo gallico fricta, ac quassum lactatum coagulatum crassum. ...Translation: Give me a hamburger, french fries, and a thick shake. 

Nil illegitimi carborundum. ..Don't let the bastards grind you down. 
Carborundum is the brand name of a commercial abrasive. See wikipedia Illegitimi non carborundum. 

Nil significat, nil oscillat. ..It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. 
Romanes eunt domus ..Translation: A sentence scrawled on a wall by an Israelite in Monty Python's Life of Brian, intended to mean "Romans go home." A Roman soldier catches him at it, ridicules the bad grammar ("Some people called Romanes, they go, the house?!") and forces him, not to remove it, but to correct it to Romani ite domum. 

Veni vidi velcro. .. I came, I saw, I got stuck. 
Veni vidi visa. ..I came, I saw, I bought. 
Veni, vidi, vegi. ..I came, I saw, I had a salad. 
(Veni vidi concreti .. I came, I saw, I concreted?)

Roccaturi te salutant! ...Those about to rock salute you! 
Semper ubi sub ubi, ...Always wear underwear. 
The Latin is literally "always where under where", the joke is to read "wear" for "where".

Other sites to check meanings etc  :- http://proverbs.bestlatin.net/
http://www.findia.net/   - finally had success looking for meaning of 
"dum vivimus, vivamus"
....
ahh got it   "while we live let us live" .  (you seem to have to type in the entire quote when you enquire - not just the first couple of words) 
http://www.bartleby.com/81/5471.html
http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/nq/resources/rsascottishart/imagedetails/dumvivimusvivamus.asp


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 December 2006)

http://www.bartleby.com/81/5470.html  = dum spiro, spero =  while I breathe, I hope. 
This was apparently also quoted when Spiro Agnu made a few stupid decisions, emphasis on "dum" 
http://www.scstatehouse.net/studentpage/motto.htm
also the motto of south carolina. (apparently)


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 December 2006)

sad one about a horse that dies whilst jumping.

Thus I speak, and force a laugh, - That is half a sneer and half -  An involuntary groan,
  In a stifled tone””
........
"With a flash that ends thy pain, 
Respite and oblivion blest
Come to greet thee. I in vain - 
Fall: I rise to fall again: -  
Thou hast fallen to thy rest””
  And thy fall is best!"

(must've caught him on a bad day - not sure I'd agree - I'd prefer to keep the cycle of "falling and rising and falling again and etc" going for a while...- but beautiful words nonetheless)

THE LAST LEAP (Adam Linbdsay GOrdon)

ALL is over! fleet career, -   Dash of greyhound slipping thongs,
Flight of falcon, bound of deer, - Mad hoof-thunder in our rear, -   Cold air rushing up our lungs,
  Din of many tongues.

Once again, one struggle good, -   One vain effort;”” he must dwell
Near the shifted post, that stood - Where the splinters of the wood, -   Lying in the torn tracks, tell
  How he struck and fell.

Crest where cold drops beaded cling, -   Small ear drooping, nostril full,
Glazing to a scarlet ring, - Flanks and haunches quivering, -   Sinews stiffening, void and null,
  Dumb eyes sorrowful.

Satin coat that seems to shine -   Duller now, black braided tress
That a softer hand than mine - Far away was wont to twine, -   That in meadows far from this
  Softer lips might kiss.

All is over! this is death, -   And I stand to watch thee die,
Brave old horse! with bated breath - Hardly drawn through tight-clenched teeth, -  Lip indented deep, but eye
  Only dull and dry.

Musing on the husk and chaff -   Gathered where life’s tares are sown,
Thus I speak, and force a laugh, - That is half a sneer and half -  An involuntary groan,
  In a stifled tone””

‘Rest, old friend! thy day, though rife -   With its toil, hath ended soon;
We have had our share of strife, - Tumblers in the masque of life, -   In the pantomime of noon
  Clown and pantaloon.

‘With a flash that ends thy pain, -   Respite and oblivion blest
Come to greet thee. I in vain - Fall: I rise to fall again: -  Thou hast fallen to thy rest””
  And thy fall is best!’

By the way, go to this website - you can cycle through Gordons poems :- "NEXT / PREVIOUS etc" also many other poets etc.  Gr8 site. 
http://www.bartleby.com/249/20.html

I think these are all the 204 Australasian poems on that site:-
http://www.bartleby.com/249/


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 December 2006)

Speaking of the ashes series ... - you'd have to say the Aus - Brit thing is a pretty interesting relationship   Here's a poemwritten by an old politician (who I personally never knew wrote poetry) - damned good imho.
http://www.bartleby.com/249/4.html
FATHERLAND  
By Sir Henry Parkes 

THE BRAVE old land of deed and song,  
Of gentle hearts and spirits strong,  
Of queenly maids and heroes grand,  
Of equal laws,””our Fatherland!  

Though born beneath a brighter sun,         5 
Shall we forget the marvels done,  
By soul outspoken, blood outpoured,  
By bard and patriot, song and sword?  

Forget how firm and true our sires,  
Still lighted by their battle-fires,         10 
’Gainst kingly power and kingly crime,  
Long struggled in the darkened time?  

How in a rolling sea they stood,  
Where every wave was freemen’s blood,””  
Shall we forget the time of strife,         15 
When freedom’s only price was life?  

Shall Cromwell’s memory, Milton’s lyre,  
Not kindle ’mong us souls of fire,  
Not raise in us a spirit strong””  
High scorn of shams, quick hate of wrong?         20 

Shall we not learn, Australians born!  
To smile on tinselled power our scorn,””  
At least, a freeman’s pride to try,  
When tinselled power would bend or buy?  

The brave old land of deed and song,         25 
We ne’er will do her memories wrong!  
For freedom here we’ll firmly stand,  
As stood our sires for Fatherland! 

Poem #1 by William Charles Wentworth is somewhatsimilar - herewithsome excerpts ... (first mention of Warragamba in poetry ?)
http://www.bartleby.com/249/1.html
From ‘Australasia’
....
Where Warragamba’s rage has rent in twain         15 
Opposing mountains, thund’ring to the plain,  
No child of song has yet invoked thy aid,  
’Neath their primaeval solitary shade,””  
Still, gracious Pow’r, some kindling soul inspire  
To wake to life my country’s unknown lyre,         20 
That from creation’s date has slumbering lain,  
Or only breath’d some savage uncouth strain,””  
And grant that yet an Austral Milton’s song  
Pactolus-like flow deep and rich along,””  
An Austral Shakespeare rise, whose living page         25 
To Nature true may charm in ev’ry age;””  
And that an Austral Pinder daring soar,  
Where not the Theban Eagle reach’d before. 

(surely that would be Gordon) 

And, O Britannia! shouldst thou cease to ride  
Despotic Empress of old Ocean’s tide;””         30 
Should thy tam’d Lion””spent his former might””  
No longer roar, the terror of the fight;””  
Should e’er arrive that dark, disastrous hour,  
When, bow’d by luxury, thou yield’st to power;””  
When thou, no longer freest of the free,         35 
To some proud victor bend’st the vanquished knee;””  
May all thy glories in another sphere  
Relume, and shine more brightly still than here:  
May this””thy last-born infant””then arise,  
To glad thy heart, and greet thy parent eyes;         40 
And Australasia float, with flag unfurl’d,  
A new Britannia in another world! 

funny, never thought of Australia as being UK's "last-born infant" before


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 December 2006)

Gordon was influenced by Byron amongst others.
INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG, 1808
Lord Byron

          When some proud son of man returns to earth, 
          Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth, 
          The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe, 
          And storied urns record who rest below: 
          When all is done, upon the tomb is seen, 
          Not what he was, but what he should have been: 

*But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend, 
          The first to welcome, foremost to defend, 
          Whose honest heart is still his master's own, 
          Who labors, fights, lives, breathes for him alone, 
          Unhonored falls, unnoticed all his worth, 
          Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth: * sheesh that's good imho!!

          While man, vain insect!  hopes to be forgiven, 
          And claims himself a sole exclusive heaven. 
          Oh man!  thou feeble tenant of an hour, 
          Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power, 
          Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust, 
          Degraded mass of animated dust! 

          Thy love is lust, thy friendship is all a cheat, 
          Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit! 
          By nature vile, ennobled but by name, 
          Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame. 

          Ye!  who perchance behold this simple urn, 
          Pass on - it honors none you wish to mourn: 
          To mark a friend's remains these stones arise; 
          I never knew but one, - and here he lies.  

http://englishhistory.net/byron/contents.html

1. On the subject of Lord Byron, heres a painting "in Albanian dress , 1835
http://englishhistory.net/byron/images/byronphillips.jpg
This portrait commemorates Byron's famous adventures in Albania.  It can be viewed at the National Portrait Gallery, London."

2. and also one of his father , Capt John ('mad jack') Byron http://englishhistory.net/byron/images/byronfather.jpg
the notes say "John died at Valenciennes in 1791, most likely a suicide.  Later, Byron would tell friends that his father had cut his own throat.  It is more likely he died from tuberculosis or an overdose.  Interestingly, John had an incestuous relationship with his sister Frances Leigh, later the mother of Colonel George Leigh who became the husband of Byron's half-sister and lover, Augusta." 

lol and I thought mine was a dysfunctional family.. "incest, a game the whole family can enjoy"  

3. On the subject of Gordons POSSIBLE PLAGEURISM of Byron, the intro to his "Bush Ballads" says ...
"Readers of "Sea Spray and Smoke Drift" however will not need anyone to point out how closely at times Gordon followed his "model" in these earlier poems. But here as in all these estimates of his obligations to other poets, we would not have it understood that Gordon plagiarised from Byron or anyone else. There are points of contact in the poet and the poems, but such plageurism always vindicates itself . The truth is, that not once nor twice , nor here nor there, is an idea or a figure borrowed;  but that Gordon in his youth passed, as many poets have done, so under the spell of Byron's vital vigourous flowing verse, and picturesque personality that it became impossible not to reproduce him. "

4.  On the subject of FIRST DRAFT IS GOOD ENOUGH.  Gordon was like Byron in another aspect as well .. "the vice of impromtu work which , like Byron, Gordon steadily refused to polish, to file, or to furbish.  Byron said in this connection, 'I am like the tiger ; if I miss the first spring, I go crawling back to my jungle.  There is no second.  I can't correct and I won't'.  It was after this fashion that Gordon wrote."  
speaking of which, I found this totally irrelevant youtube  :-
http://www.unoriginal.co.uk/footage102_1.html tiger attack
(that tiger sure can camouflage himself - also I've no idea how this video ends, but don't envy the bloke in the driver's seat.)

PS I just like this style of poetry . a) because it rhymes, b) because the language is easy to understand  and c) usually at least sentimental (if not romantic).  - the concept of the worth of a dogs friendship etc. 

Went to a poets club meeting once.  - Some of the poems went on for 20 bludy minutes ! sheesh. - and for most of that time I was diving back and forward through a dictionary to see what they were on about lol.


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## 2020hindsight (4 December 2006)

http://www.bushpoetry.com.au/master...eWT/tabid/841/Default.aspx?PageContentID=1210
OUGH!’ A Fonetic Fansy
WT Goodge  (‘The Colonel’)

The baker-man was kneading dough
And whistling softly, sweet and lough.
Yet ever and anon he’d cough
As though his head was coming ough!
‘My word!’ said he, ‘but this is rough;
this flour is simply awful stough!’
He punched and thumped it through and through
As all good baker’s always dough!
‘I’d sooner drive,’ said he, ‘a plough,
Than be a baker anyhough!
Thus spake the baker kneading dough;
But don’t let on I told you sough!

as Homer would say ... Dough!!


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## 2020hindsight (4 December 2006)

http://www.bushpoetry.com.au/master...nry/tabid/703/Default.aspx?PageContentID=1163
HIS EPITAPH (He alwas Rod to Win)
By Will Ogilvie

On a little old bush racecourse at the back of No Man’s Land,
Where the mulgas mark the furlongs and a dead log marks the stand,
There’s a square of painted railings showing white against the loam
Where they fight for inside running as they round the bend for home;
Just a lonely grave and graveyard that are left to Nature’s care, 
For the wild bush-flowers that brighten it were never planted there;
No monument or marble that will speak his praise or blame,
No verse to tell his story and no mark to prove his name.
But carved upon the white rail that is weather-worn and thin
Is the simple, roug-hewn legend: HE ALWAS ROD TO WIN!

Some poor, uncared-for jockey-boy, who never earned a name –
It’s the boys who “ride to orders” who can find the road to Fame;
And the flowers and marble head-stones and the wealth of gear and gold
Are the prizes of the riders who will “stop them” when they’re told!
Just a whisper at the saddling; “He’s the only danger, Dan,
That’s the boy will try to beat you – stop him, any way you can!”
Just a crowding at the corner and a crossing in the straight,
And a plucky little horseman who is “pulling out” too late;
A heavy fall, a horse is loose – and a lightweight carried in –
A shallow grave, a railing and: “HE ALWAS ROD TO WIN!”

Some brave, brown-handed comrade who has learned the rider’s worth
Has carved those rough words o’er him for the eyes of all the earth;
And though few may chance to pass him as he lies in simple state,
Those few will hold him honoured by the friendship of his mate.
And when, in Life’s keen struggle, we shall fight for inside place,
When they crowd us at the corner and we drop from out the race,
When the ringing hoofs go forward and the cheering greets the best,
And the prize is for the winner, and the red spurs for the rest,
May we find some true-heart comrade, when they’ve filled the last clods in,
Who will carve these words above us: HE ALWAS ROD TO WIN!

And another poem by Will Ogilvie - about Breaker Morant no less ( another who "Rod to Win")  
http://www.bushpoetry.com.au/master...nry/tabid/703/Default.aspx?PageContentID=1162
HARRY MORANT   By Will Ogilvie

Harry Morant was a friend I had , In the years long passed away,
A chivalrous, wild and reckless lad, A knight born out of his day.

Full of romance and void of fears,  With a love of the world’s applause,
He should have been one of the cavaliers , Who fought in King Charles’s cause.

He loved a girl, and he loved a horse,  And he never let down a friend,
And reckless he was, but he rode his course  With courage up to the end.

“Breaker Morant” was the name he earned, For no bucking horse could throw
This Englishman who had lived and learned,  As much as the bushmen know.

Many a mile have we crossed together,  Out where the great plains lie,
To the clink of bit and the creak of leather – Harry Morant and I.

Time and again we would challenge Fate, With some wild and reckless “dare”,
Shoving some green colt over a gate, As though with a neck to spare.

At times in a wilder mood than most , We would face them at naked wire,
Trusting the sight of a gidyea post , Would lift them a half-foot higher.

And once we galloped a steeplechase , For a bet – ’twas a short half-mile
While one jump only, the stiffest place , In a fence of the old bush style.

A barrier built of blue-gum rails , As thick as a big man’s thigh,
And mortised into the posts – no nails – Unbreakable, four foot high.

Since both our horses were young and green, And had never jumped or raced,
Were we men who had tired of this earthly scene, We could scarce have been better placed.

“Off” cried “The Breaker”, and off we went , And he stole a length of lead,
Over the neck of the grey I bent , And we charged the fence full speed.

The brown horse slowed and tried to swerve,  But his rider with master hand
And flaming courage and iron nerve , Made him lift and leap and land.

He rapped it hard with every foot , And was nearly down on his nose;
Then I spurred the grey and followed suit , And, praise to the gods – he rose!

He carried a splinter with both his knees , And a hind-leg left some skin,
But we caught them up at the wilga trees , Sitting down for the short run-in.

The grey was game and he carried on  , But the brown had a bit to spare;
The post was passed, my pound was gone , And a laugh was all my share.

“The Braker” is sleeping in some far place , Where the Boer War heroes lie,
And we’ll meet no more in a steeplechase – Harry Morant and I.


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## 2020hindsight (5 December 2006)

STATION SONGS AND DROVING DITTIES 
By Breaker Morant 

'Station songs and droving ditties'!  Strung together on the track
Far away from coastal cities  In the droving days-outback; 

Some on distant water-courses  'Neath the blazing Northern sun,
When returning with the horses  To a far North-western run; 

Some were fashioned in the gloaming  While the morrow's damper cooked;
Some were penned by rivers roaming  Where the wily fish was hooked; 

Ere the midday 'quart' was ready  And an hour was slow to pass
Whilst the nags were feeding steady  On the ripening Mitchell grass; 

Or, when horse-bells chimed and tinkled  Where the feed was drenched with dew, 
And the wintry white stars twinkled  High above in heaven's blue. 

Then-of stockwhips' ring and rattle  In the range-some memory flashed;
Or of night-rides after cattle  When the gidya branches crashed. 

And a rhyme perchance I've come by  Recollecting some past ride-
When we trapped the fing brumby  On the Southern Queensland side. 

Jingles!-neither good nor clever-  Just a rover's random rhymes,
But they'll serve their turn if ever  They recall the old bush times, 

When a bushman, in his leisure,  Reads them 'neath the shady pine;
Or they give one moment's pleasure  To some old bush mate o' mine! 
............................................

Also 
THE BRIGALOW BRIGADE ,  (etc)
Bt Breaker Morant 

There's a band of decent fellows
On a cattle-run outback-
You'll hear the timber smashing
If you follow in their track;.....
.................

The Brigalow Brigade are
Fastidious in their taste
In the matter of a maiden
And the inches of her waist;

She must be sweet and tender
And her eyes a decent shade-
Then her Ma may safely send her
To the Brigalow Brigade. 
........... etc
...

You will see the options for all Breaker's Poems (as posted) on right hand side of his photo.    The man was well known to be a larrikin of course - and not above doing the early morning flit to get out of paying for his lodgings etc 

Here's a stack of other poets as well :-
http://www.bushpoetry.com.au/masterpoets/MasterPoetsHome/tabid/626/Default.aspx


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## 2020hindsight (5 December 2006)

Before leaving the topic of bushies and their poetry ...
here's one that floats up from my subconscious .. passed down from word of mouth...originally from my granpa who was a larrikin himself 

Somehow a priest and a larrikin drover are having this debate - and each are asked to make a sentence with Timbuktu in it.  (forget the details).

So the Priest says (very politely and reverendly):-
"I've been a preacher harf my life, I've preached through toil and trial and strife,
I've preached to the many , and preached to the few, I've even preached in Timbuktu!!"
and gently resumes his seat, feeling very happy with himself

So the larrikin drover has to respond...thinks hard . .. finally his eyes light up and he responds....

"ME AN TIM A'DROVIN WENT
WE HAD THREE SHIELAS IN OUR TENT
mmm
THEY WERE THREE , and mmm
WE WAS TWO, so,  mmm
 I BUCKED ONE ,  AND TIMBUKTO!!"

(ahh guess you had to be there lol)


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## 2020hindsight (5 December 2006)

the following was obviously written under the grip of some extremely  intoxicating grape.
WHAT DO YOU DO WITH A WINDBREAK EXPERT

What do you do with a Windbreak expert when the expert is a-busy breaking wind
W.d.y.d.w.a     Tinhead roofer when the roofer’s head is busy being tinned, 
W.d.y.d.w.a    Sinbinned half-forward when the forward claims he only half sinned.
And W.d.y.d.w.a    Spindoctor agent when the aging fellow’s doctoring a spin.

What do you do with a……
Back spin bowler when the bowler’s busy spinning on his back
Crack sharp shooter when the shooter’s busy sharpening his crack
Wacky wittle wabbit when the wabbit are a-wittlin’ its wack
Sacked poli-tician when the ‘ticians are makin’ Polly in the sack.

What do you do with a……
Daredevil stuntman when the stuntman’s out a-devilling his dare
Scare monger journo when the journo’s out there mongering a scare,
Tare weight re-checker when the checker’s reaching back to fix a tear,
Bare back jumper when he’s out the back and busy jumpin’ bear.

What do you do with a……
Fly fishing angler when he’s angle-ing to fishing with his fly
Lie detector copper when the copper is detector-ing a lie 
Pibald palimino when your pal is a-balding like a pie
Rhyebread loaf when the loafer’s busy breeding in the rhye.

What do you do with a……
Morse code cracker when the coder is a-crackin on his morse
Force fed Jeddi when he’s out there a-feeding on the Force
Horse float designer when he’s busy out designing floating horse
Course record holder when the holder’s out recording something coarse.

What do you do with a……
Lousy imitator when he’s busy out there imitating lice
Ice cream confection when the ice confection’s busy creaming ice
Mighty mouse fanatic when he’s busy out there fanning mighty mice
Rice paddy farmer when the farmer’s out there paddying his rice.

What do you do with a…
Roman gladiator when the gladiator’s glad –e- ate in Rome
Foamrubber mattress when the mattress is a-rubbing on the foam
Disco dancefloor whn your discs are floored and saying “take me home!” 
Poetry tribunal when the ‘bunal is as trying as this poem.


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## new girl (5 December 2006)

"He was beautiful" 

He was beautiful
Beautiful to my eyes
From the moment I saw him
The sun filled the sky
He was so, so beautiful
Beautiful just to hold
In my dreams he was springtime
Winter was cold
How could I tell him What I so clearly could see 
Though I longed for him
I never could be free
It was beautiful
Knowing now that he cares
I will always remember moments we shared
Now it's all over Still the feelings ling' on 
For my dream keeps returning
Now that he's gone
For it was beautiful Beautiful Beautiful to be loved


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## 2020hindsight (5 December 2006)

Don't you love that last stanza...  

.......Friendship that can laugh at fortune, friendship that can conquer pride! 
Offer this as to an equal -- let me see that you are true, 
And my wall of pride is shattered: I am not so proud as you! 

A PROUDER MAN THAN YOU, by Henry Lawson 

If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine, 
If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign, 
If you're proud because of fortune or the clever things you do -- 
Then I'll play no second fiddle: I'm a prouder man than you! 

If you think that your profession has the more gentility, 
And that you are condescending to be seen along with me; 
If you notice that I'm shabby while your clothes are spruce and new -- 
You have only got to hint it: I'm a prouder man than you! 

If you have a swell companion when you see me on the street, 
And you think that I'm too common for your toney friend to meet, 
So that I, in passing closely, fail to come within your view -- 
Then be blind to me for ever: I'm a prouder man than you! 

If your character be blameless, if your outward past be clean, 
While 'tis known my antecedents are not what they should have been, 
Do not risk contamination, save your name whate'er you do -- 
`Birds o' feather fly together': I'm a prouder bird than you! 

Keep your patronage for others! Gold and station cannot hide 
Friendship that can laugh at fortune, friendship that can conquer pride! 
Offer this as to an equal -- let me see that you are true, 
And my wall of pride is shattered: I am not so proud as you!


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## new girl (6 December 2006)

"NEVER, NEVER, NEVER"

I'd like to run away from you
but if you never found me I would die
I'd like to break the chains you put around me
but I know I never will

You stay away and all I do
is wonder why the hell I wait for you
but when did common sense prevail for lovers
when we knew it never will?

Impossible to live with you
but I know I could never live without you
For whatever you do,
I never never never Want to be in love with anyone but you...

You make me laugh, you make me cry
you make me live, you make me die for you
you make me sing, you make me sad
you make me glad, you make me mad for you

I love you, hate you, love you, hate you
but I want you til the world stops turning
For whatever you do,
I never never never Want to be in love with anyone but you...


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 December 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyY8QkKMEig&mode=related&search=  never never


----------



## chops_a_must (6 December 2006)

One of my favourites, and relevant to that anti muslim thread:

*We Are Accused Of Terrorism * 
We are accused of terrorism
If we dare to write about the remains of a homeland
That is scattered in pieces and in decay
In decadence and disarray
About a homeland that is searching for a place
And about a nation that no longer has a face

About a homeland that has nothing left of its great ancient verse
But that of wailing and eulogy

About a homeland that has nothing in its horizons
Of freedoms of different types and ideology

About a homeland that forbids us from buying a newspaper
Or listen to anything
About a homeland where all birds are always not allowed to sing
About a homeland that out of horror, its writers are using invisible ink

About a homeland that resembles poetry in our country
Improvised, imported, loose and of no boundaries
Of foreign tongue and soul
Detached from Man and Land, ignoring their plight as a whole

About a homeland to the negotiating table moves
Without a dignity or shoes

About a homeland
That no more has steadfast men
With only women therein

Bitterness is in our mouthsin our talkin our eyes
Will draught also plague our souls as a legacy passed to us 
from ancient times?

Our nation has nobody left, even the less glorified
No one to say "NO" in the face of those who gave up our 
homebread and butter
Turning our colorful history into a circus

We have not a single honest poem
That has not lost its virginity in a ruler's Harem

We grew accustomed to humiliation
Then what is left of Man
If he is comfortable with that?

I search the books of history
For men of greatness to deliver us from darkness
To save our women from fires' brutality

I search for men of yesterday
But all I find is frightened cats
Fearing for their souls
From the authority of rats

Are we hit by national blindness
Or are we suffering from color blindness

We are accused of terrorism
If we refuse to perish
Under Israeli tyranny
That is hampering our unity
Our history
*Our Bible and our Quran*
Our prophets' land
If that is our sin and crime
Then terrorism is fine

We are accused of terrorism
If we refuse to be wiped out
By barbarians, the Mongols or the Jews
If we choose to stone the fragile security council
Which was sacked by the king of caesuras

We are accused of terrorism
If we refuse to negotiate the wolf
And reach out for a whore

America is fighting the cultures of Man
Because it lacks one
And against the civilizations because it needs one
It is a gigantic structure but without a wall

We are accused of terrorism
If we refuse current times
Where America   the arrogant the mighty the rich
Became a sworn interpreter of Hebrew.

--Nizar Kabbani


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## new girl (6 December 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> One of my favourites--Nizar Kabbani




Wow Chops, interesting that you know of Nizar Kabbani, I didn't think he's that famous in the west. He's mainly known for his romantic poetry (really nice stuff). How do you know of him if you don't mind me asking?


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## 2020hindsight (6 December 2006)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizar_Qabbani
thanks chops and ng - interesting  . his smile is a good start 
Hell, one way or another we have to become more cosmopolitan !!

Lol , although I can tell you now, I'll never understand Egyptian music  - different scale for a start! - NOTHING like our music.
- don't know which is worse !! - Chinese or Egyptian or Thai or  etc, lol ).  Thai is like a bull in a crockery shop !! with a stack of mad drummers on crack thrown in


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## new girl (6 December 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nizar_Qabbani
> thanks chops and ng - interesting  . his smile is a good start
> Hell, one way or another we have to become more cosmopolitan !!
> 
> ...




2020  

You left me no choice    seriousley though, where did you hear egyptian music??? this thread IS becoming cosmopolitan, you're right (nailed it as usuall)!!! Actually more like ARABIC and what's "hilariously ironic" is that both of you aren't (I think). This whole thing is starting to feel a little weird.

ps:  It's almost like "Valuing the intangible? Measuring the incalculable?" don't you think chops  

another ps:  I agree 2020 Thai music and chinese music is definately something you won't find in heaven


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## 2020hindsight (6 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> 2020
> 
> you left me no choice    seriousley though, where did you hear egyptian music? this thread IS becoming cosmopolitan you're right. actually more like ARABIC and what's "hilariously ironic" is that both of you aren't.
> 
> ps it's almost like "Valuing the intangible? Measuring the incalculable?" don't you think chops?



and/or "the inscrutible smile on the Sphinx?" maybe 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xBuTEiCoM 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_el-Halim_Hafez
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Egypt etc - 

"instruments: the ney and the oud. Double clarinets and lyres were played from around 3500 BC, while percussion instruments were added to orchestras by 2000 BC. However, there is little notation of Egyptian music before the 7th century AD, when Egypt became part of the Muslim world."

there are those veils again   Must've been very relaxed mufti's in these days .!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCZoyh6I5Kk&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5vqWnhGAew&mode=related&search=  (interesting music lol)


----------



## new girl (6 December 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> and/or "the inscrutible smile on the Sphinx?" maybe




2020 

This thread is becoming too deep, intellectual and a little lefti for my liking, let's go back to romance please :remybussi

ps light type of kiss, something a mufti would approve of don't you think?


----------



## new girl (6 December 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> and/or "the inscrutible smile on the Sphinx?" maybe
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0xBuTEiCoM
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_el-Halim_Hafez
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Egypt etc -
> ...




Un-what i feel when i'm excercising-BELIEVABLE!! 2020, you always manage somehow to surprise me, how do you know of abd-el halim?? people, this thread has to be renamed!!!!

ps those veils are very dear to me


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 December 2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0zAkMRfPfY  - speaking of cosmopotitan blokes   With A Little Luck - Paul McCartney & Wings


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 December 2006)

Folks, I was wondering if anyone out there had a copy of a poem "SHADOW SAN" , possibly "SHADOW-SAN" etc.
Theme is not dissimilar to the shadow girl in this video.  But there are also references to fights between doves of peace etc. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIfrqdru1B8  the shadow girl ( o boy  )

Such a modern concept - and such a terrifying one - the only thing left of a person is their shadow   

Any assistance much appreciated - but don't waste too much time on it  - could be it isn't on google for instance - or possibly slightly different name (?) - but I was hoping someone just might happen to have a copy. 

PS the original references to "ground zero" seem to have been coined at Hiroshima. (?)

PPS After the war, the Japanese invented monsters like Godzilla - fire breathing etc - even the term "shadow man" is frequently used - but the meaning has changed over the years.  o Boy, you reckon that those bombs had a major effect on the Japanese psyche or what !!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ynO9_EGZCw


----------



## new girl (7 December 2006)

googled Nizar Qabbani looking for some of his work in english



> In "Diary of an Indifferent Woman," he writes as a woman:



I want to escape from my own skin 
from my own voice, from my own language 
and stray like the fragrance of gardens 
I want to flee from my own shadow 
and from all addresses 


> "The Book of Love" is worshipful and timeless.



The name of my love. 
I wrote it on the water. 
I did not know 
That the wind rushes by without listening, 
That names dissolve in the water. 


> He also asks: "What is Love?" Then he humorously explains how he cannot change the woman he loves for she is "a storm trapped in a bottle."



*I write 
to save the woman I love 
from the cities of no poetry, 
of no love 
the cities of frustration and gloom 
I write to make her a misty cloud * 
*Only woman and writing 
Save us from death. *


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> googled Nizar Qabbani looking for some of his work in english



yep - and what's more, better a storm in a bottle - than a storm in a teacup


----------



## chops_a_must (7 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> Wow Chops, interesting that you know of Nizar Kabbani, I didn't think he's that famous in the west. He's mainly known for his romantic poetry (really nice stuff). How do you know of him if you don't mind me asking?



After I was looking at a lot of work by Averroes I went looking for other arabic literates. He was one that came up.


----------



## nelly (7 December 2006)

When I consider everything that grows 
Holds in perfection but a little moment, 
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows 
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment; 
When I perceive that men as plants increase, 
Cheered and check'd even by the selfsame sky, 
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease, 
And wear their brave state out of memory; 
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay 
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight, 
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay 
To change your day of youth to sullied night; 
And all in war with Time for love of you, 
As he takes from you, I engraft you new. 

Willie


----------



## nelly (7 December 2006)

by Robert Louis Stevenson 


I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me, 
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see. 
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head; 
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed. 


The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow”” 
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow; 
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball, 
And he sometimes gets so little that there's none of him at all. 


He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play, 
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way. 
He stays so close beside me, he's a coward you can see; 
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me! 


One morning, very early, before the sun was up, 
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup; 
But my lazy little shadow, like an errant sleepy-head, 
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.


----------



## chops_a_must (7 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> 2020
> 
> You left me no choice    seriousley though, where did you hear egyptian music??? this thread IS becoming cosmopolitan, you're right (nailed it as usuall)!!! Actually more like ARABIC and what's "hilariously ironic" is that both of you aren't (I think). This whole thing is starting to feel a little weird.
> 
> ...



Yeah, I have no arabic blood at all.

In this sense it is. Although it is not without meaning. THERE IS SOMETHING OUTSIDE THE TEXT.

But have either of you heard Turkish music? It's standard time signature is in 9/8, crazy. The Dave Brubeck Quartet did a song in 9/8 to pay homage. This of course was the first band to bring 5/4 to the masses with Take 5.

I'll have a rant about the importance of The Dave Brubeck Quartet some other time.


----------



## nelly (7 December 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> Yeah, I have no arabic blood at all.
> 
> In this sense it is. Although it is not without meaning. THERE IS SOMETHING OUTSIDE THE TEXT.
> 
> ...




Hi ya....Please do...I await.......not quite with bated breath but you know what I infer......yes?


----------



## chops_a_must (7 December 2006)

nelly said:
			
		

> Hi ya....Please do...I await.......not quite with bated breath but you know what I infer......yes?



DONE!


----------



## nelly (7 December 2006)

coool....2morrow then...am tired and have workee 2morrow....sorreee....2day!
seeya...[afterwork]
Cheerful...
p.s. am really interested!


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 December 2006)

nelly said:
			
		

> When I consider everything that grows
> Holds in perfection but a little moment,
> ...To change your day of youth to sullied night;
> And all in war with Time for love of you,
> As he takes from you, I engraft you new. Willie



and Willie again ..
"and so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, and so from hour to hour we rot and rot "

PS thanks for the Robert L stevenson "lill shadow" poem  - nice and light after the other topic I concede.  now for the " Shadow San" part  ( as in "mister shadow"  or "shadow man")    - post #138.   Just that it was highly recommended to me by someone, and neither of us can find it.   

But hek whether we find the poem or not, the concept is still spooky. imho
"and so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, yet in a brilliant FLASH we instant rot" !!


----------



## new girl (7 December 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> Yeah, I have no arabic blood at all.
> 
> In this sense it is. Although it is not without meaning. THERE IS SOMETHING OUTSIDE THE TEXT.
> 
> ...




chops

1- So what makes you interested in arabic poetry? is it the politics side of things?
2- WAHT IS OUTSIDE THE TEXT I WONDER  
3- WHAT  I dont't get the 9/8, 5/4-5 at all, please explain. I have to tell you, I'm not as intellectual and deep as you and 2020 are.

ps: english is my second langauage, please use simple words when responding  

more ps: I prefer Qabbani's romantic poetry, can you please post us something in english if you can find any, thanks.


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> I dont't get the 9/8, 5/4-5 at all, please explain.



ng, I dont know 9/8 either , - but here's a guess:-

8/8 (4/4 etc) 

blame it on the bossa…
Nova 345..  with it’s magic spell …2345678 
Nova 345..  that he did so well …2345678

However, when you REALLY want to screw up a song lol - and confuse the hell out of everyone - and watch the dancers lose their step etc lol - you add an extra beat here and there, viz:-

blame it on the bossa…
Nova 345..  with it’s magic *spell- …2345678 -ing*
Nova 345..  that he did so *poor- …2345678  -ly*
 
PS I probably don't even have the 8/8 right let alone the 9/8 

Imagine if a march went like that 
Left Right Left Right Left Right Left Right Right Left  Right Left etc etc


----------



## new girl (7 December 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> ng, I dont know 9/8 either , - but here's a guess:-
> 
> 8/8 (4/4 etc)
> 
> ...




Fu#$@k you make me laugh!!!!!   

ps: as for the march, I personally fly with joy when I'm marching, my feet don't even touch the ground!!

yet more ps: I tried to translate one of my Qabbani's favorites "choose" using the site you recommended earlier in this thread, the result was sh@#$t!! how do you do it?? i mean when you translate your poems how do they end up ryming?


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> i mean when you translate your poems how do they end up ryming?



lol - CRIPES - you don;t want much do you lol.
Like I said bak there , these computers will tell you that a Russian hydraulic ram traslates as a water buffalo - 
as for the rhyme - cant even think of a word that rhymes with buffalo lol.

i.e. "the press had a cog and a cam  
and the will of a hydraulic ram."

 would probably come out (translated) 

" the laundry had a cigarette and a cameron
and the maybe of a water buffalo"  etc etc  

as I say - you're lucky if it makes sense.  let alone rhymes. - but sometimes you find that someone else has translated and massaged it till it rhymes.   ,  good luck


----------



## chops_a_must (7 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> yet more ps: I tried to translate one of my Qabbani's favorites "choose" using the site you recommended earlier in this thread, the result was sh@#$t!! how do you do it?? i mean when you translate your poems how do they end up ryming?




Try this site:
http://oldpoetry.com/oauthor/show/Nizar_Qabbani
It's where I got my extract from.

Arabic to English translations are pretty hard. That's why Aristotle is such a handful to read.


----------



## chops_a_must (7 December 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> ng, I dont know 9/8 either , - but here's a guess:-
> 
> 8/8 (4/4 etc)
> 
> ...



And it was his Nizar's political stuff that got me reading him New Girl.

As to the marching, left right left right etc. all even time is essentially in a marching beat. Although, 2/4 is regarded as the main marching beat. This is also known as half time, in a lot of cases. You know, when it enters a chorus, and the drummer starts hitting the snare twice as often? Most of the time that is in 2/4. 

In terms of 5/4, you put an extra bass beat in the bar, simple. It works really well if you want a really looping, rolling rhythm, like in original indie-rock and some post-rock. Also good for creating Angsty music because of that. But yeah, the best thing about Brubek, is that it is seemless.

With 9/8, I think you would have to pulse on the 1st 4th and 7th notes. Not very comfortable. You might want to check with Barney on that one though. I think I have heard one rock band try and pull it off, either it is in 9/8 or free range. 

There was a jazz band in Perth called Eleventy Three. And you guessed it, the standard time signature they used was 11/3. Not easy. A fill every 33 notes, with an 11 note fill to follow... mmmm.

Anyway, back to the point of this thread.

Wilfred Owen:

What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? 
Only the monstrous anger of the guns. 
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle 
Can patter out their hasty orisons. 

No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells; 
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, 
The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells; 
And bugles calling for them from sad shires. 

What candles may be held to speed them all? 
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes 
Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes. 
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall; 
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, 
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.


----------



## chops_a_must (8 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> chops
> 2- WAHT IS OUTSIDE THE TEXT I WONDER



It was a quote from a French "philosopher" named Jacques Derrida. His famous quote is that there is nothing outside of the text, i.e. anything that is written has no purchase on the outside world, the text has meaning only in and of itself. Which, to me, is stupid and self defeating.


----------



## new girl (8 December 2006)

"A Brief Love Letter" (needless to say it sounds much better in Arabic)
Nizar Qabbani

My darling, I have much to say
Where o precious one shall I begin ?
All that is in you is princely
O you who makes of my words through their meaning
Cocoons of silk
These are my songs and this is me
This short book contains us
Tomorrow when I return its pages
A lamp will lament
A bed will sing
Its letters from longing will turn green
Its commas be on the verge of flight
*Why did he sing these songs ?
Now there is no star
That is not perfumed with my fragrance
Tomorrow people will see me in his verse 
A mouth the taste of wine, close-cropped hair
Ignore what people say
You will be great only through my great love
What would the world have been if we had not been
If your eyes had not been, what would the world have been?  *


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 December 2006)

chops, here are some folk dances - just a bit of nonsense really - I dont expect you to listen to more than a 20 seconds or so of each - you'll soon get the ghist lol.  - the thai stuff is a strange beat, maybe 63/37? lol 

Don't blame me if you find yourself whistling that Korean song for the next week !! 
When it comes to music, I have trouble thinking like a thai for instance  - or specially as a korean or .... etc etc 
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su8m2HZuoMM&mode=related&search= thai  (o boy lol)*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BcokC_2sH0 thai music

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zOZJRC3gAk Korean folk music

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAu_ipazdWI&mode=related&search= Korean dance*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRtK9LAT6bk&mode=related&search= peruvian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBiSNylmFhY&mode=related&search= indian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfMJVm-FDJY Korean
*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5e4S03nzcw&mode=related&search= Japanese folk dance*

finally greek ( 10/8? who knows lol, Im no expert - but the dancers seem to know what they are doing) 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGimNJLJT1Y&mode=related&search= greek dance 

and philippino - ahh at last some sanity lol (again the dancers seem to know what they're doing - but simple beat helps 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPqu2S-nXfw&mode=related&search= phiilippino (Tinikling , sounds like a polka to me  )


----------



## new girl (8 December 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> It was a quote from a French "philosopher" named Jacques Derrida. His famous quote is that there is nothing outside of the text, i.e. anything that is written has no purchase on the outside world, the text has meaning only in and of itself. Which, to me, is stupid and self defeating.




Well, well chops

first, thanks for the link  

second, I'm going to be honest with you, I know *"next to 2/3 of 3/5 of very little about shares" *  same goes for poetry.

Philosophy on the other hand I know NOTHING about, nothing whatsoever. but I agree with Derrida while the text is written it has meaning only of itself, and being the *"delightfully middle ground"* person that I am, I want to also agree with you in the sense that IT IS STUPID, cause once the text is read it should have some bearing on the reader (the outside world) and hence stupid and self defeating


----------



## new girl (8 December 2006)

"When I Love You"
Nizar Qabbani

When I love you
A new language springs up,
New cities, new countries discovered.
The hours breathe like puppies,
Wheat grows between the pages of books,
When I love you your breasts shake off their shame,
Turn into lightning and thunder, a sword, a sandy storm.
When I love you the Arab cities leap up and demonstrate
Against the ages of repression
And the ages
Of revenge against the laws of the tribe.
And I, when I love you,
March against ugliness,
Against the kings of salt,
Against the institutionalization of the desert.
And I shall continue to love you until the world flood arrives;
I shall continue to love you untill the world flood arrives.


----------



## new girl (8 December 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> Arabic to English translations are pretty hard. That's why Aristotle is such a handful to read.



Excuse my ignorance chops, but what's Arabic to English got to do with Greek? please explain, she's back in politics


----------



## CanOz (9 December 2006)

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

I just had a curry,

and i'm not feelin so gooooood!


----------



## new girl (9 December 2006)

CanOz said:
			
		

> Roses are red,
> 
> Violets are blue,
> 
> ...




why, is it because i'm not available? or because 2020 turned out to be such a hotti


----------



## CanOz (9 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> why, is it because i'm not available? or because 2020 turned out to be such a hotti




No, because i actually just had a curry! And because my GF is in Beijng and i'm here all alone!


----------



## new girl (9 December 2006)

CanOz said:
			
		

> No, because i actually just had a curry! And because my GF is in Beijng and i'm here all alone!




well give her a ring (wake her up if you have to) and read her the poem that you liked the other night 

ps as for the curry, don't you have chinese tea in china  that should fix it.


----------



## chops_a_must (9 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> Excuse my ignorance chops, but what's Arabic to English got to do with Greek? please explain, she's back in politics



Oh, because a lot of ancient greek texts were translated into Arabic, during the rise of the Islamic empire. Some of the originals have been lost, some recovered, but scholars have to use a combination of the two to translate it.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 December 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> Oh, because a lot of ancient greek texts were translated into Arabic, during the rise of the Islamic empire.



Chops I wonder how "coupla dayz - beUUUDIful" translates into Arabic ?


----------



## new girl (9 December 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> Chops I wonder how "coupla dayz - beUUUDIful" translates into Arabic ?




إختاري, which is pronounced beuuhottiful!

ps of course it gets much more complicated if you go through the greek to arabic to english to greek again, but that would be your next lesson. we'll keep it simple for now, i don't think you can handle the complicated stuff yet.


----------



## new girl (9 December 2006)

"Wind Beneath my Wings"
Shirley bassey

While you were the one with all the strength
Only a face without a name
I never once heard you complain
Did you ever know that you're my hero
And everything I would like to be
I can fly higher than an eagle
'Cause you are the wind beneath my wings
It might have appeared to go unnoticed
But I have it all here in my heart
I want you to know, I know the truth
I would be nothing without you
Did you ever know that you're my hero
And everything I would like to be
I can fly higher than an eagle
'Cause you are the wind beneath my wings
You are the wind beneath my wings


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 December 2006)

One for the animals and the brave dudes fighting the Vic fires.   

THE RED AND THE BLACK OF IT

Koalas chewing tips of gums, swing heads to face the threat of fire, !
the booming of the angry drums, that turn a brave man to a liar, !
“Be still my soul, Godzilla comes!  I wonder should I climb on higher ?
I wonder with this death that numbs, will I make handsome funeral pyre ?”
and in the end like blackened crumbs, a martyred bear, all black and dire.
and wedged there between boughs and bums, small arms still flailing at the fire,
I wonder did he feel the pain, as hair was burnt and flames got nigher?
a grizzley sight, his blackened thumbs ,-  and yet I hear some heaven’s choir. 


The stallion neighs - "there's fire" he blurts, try left! try right! my mares and kin, 
they pace the clearing, fits and spurts, then charge off west with deadly din.
He breathes some flame, his nostril hurts, he charges back to south agin
His leg is singed,  and tail and gerts,  all ears tight back and quivered chin.
Now through the bush, a RED ALERT! , a HUNDRED horses race the wind, !!...
..
a meagre dozen now unhurt, and of the rest not one had sinned, 
now kindly bullets so inert, their final act that can’t rescind, 
now ash to ash and horse to dirt , their shoes recycled, shownails binned.


This flower was red, that flower was blue, dictated by their DNA,
but that was 'fore the fire went through , before the world went black and grey.
before that hellfire fashioned flue , that sucked all coloured life away,
before the smoke and cruel hue , that firemen fight for pittance pay…
They fight for spring and life anew, and light dawn wing of better day
Our compliments of season due, may Lords of courage light your way,
We think you're "dinky-dai true blue" - and this small gesture here we say...
You volunteer your life.  For you?, we volunteer last night's meat tray.

Good luck fellas.


----------



## chops_a_must (9 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> إختاري, which is pronounced beuuhottiful!
> 
> ps of course it gets much more complicated if you go through the greek to arabic to english to greek again, but that would be your next lesson. we'll keep it simple for now, i don't think you can handle the complicated stuff yet.



Yeah, it takes 5-6 years to learn Arabic fluently doesn't it? Seriously difficult.

Mental Cases 
Who are these? Why sit they here in twilight? 
Wherefore rock they, purgatorial shadows, 
Drooping tongues from jays that slob their relish, 
Baring teeth that leer like skulls' teeth wicked? 
Stroke on stroke of pain,- but what slow panic, 
Gouged these chasms round their fretted sockets? 
Ever from their hair and through their hands' palms 
Misery swelters. Surely we have perished 
Sleeping, and walk hell; but who these hellish? 
-These are men whose minds the Dead have ravished. 
Memory fingers in their hair of murders, 
Multitudinous murders they once witnessed. 
Wading sloughs of flesh these helpless wander, 
Treading blood from lungs that had loved laughter. 
Always they must see these things and hear them, 
Batter of guns and shatter of flying muscles, 
Carnage incomparable, and human squander 
Rucked too thick for these men's extrication. 

Therefore still their eyeballs shrink tormented 
Back into their brains, because on their sense 
Sunlight seems a blood-smear; night comes blood-black; 
Dawn breaks open like a wound that bleeds afresh. 
-Thus their heads wear this hilarious, hideous, 
Awful falseness of set-smiling corpses. 
-Thus their hands are plucking at each other; 
Picking at the rope-knouts of their scourging; 
Snatching after us who smote them, brother, 
Pawing us who dealt them war and madness.


----------



## new girl (9 December 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> Yeah, it takes 5-6 years to learn Arabic fluently doesn't it? Seriously difficult.
> 
> Mental Cases
> skulls' wicked?
> ...




CHOPS 

WHAT'S WRONG?   

I don't mean to be rude, I just don't get this poetry, it kinda makes sad and stresses me out a bit. I know it reflects some of what's going on in this world, but I challenge you to post something sweet or romantic for a change!

ps take one: I agree, Arabic is one of the most difficult languages to learn, have you ever tried to learn it?

ps take two: sorry I'm just in a* very happy mood*, sorry to pick on your poetry.


----------



## chops_a_must (9 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> CHOPS
> 
> WHAT'S WRONG?
> 
> ...



I just like war poetry.

No, but an old drinking partner of mine, who was in the SAS as a technician, got a long term injury, so they trained him up as an Arabic speaking specialist. Even though he learnt it in about 6 months, apparently it takes like 6 years or something most of the time. He just told me a lot about it, that is all.


----------



## new girl (9 December 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> I just like war poetry.
> 
> No, but an old drinking partner of mine, who was in the SAS as a technician, got a long term injury, so they trained him up as an Arabic speaking specialist. Even though he learnt it in about 6 months, apparently it takes like 6 years or something most of the time. He just told me a lot about it, that is all.



The challenge is still up, happy poetry is good for the SOUL, you should try it  

ps again: I'm just in a *very happy mood*


----------



## chops_a_must (9 December 2006)

new girl said:
			
		

> The challenge is still up, happy poetry is good for the SOUL, you should try it
> 
> ps again: I'm just in a *very happy mood*



I listen to twee music for that. Lol!

But I do have some, just for special occassions.


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 December 2006)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> Folks, I was wondering if anyone out there had a copy of a poem "SHADOW SAN" , possibly "SHADOW-SAN" etc.
> Theme is not dissimilar to the shadow girl in this video.  But there are also references to fights between doves of peace etc.
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIfrqdru1B8  the shadow girl ( o boy  )
> Such a modern concept - and such a terrifying one - the only thing left of a person is their shadow



 Ahh found it .. the following quotes from Tony Harrisons "the shadow of Hiroshima", 
Mitsufuji San is some bloke who volunteers pidgeons / doves for the annual release of "peace doves" at the "Peace Dome".  (8.23am) . The year of this poem obviously the 50th anniversary - 1995.  Shadow San is a real shadow on a rock, all that is left of a man who faced the atomic blast in 1945. - and obviously too, it is fading with time ( as so too I guess is the memory of what happened that day).



> "cheating the void" started with Lumiere's famous film of factory workers leaving their workplace:
> "these people are all dead, and yet they walk,
> the first in fact to move on celluloid
> yet they are silent and wont ever talk
> ...


----------



## new girl (13 December 2006)

"I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair"
 Pablo Neruda   

DON'T GO FAR OFF, NOT EVEN FOR A DAY 
Don't go far off, not even for a day, because -- 
because -- I don't know how to say it: a day is long 
and I will be waiting for you, as in an empty station 
when the trains are parked off somewhere else, asleep. 

Don't leave me, even for an hour, because 
then the little drops of anguish will all run together, 
the smoke that roams looking for a home will drift 
into me, choking my lost heart. 

Oh, may your silhouette never dissolve on the beach; 
may your eyelids never flutter into the empty distance. 
Don't leave me for a second, my dearest, 

because in that moment you'll have gone so far 
I'll wander mazily over all the earth, asking, 
Will you come back? Will you leave me here, dying?


----------



## new girl (13 December 2006)

"Lost in the Night"
J M. Basey 

Night is the worst time 
Night is a hard time 
Why can't I sleep 
Why can't I rest 

Pain in my heart 
Pain in my eyes 
Lost is my true love 
Lost is my heart 

Longing for you 
Longing to hold you 
Lost forever 
Lost to the night


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## Jett_Star (16 December 2006)

THE CODE OF THE PEACEFUL WARRIOR

Be beauty and be grace
Believe in yourself
Love yourself
Enjoy the journey that is yours

A PRAYER TO BEGIN EACH DAY YOU ARE BLESSED TO BE ALIVE....

Today I wake and smile for another day lays before me
I vow to live each moment fully and see all other through the eys of love and compassion


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## chops_a_must (23 December 2006)

As requested by Nude Girl, love poetry:

Roses are red, violets are blue
All of my base
Are belong to you.

Roses are red, violets are blue
In Soviet Russia
Crabs catch you.


----------



## new girl (23 December 2006)

chops_a_must said:
			
		

> As requested by Nude Girl, love poetry:
> 
> Roses are red, violets are blue
> All of my base
> ...




This is Crabs poetry for sure, you don't have to write it yourself you know  come on I'm still waiting for something nice, please?

Nude????


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 December 2006)

THE FIRST LAW OF XENOPHANES 
Xenophanes 570 BC – 475BC
“If horses could draw, they would draw their gods like horses”

Praps if Horses could take courses and could take a page and draw
they would Draw their god’s as horses  (that is Zenophane’s first law)
just as White men draw a white man, just as black men draw their kin
as abDullah draws an Arab, so too Moses draws his twin.

we may Wonder where we’re going, we may wonder whence we came
and whose Dice what god is throwing  in which fatalistic game
and i’m Tracing here on cellophane what he has said before
re-creAting old man (X)Zenophane, who lived so long before.

this man Lived, in ancient Greece it was, 500 odd BC
yet he Had the golden fleece to help see things so hard to see
men are Red and men are yellow, this one whiter than a cloud
as one Starts, with age, to mellow, one stops caring why and how.

what we Need are more free thinkers who accept it’s for the best
to reJect religions blinkered with a call of “who cares less”
think inStead of earth and planet, how we all need sun and rain
and to Find men’s fire and fan it, that they empathise with pain.

more free Thinkers that accept this place and its inherent worth
and the Beauty of its inner space, this ball that we call earth
and play Down those “Hells and Heavens” and the speculation wild
concenTrate on Mother Nature, and the homeland of our child.

did we Land from outer galaxies, in space suits or the nud,
or in Edin full of apple seeds, or some primeval mud
just as Astronauts draw spaceships, here we find his second law
there is No way known of knowing , which god’s less and which is more.

just Picture forests drawing gods – with creeks where birds can drink 
(forget grey beards we saw on gods to which our creeds are linked )
they would Probly tell us soundly not to bother with “our share”
but to Take care of this treasure, Mother Earth, that’s in our care.


----------



## new girl (27 December 2006)

"Get On Your Knees And Fight Like A Man"
2 Corinthians 10:4, James 5:16
Words and Music by Bob Hartman

Out on your own with your own self reliance
You've got no one to watch your back
You find yourself caught with no strong alliance
You've been left open for attack
Over your head the condition is graver
You've given ground you can't retreive
The cards are stacked and they're not in your favor
But you've got an ace up your sleeve

Get on your knees and fight like a man
You'll pull down strongholds if you just believe you can
Your enemy will tuck his tail and flee
Get on your knees and fight like a man

Under the gun you've got no place to hide out
Backed in the corner on your own

This is one storm you are destined to ride out

One way to leave the danger zone
You've got the backbone to fight this tide
You've got the will to survive
You've got the weapon, it's at your side
You've got to learn to confide


----------



## new girl (27 December 2006)

"Torment"
Michelle Hyde 


In the shadows I hide, 
With torn love and faded pride.
You sought me out, 
Now I begin to shout.
“Let me be! ”
“I wish to be free! ”
Shadows begin to take flight, 
As you begin your endless plight.
All of my pain and my tears, 
Along with my greatest fears.
Take you higher, 
On this roller coaster of twisted desire.


----------



## new girl (30 December 2006)

"To Love Somebody"
Leonard Cohen   

There's a light, a very special light,
never ever shone on me.
I would like my whole life to be,
with someone like you ...
with someone ... with someone like ...

You don't know what it's like,
to love somebody,
the way I love you.

There's a way, a very special way,
To look at each and every single thing.
Ah, but what good would that bring,
if I ain't got you ...
if I ain't ... if I ain't got you.

You don't know what it's like,
I don't think you really, really know what it's like,
to love somebody,
the way I love you.

Baby, you don't know what it's like,
You, you just don't know what it's like,
to love somebody,
to love
the way I love you.


----------



## new girl (31 December 2006)

"Table Manners"
Robert M Wilson 


The drinks, the conversation 
are just appetizers. 

Your face is the full course, 
all I hunger for. 

At all times, in all places, 
everything else 

is background 
to the banquet of you.


----------



## new girl (31 December 2006)

*"Offended"*
Gershon Hepner    

Free and always open-ended, 
democracies accept the critic, 
but extremists who’re offended
by cartoons don’t.* Hypocritic*
are those who would attempt to silence

the freedom of dissenters’ speech, 

resorting to a hateful violence
which they glorify and teach.

We must reject the faith of those

who hold it right to silence others,

leading to most bloody blows
with men they do not see as brothers.
Stranger turns into intruder
once he’s willing to be killer; 
Alle Menschen werden Brueder
Ludwig sang””hooray for Schiller.


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 January 2007)

A TOAST TO ABSENT FRIENDS

Suppose I'm feeling down depressed, the world's about to sink,
Or find myself a frowning mess, I only have to think
Of good men, better men than I, where I have outlived them, 
I hear my thoughts first question why - then I seize this daily gem.

They left this world at fifty praps, suppose I'm fifty-five,
That represents five bonus laps that I have been alive,
I've had the chance these sixty moons, these eighteen hundred days,
To toast the sunrise, toast the noon, and toast the sunset rays.

And toast my friends alive and gone, and toast life's wondrous ways.


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 January 2007)

reminds me of the one about the cannibal who toasted his mother-in-law at the wedding breakfast


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 January 2007)

NOTES ON SOCRATES AND VIRTUE, Though I Sadly Come Up Short

we are All here individuals, yet all a part of one
one Mass of man’s existence, yet one misfit someone’s son
some Fight off human bias and some stand by deaf and dumb
and some Die a saintly pious, and some fight for cake and crumb.

my Mind, sometimes, gets in the groove of “think, therefore I am”
for When I’m thinking thus I prove there’s life beyond the pram
we Take some stray perceptions and we store what we perceive
and from All these lay conceptions, we then build what we believe.
…………….

old Socrates kept learning, keeping virtues up to date
and These alone were permanent, all else was second rate 
and Kindness was a noble thing and courage was his mate
and Hence the students called him king, and “Socrates the great”. 

ofFended by his thinking, some then closed the prison gate
and Sentenced him to drinking hemlock (or to abdicate)
he Drank the stuff unblinking , ahh the stuff of Stoic fate, 
and they Now refer to Socrates as “Socrates the late”.

put your Head upon old Socrates -  they’d asked the man to kneel
they’d Sentenced him half heartedly- he just had to appeal
but Principles were paramount, - he didn’t want to know
and he Kissed his wife and children, and he went where martyrs go.
……….

someTimes it’s less romantic, when raw character is cast
praps Storms in the Atlantic, maybe courage ‘fore the mast
such as Men who helped their wives to find Titanic’s lifeboat queue
and to Walk them to the railing and then bid them sweet adieu.

put your Heart into the chest of someone seeing off his wife
on that Deck with all the best of men amid Titanic strife
“and Give the kids my love, my love, and make a brand new home
and Should you see a passing dove, that’s me beyond the foam.”
…………

put your Feet into the snowboots of old Scott – or better still
of his colleague Captain Lawrence Oates, amid Antarctic chill
as he said “I may be some time” – and he went out in the sleet
tired of dragging down his comrades with his black frostbitten feet.
…………..
spend a Day with the Resistance as a hail of lead descends 
as they Fought off nasty Nazis, just to help escaping friends
one such Girl was Violette Szarbo, “carve her name with pride” it’s told
and a Posthumous George Medal to her daughter four years old. 
…………

there are Hundreds of descendants of the Aussie convict jails
who went Back to fight for England and for Scotland and for Wales
for the Killing fields of Europe, for “the culling of the males”
for the Empire at Gallipoli, for cross of rusty nails. 

put your Head upon the shoulders of an Anzac in his trench
how his Blood went cold as ice or how his heart would give a wrench
“and its Up and over fellas, and we run the big guns down - 
and your Chances of survival are a brick to London town.”

they had Photos of their loved ones that they kissed just one kiss more
they had Kissed the thing so often that their sunburnt lips were raw
then they Pocketed their sweethearts and they filed away their fears
and they Charged into the bullets with their fellow pale-faced peers.
…………….

when i Personally think “character”, I think about the bush
a young Wife perhaps with family and many ploughs to push
no Grecian statues looking on, just grief and cattle dying
no Temples, tablets, books upon, just hungry children crying.

a Husband with a broken hip, from vaulting horse’s mane
and Now she fights this leaking ship, yet prays for blessed rain
she Works by day in town five miles, then home to countless chores
then Feeds the kids with forced smiles, then cries behind her door.

so Close to giving in and all, so close to giving up
yet Like a pine so thin and tall, she’s steadfastly says ‘nup’
so Close to throwing saucepans, yet she smiles without restraint
with the Courage of a Norseman, and the kindness of a saint. 
…………………..

it was Easy for old Socrates, what’s right and what was wrong
or Permanent in wisdom, or was faulty all along
his Students in assortment queued for things that can’t be bought
what was Less or more important in the quality of thought.

there was No inane Nintendo, Young and Restless, Peyton Place
there were Concepts to comprendo, several facets to each face,
there were Battles at the borders, these were argued, these were fought
but old Socrates' objective wasn’t might but rather thought.
………

i’ve Spent some long night’s drinking, many days remembered naught - 
in my Own attempts at thinking (though I sadly came up short)
I observed the sunset sinking, when new pinnacles were sought
and some mental toasts a-clinking with what Socrates had taught.


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 January 2007)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> I guess many remember the poem "Beth Gelert" - or "Gelert" as per the following webpage:-  i believe it means "faithful Gelert" in Welsh, but I might be wrong.   This webpage even has a photo of Gelert  which is interesting because the poet died in 1834   It also seems to have the option of hearing it read to you.
> 
> Wikipedia >> "William Robert Spencer (1769 - 1834), poet, educated at Harrow School and the University of Oxford.  He belonged to the Whig set of Charles James Fox and Sheridan. He wrote graceful vers de sociÃ©tÃ©, made translations from BÃ¼rger, and is best remembered by his well-known ballad of Gelert. After a life of extravagance he died in poverty in Paris."
> 
> ...




I posted this poem way back , but only as a link to the website.  Hence I now add the full poem.  (maybe I've posted that as well, although I cant find any evidence of such if I did).  Ahh but there's a positive .. At Easter you can hide your own Easter eggs !! 


> BETH GELERT (by William Robert Spencer)
> 
> The spearmen heard the bugle sound, And cheerily smiled the morn;
> And many a brach, and many a hound, Obeyed Llewellyn's horn.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 January 2007)

did anyone see the story of the lady and the lion tonight  - how they cuddled through the bars of his cage (after she rescued it from severe malnutrition  etc ) - top stuff.

Here's one of Aesop's Fables..


> Androcles.    A slave named Androcles once escaped from his master and fled  to the forest.  As he was wandering about there he came upon a Lion lying down moaning and groaning.  At first he turned to flee,  but finding that the Lion did not pursue him, he turned back and  went up to him.  As he came near, the Lion put out his paw, which  was all swollen and bleeding, and Androcles found that a huge  thorn had got into it, and was causing all the pain.  He pulled  out the thorn and bound up the paw of the Lion, who was soon able to rise and lick the hand of Androcles like a dog.  Then the Lion took Androcles to his cave, and every day used to bring him meat from which to live.  But shortly afterwards both Androcles and the Lion were captured, and the slave was sentenced to be thrown to the Lion, after the latter had been kept without food for several days.  The Emperor and all his Court came to see the spectacle, and Androcles was led out into the middle of the arena.  Soon the Lion was let loose from his den, and rushed bounding and roaring towards his victim.  But as soon as he came near to Androcles he recognised his friend, and fawned upon him, and licked his hands like a friendly dog.  The Emperor, surprised at this, summoned Androcles to him, who told him the whole story.  Whereupon the slave was pardoned and freed, and the Lion let loose to his native forest.
> Gratitude is the sign of noble souls.


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 January 2007)

couple of songs - sorry can't find the youtube - so they become poetry 
(







> I WON'T SEND ROSES from the musical Mack and Mabel
> 
> I won't send roses, Or hold the door
> I won't remember, Which dress you wore
> ...






> MOST OF THE TIME by Bob Dylan
> 
> Most of the time , I'm clear focused all around,
> Most of the time , I can keep both feet on the ground,
> ...


----------



## mrWoodo (15 January 2007)

Have I a body or have I none?
Am I who I am or am I not?
Pondering these questions,
I sit leaning against the cliff as the years go by,
Till the green grass grows between my feet
And the red dust settles on my head,
And the men of the world, thinking me dead,
Come with offerings of wine and fruit to lay by my corpse.

_Han Shan, Cold Mountain_


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 January 2007)

Three quotes from the web ( and a song from memory) - only vaguely related 


> New Zealanders should be able to see the brightest comet in 40 years – and possibly in the past century – in the southwest evening sky for the next couple of weeks, astronomers say.
> 
> "Look towards the south western sky, low down towards the horizon soon after sunset," Carter Observatory senior astronomer Brian Carter said yesterday. "You will have no trouble in finding it over the next few days."
> 
> ...




I'm reminded of Robert Goulet's song :-


> we laugh we cry , we live we die
> and when we're gone the world moves on
> we love, we hate, we learn too late
> how small we are , how little we know.
> ...




Donald Rumsfold (2002 Dept of Defense new briefing)


> http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/11/10/toward-a-unified-epistemology-of-the-natural-sciences/
> "As we know
> there are "*known knowns*"
> there are things we know we know.
> ...



You can spend a long time trying to get that one into your head   Probably the most sensible thing he ever said.


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 January 2007)

NOTES ON PAYING THE RENT

If you basejump, you tempt fortune, and you dare things to go wrong
and you dare your soul to do it, though it may be your last song,
will your chute tear accidental, is this 'bad luck' if it does
or are YOU some yearly rental, in some game of "chase the buzz"
- you were doing what you loved with mates, and that's what fortune does.

If you hangglide mountain ranges where the misty clouds recline
where the colour pattern changes with the arching sun behind
mostly wind like magic pillows - but should gusts blow false to you
are you food for weeping willows, or just rent that's overdue.
- you were doing what you loved wth mates, praps rent was overdue.

If you surf and crash and tumble with white pointer sharks beneath,
when last year one of your number lost a leg to razor teeth
guess it's just like paying rental for the freedom  you enjoy
and it's cruelly sentimental, - there's a warning with the toy!
- and it's sad that rent is paid for by this sacrificial boy.

I have stood on sandy beaches and I've deep inhaled the scent,
and I've asked the god of creatures where do I  pay back some rent,
rent for lighting up the landscape, rent for warming up the sand
and for phonecalls that are answered, by some friendly landlord's hand.
- but the answer adds "remember! rent is paid in ever land."

Then the voice gets sentimental "rent is small for First World days
just be thankful that your rental is one third the Third World pays
yet you help them only rarely? yet you've means and you have ways?
you could share their rent more fairly, help your brother through his maze
- help the odds of his existence, help reduce the rent he pays".


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 January 2007)

http://www.bushpoetry.com.au/PoetsPoetry/WarPoems/tabid/877/Default.aspx?PageContentID=1359   Here's one of the war poems there... Follows on the sentiment of Red Gum's "I was only 19" which I'm sure you all know.  

OLD SOLDIER
 © 1999 Tom Stonham, Nambucca Heads NSW 

Dim jungle dawn, a crouching run,
hot on my hip, an Owen gun ...
Cold, clammy sweat as I was torn
from brash boyhood ... and woke, reborn.

For nineteen years I never knew
what Freedom costs but now I do ...
You know, or not, it can’t be told -
New-born at dawn and now I’m old.

The ignorance of youth was lost.
Life’s line of no-return was crossed.
Delusion’s dead, I’ve shed its husk ...
OLD SOLDIER IN THE GRIM, RED DUSK


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2007)

A lighter poem by Banjo Patterson ... Not sure the RSPCA would go along with the last line  - but intended for a laugh obviously.
http://www.bushpoetry.com.au/master...njo/tabid/704/Default.aspx?PageContentID=1251
A DOG'S MISTAKE
AB Banjo Paterson 1933

He had drifted in among us as a straw drifts with the tide,
He was just a wand'ring mongrel from the weary world outside;
He was not aristocratic, being mostly ribs and hair,
With a hint of spaniel parents and a touch of native bear.

He was very poor and humble and content with what he got,
So we fed him bones and biscuits, till he heartened up a lot;
Then he growled and grew aggressive, treating orders with disdain,
Till at last he bit the butcher, which would argue want of brain.

Now the butcher, noble fellow, was a sport beyond belief,
And instead of bringing actions he brought half a shin of beef,
Which he handed on to Fido, who received it as a right
And removed it to the garden, where he buried it at night.

'Twas the means of his undoing, for my wife, who'd stood his friend,
To adopt a slang expression, "went in off the deepest end,"
For among the pinks and pansies, the gloxinias and the gorse
He had made an excavation like a graveyard for a horse.

Then we held a consultation which decided on his fate:
'Twas in anger more than sorrow that we led him to the gate,
And we handed him the beef-bone as provision for the day,
Then we opened wide the portal and we told him, "On your way."


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2007)

http://www.bushpoetry.com.au/PoetsPoetry/WarPoems/tabid/877/Default.aspx?PageContentID=1372 - what a poem !!!! - what an emotional experience to read this one folks.
REMEMBER THE HORSES TOO
 ©  Kym Eitel

The men who went to war for us, and died so far away,
are honoured and remembered well, each touching Anzac Day.
Our soldiers fought with hero strength, but let us not forget -
who helped them through those horrid times of bomb and bayonet?

The Remounts Section(*1) sourced the best – Australia’s finest Walers(*2)
were led aboard a hundred steam ships – patient equine sailors.
Oblivious to war ahead, they crossed the angry waves.
Not all of them survived the trip, some sleep in ocean graves.

The Brigadier’s prancing mount, the trooper’s sturdy steed,
the half-legs (*3) pulling water carts, gave strength, endurance, speed.
Through dust storms, scorching temperatures, and shifting sand and hills
they proved that they had hearts of gold, with courage, nerve and wills.

The Waler took the trumpeter to call at Palestine.
The heavy horse pulled medic carts behind the firing line.
The gun horse (*4) hauled artillery to arm the troopers’ fight,
while sections (*5) rode reconnaissance each dark and restless night.

The horses saw the desperate times, when death was all around.
They galloped through the screaming injured, thrashing on the ground.
They were shot at, strafed by German planes, felt shrapnel each grenade.
The wounded, frightened horses fell, as Turk machine guns sprayed.

All did their job, and did it well, with little hope of rest.
The saddle taken off at night, was thanks they got at best.
A pat, and “Thanks, good on ‘ya mate,” a nosebag with some corn,
a quick lay down, a few hours sleep, then back to war at dawn.

So many stories have been told – heroic acts of horses
who double-backed the injured men and dashed through Turkish forces (*6).
And when the war was finished, all the troopers clapped and cheered,
but what about the horses, that they loved and so revered?

Their horse was friend and comrade, through the thick of war and thin.
The Aussie politicians wouldn’t let them come back in.
They said, “Because of quarantine, and massive costs involved,
you’ll have to leave your mounts behind.” The troopers’ cheers dissolved.

*The war was done. The men could leave that nightmare combat zone,
but first, they had to take the lives, of those who’d saved their own!
The younger mounts were volunteered to India’s command.
Those over four, were shot and left, to perish in the sand.*

*The horses of the 3rd Brigade, were killed in Tripoli.
They lined them up in olive groves, then shot them. Tears ran free.
Each marksman fired, and wished the horse had died while serving war,
to lay the blame on enemy – instead his own heart tore.

The horses’ frightened screaming rose above the gunshot rattle,
and left the men with lifelong scars, of killing after battle.
A thankless way to thank each horse for service in the sand,
and fearless dedication shown to save our precious land.*

One hundred and eighty thousand horses, gave their blood and lives(*7),
to help return our troopers to their children and their wives.
They gave their all, and still found more, brave gallantry to give.
They’d never see green fields again, or come back home to live.

We're grateful for the Anzacs, and their sacrifice as well.
We know the wars were brutal, and the soldiers went through Hell.
So honour fallen loved ones, and the friends we never knew,
but I ask you, every Anzac Day … remember the horses, too …


1 - The Remounts Section sourced and bought horses to send overseas. Banjo Paterson was one of these men.

2 - The Waler was not a breed of horse, but they were an Australian-bred horse, from a range of breeds or cross breeds. They were bred to be extremely hardy and of good nature. Only blacks, bays and brown horses were used. It was in 1846 that the term “Waler” was coined by the British, because Australian horses were originally sourced in New South Wales, but by the mid-1800’s, all Australian horses were referred to as Walers. The most famous feat of the Walers, was the Light Horse charge on Beersheeba in 1917, to claim the water wells.

3 - “Half-legs” were a Clydesdale-cross, bred for endurance, speed and strength.

4 - “Gun horses” were the heavy horses that pulled “18 pounders” (a gun that shot shells weighing 18 pounds). Each gun and limber, which carried ammunition, were hitched together behind a team of six horses. The horses were arranged as three pairs, and each pair had a postillian rider on the near side horse. If any of the horses was injured, the rider could cut the traces and release the horse, so the rest of the team could keep going.

5 - “Sections” were groups of four horses and riders that went on scouting rides to look out for advancing enemy at night.

6 - A particularly interesting story can be found on page 111 of the book, “From the Saddlebags at War”, by Joan Starr – “... one night, (Major Mick) Shanahan found four Australians who had lost their horses in the thick of combat. He took two on his horse, and with the other two clinging to his stirrups, he dashed safely through the Turks in the darkness.”

7 - *The only horse to return to Australia was Sandy, the mount of Major General Sir William Throsby Bridges, who was the highest ranking Australian officer killed at Gallipoli. He was given a state funeral, and the horse was shipped back to Australia to take part in the funeral parade.*


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 February 2007)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> For reference, lyrics to "Ne me quitte pas" (allegedly) translated directly in English.   Much more powerful than McKuen's lyrics... ?
> I'll let you folk be the judges. ...there is more passion in this version - call it wild lateral thinking looking for crazy romantic comparisons http://ilx.wh3rd.net/thread.php?msgid=3202327
> 
> Don't leave me.  We must forget
> ...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJIZu37Hfr0&mode=related&search= Jacques Brel - Ne Me Quitte Pas - The author himself 
"Emotional performance from a true poet" as they say on youtube.


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 February 2007)

we proclaim the moral high ground, skip the “practice”, stick with “preach”
and the blind eyes and the lying find new quantum depths to reach
it’s a moral we’ll find history has lessons yet to teach
that the mindless politicians left omitted from their speech.

we pretend we’re best and fairest, yet we fan the embered fires
till they blaze in eyes and hearts and minds of enemy empires
we pretend we’re on the right track, that the diggers would stand by us
- but too many diggers died proclaiming "listen not to liars".  

we profess to study histor-y, attack before we know
whether mass destruction weapons, whether terrorists will grow
whether multi-headed dragons, will rise up twice from each blow 
that the beast we dreaded most of all, we’ve guaranteed will show.

we may claim the moral high ground, yet we climb as one who’s lame
there are acres of the mountain tops the enemy now claim
whether facts are in dispute or not, there’s one fact not denied
that the facts are brown and muddied, and the truth has long since died.


----------



## chops_a_must (7 February 2007)

Here's one for nude girl. 

One of my ex-girlfriends, who I was with for a long time, and who I remained closed to after it was over, has been in a coma for the last month. Unfortunately, they haven't been able to bring her out, so it appears she is brain-dead.

Anyway, she was a great poet, so I thought I would post some of the stuff she wrote for me.

Cheers,
Chops.
*
A Day to Remember*

On the 16th of December,
Is a day I’ll always remember.
This is the day we agreed on together,
I’ll remember this day always and forever.

We’ve had our share of ups and downs,
And I know there’s been times I’ve made you frown.
The first year was rough, but we’ve made it through,
The only reason why is because of the Love I have for you.

I never thought I could love someone as much as I Love you,
I’ve proven to myself and hopefully proven it to you too.
From the day I met you, you’ve had a special place in my heart,
Not a day I want to go by and us spend it apart.

All the years before this really seem quite wasted,
Especially since your love I’ve tasted.
All the Love I have for you, you’ll never completely know,
But for the last 365 days I’ve really tried to show.

You truly mean so very much to me,
You’re so incredible, I know you’ll become all you can be.
You’ve made me laugh, you’ve made me cry,
And there’s times that I Love you so much I feel I could die.

This has been one year, all I can pray for is many more,
For the rest of my life this year I will always adore.
The name of this poem is “A Day to Rememer,”
The day I refer to is the 16th of December.


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 February 2007)

sad story bud. she must be young and all. commisserations.
makes you realise how short life is yes?


----------



## Nifty (7 February 2007)

Heres one of mine

Fetch me the handled vessel
So I may commit plasmatic consummation
Then kiss the maiden who in  her country skirts
Came forth from the vineyard 
Bearing grapes overflowing in baskets
That in chemical metamorphosis
Will blossom in my senses 
Stumbling into dreams


----------



## chops_a_must (7 February 2007)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> sad story bud. she must be young and all. commisserations.
> makes you realise how short life is yes?



She must have been brain-dead to go out with me in the first place. Lol!

Jokes aside, there are so many more important things in life than money. You've just got to do all you can for the people you care about while you can. These people's happiness is priceless.


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 February 2007)

There's a quote somewhere, "Salt water is the cure for everything, tears sweat or the sea". 

Here's a couple of French songs about sea, sailing etc. one written in 1943 by Charles Trenet, one more recent - could be applied to many "farewell" situations I guess.    


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_mer_(popular_song) "La mer" is a popular song written by French lyricist Charles Trenet (1913 – 2001). It became the basis for the popular song "Beyond the Sea."
> It is claimed that Trenet wrote the song with Leo Chauliac in 1943 while riding on a train. It was not until 1946 that he recorded the song.



The english song (Bobby Darin etc) says "We'll meet beyond the sea, and never again go sailing".  No such sentiments apparently in the original French version.


> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHYj1-3QrrY&mode=related&search=  Charles Trenet - La Mer (live Olympia)
> 
> LA MER
> La mer , Qu'on voit danser le long des golfes clairs, A des reflets d'argent
> ...





> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCW-a_58KqA&NR  three videos combined sous le vent Garou Celine Dion
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0uHHbhn5_s&NR  same song, this one's a threesome – trust the French Garou, Elodie & Sophia - Sous le vent
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 February 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSATgDjoJA&NR
I mentioned this one a few posts back - found the song at last.

I WON'T SEND ROSES from the musical Mack and Mabel

I won't send roses, Or hold the door
I won't remember, Which dress you wore
My heart is too much in control
The lack of romance in my soul
Will turn you grey, kid , So stay away, kid

Forget my shoulder , When you're in need
Forgetting birthdays , Is guaranteed
And should I love you, you would be, The last to know
I won't send roses , And roses suit you so

My pace is frantic , My temper's cross
With words romantic, I'm at a loss
I'd be the first one to agree 
That I'm preoccupied with me
And it's inbred, kid , So keep your head, kid

In me you'll find things , Like guts and nerve
But not the kind things , That you deserve
And so while there's a fighting chance, Just turn and go
I won't send roses , And roses suit you so.


----------



## Garpal Gumnut (17 February 2007)

Dear 2020'

For you as requested



They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had 
And add some extra, just for you.

PLarkin

Garpal


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## 2020hindsight (17 February 2007)

Garpal Gumnut said:
			
		

> They **** you up, your mum and dad.
> They may not mean to, but they do.
> They fill you with the faults they had
> And add some extra, just for you.  ..PLarkin



top stuff m8 


> Song: Youve Got To Be Carefully Taught Lyrics
> Cable:
> You've got to be taught
> To hate and fear,
> ...



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU1FuozjiAg


----------



## Garpal Gumnut (17 February 2007)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> top stuff m8
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BU1FuozjiAg




Dear 2020'

Bravo mate,

Garpal


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## insider (18 February 2007)

I say get over it... make some cash and move out.... That's what I'm doing... I don't play the blame game... remember this

you are the common denominator

so get your life handled... no, whinging just do it


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## Garpal Gumnut (18 February 2007)

Dear Insider,

There is no need to shout.

a poem by Philip Larkin , just for you

Money

Quarterly, is it, money reproaches me:
   'Why do you let me lie here wastefully?
I am all you never had of goods and sex.
   You could get them still by writing a few cheques.'

So I look at others, what they do with theirs:
   They certainly don't keep it upstairs.
By now they've a second house and car and wife:
   Clearly money has something to do with life

- In fact, they've a lot in common, if you enquire:
   You can't put off being young until you retire,
And however you bank your screw, the money you save
   Won't in the end buy you more than a shave.

I listen to money singing. It's like looking down
   From long French windows at a provincial town,
The slums, the canal, the churches ornate and mad
   In the evening sun. It is intensely sad.

	-- Philip Larkin

A couple of notes: "bank your screw" refers to putting your wages in the
bank; this is British slang and no longer current.  And the "shave"
referred to is the shave you get from the mortician when you are dead,
to make you look good in the coffin.

Garpal


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 February 2007)

lol, another similar (I forget the author of this rhyming quote - call it a short poem i guess):-
"money talks", i hear some cry ... 
I heard it once it said "goodbye"


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 February 2007)

maybe others heard a talk about Furphy on Macca this morning. 
I only heard the quote about his motto "until the good was better and until the better best", hence the following.


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Furphy
> A furphy is Australian slang for a rumour, or an erroneous or improbable story.
> An original Furphy. The word is derived from water carts made by a company established by John Furphy: J. Furphy & Sons of Shepparton, Victoria. Many Furphy water carts were used to take water to Australian Army personnel during World War I. The carts, with "J. Furphy & Sons" written on their tanks, became popular as gathering places where soldiers could exchange gossip, rumours and fanciful tales.
> ..
> Originally it was synonymous with "rumour" and "scuttlebutt", but the modern meaning (especially in Australian politics) is "an irrelevant or minor issue raised to specifically divert attention away from the real issue".




THE JOHN FURPHY MOTTO
when the diggers craved discussion, when their brave nerve needed rest
they invented boast and blushin’,  cos the cure for fear was jest
and amongst the falling mortar, they were generals (second guessed)
and they’d gather at the watercart, and come back de- possessed.
-  and the rumours used to give their lives some zest.

these old tanks were made by Furphy, something like the local well
they were manufactured perfect,  - gave the old man pride to sell, - 
and the lads would find the pathways to oases in the dell
and they’d walk towards the laughter, and the odd exploding shell – 
- and their yarns were even heard by mates who fell.

with the motto on the nametag re-emblazened in their chest
(for these tanks inspired some famous tales, as sun sunk in the west)
their throats would leave the wetter, with their yarns all self-confessed- 
“until the good was better and until the better best”
- (while a few came home by letter,   , to a man , they came home blessed.)


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 February 2007)

The following poem is English translation and would probably be known to many Philipinos.  It was written by Jose Rizal, the first Asian leader to propose non-violent protest against (Spanish) colonialism - ahead of Ghandi - using his writing to awake the sense of freedom in Philipinos. 

It was written the night before he was executed by the Spanish (on trumped up charges), aged 35 yrs.  (written in Spanish - this is translation)
http://www.ac.wwu.edu/~fasawwu/resources/rizal/my-last-farewell/


> MY LAST FAREWELL,  By Jose Rizal
> 
> Farewell, my adored Land, region of the sun caressed,
> Pearl of the Orient Sea, our Eden lost,
> ...



[
http://www.univie.ac.at/Voelkerkunde/apsis/aufi/jorizal.htm


> Dr. JosÃ© Rizal
> In full, JOSÃ‰ PROTACIO RIZAL MERCADO Y ALONSO REALONDA (born 19 June 1861, Calamba, Philippines- died 30 December 1896, Manila, Philippines), patriot, physician and man of letters whose life and literary works were an inspiration to the Philippine nationalist movement.
> Rizal was the son of a prosperous landowner and sugar planter of Chinese-Filipino descent on the island of Luzon. His mother, Teodora Alonso, one of the most highly educated women in the Philippines at that time, exerted a powerful influence on his intellectual development.
> 
> ...



http://www.univie.ac.at/Voelkerkunde/apsis/aufi/rizal/rzpoem4.htm
he spent much of his adult life in Spain - studied extensively in medicine, poetry, sculpture, engineering, you name it . 


> ..A plant I am, that scarcely grown,
> Was torn from out its Eastern bed,
> Where all around perfume is shed,
> And life but as a dream is known;
> ...



Philippinos worship this guy 
mountains of info here if anyone is interested in reading further:- 
http://www.joserizal.ph/in01.html


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 February 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0yn7nS_wuc    Here's a poem by an america's (prior?) poet laureate
different! lol


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 February 2007)

2020hindsight said:
			
		

> NOTES ON PAYING THE RENT
> If you basejump, if you wing it, if you dare things to go wrong
> and you dare your soul to sing it, though it may be your last song,
> will your chute tear accidental, is this 'bad luck' if it does
> ...



In games of war that pollies play, with others as their pawns
Their questionable "calls to arms" that land us all in thorns,
Again some rental hardly missed, is paid as war day dawns
And "others" make up missing lists, "Another" mother mourns
- from pawn to polished granite, amid well kept tombstone lawns.   

Such sadly long term rental and such sadly short term lives
And such questionable motives, as some Pollies life revives. 

I wrote this poem leaning against a gum in Kings Park Perth, (dedicated to the memory of a soldier who didn't return) - and looking on a memorial to West Australians who didn't return - one of whom I had given a course of instruction, (and knew well),  and two who I buried     Please don't question my patriotic credentials.


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 March 2007)

The Money Tree

I'd LIKE a bludy money tree – today!  before I’m broke!
a thirty footer fir maybe , or eighty metre oak
or even hek a Christmas pine all laden with its fruit
as long as all the fruit was mine, and all the fruit was loot.

I'd LIKE those 50 dollar leaves, all green and dewdrop laden
or even after autumn thieves leave 20’s red and fadin’
I’d even live with bluey 10’s , or purple fives in droves-
…………
But knowing how the real world wends,   
I’ll be happy with some loaves


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## 2020hindsight (3 March 2007)

An example of Churchill "Picking the right word"...
(ps maybe skip this unless you are a Churchill fan - or need your positive thinking geed-up lol)
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=423


> "Never Give In" Speech, October 29, 1941, Harrow School
> When Churchill visited Harrow on October 29 to hear the traditional songs again, he discovered that an additional verse had been added to one of them. It ran:
> 
> "Not less we praise in darker days
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 March 2007)

I LOVE THE BUSH.
I love the bush - the way the trees stretch up towards an endless sky
like placards  pushing some green freeze – just leave them there to stately die  
I doubt that God in Heaven cares if one mere mortal questions why
but maybe sixteen million dare, to fight the greenhouse, fight the dry. 

Those gently carbon trading leaves just sucking in and smiling back
those stately limbs that nature weaves where birds and blossoms interact
Like nails into the earth those trunks, that stake their claim for future life
and praps rebirth,  like wooden monks, ...
or praps the coffin nails of strife.

(A bloke down the road wants me to plant a coupla trees - to help him with a development application lol - council requirement that he gets 100 trees planted - I said sure !! - then took the dog for a walk in the bush, and got to thinking about trees.


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 March 2007)

Insider, I believe we were talking about "allegorical stories" on another thread .  (assuming you can be bothered with this boring stuff, and reading non-trading threads 

Here's a quote from that wikipedia site about allegory vs metaphor etc, about Tolkien's opinion of allegory (but I'm damned if I agree with him)   :-


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory An allegory (from Greek ἄλλος, "other", and ἀγορεύειν, agoreuein, "to speak in public") is a figurative mode of representation conveying a meaning other than the literal.
> 
> Allegory is generally treated as a figure of rhetoric, but an allegory does not have to be expressed in language: it may be addressed to the eye, and is often found in realistic painting, sculpture or some other form of mimetic, or representative art.
> 
> ...



For instance, I personally really like Adam Lindsay Gordon's poem as below:-   


			
				2020hindsight said:
			
		

> YE WEARY WAYFARER, Fytte VI
> POTTER's CLAY [An Allegorucal Interlude]
> 
> Though the pitcher that goes to the sparkling rill
> ...



PS like my son might say - "I metaphor a drink dad, just a drink, that's all - and then the fog closed in, and ..!"


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 March 2007)

sorry folks this is a long one - Just shows how versatile was Australia's first poet.  " Printed in 1864...Gordon met friends in the Mt Gambier Hotel, and during the evening his attentoin was drawn to a set of 6 plates illustrative of the old Border ballad "The Downie Dens o' Yarrow".  Gordon was much pleased with the plates and intimated to one of the company his intention of using them as the subjecvt of some verses. A day or two later he showed the poem to  the gentleman he had spoken to ..  printed etc...
http://www.rangerjohn.com/thefeud.html


> THE FEUD : A BORDER BALLAD
> PLATE I - Rixa super mero
> 
> They sat by their wine in the tavern that night,  But not in good fellowship true:
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 March 2007)

http://poetry.tetto.org/read/27841/
trading rookie, nothing to do with the Cross, but a poem about King St nonetheless  - a busker with a hangover who loves his guitar  - different, nice imagery. 



> At The Colonial Plaza on King Street  , by redsky
> 
> I'm experimenting with form, this is a syllabic poem, each line ranges between 10 to 11 syllables (I think there's one with 12), but any helpful feedback would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 April 2007)

THE DEEP SEA COD AND THE FISHERMAN'S SON

It has always amazed the deepsea cod,
As he swims through the wrecks, and the seaweed and sod,
Why these tallships, once proud, till some “Wrath of God”
Delivered them here - and from whence?
Whence their skeletoned crew all strewn about?  
Whence the whalers still screaming their final half-shout?
Whence the Titanic patrons who couldn’t get out
Now in  “Davey Jones’ Locker” immense ? 

Whence the engine room comrades who stand and stare?
Whence the captain about to launch one final flare?
Whence the battleship lad in his ack-ack chair?
Who all died with adrenalin blush;
But the colours down here all merge as one,
And their pasts are all riddles now known to none,
Just a ghostly and fathomless absence of sun,
And the sound is nothing but “hush”.- 
And a memory of water’s rush.

………………………………………………….

And the terror for bathers who lay on that beach
Neath a tropical sun like a heavenly peach - 
Why that day Davey Jones lurched out to reach
	And took em all back to “his deep”.
Whence the freakish gargantuan wall of wet
That has left survivors to fear and fret,
Who in time I suppose will forgive and forget
	But - Davey – please stay asleep!!  .

Now the deepsea cod’s even more confused
And no less are we who are left to choose
Which mood of a dozen blacks or blues
Would best depict our thoughts;
Whence the bus and the house and the baby’s coat
Whence the thousands of souls who forgot how to float 
Whence the church’s old bible a few still quote
	In some distant vanquished ports.
	Whence the boy in the boogieboard shorts.

Whence the fisherman’s son, and the fisherman’s wife
Who all drowned on that day – in that swirling strife
No gail, no tempest, no red sky to warn
Yet the fisherman lives – though his life is torn
And he goes to the beach to mourn.:


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 April 2007)

A thought for those who died on the weekend , including the little girl found today 

Shakespeare, The Tempest:- "We are such stuff as dreams are made of,
And our little life is rounded with a sleep"


----------



## drillinto (3 April 2007)

The Early Morning

The moon on the one hand, the dawn on the other:
The moon is my sister, the dawn is my brother.
The moon on my left hand and the dawn on my right.
My brother, good morning: my sister, good night.

Hilaire Belloc(1870-1953)


----------



## trading_rookie (5 April 2007)

> trading rookie, nothing to do with the Cross, but a poem about King St nonetheless - a busker with a hangover who loves his guitar - different, nice imagery




It's not the one, infact I'm not sure now if it was called King Street, or it mentioned King Street in it. But I do recall pawn shops, alcho's and the low-life element of the street. Think it was written around the time of the depression.


----------



## drillinto (6 April 2007)

Introduction to Poetry

Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.



from The Apple that Astonished Paris, 1996
University of Arkansas Press, Fayetteville, Ark., USA


----------



## drillinto (6 April 2007)

trading_rookie said:


> It's not the one, infact I'm not sure now if it was called King Street, or it mentioned King Street in it. But I do recall pawn shops, alcho's and the low-life element of the street. Think it was written around the time of the depression.




Search for Poems and Poets ==> www.searchpoetry.com


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## 2020hindsight (6 April 2007)

drillinto said:


> Introduction to Poetry
> Billy Collins
> I ask them to take a poem, and hold it up to the light, like a color slide
> or press an ear against its hive.



thanks drill  brilliant.
here's another :-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrEPJh14mcU forgetfulnes , billy collins (US Poet Laureate a few years back)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eI5Gp3d7Z-4&mode=related&search= the dead
(personally I much prefer the former, I had a reason once, but I forget)


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 April 2007)

btw, here's a poem in it's early stages of drafting  - Anyone who has ever written a poem / song / letter / report /advertising idea etc etc can relate to this one lol


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 April 2007)

Drill, This one has something in common with "Forgefulness" I guess - (more about being pensive) - but much better , it rhymes , lol - and being a patriot, I prefer an Aussie , none better than Gordon IMO with these "beautiful musical melancholy lines".   - tell us what you think (if you have time). 
PS if you go to that website , don;t bother clicking on any of the "sound files" - just some stupid tune / ditty.
http://www.rangerjohn.com/twoyears.html


> QUARE FATIGASTI (Wither Bound)  Adam Lindsay Gordon
> 
> Two years ago I was thinking
> On the changes that years bring forth;
> ...



Something in common with his lines
"Life is mostly froth and bubble, two things stand like stone , kindness in another's trouble, courage in your own".


----------



## noirua (6 April 2007)

Here I am at home, poorly,
Dreadfull cold, cough, cough,
splutter, splutter, at deaths door,
back to bed, rough, rough.

Throat is sore, about to snore,
Chest is tight, can't breath,
Very hot, temperature soared,
rather sick, about to heave.

My head is now hurting,
surely it's not curtains,
sick as a parrot,
I think I've had it.


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 April 2007)

noirua said:


> My head is now hurting,
> surely it's not curtains,
> sick as a parrot,
> I think I've had it.



lol - good one noi,  
as they say , if it wasn't for venetian blinds, it would be curtains for all of us 

PS similar "rhytm" to Gordon.  
by the way , don't you just love those lines back there, example...

"And the sunny skies and the leaden,
And the faces that pale or redden,
And the smiles that lovers are wed in
Who are born and buried in tears." 

man was a genius.   (used to spend all his time memorising ancient classical latin / greek text - could quote em cover to cover etc)

romantic - probably that pensiveness went back to this ...(?)


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Lindsay_Gordon Gordon had fallen in love with a girl of 17, Jane Bridges, who was able to tell the story 60 years afterwards to his biographers. He did not declare his love until he came to say good-bye to her before leaving for Australia on 7 August 1853. "With characteristic recklessness he offered to sacrifice the passage he had taken to Australia, and all his father's plans for giving him a fresh start in life, if she would tell him not to go, or promise to be his wife, or even give him some hope." This Miss Bridges could not do, though she liked the shy handsome boy and remembered him with affection to the end of a long life. It was the one romance of Gordon's life. That Gordon realized his conduct had fallen much below what it might have been can be seen in his poems .


----------



## noirua (6 April 2007)

Quare Fatigasti:  Found it quite interesting, especially with your not recommended music. Something about that music that goes back to the 16th century or earlier - King Henry V111 and all that.


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 April 2007)

noirua said:


> Something about that music that goes back to the 16th century or earlier - King Henry V111 and all that.



Ever wonder what Henry VIII would have thought of the beatles ? lol - or amplified quadraphonic sound that could (as an extreme) break crystal glasses 

much like this I reckon 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrNsjuPcqnQ  Oliver Cochlear Implant Activation 12/2006

one small sound for mum, one giant symphony for that little kid 

noi, this one probably belongs on your "videos that send a message" thread , but I'll post it here now that I'm on a roll    a short movie, and brings a tear to your eye - poetic? - you be the judge , lol. 
	

		
			
		

		
	






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gEC-SJbE83E&mode=related&search= first day

further reading / watching :-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaPYQQtj1jM what it's like before the implant
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SmNpP2fr57A the science
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iW5xNGB_jZM&mode=related&search= Surgery Before 1st Birthday Best for Deaf Kids


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 April 2007)

Wayne, Since you're going to the Cotswalds, here's a poem to help you settle in 
By FLOOD AND FIELD (by Adam LindsayGordon)

I remember the lowering wintry morn,
And the mist of the Cotswold hills
Where I once heard the blast of the huntsman’s horn
Not far from the seven rills. etc etc 

You'll see his riding friend goes on to participate in the Charge of the Light Brigade, whereas he himself only has a heavy fall in the Hunt.  Moral ofthe story , lol - take it easy over there, lol - who cares if the fox gets away anyway  (as long as you don't bring itback to Aus)   

PS There's actually a second poem appended - worth a read as well 
THE VINE TREE vs THE SADDLE TREE....

I remember some words my father said
when I was an urchin vain:-
God rest his soul, in his narrow bed
these ten long years he hath lain
When I think one drop of the blood he bore
this faint heart surely must hold
It may be my fancy and nothing more
But the faint heart seemeth bold.

He said that as from the blood of the grape,
or from juice distilled from the grain,
False vigour soon to evaporate,
is leant to nerve and brain,
So the coward will dare on the gallant horse , 
what he never would dare alone, 
Because he exults in a borrowed force, 
and a hardihood not his own.

And so it may be , yet the difference lies 
Twixt the vine and the saddle tree
The spurious courage that drink supplies 
Sets our baser passions free;
But the stimulant which the horseman feels 
When he gallops fast and straight,
To his better nature most appeals
and charity conquers hate... etcetc


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 April 2007)

Wayne 
 further to previous
Here are all 8 of Gordon's Fyttes , (fits? lol).  The two poems below are Fytte II and III. 
plus the Lay of the Last Charger. (I love that one )  
Let us know what you think.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 April 2007)

OKKER AUTONOMY  (call it an Easter message of peace if you prefer  )

There’s a little fledgling nation, call it Oz, or “Okkerland”
While sitting at Eureka said “c’mon ! let’s make a stand!”,
Since then has made pretensions to the truth and the UN, 
And so gained its autonomy on what to do and when. 

Autonomous young nation, you’ll be judged in years to come,
Please “filter” all “sensation” and don’t follow causes dumb,
Don’t charge into mass lynchings, where young angels fear to tread,
There’s such a thing as “walk beside” much preferable to “lead”.

Autonomy, umBilicals are long since naval floss,
Be anything you wanna be, but YOU’re your moral boss,
Don’t follow Uncle Sam so blind – he’ll lead you up some creek, 
His brightest talent talons, and that razor eagle beak.

His Peace Corps boys around the world make friends for life it seems , 
And meet old friends on islands,   and they smile at long held dreams, 
They shake the hands of kindred souls they taught at some bark school - ….
Don’t “stuff it up” with warlike goals, because of some blind fool.

The history of Uncle Sam as all good Texans know
Means “equal justice for the lamb went out with Alamo”
Those Mexicans who fought it had no right to be out there,
And Davey Crockett bought it, and his motives pure and fair.

Don’t follow him so readily boy, he likes to play with death, 
Some “four-year king” with deadly toys – makes choir boy of Macbeth,
Unless you win some hearts and minds, you’ll never win that goal,
That makes your land a noble place, and gives your nation soul.

Be careful of your Uncle boy he preaches like a monk
He loves to taunt like Dirty Harry “Feelin lucky, punk?”
He has such simple ethics, he can make it up each day - 
“Don’t do that which we do, you all, just do that which we say!”. 

Be careful of your Uncle boy he’s just a little wild
His birth and youth the tantrums of a civil warring child
Where strength was proven without doubt to emanate from guns
And carpet baggers laughing at “red-badge-of-courage” sons. 

He learnt the law of “might is right” and jaundiced record books
Those written by the victors,  “how we beat those wimpish sooks”
He’s lost all sense of moral cause, he’s now his own worst foe
And pity help some “Mouse that Roars” at modern GI Joe.

Tis only seven score year and four, that Lincoln gave his speech (1863)
He spoke of equals, principles, the stuff that teachers teach,
But how the heck can kids grow up in these uncertain times,?
We’ve traded any moral code for blood-soaked oil-soaked dimes.

I wonder what would Lincoln think if now he saw the mess
Of  how we bomb the innocent, yet innocence protest.
And pity help the child that sees through any kings new clothes 
Who makes predictions terrified of ugly things he loathes.

“I think therefore I’m here, I am”?, - that’s much too strong on tact!
He much prefers “I think KERBAM”  He much prefers to act,
And pity help some Mouse that Roars, his sense of humour’s gone
KERBAM to you, to hell with cause, (his Xmas list is long).

A truly moral message that will resonate for years 
Is not the one the booms out of a cannon near your ears
And who recalls the word of Caesar in historic mist ?
And who prefers the gentle thoughts of Buddha or the Christ?

I really liked the English Archbishop of Canterbury's Easter message ...(something like) ..

*"We might get peace , but not before Moslems stop thinking of Christians as Crusaders
and Christians stop thinking of Moslems as Terrorists"*


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 April 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> OKKER AUTONOMY  (call it an Easter message of peace if you prefer  )
> 
> A truly moral message that will resonate for years
> Is not the one the booms out of a cannon near your ears
> ...




PS There's only one thing I hate more than where we are going
and that is the speed with which we are going there . 

PS I met US Peace Corps blokes in the islands - scuba dived with em - great ambassadors working with poor village kids  - shame that their work is being undermined by "recent events".


----------



## drillinto (11 April 2007)

The Poet

Tom Wayman

Loses his position on worksheet or page in textbook
May speak much but makes little sense
Cannot give clear verbal instructions
Does not understand what he reads
Does not understand what he hears
Cannot handle “yes-no” questions

Has great difficulty interpreting proverbs
Has difficulty recalling what he ate for breakfast, etc.
Cannot tell a story from a picture
Cannot recognize visual absurdities

Has difficulty classifying and categorizing objects
Has difficulty retaining such things as
addition and subtraction facts, or multiplication tables
May recognize a word one day and not the next


From In a Small House on the Outskirts of Heaven, 1989
Harbour Publishing (Canada)


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 April 2007)

drill, you're probaly right 
Its hard to make some sense of it , especially set to verse
You try defining poets you just make em ten times worse
The poet will get stuck in corners every time he paints
The rest of us are logical - and rational - and saints


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 April 2007)

drillinto said:


> The Poet
> ....
> Has difficulty classifying and categorizing objects
> Has difficulty retaining such things as
> ...



drill,  since you've posted some good poetry here yourself , I'm not sure where your post is going  , but...
on the question of logical behaviour , poets or anyone,  this is an excerpt from #62 on this one..


> MATTERS OF THE HEART
> 
> by Way of preamble, it’s easy to gamble, when dice are odds-on and it’s wise
> and your Head’s in control, and the facts are in BOLD and they’re easy to rationalise,
> ...



occasionally through life we should forget about maths and stuff yes?  

And another - in defense of Romance vs Reality #26 :-


> SCRAP METAL
> 
> Tell me your story small piece of scrap metal, jagged and rent from some hull,
> Satelite glory? or broken old kettle? Something exciting or dull?
> ...



Better I stick with a real poet maybe, lol :-
"Life is mostly froth and bubble, two things stand like stone
kindness in another 's trouble, courage in your own"    (ALGordon).  

PS I would classify Mr Tom Wayman as "kettle" lol.  
possibly with a fair bit of Fe3O4 as well


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 April 2007)

THE LEGACY OF ABU GHRAIB
Sure we've had some baddies downed, Lord but what a cost,
Win at least SOME moral ground, else all else is lost,
Broadcast to the world out there, Abu Ghraib grins,  
Makes rhetoric kinda bare, when inderpinned with sins. 

Abu Ben Adam, (tribe reduced?), awoke one night from zen 
And asked to be recorded "one who loves his fellow men"
How different from his brother Ghraib, ignorant, obsessed,
And when that golden book was wrote, which name lead all the rest?


----------



## drillinto (13 April 2007)

Selecting a Reader

Ted Kooser

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned." And she will.



from Sure Signs, 1980
University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, Pa.

[ Every poet has an image of the ideal reader, and the not-so-ideal reader ]


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 April 2007)

LIFE IS A BEACH
The scribbled words we write today, are footprints of a mind at play
Or sometimes thoughts that sooth or thrill, to quench some electronic quill.
Sometimes we type out grains of sand, (- or grains of mud, you understand )
And so we leave behind us here, constructions out of such small beer.

For most of us one bucket full, one turret of a sandy fort
And equal share praps of bull, with fingers crossed in case we're caught,
....
Or Hitler's mangrove swamp of words, with twisted roots and blood lust leach, - 
While Winston Churchill much preferred, to leave behind a golden beach .


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 April 2007)

Lawson , the dollar-challenged larrikin .. 
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/L/LawsonHenry/index.html


> To a Pair of Blucher Boots,  1890 Henry Lawson
> 
> OLD acquaintance unforgotten,     Though you may be “ugly brutes”—
> Though your leather’s cracked and rotten,      Worn-out pair of Blucher boots.
> ...






> A Mixed Battle Song, Henry Lawson
> 
> LO! the Boar’s tail is salted, and the Kangaroo’s exalted,
> And his right eye is extinguished by a man-o’-warsman’s cap;
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 April 2007)

I'M OK - AT LEAST I WAS THE LAST TIME I WENT TO THE SHRINK 

We are all here one part parent, we are also one part child
we are thirdly one part adult – that’s where facts and stuff are filed
and the part that holds most interest to my questionable mind  
is the part in there unique to us – with birthmarked gems to find.

Just as two year olds can make us laugh, or sixty year olds dance
just as laughing conversations can lead logic to romance
we are all a mixed up bag of skills, and all were small kids once
so let’s skip the part that’s "genius", and drop all else and "dunce”.

If we only live in adult, it would all get so intense
I’d prefer to watch the footy, (where my mates are really dense)
Or watch the Greeks pay chess like kids, beneath some olive tree,
but with cheering and with jeering from the peanut gallery.

If we ride the roller coaster, if we scream down waterslides
where some 2 percent get toaster burns from rubbing on the sides
then we’ll maybe come out injured, but the question is my friend
we have fought the adult boredom, and these injuries will mend.

Even tears are from a part of us that's strictly from our youth
Even sympathy and courage and to pick a lie from truth
and the body language unaffected (prior to poker faces)
is the stuff that makes us what we are, and gives us all "our basis".  

PS (IMHO )


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 April 2007)

THE LITTLE HERO

It was  many years ago now, when a small young boy was killed
I read about the matter - why was such young blood be-spilled
a man had worked long overtime to pay his bills that day 
and he microslept that part of  his untimely homeward way.

The little boy was with his sister, both were infant kids
the footbridge wasn’t finished, and the road was full of skids
each one of them spelt danger, but this day the driver slept,
and he hit this little stranger,  and his mother since has wept.

There’s more to this sad story, just to make it extra cruel 
for I think from distant memory, she has barely started school
and the car involved was heading for his darling little sis
and he pushed her in a way that meant the danger was all his.

......
Sure he died that day a hero, sure they think about him oft
Sure he’s found a path to heaven, sure he looks down from aloft
Sure there’s none of us immortal, and the one’s behind will weep 
.....
Sure his little life is bounded by an honoured heroes sleep.


----------



## drillinto (16 April 2007)

Fame
Les Murray

We were at dinner in Soho
and the couple at the next table
rose to go. The woman paused to say
to me: I just wanted you to know
I have got all your cook books
and I swear by them!

I managed
to answer her: Ma’am,
they’ve done you nothing but good!
which was perhaps immodest
of whoever I am.



[Les Murray is Australia's leading poet]


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 April 2007)

a lot of talk lately about rating posts and posting rates etc...  
These lines sprung to mind as I was walking the dog just now 

"Bill Posters will be prosecuted" called the maddened crowd!
"Bill Posters might be innocent" said one lone voice aloud!
and pre -romantic poets mustn't post romantic verse,
and they in turn will reckon that pre-classical is worse.

And threads might score two stars or threes, or maybe even fours
hell my tent scores at least 15!, and I've got timber floors!
but when I sleep outside my tent, and when it's not too cold
why then I score 10,000 stars - and that's worth more than gold.

A day out at the races can bring fortunes to a fool
who doubles up his losing bets by some outdated rule
there's no exceptions sadly from the ASX floor dins...
.. one trader always loses when another trader wins.


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 April 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> a lot of talk lately about rating posts and posting rates etc...
> These lines sprung to mind as I was walking the dog just now
> 
> "Bill Posters will be prosecuted" called the maddened crowd!
> ...




I'll post this on the poetry thread, and if called to attention by the moderators, I'll plead "poetic licence " .   But continuing ...

One trader sells a share in something, someone out there buys,
and the crazy thing goes up or down, and one or other cries,
whether Lady Luck has kissed you, maybe left you in the lurch,
It is no-one's place to blame another (DYOR).

There'll be posters rating posters, there'll be raters posting rates,
there 'll be scrambled egg comparible to thirty broken crates,
there'll be "I can knock your block off", there'll be "yeah you wanna bet"
there'll be quick-draw nigh-noon gunfights with the moderator's pet.

In the quiet logic moment, you'd suspect a fatal flaw,
Cos the judge who sits in judgement might himself be feeling sore.
while the dog can chase his tail around, the ASF thread log
will (you'd think) be less constructive, (and a bloody dizzy dog).


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 April 2007)

THE NEVER-ENDING BULL RUN 

A mate of mine's an optimism, he's rarely ever blue
I told him a correction to the market's overdue
His eye's lit up, a smile broke out, like some foolhardy clown
"You little bobby dazzler!! - is it up or is it down? "

You'd have to say he's on a roll, it's hard right now to fault him
But then again, the day will come some hiccup's gonna halt him
Until that happens, sure I'll try to join in all the fun,
But have my joggers standing by, in case I haveta run.


----------



## drillinto (18 April 2007)

Natasha Trethewey has won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for ``Native Guard.'' 

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Publisher (Mariner Books/Boston - USA) Comments:

Growing up in the Deep South, Natasha Trethewey was never told that in her hometown of Gulfport, Mississippi, black soldiers had played a pivotal role in the Civil War. Off the coast, on Ship Island, stood a fort that had once been a Union prison housing Confederate captives. Protecting the fort was the second regiment of the Louisiana Native Guards ”” one of the Union's first official black units. Trethewey's new book of poems pays homage to the soldiers who served and whose voices have echoed through her own life. 
The title poem imagines the life of a former slave stationed at the fort, who is charged with writing letters home for the illiterate or invalid POWs and his fellow soldiers. Just as he becomes the guard of Ship Island's memory, so Trethewey recalls her own childhood as the daughter of a black woman and a white man. Her parents' marriage was still illegal in 1966 Mississippi. The racial legacy of the Civil War echoes through elegiac poems that honor her own mother and the forgotten history of her native South. Native Guard is haunted by the intersection of national and personal experience.


----------



## noirua (18 April 2007)

Confidences' friendly dash remains sky high,
as investors line up, join the feeding frenzy,
they only see the sky, blue, a flicker of fire?
one day, grey skies, and then, no, no envy.

The beginning, the middle, and the end - noirua


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## noirua (18 April 2007)

Now I'm getting into this poetry there's no stopping me.

Your next journey is your greatest journey;
on this journey, will be all your loved ones and friends;
you may not have started the journey but it will certainly begin;
the world will continue whilst you are on this journey
and all the world and everything that is within it, and without it,
will follow you on this journey; and fear not my friends,
the journey, that all and everything will be with you on!
Most fear this journey, but do not, I will be with you,
and you with me, and we will all travel on it forever 

"the journey" - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 April 2007)

PROTECT YOUR ASS-ETS

there are many reasons readers come to websites such as this
and to separate the leaders from the ones who take the pi**
but I find it quite a challenge (and this isn't meant as "dig")
how to end up with small fortunes (without starting off with big).

there are some who could care tuppence with a dropping AOX
while the rest sing for their suppers, and resort to "coke and bex"  
it can be like sand grains draining in an upturned hour glass -
while a few "protect their assets" some poor punters "lose their ass"


----------



## noirua (18 April 2007)

OK, 2020 et al, here goes again. My poems are usually a bit sad, so please post some happy ones.


Every day, is a curse, pain, again, it seems to rain,
good God, again, I'm going swiftly, down the drain,
every end is a sharp one, again, tired, oh insane.
heaven save me, again, rats, crocs, no, I'm lame.

"again", by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 April 2007)

ok noi, since you've challenged me lol ... seriously amateur poetry but what's new...

if you're rivetted to tv's or you're glued to some square screen
then unglue your bludy ass and buy an exercise machine
take a lesson from a lamb in spring, or spanish jumping bean
and forget all sheep-like traits, by which we lose our childhood keen. (?)

that is so hopeless it's not funny 
maybe ..
clean your spleen of that caffeen, and let some running make you mean (?)  
lol  - with that I retire  ) - see ya m8





 
I'm trying to give up bludy coffee by alternating it with tea, but somewhere deep down in my subconscious I much prefer coffee lol.


----------



## noirua (19 April 2007)

Very good 2020: Our poetry is head and shoulders above anyone elses on ASF, that's for sure.


----------



## drillinto (21 April 2007)

Poetry

Don Paterson

In the same way that the mindless diamond keeps
one spark of the planet's early fires
trapped forever in its net of ice,
it's not love's later heat that poetry holds,
but the atom of the love that drew it forth
from the silence: so if the bright coal of his love
begins to smoulder, the poet hears his voice
suddenly forced, like a bar-room singer's -- boastful
with his own huge feeling, or drowned by violins;
but if it yields a steadier light, he knows
the pure verse, when it finally comes, will sound
like a mountain spring, anonymous and serene.

Beneath the blue oblivious sky, the water
sings of nothing, not your name, not mine.



from The White Lie; New and Selected Poetry, 2001
Graywolf Press, St. Paul, Minn.


----------



## BIG BWACULL (21 April 2007)

noirua said:


> Very good 2020: Our poetry is head and shoulders above anyone elses on ASF, that's for sure.



Here i sit and watch you Two 
f%%# around like cockatoos
you drink your tea i scull my wine
GEE somethin wrong with this rhyme
Time to give up on this CRAP
Before i get booed and hissed AT

Hey not bad for a quickie straight outta my back SHHHEAD


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 April 2007)

BIG BWACULL said:


> Here i sit and watch you Two
> f%%# around like cockatoos
> you drink your tea i scull my wine
> GEE somethin wrong with this rhyme..



Alf E Neumann was a lad, three parts funny one part sad
best response? sad or sorry? , maybe best is "What me worry?" 
PS stick to blonde jokes m8, lol - that was a good one .


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 April 2007)

hey bwac, think you misunderstood ..

PS coffee I drink through the day,  when I'm working for my pay
what i drink at night ? depends.  usually cats piss by the tens
As I drink, I smile with dreams, "this tastes better than it seems"  
"this cheap plonk I'll drink today ... tomorrow?  
... the REDS of COURTEGUAY!! " :bandit: 

PS If you get to watch the Adventurers, the head of the banditos, or maybe it was the president or some damned thing, whatever (it was 20 years ago I saw it lol)  makes a toast "give me the red wine of Courteguay, and keep this cat's piss for the women"   

have a good one .  If you're interested here's the cricket result.

Also here's a new way to get some caffeine into you   shinbone, as if ! -  I'm trying to give the bludy stuff up ! lol
hell with this I'm off to bed.


> Bar of soap gives caffeine kick in the shower. Inventors have created a soap infused with caffeine which helps users wake up in the morning.  etc



http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1903102.htm


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 April 2007)

Tonight I give the booze a miss, that's it! no more !  off the piss!
the vintage of that bludy cask? - buga, rats, forgot to ask
six bucks for a bucket full! "Dry White" - what a loada bull 
must be worst damned booze on earth - I'm giving it a wider berth.

speaking of which, I'll get there soon - is try to find my bludy room
birthplace of a thousand dreams - and bludy nightmares too it seems
now to get this spinning head to land on that so narrow bed
like a bludy injured harrier, landing on an aircraft carrier.

PS tomorrow Ill be sore and sorrier
no more booze for this here warrier.

[PS Speaking of beds / bunks / berths... Knew a bloke was a skipper on a small oil tanker out in the islands.  Whilst most of the local crew are brilliant, really good, there was one bloke who was always giving trouble - wanted the biggest share of meals, wanted the biggest bunk (a la  berth), fought with everyone, including the skipper etc - so , he had to "ask him to leave".  To his surprise this bloke asked him for a reference.  Which he did. .. as follows. 

"This reference concerns fred bloggs.  He likes good meals and a wide bunk, and I have no hesitation in saying that you should give him as wide a berth as possible".  
The bloke went away happy


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 April 2007)

Oldies but goodies 
http://www.bartleby.com/101/489.html

THE TIGER , William Blake

TIGER, tiger, burning bright   In the forests of the night,   
What immortal hand or eye    Could frame thy fearful symmetry?   

In what distant deeps or skies  Burnt the fire of thine eyes?   
On what wings dare he aspire?   What the hand dare seize the fire?   

And what shoulder and what art   Could twist the sinews of thy heart?  
And when thy heart began to beat,    What dread hand and what dread feet?   

What the hammer? what the chain?   In what furnace was thy brain?   
What the anvil? What dread grasp    Dare its deadly terrors clasp?   

When the stars threw down their spears,    And water'd heaven with their tears,   
Did He smile His work to see?   Did He who made the lamb make thee?  

Tiger, tiger, burning bright   In the forests of the night,   
What immortal hand or eye  Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? 

THE LAMB 
Little Lamb, who made thee?  Dost thou know who made thee? 
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,   By the stream and o'er the mead; 
Gave thee clothing of delight,  Softest clothing, woolly, bright; 
Gave thee such a tender voice,  Making all the vales rejoice? 

Little Lamb, who made thee?  Dost thou know who made thee? 
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee, Little Lamb, I'll tell thee. 
He is called by thy name,  For He calls Himself a Lamb. 
He is meek, and He is mild;  He became a little child. 

I a child, and thou a lamb,  We are called by His name. 
Little Lamb, God bless thee!   Little Lamb, God bless thee! 

Alternative versions:-

TIGER, tiger, amber bright  In some foureyed mental fight,   
Mirrors rarely ever lie   But cripes I’m lacking symmetry?   

Here's a heap more detail, although I think he's winging it a bit lol - a bit like other theologians and politicians I could mention 



> http://www.pathguy.com/tyger.htm Understanding William Blake's "The Tyger"  Ed Friedlander, M.D
> As an online William Blake fan, I receive at least one request per month from students asked to interpret William Blake's wonderful lyric, "The Tyger."
> 
> The contrast with "The Lamb" is obvious. ("Little Lamb, who made thee? Dost thou know who made thee?" The answer is God, who became incarnate as Jesus the Lamb.) "The Tyger" asks, "Did he who made the Lamb make thee?" And the answer is, "Yes, God made the Tyger too."
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 April 2007)

More on that website about Blake assuming maybe someone out there is interested  http://www.pathguy.com/tyger.htm


> I have always loved the classical poets like Blake because of the intensity and compactness of their expression, especially within the discipline of rhyme and meter which make it easy to remember the words. Today there is very little interest outside of academia and trendoid circles in the amorphous stuff that passes for "contemporary poetry". But Shakespeare, Chaucer, Milton, Keats, and Tennyson were extraordinarily popular with ordinary people. Blake was less well-known to his contemporaries, but now is hugely popular with casual readers.
> 
> *The real heirs of the classical poets are the lyricists of popular music*. Sometimes lyrics make no sense, and it's hard for me to appreciate this. (A friend who's knowledgeable about such things told me: *"'Stairway to Heaven' is supposed to mean whatever you want it to mean.")* At their best, they present a bit of human experience that makes you say, "Wow! I knew that, but never heard it expressed so clearly!"
> 
> If you like "The Tyger", you may want to go on to learn more about Blake. For his era, he was extremely radical, both politically and philosophically. He and his wife practiced nudism in a friend's garden ("It's okay, we're just Adam and Eve"). Blake was tried for treason for saying something like "you soldiers of the god-damned king, I hope Napoleon kills all of you" while throwing a drunken soldier out of his garden. ....



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake


> He was voted 38th in a poll of the 100 Greatest Britons organized by the BBC in 2002 . According to Northrop Frye, who undertook a study of Blake's entire poetic corpus, *his prophetic poems form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language*." Others have praised Blake's visual artistry, at least one modern critic proclaiming Blake *"far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced.*"[1] Once considered mad for his idiosyncratic views, Blake is highly regarded today for his expressiveness and creativity, and the philosophical vision that underlies his work. As he himself once indicated, *"The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself."*


----------



## noirua (22 April 2007)

Markets are but shelves in the mountains,
as from there, we find our way to the top,
far better to plan the whole journey,
otherwise, temptations are there to hop.

Each shelf may have its next pathway
to the next shelf or maybe not,
finding yourself with no pathway,
return, under no circumstances hop.

Never take shortcuts up mountains,
always take a pathway to the top.
Mark decided to hop up the mountain, 
at the bottom now, a great big drop.

Most markets require eminent virtues,
no sloppy journeys, thou care's not
like the fall from the top of a mountain.
they too, can have a really fine drop.

Dropped off the mountain - noirua


----------



## drillinto (25 April 2007)

Drillinto calling all ASF market poets:

http://www.marketpoetry.com/


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## drillinto (26 April 2007)

Numbers

Mary Cornish

I like the generosity of numbers.
The way, for example,
they are willing to count
anything or anyone:
two pickles, one door to the room,
eight dancers dressed as swans.

I like the domesticity of addition--
add two cups of milk and stir--
the sense of plenty: six plums
on the ground, three more
falling from the tree.

And multiplication's school
of fish times fish,
whose silver bodies breed
beneath the shadow
of a boat.

Even subtraction is never loss,
just addition somewhere else:
five sparrows take away two,
the two in someone else's
garden now.

There's an amplitude to long division,
as it opens Chinese take-out
box by paper box,
inside every folded cookie
a new fortune.

And I never fail to be surprised
by the gift of an odd remainder,
footloose at the end:
forty-seven divided by eleven equals four,
with three remaining.

Three boys beyond their mothers' call,
two Italians off to the sea,
one sock that isn't anywhere you look.



from Poetry magazine
Volume CLXXVI, Number 3, June 2000


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 April 2007)

top poem , thanks drill 

Speaking of maths    ... here's one I posted back there #26

Fifty odd poems when you add ‘em all up (+)
The product of what I think (x),
The critics divided twixt “maybe” and “nup” ( / )
Or whether they bloodywell stink,  
Or whether you somehow could rescue the page
If you’d just take away the ink ( - ) 
Or the sum of decreasing mental age (- - -)
And increasing time to think. ( + + +)
- But in truth it’s a square on an empty stage ( ^2)
and a cubic TV on the blink ( ^3)


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 April 2007)

Fifty odd poems about this and that,
Well certainly odder than most,
Nothing to really write home about,
And certainly nothing to boast, 
Tug at your heartstrings, or tug at your lead
But Most of em breezy and light,
And those that are heavy or hard to read 
It’s because they were easy to write.

Fifty odd poems when you add ‘em all up (+)
The product of what I think (x),
The critics divided twixt “maybe” and “nup” ( / )
Or whether they bloodywell stink, 
Or whether you somehow could rescue the page
If you’d just take away the ink ( - ) 
Or the sum of decreasing mental age (- - -)
And increasing time to think. ( + + +)
 - But in truth it’s a square on an empty stage  ( ^2)
and a cubic TV on the blink.  ( ^3)

Fifty odd poems about this and that
And a few through the eyes of my dog 
What we see in a bird or a fleeting cat,
Or a rare and so-kissable frog,
And a few poems thrown in, well, just for a chat -
Like the chimps in the family log, 
And a few more poems there, where my heart is at,
Or my head after nights on the grog.

And some more about Rugby World Cups and the like,
And sportsmen, their madness, their colours,
And some are a mixture of Shakespeare and Spike,
And Hamlet and all those great fellas.
Of dogs ever faithful, of war and of dove,
And photos of memories old,
The quandary of trees, and the quantum of love,
- Rabid yarns that grow rapid with mould.

Fifty odd poems as I walked the odd mile
And things that have caught my eye, 
And things that have prompted a laugh or a smile
And some that damned near made me cry,
But the fun has been in the writing hereof
Or to quell the man in the kid,
Have a good one, my friends, we’re all square off
And in parting, I dips me’ lid.


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 April 2007)

seriously trivial post, but do I look worried 

While some live by that simple rule where four times 1 makes roughly 4
There's others who with vectors strive, where 3 plus 4 gives only five.
Some prefer the logbook plan where 1+1 makes hundreds man
or short-change rules like binary where 1 plus 1 makes only 3.  

PS Einstein said that can't be right, you must account for speed of light
but my mate Paddy didn't bite   .. he only does his maths at night.


----------



## drillinto (4 May 2007)

This very short poem reminds us
there are two ways of looking at things



Tour

Carol Snow

Near a shrine in Japan he'd swept the path
and then placed camellia blossoms there.

Or -- we had no way of knowing -- he'd swept the path
between fallen camellias.



from For, 2000
University of California Press, Berkeley


----------



## x2rider (4 May 2007)

Another way to look at it 
 Was the path never there and it was placed in between the camillia flowers
 Cheers martin


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 May 2007)

drillinto said:


> Near a shrine in Japan he'd swept the path, and then placed camellia blossoms there.
> 
> We had no way of knowing, he'd swept the path, between fallen camellias.



brilliant stuff drill (and x2 for the third option lol) . 

Like the 3 ways to look at it :- is the glass half full , half empty, or just twice as big as necessary 
(or as some idiot posted here once, there are 10 types of people, those that believe in binary and those that don't)

I'm reminded (yet again) of Robert Frost's "The Road Not Taken", and despite the fact that chops hates "the boring old fart" lol - I'm gonna throw it in (yet again)...


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_Not_Taken
> The poem, especially its last lines, where the narrator declares that taking the road "one less traveled by" "made all the difference," can be seen as a declaration of the importance of independence and personal freedom. However, Frost likely intended the poem as a gentle jab at his great friend and fellow poet Edward Thomas, and seemed amused at the slightly "mischievous" misinterpretation.[1]


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 May 2007)

The Twinkle of Our Various Fathers' Eyes.  (Two directions to look at eternity).

Since the first big bang went kaboom, and for ages and ages prior
we have all been asleep in some room, till a twinkle appeared in dad's eye
and we sprang from our mother's womb and we yodelled our prodigal birth.
and we topple with time to some tomb - that's the end of the game here on earth.

It's an inverse of heaven, this law, that we look at our lives in this way,
we were all alive before, and the end is all decay - 
........
But I think that most would prefer that both past and future we'll lie
In some land - though a starry blurr - like the twinkling of Our Other Father's eye.    

And One by Tennyson :-


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 May 2007)

The first poem back there is obviously a plagiarism of Wil Shakespeare's The Tempest - the "rounded sleep" quote in particular - what brilliant words / concepts / atmosphere / penetration of a fellow mortal's moods !  
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/S/ShakespeareWilliam/index.html
As I mentioned in the "internet resources for kids homework" thread, you can cut and paste great chunks of him if you wish .. eg 


> http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/S/ShakespeareWilliam/play/tempest/tempesta4s1.html ,  Act IV, scene I
> PROSPERO
> [Aside] I had forgot that foul conspiracy
> Of the beast Caliban and his confederates
> ...



This one (from same scene) - a wedding toast 


> JUNO
> How does my bounteous sister? Go with me
> To bless this twain, that they may prosperous be
> And honour’d in their issue.
> ...





> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare
> He is counted among the few playwrights who have excelled in both tragedy and comedy; his plays combine popular appeal with complex characterisation, and *poetic grandeur with philosophical depth*. Shakespeare's works have been translated into every major living language,[8]


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 May 2007)

Further to previous, and speaking of whether "life on earth" is the beginning, or the middle, or the end of "the total of our eternity", 

...and just discussing the matter philosophically ok !! - lol, not trying to convert anyone, (including myself, - possibly myself if I accidentally say something that makes sense, lol  )...

But it could be argued that Churchill is on the same subject here, could it not ?   :-
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=388


> "The End of the Beginning"
> 
> "The Germans have received back again that measure of fire and steel which they have so often meted out to others.
> *Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."*
> —Lord Mayor's Luncheon, Mansion House following the victory at El Alameinin North Africa,  London, 10 November 1942.




PS When they say he was "first lord of the admiralty" - well how come Lord Mountbatten was as well??  - ahhh this Wikipedia is full of errors!! 
(oops Lord Louis Mountbatten was "first sea lord", BUT SO WAS HIS FATHER, Prince Louis of Battenberg ! -  so which of em was the first ?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Mountbatten 
 -  think I've run with that joke about as far as it will go, lol)


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 May 2007)

Third and hopefully final quote on the subject (although I could probably go on for eterninty,  ) from Arthur Stace - who Sydney-siders might remember from 2000 fireworks ..  the word to herald in the new millenium 

Arthur Stace ! - who'd have thought that you'd be remembered as Sydney's most famous graffiti vandal.  How long will you be remembered, that's the question ?   (not bad for "an illiterate former soldier, petty criminal and alcoholic " )

(then there are those who reckon the end of the millenium was new years 2001 (being 2000 years after year 1 started, etc etc ),  but let's save that one to sort out over a beer, lol) 


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternity_(graffito) The word Eternity was a famous graffito which was written numerous times in chalk on the streets of Sydney, Australia from the 1940s through to the 1960s. The word had been written by Arthur Stace, *an illiterate former soldier, petty criminal and alcoholic *who became a devout Christian in the late 1940s. For years after his conversion up until his death in the 1960s, Stace walked the streets of Sydney at night writing the single word "Eternity" on walls and footpaths in his unmistakable copperplate handwriting. Stace's identity remained unknown until it was finally revealed in a newspaper article in the early 1960s.
> 
> After Stace's death, his Eternity signature lived on. Australian contemporary artist, illustrator and filmmaker Martin Sharp noticed it and celebrated Stace's one-man campaign in many of his works. More recently, some Australian Christian groups, including those at universities, have run evangelical campaigns whose promotion involved chalking "Eternity", after Stace's fashion, on footpaths.
> 
> As part of the fireworks on Sydney Harbour to mark New Year's Day of the year 2000, the graffito "Eternity" was illuminated on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. This moment was symbolically recreated later that year as part of the Sydney 2000 Olympics Opening Ceremony, beamed to billions of television viewers worldwide




LOL - at least they didn't pick Fred Bloggs for his contribution to Sydney graffiti !!

Can't you see it !!??   New years night , !!,  the world watching !! - and  (drum roll)

"For a good time , phone flossy on 9876 5432"!!  emblazened across the mighty coathanger!

PS - shame Stace didn't expand a bit on that philosophy of his, lol - might have convinced a few more to follow his "one-man-one-word cult"  

PS "an illiterate former soldier, petty criminal and alcoholic" mmm maybe I should go out and buy some chalk - where there's LIFE ... there's HOPE!!

and let's face it , they'll be looking for a new slogan next new years!!  - maybe "DISINTEREST-ISM" !! (the religion and philosphical depth of todays youth - well my kids anyways lol)


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 May 2007)

Thought for the day ...

If Arthur Stace was illiterate as wikipedia claims ...then 
I wonder what HE thought he was writing all over the place .. ??  

funny if he thought he was drawing a coil of rope , or maybe a dead snake lol.  Can't you see him up in heaven - "HEY they've done a drawing of my SNAKE!!"

PS As for today ... I'm gonna use this thought to keep me going re three alternative ways to look at my life so far :-
"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."

Finally back on thread,  (although this thread has poetic licence ok ! - and no need to restrict yourself to 100 characters lol) , I return to drill's comments that there are different ways to look at things - and yes I would have to agree 
Until next time, I'll shuddup now lol.

PS when they say that Shakespeare was translated into every major language, I wonder if they included "Rapper", or "Jive", or "Fluent Profane" or all those modern languages lol.

"To be or not to be"
"HEYYYY dude, make up your mind man.... yo, no? bro?"


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 May 2007)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuJ3Tjj40P8&mode=related&search= Carl Sagan Speaks

I posted this on the "Is there a God" thread - but I reckon on reflection that it qualifies as poetry. (imho)   (magic)


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 May 2007)

http://www.golfballmuseum.co.uk/
http://www.golfballmuseum.co.uk/ishop/818/shopscr2.html (wooden balls used in 14 th century ?)


> Record books also show that in 1447 King James II issued his now famous edict in Parliament that golf was to be outlawed. His concern was that his subjects were more interested in golf than training how to use the war fare weapons of their time. Worried that this would leave his country unprotected banned golf. Although the game was outlawed it was continually played over the next 300 years but not by the masses.


----------



## new girl (21 May 2007)

may i feel said he 
by e e cummings

may i feel said he
(i'll squeal said she
just once said he)
it's fun said she

(let's go said he
not too far said she
what's too far said he
where you are said she)  

may i stay said he
which way said she
like this said he
if you kiss said she

may i move said he
is it love said she)
if you're willing said he
(but you're killing said she


(cccome?said he
ummm said she)
you're divine!said he
(you are Mine said she)


----------



## new girl (22 May 2007)

Still I Rise
by Dr. Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise

Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 May 2007)

great poems there ng  - rebel without a cause lol.

Here's one I already posted on music, (Robbie Burns poem), but it's worth the repeat ( including a few extra words of translation - as per that website).  http://www.robertburns.org/works/496.shtml
What a fantastic philosophy 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z64teeHODjM A Man's a Man for a' That (also sung at opening at Scottish Parliament) 



> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Man's_A_Man_for_A'_That The Scots song "Is There For Honest Poverty", by Robert Burns, is more commonly known as "A Man's A Man For A' That", and famous for its expression of egalitarian ideas of society, which may be seen as anticipating the ideas of liberalism that arose in the 18th century, and those of socialism which arose in the 19th century.
> 
> The song was sung at the opening of the Scottish Parliament, and is sometimes associated with ideas of Scottish independence although the song is concerned with what makes a man "honest" rather than with Scotland and its self-government, neither of which are mentioned. It is also known in translations into other European languages, for example the German "Trotz Alledem Und Alledem".




http://www.robertburns.org/works/496.shtml


> Is there for honest Poverty
> That hings (hangs) his head, an' a' that;
> The coward slave-we pass him by,
> We dare be poor for a' that!
> ...




"For a' that, an' a' that, 
Their dignities an' a' that; 
*The pith (importance) o' sense, an' pride o' worth, 
Are higher rank than a' that.* "

Maybe Robbie Burns was just taking the pith here


----------



## new girl (22 May 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> great poems there ng  - rebel without a cause lol.
> 
> What a fantastic philosophy
> 
> ...





Coming from THE Poet himself..... great compliment 

I love Maya Angelou, I can relate to the stubborn mule within her, if you know what I mean 

Tell me more about honesty...FANTASTIC poem, thanks 2020 

ps I miss your poetry, why don't write us something tonight or post one of your 50 poems you have hidden somewhere?

ps  HONESTY (according to the Macquarie dictionary): 1. the quality or fact of being honest, uprightness, probity, or integrity....2. truthfulness, sincerity, or frankness.... 3. a herb with purple flowers and....... oops sorry 2020 I don't think its No 3 but who's counting anyway?????


----------



## drillinto (22 May 2007)

The Partial Explanation

Charles Simic

Seems like a long time
Since the waiter took my order.
Grimy little luncheonette,
The snow falling outside.

Seems like it has grown darker
Since I last heard the kitchen door
Behind my back
Since I last noticed
Anyone pass on the street.

A glass of ice-water
Keeps me company
At this table I chose myself
Upon entering.

And a longing,
Incredible longing
To eavesdrop
On the conversation
Of cooks.



from Selected Early Poems, 1999
George Braziller Publishers


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 May 2007)

here's a philosophical one 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMc3hysFUqk In The Morning - Bee Gees

In keeping with Churchill's quote ( #378)  :-
"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning."
—Lord Mayor's Luncheon, Mansion House following the victory at El Alameinin North Africa, London, 10 November 1942.


----------



## new girl (22 May 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> here's a philosophical one
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMc3hysFUqk In The Morning - Bee Gees
> 
> In keeping with Churchill's quote ( #378)  :-
> ...




2020

I dont get it  I told you I know nothing about philosophy! mind you, I liked the bit about the evening and flying to the moon and stuff.

Speaking of Chruchill, I attended the "unforgettable evening" organised by ABC LNL (late night live  ) btw... lol...rofl..ftl..wtf . anyway, churchill's  "We Shall Fight on the Beaches" came 4th right after JESUS' "Sermon on the mountain" (2nd) .

ps do you think having a beginning implies a middle or/and an end???


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 May 2007)

maybe just an attitude,
- just that Churchill's statement "end of the beginning" can be applied to any given day/morning we wake up at any stage of our lives 

I guess a Christian might even choose to say that as their last words..

"this is not the end, nor even the beginning of the end, - my friends, it is only the end of the beginning" etc


----------



## new girl (23 May 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> maybe just an attitude,
> - just that Churchill's statement "end of the beginning" can be applied to any given day/morning we wake up at any stage of our lives
> 
> I guess a Christian might even choose to say that as their last words..
> ...




wowo, fantastic  

I have to admit I'm not familiar with this speech, very impressive, I must do some research to find out why........ .:


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 May 2007)

TOAST TO THE QUARTER MOON

How the quarter moon is glowing with reflected sunbeams growing
like a small seed after sowing or reflected ceiling light
and I stare back one of billions of Earth's piggy-backing pillions 
to admire the C-shaped spill of colours spanning day and night.

Praps we're all such busy pilgrims, Ted and Alice Jack and Jill-grims
that we rarely smell the roses (while life's bloom shows on our face)
with imagined monsters gaining, I oft miss this wax and waning
Often off somewhere complaining in my rush through time and space.

Praps a softly whispered hello to this space companion mellow
compliment her gold and yellow (where Egyptians used to pray)
Rolling silently with Earth, dragging tides around its girth
Giving night skies their rebirth and deserved sleep by day.

....
As it hung there after dusk, as the farmer swept his husk
there's an old man stopped his busking and he chewed his daily bread
and he sang an evening tune to that glowing golden spoon
"HERE's TO YOU" he calls "THE MOON, and to time and tide" he said.

And long after we are gone, men will still find poem and song
to the magic of a moonbeam from its rheostatic height
Just one night of many millions  for Earth's piggy-backing pillions
...I'll be dead for maybe zillions, ...
I'll enjoy the moon tonight.


----------



## spooly74 (23 May 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> TOAST TO THE QUARTER MOON
> 
> How the quarter moon is glowing with reflected sunbeams growing
> like a small seed after sowing or reflected ceiling light
> ...





Fantastic


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 May 2007)

spooly , you might enjoy this one ( something similar)
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=88166&highlight=sunshine#post88166 sunshine salesman.

ng , As for Winston's quotes , here are a couple more 
http://www.winstonchurchill.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=388#not_the_end

(paraphrasing this one) I am ready to meet my maker.  Whether or not my maker is ready for the formidible task of meeting me is another question..WC 

Political ability is the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month and next year.  And to have the ability afterward to explain why it didnt happen... WC.

A fanatic is one who wont change his mind and won't change the subject .. WC  
(or as peter Lawrence said .. a fanatic is a person who is highly enthusiastic about something in which you are not even remotely interested ) 
- perhaps I qualify on the matter of poetry in the eyes of many


----------



## new girl (23 May 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> sunshine salesman.
> 
> ng, I am ready to meet my maker.  Whether or not my maker is ready for the formidible task of meeting me is another question..WC
> 
> ...




Thanks 2020

Firstly, if I were God it'll be my pleasure to meet churchill!!

Secondly, easy for him to say when Britain made the Belfor promise and gave away something that didn't belong to them. I think a fanatic is a person that won't accept defeat.

Thirdly, does selling sunshine qualify as poetry


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 May 2007)

PS The quarter moon is strictly tomorrow night 
If you ever need to check when say the full moon is, say you notice it almost full, and it rose at say 5pm , then you know it will be full tomorrow because full moon rises at (about) 6pm and sets at (about) 6am.  

Then the third quarter rises at midnight and sets at noon
Then the new moon rises at 6am and sets at 6pm (in phase with the sun)
Then the first quarter rises at noon and sets at midnight.

(think I'm right there , but this is something I've worked out for myself, and could well be "approximate" at best 

ng - I have my own idea of poetry  - but I'm no expert no I'll keep it to myself.
There are a lot of pro's around - and a lot of prose.


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 May 2007)

PROSAIC POEMS, POETIC PROSE, AND THE VERSE-ATILITY OF ENGLISH

by all means have a go at me, my shoulders pretty wide
on what’s put up as poetry and what is put aside
like minstrel songs, a poem should rhyme (though this one can't get worse)
whereas the magic skakespeare wrote is bardly written verse.

to see or not to see, that is the question is it not
its metred but unrhyming it deserves a special spot
depends on what you see it as, (it’s jewelled verse I spose)
that’s metred out in theatres, - as comedy or woes.

I am a big pentameter, said Shakespeare in his time
but hell it would be corny if the lines would have to rhyme
so much the more dramatic when the words are free to ring
but maybe throw a sonnet in as poetry to sing.

When winnie set his mind to it, he moved the hearts of men
throw in his wartime flavoured wit, you have yourself a gem 
but I’d contend his crafted words that left the BBC
were words of praise, and words of prose...
(they just weren’t poetry)


----------



## new girl (25 May 2007)

new girl said:


> Thirdly, does selling sunshine qualify as poetry




No way would I say it doesn't......I guess..... maybe? 

You Are Sunshine You Are Rain
 Peter S. Quinn   

You are sunshine you are rain 
And all you do is fun or pain, 
And love is always a highest hill 
You need no other thing or skill; 
Remember this for all your days 
There are so many turning ways, 
Like lovers do you must give in 
If you are going a heart to win. 

You are sunshine you are rain 
Your beginning lies down the lane, 
Remember this for all your days 
A broken heart with two it plays


----------



## new girl (25 May 2007)

Seriously trivial post, but do I look worried  


Whatever
Ulrike Gerbig    

I start a new one
Called whatever
Because whatever is what 
Is was will be
Whatever leaves room 
For me you anyone
To be whatever he/she/I
Is am will be
For whatever comes to pass
For whatever is
For whatever was
It is the poem 
For whatever poet is
Beyond any whatever understanding
Beyond any whatever words 
For any whatever was 
For any whatever is 
For any whatever will be


ps I mean I don't think it's poetry, but still the most appropriate thread I could think of  also I think the writer doesn't give a flying *#$ what I or anyone else says!!


----------



## BIG BWACULL (26 May 2007)

Well may as well put this here as well, I'll call it
Sell In May and Go Away

If i sold in MAY and went away, i'd have spent all day
wondering where, if i may, what my money wouldve done today
With limited cashflow, if i sold today i'd never know
What could have been tomorrow, and hence my sorrow
So fortunatley or not, my money is in the spot awaiting a handsome plot
to turn my hard earned savings aloft, with a landing oh so soft
On the otherside where the grass be green as ive read in a magazine
So hold and wait is my theme so the kids can live their dream
with me here and there and in between. 
BY B.B


----------



## new girl (26 May 2007)

My April Lady
Henry Van Dyke    

When down the stair at morning 
The sunbeams round her float, 
Sweet rivulets of laughter
Are bubbling in her throat;
The gladness of her greeting
Is gold without alloy;
And in the morning sunlight
I think her name is Joy. 

When in the evening twilight
The quiet book-room lies, 
We read the sad old ballads,
While from her hidden eyes 
The tears are falling, falling,
That give her heart relief; 
And in the evening twilight,
I think her name is Grief. 

My little April lady,
Of sunshine and of showers, 
She weaves the old spring magic,
And breaks my heart in flowers! 
But when her moods are ended,
She nestles like a dove;
Then, by the pain and rapture,
I know her name is Love. :remybussi 


ps: gee these Aries women are a bit weird


----------



## new girl (26 May 2007)

Astrology...She was Aries & I was Gemini
John Tansey   


You, 
Aries, born of flame
and forged in fire.

I, 
Gemini, a gourd
of air, poured of sky.

You, 
consume me; 
So that I, too, 
assume the body.

I, 
an idea with no mortar, 
placed moral
into your rage.

Without... 
you would slowly 
blacken to waning ash.

And without... 
a chalkline in the rain, 
I would never know the flesh. 

Ah, but once, did we dance! 
briefly, but beautifully, 
like burning Birchwood in the hearth.

We loved furiously and, as quickly, 
collapsed together into a heap of the sparkling past...

ps: not that i believe in astrology, beautiful poem nevertheless  ah but once did we dance, briefly, but beautifully............wow.


----------



## new girl (26 May 2007)

Letter From Under The Sea 
Nizar Qabbani 


If you are my friend...
Help me...to leave you
If I knew....
that the ocean is very deep...I would not have swam...
If I knew...how I would end,
I would not have began

teach me...
how tears may die in the eyes
and love may commit suicide

If you are prophet,
Cleanse me from this spell
Deliver me from this atheism...
Your love is like atheism...so purify me from this atheism

If you are strong...
Rescue me from this ocean
For I don't know how to swim
The blue waves...in your eyes
drag me...to the depths
blue...
blue...
nothing but the color blue
and I have no experience
in love...and no boat...

I am breathing under water!
I am drowning...
drowning...
drowning... 


ps: the best poet the Arabic world has ever produced (in my very humble opinion), not that anyone could care less  Also needless to say it sounds much better in Arabic


----------



## new girl (26 May 2007)

*a world of make Belief * 


Belief is a very powerful thing 
No matter what it is you believe in 
Belief can carry you very far 
When you have belief 
It is difficult to stall 
It has a way of making you fight 
That belief keeps saying 
You must not give up, right 
Belief is power, laying at your feet 
Showing you how to stick to it, to beat 
Believe in whatever you do 
Then others will believe in you too 

How much do you believe in yourself?


----------



## new girl (26 May 2007)

Pretty Words 
Elinor Morton Wylie    

Poets make pets of pretty, docile words:
I love smooth words, like gold-enamelled fish
Which circle slowly with a silken swish,
And tender ones, like downy-feathred birds:
Words shy and dappled, deep-eyed deer in herds,
Come to my hand, and playful if I wish,
Or purring softly at a silver dish,
Blue Persian kittens fed on cream and curds. 

I love bright words, words up and singing early;
Words that are luminous in the dark, and sing;
Warm lazy words, white cattle under trees;
I love words opalescent, cool, and pearly,
Like midsummer moths, and honied words like bees,
Gilded and sticky, with a little sting. 

*ps: I could rearticulate the above by saying that having a taste for classical music and opera doesn't make you classy  I mean you could also say "que sera sera" but you really mean "Whatever Will Be, Will Be" it just sounds prettier... classier..... sophisticated-er.......un-tacky-er *


----------



## new girl (27 May 2007)

The Alcoholic Family Hero
A. Albert Aguero 


He is a hero
not by sibling ordinal age, 
nor by fate.
He did not choose
whatever he became.
You see . . . his father drank himself
out of fortune, family, and prestige,
right into the nothingness
of the streets.
Cold and motionless,
without anyone 
to claim what remained,
a city dump truck 
took him to the grave.
Not just any power greater than he
but The Lord alone,
led the hero to success
and . . . away from alcohol. 


According to Wikipedi : "alcoholism refers to any condition that results in continued consumption of alcoholic beverages despite negative consequences. Medical definitions describe alcoholism as a disease, addiction, or dependence that results in difficulty with controlling one's alcohol consumption. Alcoholism can also refer to as a loss of control over one's alcohol consumption, a preoccupation with or compulsion for alcohol, and an impaired ability to recognize the effects of alcohol consumption. Some but not all definitions specify a current use of alcohol and include the effects of long-term heavy alcohol use, including dependence and withdrawal.

Alcoholism is characterized by the continued use of alcohol despite harm to the drinker and people associated with the drinker.


----------



## new girl (27 May 2007)

Useless poet
Eman Awad    

Struggling with thousands of words, 
just for the sake of his beautiful eyes.
And for him i built so many worlds, 
and i put in them all i've ever fantasied.
Silver moons up and so high,

and more than a sun to shine.
So are wings for us to fly, 

and i even had angels of mine.
But mostly a stronger love than oak trees, 

a little heaven in my words is our serene.

Rapid our love and fury like seas, 
and what if we got lost in this dream? ? 
Then i found that my poems aren't enough, 

He closed his eyes and i led the way, 
i did breathe deeply and took his hand.
And my little heart dreamt away, 
but for my wonder he didn't understand.
I knew we came from two worlds apart, 
as he couldn't get further pass my fence.
Though he had love in his heart, 
he didn't comprehence..

What a useless poet am i to be, 
when the only thing i'm good at i couldn't render? 
Now, how can he feel or even see, 
the love i have that made me to surrender? ? 
When all that's about me is, 
words i write and never to say.
Poems of joy or lonliness, 
and of love till my last day.
I felt like my heart is broken, 
how can i reach his heart with my love? 
Poetry tells when words aren't spoken, 
they are to be read and to fly him above.

Useless poet i am i know, 
but love is stronger than words for him to feel.
And stronger love can grow, 
words can be erased but love stays mostly is real.
Maybe i'm useless for my self, 
for i feel that my words went in vain.
But dearest to me than my life it self, 
he is, and the one in my heart to remain.
And my words i'm the poet are for you to tell, 
i'm madly in love with him that i fly.


----------



## insider (27 May 2007)

wow new girl... you really love poetry... is any of it yours?


----------



## BIG BWACULL (27 May 2007)

insider said:


> wow new girl... you really love poetry... is any of it yours?



New girl new girl, give us a rhyme
doesnt have to be in time
But please oh please change the text size
Or my eyes will have their demise


----------



## new girl (27 May 2007)

insider said:


> wow new girl... you really love poetry... is any of it yours?




AS IF 

Well here is one just for you darl 


“Nobody Reads My Stuff” 
 Trade Martin


No one gives a damn about my work…., _(no one, they're busy making money!)_
Guess I’m not good enough…..,_ (guess so)_
Only got one hit all month…., 
Cause Nobody Reads My Stuff….! ! ! 
What do you do….., 
When the goin’ gets ruff….? ? ? _(just have a couple of beers and start writing again, I guess) _
Cause Nobody Reads My Stuff….! ! ! 

Maybe I’ll start writin’…., _(yeh I just told you that  )_
Off the cuff….., _(tell me about it mate  )_
But it won’t even matter…., 
God, I’m feelin’ like Dan Rather…., 
Cause Nobody Reads My Stuff….! ! ! 
I’ve got no depth….., _(sometimes I do but only to keep non-clones reading) _

Lackin’ credibility….., *(Fu!k this poem is good!!!!!!!!!!)*

Kind of like GWB….., _(I don't really like him though)_
With all negative publicity…., _(Aha)_
And no message to share….., _(yeh I know)_
Why am I so unaware….? ? ? *(yeh why why joe why??)*
You know it’s just not fair…., 
I'm even startin' to cry...., 
Wishin' I could die...., 
I might be better off…., 
Just hidin’….., 
And divin’ in the muff…., _(what does muff mean??)_
Cause Nobody Reads My Stuff….! ! ! 

Life has really been tough…., 
Now I can no longer bluff….., 
With nothin’ left to snuff….., 
My ego left me in a huff…., 
Once I could play the B-3….., 
In the style of Jack McDuff…., 
But who cares…..? ? ?  _(No one really)_

Cause Nobody Reads My Stuff….! ! ! _*(yes Nobody reads your stuff, cause its just stuff, except me maybe. I like reading your stuff, grasshopping from stuff to stuff, sniffing stuff, flying with stuff, drowning in stuff..............................*_


----------



## insider (27 May 2007)

new girl said:


> AS IF
> And divin’ in the muff….





Thanks... i think...  ... UMMM I could be banned for sexual harassment or something if i told you what it means colloquially... Lets just say I suspect most girls to have done something like this at least once...

Keep up good work new girl but maybe do dome rhyming ones...


----------



## insider (27 May 2007)

beans beans 
they're good fo the heart
the more you eat
the more you start


----------



## new girl (27 May 2007)

insider said:


> Thanks... i think...  ... UMMM I could be banned for sexual harassment or something if i told you what it means colloquially... Lets just say I suspect most girls to have done something like this at least once...
> 
> Keep up good work new girl but maybe do dome rhyming ones...





Mate I still dont get it  you can explain it in a pm if you want, I dont get offended easily.

Well someone has to  (keep up the good work that is).

Cant do dome rhyming ones, I love poetry too much 

hey I'm bored and tired of all the posting and stuff  post us a dome one yourself


----------



## new girl (27 May 2007)

insider said:


> beans beans
> they're good fo the heart
> the more you eat
> the more you start




TOO BORING  and its been done by others  I'm sure you can do better  Also, I think you can do better with the avatar, Im sure your more attractive than that, surely


----------



## insider (27 May 2007)

new girl said:


> TOO BORING  and its been done by others  I'm sure you can do better  Also, I think you can do better with the avatar, Im sure your more attractive than that, surely




Do you wanna see a real picture of me?


----------



## insider (27 May 2007)

here's a pic of me


----------



## new girl (27 May 2007)

insider said:


> Do you wanna see a real picture of me?





Yeh  its only fair  cause that'll make us equal I guess  

ps: make sure its not 20 years old cause that'll make me really disappointed when I see you now !!!


----------



## new girl (27 May 2007)

insider said:


> here's a pic of me




GOD!!!!!!!

BAD poetry, bad pic, is there anything good at all?? surprise me


----------



## insider (27 May 2007)

you see... I have a lot going for me... I'm smart as well as good looking...


----------



## insider (27 May 2007)

Ok here's a real pic


----------



## wayneL (27 May 2007)

I like this one:

 The Last Rose of Summer

Thomas Moore (1779–1852)


’TIS the last rose of summer	
  Left blooming alone;	
All her lovely companions	
  Are faded and gone;	
No flower of her kindred,	        
  No rosebud is nigh,	
To reflect back her blushes,	
  To give sigh for sigh.	

I’ll not leave thee, thou lone one!	
  To pine on the stem;	        
Since the lovely are sleeping,	
  Go, sleep thou with them.	
Thus kindly I scatter	
  Thy leaves o’er the bed,	
Where thy mates of the garden	       
  Lie scentless and dead.	

So soon may I follow,	
  When friendships decay,	
And from Love’s shining circle	
  The gems drop away.	       
When true hearts lie withered	
  And fond ones are flown,	
Oh! who would inhabit	
  This bleak world alone?


----------



## insider (27 May 2007)

here I am... You can put this in your purse


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

insider said:


> you see... I have a lot going for me... I'm smart as well as good looking...




tell me about it mate  are you also rich? intellectual? deep? sohpisticated? classy? young? nice? pretty  with pretty charts 

Gee!! life is not fair you know!!!!!


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

insider said:


> here I am... You can put this in your purse




yeh that's more like you  you need more trendy glasses though 

hey are we allowed to schit shat  without posting poetry


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

insider said:


> I'm gonna be bachelor of the year...
> 
> As you can see I've been working out




In your dreams Insider, in your dreams  I have to admit I do like the name though


----------



## insider (28 May 2007)

new girl said:


> tell me about it mate  are you also rich? intellectual? deep? sohpisticated? classy? young? nice? pretty  with pretty charts
> 
> Gee!! life is not fair you know!!!!!




 I'm gonna be bachelor of the year...

 As you can see I've been working out


----------



## insider (28 May 2007)

new girl said:


> In your dreams Insider, in your dreams  I have to admit I do like the name though




Where's your picture? I feel like I've been taken advantage of


----------



## Mousie (28 May 2007)

If only you people can flirt in poetry - now won't that be a sight 

Go ahead, make my day!


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

wayneL said:


> I like this one:
> 
> The Last Rose of Summer
> 
> ...



wowowo Waynel, this is what I call poetry. sad but beautiful, thanks buddy 

Oh I forgot its also very classy and sophisticated!! such pretty words, like the poster himself eh?

Now if Im that rose I'd like to be alone, all the more beautiful and noticable, better than being just a number in a bunch (or should I say a bouquet , sounds french and pretty doesn't it  )


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

insider said:


> Where's your picture? I feel like I've been taken advantage of




Hey are you telling me you have'nt seen it yet??? Mate your missing out  I dont think your living up to your name


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

Mousie said:


> If only you people can flirt in poetry - now won't that be a sight
> 
> Go ahead, make my day!




With pleasure  although, there is lots of that if you read the whole thread 

Tell me, does mousie mean a little mouse  

and also I think you have to post a poem if you want to start posting on this thread!


----------



## wayneL (28 May 2007)

new girl said:


> wowowo Waynel, this is what I call poetry. sad but beautiful, thanks buddy
> 
> Oh I forgot its also very classy and sophisticated!! such pretty words, like the poster himself eh?
> 
> Now if Im that rose I'd like to be alone, all the more beautiful and noticable, better than being just a number in a bunch (or should I say a bouquet , sounds french and pretty doesn't it  )



Sounds fair 

It takes a new dimension again when music is added:


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

BIG BWACULL said:


> New girl new girl, give us a rhyme
> doesnt have to be in time
> But please oh please change the text size
> Or my eyes will have their demise




Hi BB  

sounds like habibi, which means darl in arabic  of course it gets much more complicated when you translate poetry from greek to arabic to english back to greek again  but well get to that later............anyway, I love it when people write poetry about me  

ps I only make it that size cause I feel guilty taking so much space and keeping you poets out


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## insider (28 May 2007)

insider said:


> Where's your picture? I feel like I've been taken advantage of




Never mind I found ya http://www.grimmemennesker.dk/ugly-people-76.htm

Looks like a werewolf... soooo when your sick do you go the the hospital or the vet?


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

wayneL said:


> Sounds fair
> 
> 
> 
> ...


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

insider said:


> Never mind I found ya http://www.grimmemennesker.dk/ugly-people-76.htm
> 
> Looks like a werewolf... soooo when your sick do you go the the hospital or the vet?





Mate I'm GORGEOUS !!!!! (not in the morning though  or when I'm sad  )

ps: I'm starting to think your actually an outsider 

oh yeh my biggest asset is humility  not to mention the charts


----------



## insider (28 May 2007)

new girl said:


> Mate I'm GORGEOUS !!!!! (not in the morning though  or when I'm sad  )
> 
> ps: I'm starting to think your actually an outsider
> 
> oh yeh my biggest asset is humility




I'm starting to think you're old... 

And maybe a boy too...


----------



## insider (28 May 2007)

Here's a poem I just made up

Let's face we'd never get along... 
you'd be too much like my bratty little sister... 
we'd have arguments in the car about the stereo...
we will have arguments all the time...
I will always win...
Sorry new girl but outside you will go...


----------



## insider (28 May 2007)

good night!!!


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

insider said:


> I'm starting to think you're old...
> 
> And maybe a boy too...




YOU ARE AN OUTSIDER!!!!!!! I'd change my name if I were you


----------



## wayneL (28 May 2007)

Closer to home, this brings a tear to the eye as well:

The Story of Mongrel Grey
by A. B. "Banjo" Paterson

This is the story the stockman told
On the cattle-camp, when the stars were bright;
The moon rose up like a globe of gold
And flooded the plain with her mellow light.
We watched the cattle till dawn of day
And he told me the story of Mongrel Grey.

He was a knock-about station hack,
Spurred and walloped, and banged and beat;
Ridden all day with a sore on his back,
Left all night with nothing to eat.
That was a matter of everyday
Normal occurrence with Mongrel Grey.

We might have sold him, but someone heard
He was bred out back on a flooded run,
Where he learnt to swom like a waterbird;
Midnight or midday were all as one --
In the flooded ground he would find his way;
Nothing could puzzle old Mongrel Grey.

'Tis a trick, no doubt, that some horses learn;
When the floods are out they will splash along
In girth-deep water, and twist and turn
From hidden channel and billabong,
Never mistaking the road to go;
for a man may guess -- but the horses know.

I was camping out with my youngest son --
Bit of a nipper, just learnt to speak --
In an empty hut on the lower run,
Shooting and fishing in Conroy's Creek.
The youngster toddled about all day
And there with our horses was Mongrel Grey.

All of a sudden a flood came down,
At first a freshet of mountain rain,
Roaring and eddying, rank and brown,
Over the flats and across the plain.
Rising and rising -- at fall of night
Nothing but water appeared in sight!

'Tis a nasty place when the floods are out,
Even in daylight; for all around
Channels and billabongs twist about,
Stretching for miles in the flooded ground.
And to move seemed a hopeless thing to try
In the dark with the storm-water racing by.

I hed to risk it. I heard a roar
As the wind swept down and the driving rain;
And the water rose till it reached the floor
Of our highest room; and 'twas very plain --
The way the torrent was sweeping down --
We must make for the highlands at once, or drown.

Off to the stable I splashed, and found
The horses shaking with cold and fright;
I led them down to the lower ground,
But never a yard would they swim that night!
They reared and snorted and turned away,
And none would face it but Mongrel Grey.

I bound the child on the horse's back,
And we started off, with a prayer to heaven,
Through the rain and the wind and the pitchy black
For I knew that the instinct God has given
To prompt His creatures by night and day
Would guide the footsteps of Mongrel Grey.

He struck deep water at once and swam --
I swam beside him and held his mane --
Till we touched the bank of the broken dam
In shallow water; then off again,
Swimming in darkness across the flood,
Rank with the smell of the drifting mud.

He turned and twisted across and back,
Choosing the places to wade or swim,
Picking the safest and shortest track --
The blackest darkness was clear to him.
Did he strike the crossing by sight or smell?
The Lord that held him alone could tell!

He dodged the timber whene'er he could,
But timber brought us to grief at last;
I was partly stunned by a log of wood
That struck my head as it drifted past;
Then lost my grip of the brave old grey,
And in half a second he swept away.

I reached a tree, where I had to stay,
And did a perish for two days' hard;
And lived on water -- but Mongrel Grey,
He walked right into the homestead yard
At dawn next morning, and grazed around,
With the child strapped on to him safe and sound.

We keep him now for the wife to ride,
Nothing too godd for him now, of course;
Never a whip on his fat old hide,
For she owes the child to that brave grey horse.
And not Old Tyson himself could pay
The purchase money of Mongrel Grey.


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

insider said:


> Here's a poem I just made up
> 
> Let's face we'd never get along...
> you'd be too much like my bratty little sister...
> ...




NO sorry back at yah  I and only I will decide when to go and where to


----------



## new girl (28 May 2007)

wayneL said:


> Closer to home, this brings a tear to the eye as well:
> 
> The Story of Mongrel Grey
> by A. B. "Banjo" Paterson
> ...






wowowowowo FANTASTIC 

PS: a horse is still better than a pig eh 

more ps: i'm getting bored and tired, I have a big day tomorrow, having a life and all, I just do this for fun


----------



## wayneL (28 May 2007)

new girl said:


> wowowowowo FANTASTIC
> 
> PS: a horse is still better than a pig eh



I would agree, but pigs have their fans as well it seems

Ernie, Heavens’ Pig

There was a vacancy in heaven
that God just had to fill
keeping the angels company
not just anyone would fill the bill.

God looked all through heaven
and he could not find
a suitable companion
with a face sweet and kind.

When all the possibilities were exhausted
God turned His face toward earth
His eyes fell upon Ernie
with his pug face and his girth.

Then God spoke to Ernie
in a sweet and loving way
and asked him to please come home
to heaven this very day.

God said, "you’re my creation
and I need to call you back home,
for we have a need in heaven
no one can fill but you alone".

The angels gently ushered
Ernie into their midst
t where he now helps the angels
their missions to assist.


----------



## Mousie (28 May 2007)

new girl said:


> With pleasure  although, there is lots of that if you read the whole thread
> 
> Tell me, does mousie mean a little mouse
> 
> and also I think you have to post a poem if you want to start posting on this thread!




Post a poem? Sure, here goes!

Clap along ya... 

I'm a big mouse
Strong man in da house
When called upon to douse
Fire on da blouse
To save me spouse!

PS: If you haven't guessed it already, Mousie refers to da muscles...but I suppose 'little mouse' adds to the cute factor, no?


----------



## wayneL (28 May 2007)

I posted this one early in the thread... one of my old favourites

Clancy of the Overflow

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him,
Just on spec, addressed as follows, "Clancy, of The Overflow"
And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected,
(And I think the same was written with a thumb-nail dipped in tar)
Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it:
"Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are."

* * * * * * * * *

In my wild erratic fancy visions come to me of Clancy
Gone a-droving "down the Cooper" where the Western drovers go;
As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing,
For the drover's life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know.

And the bush hath friends to meet him, and their kindly voices greet him
In the murmur of the breezes and the river on its bars,
And he sees the vision splendid of the sunlit plains extended,
And at night the wond'rous glory of the everlasting stars.

* * * * * * * * *

I am sitting in my dingy little office, where a stingy
Ray of sunlight struggles feebly down between the houses tall,
And the foetid air and gritty of the dusty, dirty city
Through the open window floating, spreads its foulness over all

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

And the hurrying people daunt me, and their pallid faces haunt me
As they shoulder one another in their rush and nervous haste,
With their eager eyes and greedy, and their stunted forms and weedy,
For townsfolk have no time to grow, they have no time to waste.

And I somehow rather fancy that I'd like to change with Clancy,
Like to take a turn at droving where the seasons come and go,
While he faced the round eternal of the cash-book and the journal --
But I doubt he'd suit the office, Clancy, of The Overflow.

	-- A. B. "Banjo" Paterson


----------



## wayneL (28 May 2007)

Some song writers make tidy poets as well

GALLERIES OF PINK GALAHS
 by John Williamson

Galleries of pink galahs,
Crystal nights with diamond stars,
Apricots preserved in jars,
That's my home.

Land of oceans in the sun,
Purple hazes, river gum,
Breaks your heart when rain won't come,
It breaks your heart.

It takes a harsh and cruel drought
To sort the weaker saplings out,
It makes room for stronger trees
Maybe that's what life's about.

Winter's come, the hills are brown,
Shops are closed, the blinds are down.
Everybody's leaving town,
They can't go on.

The south wind through verandah gauze
Whines and bangs the homestead doors.
A mother curses dusty floors,
And feels alone.

Trucks and bulk bins filled with rust,
Boy leaves home to make a crust.
A father's dreams reduced to dust,
But he must go on.

Tortured red gums - unashamed,
Sunburnt country wisely named.
Chisel-ploughed and wire-claimed,
But never, never, never tamed.

Whirlwind swirls a paper high,
Same old news of further dry.
Of broken clouds just passing by,
That's my home.


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 May 2007)

wayneL said:


> GALLERIES OF PINK GALAHS   by John Williamson
> Tortured red gums - unashamed,
> Sunburnt country wisely named.
> Chisel-ploughed and wire-claimed,
> ...




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFc8eODLiAc 
probably a better poem than a song lol 

nice turn of phrase in the above verse..
Harsh, dangerous tools  - chisels, wire etc

Chisel-ploughed and wire-claimed,
Sawn up mudflats, sheep ashamed
Boney backs and fly inflamed,
And dusty cross cut saws.

Hammered home, with cattle maimed
Lying dying drought has claimed
City folk at home ashamed -
The global warming cause.


----------



## BIG BWACULL (28 May 2007)

money made, market up
money down, no pre nup
ahh alas move along
as i sing my dreary song

AHH might stick to the blonde jokes hey LOL


----------



## insider (28 May 2007)

new girl said:


> NO sorry back at yah  I and only I will decide when to go and where to




Nope... you're playing catch up now...


----------



## insider (1 June 2007)

Who is Sean and Nick.... wait.... I don't care...

Anglo Saxon? wtf

I better tell the moderators that you've gone coo coo now... hahahaha what a crack up......  

Gotta go to work  now.... stop thinking please


----------



## new girl (1 June 2007)

The Shallow Ones
Beggar Boy   

We are the shallow ones
the shallow ones
the shallow ones
Broken and undone ones
undone ones 
undone ones
Torn from top to bottom
Lost amidst our Autumn
Lost in winds of change
Roaming the endless range 
Of all we hoped and dreamed for

For we are the hollow jars
the hollow jars
the hollow jars
Cracked beneath eternal stars
eternal stars
eternal stars
Frozen in the winter
Bleeding from the splinter
Sedated in our cares
We try to climb the stairs
A stair that leads to nowhere
to nowhere
to nowhere

For we are the shallow ones...


----------



## new girl (1 June 2007)

When Ure Hero Falls (my Hero....)
Tupak Shakur


when your hero falls from grace 
all fairy tales r uncovered 
myths exposed and pain magnified 

the greatest pain discovered 

u taught me 2 be strong 
but im confused 2 c u so weak 
u said never 2 give up 
and it hurts 2 c u welcome defeat 

when ure hero falls so do the stars 

and so does the perception of tomorrow 
without my hero there is only 
me alone 2 deal with my sorrow 
your heart ceases 2 work 
and your soul is not happy at all 
what r u expected 2 do 

when ure only hero falls


----------



## arminius (1 June 2007)

roses are red
violets are blue
i'm a schitzophrenic
and so am i


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 June 2007)

hey doc I’ve had this bit of a think, - and decided I’m probably a moth
_with these things my boy, you should go see a shrink, and tailor the treatment to cloth
and furthermore son im a dentist _
...........................I know
....................................._then why did you come here tonight ?_
well you see, I was walking past I spose 
	and I happened to see your light.

hey doc this problem Ive got isn’t funny, there’s butterflies everywhere
no matter which way I’m looking or running, theres millions of butterflies there
_don’t worry my son, they’re all in your head, a lot of my patients have been there_
I know all that doc,  but that all said, I’d like to know how they got in there!

hey doc my husband he thinks he's  a fridge, and it chills me right to the bone
you may not believe this but richy ditch, he makes this compressor tone
_just try to ignore him, it’s go away, he’s sure to turn out all right_
But he sleeps with his mouth open doc!, and well, the light keeps me up all night.!!


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 June 2007)

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/index/0,29221,20581,00.html


----------



## new girl (2 June 2007)

Your Unjust Anger : :
Jessica Holt   


You don’t realize that; when you get mad
You blame me for outrageous things, 
And that deep inside this makes me sad, 
The intensity of the pain one hurtful word brings


“Everything is your fault” esok:


At first I wondered if I was to blame
“Maybe it was my fault this time”, 
But every time? It’s always the same
You act as if I committed a crime.

If nothing changes I can guarantee, 
Your unjust anger will lead to you losing me


----------



## new girl (2 June 2007)

Your Black And White Photograph 
Suchoon Mo_


thank you

for your photograph
a black and white photograph
of a young woman
of you  
in another time
another place

you are sitting by the kitchen table
in the light from the window

your eyes are smiling 

it is quiet here now
outside and inside
silent autumn morning

I am sitting by the kitchen table
in the light from the window

time is alone
space is mute

your black and white photograph
is in my warm hand

thank you


----------



## new girl (2 June 2007)

Of the Pain in the Heart of the Follower ( what's even worse is to follow a follower !!!!!!!  No can do!!! )
Newo Enec     

You once held 
Everything that was mine
I once held 
Your picture with admiration
But my heart 
Can keep grasp on only nothing
Because whats deep 
Sinks through these holes
My heart 
Cant keep hold of anything
After the hell you put it through
When the curtain closes
On this faked out soliloquy
Will you be standing in the shadows
Lying on the road ive paved by hand
Or will you grow up
And face tomorrow on your own


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 June 2007)

PRESSURE FIRE AND DIAMONDS

The best steel ever made, has been tempered as a blade
and then plunged into a quenching bath of oil
Yet the fire that makes the steel is the same fire that you feel
when you see the problem through with honest toil.

With forging hammer blows, (any village blacksmith knows)
you make steel respond to iron will of men
so too carbon locked in space, with pressure in its face  
will morph into a better morph again.

Things arent always going well, buying when you outta sell
putting out lifes little fires like a fireman
but I think that's how God meant it, or why else has he invented
the rule that under pressure, 
..........you get diamond.


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 June 2007)

My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose - Izzy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52TOtrwBErU&mode=related&search=
http://www.robertburns.org/works/444.shtml
A Red Red Rose ,, by Robbie Burns

O my Luve's like a red, red rose, 
That's newly sprung in June: 
O my Luve's like the melodie, 
That's sweetly play'd in tune. 

As fair art thou, my bonie lass, 
So deep in luve am I; 
And I will luve thee still, my dear, 
Till a' the seas gang dry. 

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear, 
And the rocks melt wi' the sun; 
And I will luve thee still, my dear, 
While the sands o' life shall run. 

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve! 
And fare-thee-weel, a while! 
And I will come again, my Luve, 
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!


----------



## new girl (2 June 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> PRESSURE FIRE AND DIAMONDS
> 
> The best steel ever made, has been tempered as a blade
> and then plunged into a quenching bath of oil
> ...





2020  

Thank you for a beautiful poem yet again 

NG


----------



## new girl (2 June 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose - Izzy
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52TOtrwBErU&mode=related&search=
> http://www.robertburns.org/works/444.shtml
> A Red Red Rose ,, by Robbie Burns
> ...





My God!!! The words....the melody.....the video............THERE HAS TO BE A GOD!!!!


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 June 2007)

pleased you enjoyed em,  ng 
Robbie Burns was great - and his birthday (25 Jan) has been responsible for many a Scottish hangover 
Probably why the Scots often seem ambivalent about Australia day lol.

one of the kids heard a quote this morning about "enjoy the pressure, you need it to make diamonds" so I took the concept and ran with it.  As usual, totally amateur, but you get the idea.


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 June 2007)

PS THIS is the one I like  - as we've both already commented on 

the mans the gold for all that 
.......
for all that and all that , 
the tinsel show and all that,
the honest man though ever to poor,
is king of men for all that 
......
for all that and all that
his riband star and all that
the man of independent mind 
he looks and laughs at all that  

all the words already posted on :-
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=160213&highlight=man's#post160213


----------



## arminius (3 June 2007)

Apathetic Betrayal. 
by me.

I’d rather muse on the wonders of life 
While holding the hand of one’s beautiful wife
I prefer to be inspired by a neighbour’s wisdom
A stranger’s warm heart and their altruism

But at six every evening or in the daily review 
It’s all turning pear-shaped and a deep shade of blue
Our ‘National Interest’ they solemnly decree
Those with the most powerful artillery 

‘Where is the love?’ the ’Peas do enquire
Bought in a fire sale, to some bargain buyer
Paid for in ways even wheat farmers resent
At the request of the bloke with the Texan accent

Will our kids safely walk a non-NATO street?
Reflect without fear in the Gallipoli heat?
Will they work Christmas Day for ten bucks an hour?
And wonder what happened to the ozone layer

Share price lords over system repair
Lanes closed quicker than that hospital there
Privatisation, rationalisation
There’s hardly a damn phone box left in the nation

My greatest fear is not terrorism
Or sedition that lands me seven years in prison
It’s the shame I will face, when my kids one day say, 
‘Why didn’t you stop them. Why is it this way’


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 June 2007)

PUNTING ON DE-NILE

Early or late, comes the hand of Fate, toppling years in rank and file, 
Fate sank the punts of the Pharoahs-of-late, those who punted upon deNile,
Many race past "go", in their quest for dough, but there's some belong "in Jail", 
"Monopoly-ising" the world scene so - A Pathetic bloody tale. 
......
Fate watches our bombs and our bulding-of-forts, as we hope the drawbridge holds
Fate watches as delicate peace aborts, and undelicate war unfolds
As we tell the kids, between yawns and rorts, "now we've messed up - YOU mustn't fail!" - .... 
please ignore (kids) our mass destructive thoughts - and our Apathetic betrayal.

(PS needless to say, Arminius, I loved that poem of yours  )


----------



## arminius (4 June 2007)

tell you what 2020, that is a beauty. 
it moved me.
i think we are reading off the same sheet of music.


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 June 2007)

arminius said:


> i think we are reading off the same sheet of music.



hey it was your idea m8 lol - I'm just the kid with the banjo  (perhaps a bit more polite at the end)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esl2NNOtHQE  'Deliverance' - 'Dueling banjos' scene


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 June 2007)

A CHECKLIST FOR A NOTE TO A FREIEND

how long to send someone an email (or poem)?
lets say it’s a line a minute,
unless its a technical tirade or tome
there’s a hundred ways to skin it,
a word to a friend across the foam ?
that the world’s still here and you’re in it ?
can you answer the charge that you didn’t write home
cos your quill and your heart weren’ tin it ?

were your travels of gold or silver or chrome ?
when trouble came by, did you grin it ?
did you meet some Jack or Jill or Jerome ?
did you cry over some or thick skin it ?
did you meet some concept in Paris or Rome ?
was its soul without or within it ?
is the world pure or just polystyrene foam ?
do they doctor that world and spin it ?

did you get some insult from peasant or throne ?
did you fight back or take on the chin it ?
did you moralise long over lover or loan ?
(did you knock back a beer and just sin it) ?
did you lose all your fun so you just couldn’t phone ?
forget to write numbers and pin it ?
did you wake up with headaches and memories unknown ?
did you stop at first draft and just bin it.?

Is your friend that you’re writing a friend outgrown ?
do the two of you no more “Huck Finn” it ?
do you simply repeat some old love always shown ?
does it sound like you violin it ?
did you fear some glass “writing skill”’s only half blown?
ahh to hell – let’s firing pin it! 
well - the first thing to writing that note to that gnome
is to sit for a bit – and begin it . 

PS Here's another in the same vein - 
(and hopefully without being too vain) 
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=86968&highlight=indies#post86968


----------



## arminius (5 June 2007)

as of last week i'm a dad again.

Aura

What price a smile
On the face of a baby
In the world a short while
Settled at home…maybe

They don’t know any real funny folk
nor familiar with colours like red, or yellow
They’ve not been a party to fine tales or good jokes
Or cringed at Howard, Abbott or Costello

When their day is divided into eating and sleeping 
And the parents do ponder their parental failings
And bubs only concern is the dinner date it’s keeping
The rest of the time is an incessant wailing

The price, the price, is always around us
This smile is a potion infusing a full dose
For our love wells inside and flows out to surround us
It may be coincidence but they smile when they’re close.


----------



## arminius (5 June 2007)

i havent seen that clip for ages.
reminds me of the time some mates and i went to Victoria.


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 June 2007)

arminius said:


> I havent seen that clip for ages.
> reminds me of the time some mates and i went to Victoria.



Lol,   personally I used to go to family reunions to pick up chicks


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 June 2007)

FATHERS AND SHOES

I remember my Dad teaching threading of laces, and tying the damned things in bows,
And the first and foremost of fatherly graces, where kindness and caring flows,
and patience with things that a child will recall, for longer than anyone knows,
- "Remember that moment"  (I say to myself) "when in time my own child grows".

I remember my Dad resoling HIS shoes, so cracked and so sadly worn,
When his own soul was fading - about to lose -  as the links to his life became torn
And he joked about hiding some shoemaker's elves and his "new" pair of shoes so "reborn"
Confiding to Mum that you don't buy new shoes, when your next life's about to dawn.

These days I get up, and I put on my boots, steel capped and elastic sided,
Not strictly the tricks from my infant roots, while my Father smiled and confided,
Yet I smile for a sec, feel my old Man's touch, and I grin at the future decided,
That I owe my old Man, more than so much, that evolved from the skills he provided. ......

And I thank him for guidance and patience and such, and those footprints o'er which he presided. 

Based on the same emotions as the final line of this one ... :- 
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=83551&highlight=mustard#post83551


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 June 2007)

on the Ab question..


> CYCLICAL ARGUMENTS around MITIGATING CIRCUMSTANCES
> 
> they have oh so many badguys, 'mongst their colour and their kin
> and their youth are just a mob of sleezy louts
> ...






> THE FREEDOM BUS / BIKE / ROLLER SKATES
> 
> WE don’t have to say that “sorry”, it’s government, not us
> but we’ll Need a hint of sorrow to be on that freedom bus
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 June 2007)

further to previous Kipling posted here 
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=85547&highlight=kipling#post85547  posts #76 and #77

thought I'd slip in Kipling's Gunga Din

"knock knock : who's there
Gunga  :   gunga who 
- gunga DIN!!!"


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunga_Din
> Gunga Din (1892) is one of Rudyard Kipling's most famous poems, perhaps best known for its often-quoted last line, "You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"[1]
> 
> The poem is a rhyming narrative from the point of view of a British soldier, about a native water-bearer who saves his life. Like several other Kipling poems, it celebrates the virtues of a non-European while portraying a colonial infantryman's view of such people as being of a "lower order".



http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/poets.html


> Rudyard Kipling. 1865– 1936
> 
> 48. Gunga Din
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 June 2007)

I repost that epitath that Kipling wrote for someone 


> A SON
> My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I would I knew
> What it was, and it might serve me in a time when jests are few.


----------



## legs (11 June 2007)

Miss Hilton went to Jail, 
But a few days later,
Turned very pail,
They said it was just skin infections,
But maybe it was her missed injections!!


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 June 2007)

Further to the Ab question, #375 below :-



> FRIENDS OR STEALING MOTHERS
> 
> whats the best way then of treating them
> as dark skinned foes or brothers
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 June 2007)

The Words of Patrick Pearse


> The History of Patrick Pearse, One of Irelands Greatest And Most Influential Political Figures and Leaders. A Poet, A Master of the Gaelic Language, And a Nationalist. Pearse was it all. And Died for his Land






> I am come of the seed of the people, the people that sorrow,
> That have no treasure but hope,
> No riches laid up but a memory
> Of an Ancient glory.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 June 2007)

Further to the advantages of carrot vs stick below .. just exercising the _grey_ stuff on the question of _black v white _

Maybe Friendship is as Easy as Intention

instead of pollies parroting (like Heffernan or Harradine)
or pointing at those clueless lesser races
I wish they’d seek more clarity that eyesight gains from carotene
and trade em worn out shoes (and missing laces).

instead of vicious people we might check our visual purple
that stuff that penetrates where light is lacking 
our eyes might probe the darkness, lighten up and lessen starkness
(and maybe seek some expert help,- black tracking).

do I hear that lonely voice, of one Barnaby re- Joyce?
who fights against the fickleness of yes-men
who pleads a case eyes moist, cause the words that he has voiced
have been forged with sweat and tears and blood of best men.

sure they didn’t get to space when they were a lonely race
and the "flying stick" was praps their best invention
but the lessons and the vibes we should foster in all tribes
is that friendship is as easy as intention.


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 June 2007)

Here's a poem I've just cooked up.  I guess it's a combination of these two - correction :- it makes reference to Burns, however much more infinitely superior his efforts "compar'd wi' me"
a) To A Mouse (R. Burns)
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=92612&highlight=sleekit#post92612

b) Parent's Blessings (2020Hindsight)
which proposes a lackadaisical attitude to parenting  (if you read it, please treat references to "clearing land" as metaphorical 
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=86060&highlight=blessings#post86060

Lol just an aside , I wanted to search for that ASF post above that I'd already made on "To A Mouse", so I asked for all posts/threads with the word "mouse", lol - guess how many posts there are on computer mouses?  lol - 

thought for the day ...
Maybe you can think of "the present only toucheth thee"  as in fact a very prophetic poem by Robbie with a view to application to computer mouses ?  Where the person sitting two feet under and behind the keyboard "casts his e'e forward, tho' we canna see,  and guess an' fear" - and the (computer) mouse is by comparison blessed??  

- naah doesn't quite work does it -  in those days of the Romantic poets, mice (and men) had hearts! 


> "Still thou art blest, compar'd wi' me, The present only toucheth thee:
> But, Och! I backward cast my e'e. On prospects drear!
> An' forward, tho' I canna see,  I guess an' fear!"






> WORLDLY WISE or WISELY WORLDLY
> 
> I’m glad I didn’t listen to advice in younger day
> where I’d have missed so many young mistakes
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 June 2007)

you ask "example of living wisely but worldly" ?
for instance , kids, when it comes to chatting up the opposite sex - 
beware of potential mothers-in-law hiding behind the door with a waddy 

mouse singing "you sexy thing" to a cheese

And another  - when the magic lets you down, don't give up - improvise!! lol
 Ratatouille : Emile's Magic Trick


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 June 2007)

gee there are some clever animations on youtube 
here's one about the importance of friendship... - and friends repaying friendship 
(you have to take it right through to the finish )
Pixar Movie or Sony image works - The ChubbChubbs

mind you , to modern kids, 'worldiness' is more a measure of your cell phone reception  

here's one "in search of pleasure-o-rama " (?) (subtitled)  - (bit longer and slower than the others - up to you. )
I can say with 100% confidence that the Earth is the closest place to meeting that desription (provided you stay ,   ... down -to -earth ) 
The Astronuts (L'Astro-Poère)

PS I'm not preaching believe me, just having fun with this subject  : 2twocents


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 June 2007)

> SOME DUDE WHO HAD THE SMARTS
> 
> it’s about our time on earth
> it’s about our worldly worth
> ...




PS 
Australia has a total 25,760 km (16,000 miles) of coastline.
(ignore the lesser “perimeter road” which is only about 16,000 km).
The number of sand grains (ok coarse sand grains ) ( assume 1mm x 1mm x 1mm) in a perimeter beach  25,000 km long x 5 km wide x 1m deep would be 
125,000,000,000,000,000,000;  which is pretty close to the number of stars in the (currently observable) universe, namely:-
123,000,000,000,000,000,000.

13.7 billion years (gigayears) since the big bang


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 June 2007)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damocles


> THE LIGHTNING ROD OF DAMOCLES
> 
> Damocles was some Greek figure, lived beneath a hair-pin trigger
> of a giant dagger horse-hair-held above him
> ...




This is just a whisker/(horse-hair-thread ? )  like Gordon's poem, "Potter's Clay", Fytte 6 (of 8) found here :- 
http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/poetry/ThePoemsofALAdamLindsayGordon/chap4.html


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 June 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> sword of Damocles



 I Will Survive - Aliensong (only 40 secs )


----------



## insider (17 June 2007)

I'm sorry but I really don't find much enjoyment in poetry... It really doesn't phase me... how come?


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 June 2007)

insider said:


> I'm sorry but I really don't find much enjoyment in poetry... It really doesn't phase me... how come?



Insider - ok  try this when you go for your next jog ..

or after a beer or whatever ... 
ever been to the races ? lol
try expressing the exuberance of riding a horse over a jump in a steeplechase better than Adam Lindsay Gordon does  



> "Oh the vigour with which the air is rife !
> The spirit of joyous motion;
> The fever, the fullness of animal life,
> Can be drained from no earthly potion!
> ...




PS but no doubt you're right as far as the amateur stuff I put up goes (i.e. I'm not pretending it's anything flash here)...

"some of em heavy and tug at your lead
but most of em breezy and light
and those that are heavy or hard to read
...
it's because they were easy to write "


----------



## new girl (20 June 2007)

*Gentle Peace*
Heather Z. Hanna   


If I could give you a gift
It would be peace.
Peace of mind
Peace of Heart

Gentle Peace

Peace of mind
would be for you to know
that someone loves you.

No expectations
where none were given.
Just let yourself know that it's okay, 
And it's a compliment
to your kindness to have touched
This Heart
in a way so special, 
That peace of mind and Heart 
Is the only gift
I wish for you.


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 June 2007)

probably a new tack to the quest for peace ng  - but I just scribbled some lines based on gordon lightfoot's line in Edmund Fitzgerald ( as posted by wayneL - great song  )
 Just that the cook always seems to feature in these nautical misadventures   


https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=170210&highlight=fitzgerald#post170210


> When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin.
> Fellas, its too rough to feed ya.
> At seven p.m. a main hatchway caved in, he said
> Fellas, its been good tknow ya






> THANK GOD FOR THE COOK
> 
> the first mate hollered halyard and the master hollered mizzen
> and the bollard lost its billiards and the windspeed cups went whizzen
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 June 2007)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Celeste



> The cargo of 1701 barrels of alcohol was intact, though when it was eventually unloaded in Genoa, *nine barrels were noted as being empty. *A six-month supply of food and water was aboard. All of the ship's papers except the captain's logbook were missing. The last log entry was dated November 24 and placed her 100 miles west of the Azores. The last entry on the ship's slate showed her as having reached the island of Santa Maria in the Azores on November 25th.






> but then of course, Marie Celeste , a story known to many
> I wonder who would place their bets on who killed skipper Kenny
> the crew and all their traces sank, the boat sailed on in mirth
> and nearly made the dogger bank, and third and fourth of firth.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 July 2007)

> All Things Drink
> 
> Fruitful earth drinks up the rain;
> Trees from earth drink that again;
> ...



http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/anakreon.html#3



> Beauty
> 
> HORNS to bulls wise Nature lends;
> Horses she with hoofs defends;
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 July 2007)

here's a Cumbrian 's opinion of "nature" vs "palaces"... 
(with an accent and a fiery red attitude like that - maybe from the northern parts of Cumbria  )

As they say, "wear flat shoes, and watch out for falling sheep" .


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 July 2007)

I saw a creek yesterday that was running a banker a few days back - trees leaning every which way - bit like Chad Morgan's teeth 



> FROM THE REDWOOD FOREST TO THE GULF BETWEEN MAN AND NATURE
> The river was a torrent just a day or two ago
> and all except the redwood tree now leans
> It’s naught that worry warrants, just unruly riotous flow
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 July 2007)

BLOOD FOR OIL

if you analyse things of this nature
then you’d probably start with a rule
that a man is unlikely to hate ya 
unless you’re a psychotic fool
it’s a must that you maintain the high ground
that you balance your taking with give
when the foreigner says “this is my land” 
it’s a must that you let this man live… 

........ though his accent is strange ,
........ though he’s in your gun’s range, 
........ though you’re in some damned army designed to derange
it’s a must that you let this man live.

though the history book’s laden with killers
there are thousands that dance on their graves
while the peace loving future has pillars
that are founded on HONESTY’s slaves
it’s a must that you live by conventions
that are founded in fair firm and free
that are free of those ugly dimensions
that his oilcan’s more value than he……

........ though he dresses in rags
........ and salutes different flags
........ though your army mate killed his whole family and brags
it’s a must that that you let him go free. 

If you march in and claim “this is my land”
If you only take lives - and not give, 
what right to the moral high ground?
(and what makes you think they'll forgive)?
if you murder young kids in their village
and you only know conquer not kind
but you claim it’s just “lateral spillage”
yet you claim it is “oil intertwined”

........ there were carpenter’s skills
........ Jesus learnt with breast drills
........ now this child has a breast hole through which his life spills
…
and you claim it is “oil intertwined”?!!!

Here's one that was written in the days when Aus (and the world) watched on as East Timorese were being killed. 
- similar sentiments I guess. 
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=85342&highlight=timor#post85342
this in turn quotes this website ( 
http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Senate/7112/poems_frconten.htm

HOWL 
by Emma Lawrence
....ten thousand people a year
is thirty a day
is one death every forty-five minutes
for a generation
in a country smaller than tasmania their
six litres of blood each
would be just over a million
litres of oil, but
3.25 billion dollars will buy you
quite a showbag
with an unused conscience thrown in


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 July 2007)

I heard on Radio National last night that the oil used daily by the US military navy and airforce (combined ) - and arguably concerned in large part or small with securing oil into the futute for them ? and us?  - is one half of that used by the entire Aussie nation - and obviously much more than many smaller nations out there. 

IRRATIONAL RATIONS OF OIL

with the news on I drove home last night 
I heard something I thought was quite daft  
with an earful of pain and sad plight
and a headful of poetic draught
seems the oil for American might 
and the oil for their military shaft
that is used for the purpose of fight
that they use in one day is one half …

of that used by the whole aussie nation !
and it’s not as if we thrive on thrift !
to my ear ..that ‘s a rather large ration
and extinction of oil will be swift.

…….. praps no point in gnashin’ ??
…….. when waste is the fashion ??
…….. in time some election will give them a lashin’ ??
praps wait for some evening shift ??

…….. hell it’s minutes to midnight
…….. bolt-down-the-big-lid night
…….. whether this time or next time or maybe grand-kid-night
praps wait for some evening shift -  ??
and one overdue grandchildren gift ??  

…….. it’s ir-rational waste  !!
…….. that must squarely be faced  !!
…….. and it’s not as if oil can be copied and paste  !!
we must give our front foresight a lift.


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 July 2007)

Further to discussion of East Timor, and - MORE GENERALLY -  the thousands of innocents who are killed in "war" - including Iraqis of course - here's a poem I posted back there (in two halves over two posts) ... just not sure that I'd put it together as a full poem. The last verse is about the out-of-control pro-Indon-militia attacking the nuns - not typical these days thank goodness -  thanks to the UN and Cosgrove and his boys.   But these days kids are being killed in Iraq, and  ... ahh I 've said it already. 

THE HEARTBEAT OF THE BATTLEFIELD DRUMMER BOY

they found Bits of his drum on the old battlefield, four Centuries after the fact
with its Shoulderstrap rotting with blood congealed, and a Slice where a sword had hacked,
'twas a Job he'd been handed, his destiny sealed, "to Keep morale intact",
- and he'd Marched out in front with the cards he was dealed
- and he Gave it his best, though hed rather have reeled
- and he Drummed till the yells in his ear canals peeled
and he Honoured his boyhood pact.

if you Knew where to look, and you knew how to read, the Footprint signs hidden below
then you'd Find where his small boots confrontd the steed, of some Giant and mounted foe,
and he'd Shook in the stare of the murderous breed who had challenged his drumstick's blow,
- but one Swipe of that sword made the red blood bleed,
- and he'd silenced the heartbeat, the home teams lead
- and the boy's so-small soul had so-soon been freed
to some Place where the bravest go.

no more "Rat-a-tat-tat", amid battlefield yell, to "ADVANCE" or to "HOLD THAT DAMNED LINE!!!"
no more Marching down hills to the bloodiest Hell, where each five of us faced nine,
and the Plaque-stone now shows where the drummer boy fell, where Now grows that aging pine,
- but it's "twigs" lie uneasy, and hard to quell, 
- ahh , it's after the fact and the funeral bell,
- but at Dusk there's a drumming ( you'd swear ) in the dell,
.....and his brave little footprints SHINE.
.... see them FACE ever FORWARD, to drum his own knell,
and they terminate there - by the shrine

A VERSE FOR EAST TIMOR

one could Write the same verse ( perhaps sadder and worse), of the Recent East Timor insanity.
but I Kinda prefer the 400 year hearse, as a buffer against inhumanity,
and the Part of the drummer is played by a nun, or a farmer defending his family,
- and the cavalry cruel will be played by some fool
- who's been taught, oohh such hatred, in some half-baked school
- and machettes for swords, make it all the more brutal
and for drumbeats, the psalms of "the Lamb".


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 July 2007)

FUTURE-O-PHOBIA on behalf of the WORLD'S CHILDREN. 

fear of ignorance, or learning (Sophophobia, Misosophy)
fear of wisdom, fear of words (Misosophy:, Verbophobia)
fear of matches, fear of burning (0,Pyrophobia)
fear of lonely, fear of herds (Autophobia: Agoraphobia)
fear of chatting up some pub chick (Anthropophobia)
fear of emphasis uncouth 
fear of saying “****” in public
perhaps to underline some truth

fear of hiding, fear of bullet (Claustrophobia, Traumatophobia)
fear of low and fear of height  (Depression-a-phobia?, Altophobia)
fear of nothing in our gullet (Hunger)
fear of “critically- light”(Starvation)
fear of home, and fear of foreign (Ecophobia, Xenophobia)
fear of yellow, fear of red (Xanthophobia, Eurotophobia)
fear of f***ing for a florin (Staying Alive anyhow you can)
fear of homeless, fear of dead. (0, Necrophobia)

fear of cold, and fear of heat (Frigophobia Thermophobia)
fear of looting packs at large (Harpaxophobia)
fear of messy, fear of neat (Fastidious,  Unfastidious?)
“fear of shooting” says the Sarge
fear of moon, and fear of sunbeams  (Lunaphobia Heliophobia)
fear of romance, fear of stars  (Philophobia Siderophobia)
fear of Venus, fear of mungbeans (Gynophobia)
fear of men (of war) from Mars. (Misanthropy)

fear of flying, fear of driving  (Aerophobia Amaxophobia)
fear how long to dinner time (Hunger)
fear of nations that are striving (Third World)
or are starving for a dime (Starvation)
fear of looking in a mirror,   (Spectrophobia)
fear of looking less than best
fear of oil accounts and terror  
intertwined and Hell-possessed.  (Hadeophobia)

fear of justice for a person 
lest they have their say in court
fear of words that contradict the ones 
you’ve carefully been taught
fear of verdicts that don’t suit ya, 
fear of international laws
fear FOR children and their future, 
FOR their blood in fearful wars.

fear FOR children, fear of poisons (Pedophobia Toxophobia)
fear of poisoning their mind
fear of thunder, fear of lightning (Tonitrophobia  Astraphobia)
fear of cannon fire unkind (Traumatophobia)
fear FOR children, fear of trembling  (Tremophobia)
fear of whirring dentist drills (Dentophobia)
fear of first night nerves and stumbling (Topophobia)
fear of rocket fire that kills.

fear of ghosts, and fear of darkness (Phasmophobia Nyctophobia)
fear of things that might be there (Psychophobia)
fear of logic-in-Iraq-ness, 
fear of thoughts outside the square 
fear of fire, and of inferno (Pyrophobia)
fear of maniacs untame
fear of loading up extinguishers 
with fuel that fosters flame.

fear of Russia, fear of Suez,  (Russophobia)
fear of Moslems, fear of French  (Islamophobia, Gallophobia)
fear of British, fear of US (Anglophobia US-ophobia ?)
fear of appetites unquenched (Gluttony)
fear of small and childish coffins (Mycrophobia, 0)
fear of wasting too much wood 
fear of oil controlled endorphins 
fear of meeting with our Lord. 

fear of underestimation 
of His sense of humour broad
fear of sampling His damnation
and to feel HIS  “shock and awed”
when he points out Jesus’s teachings
have been pretty much ignored  
….
fear he’ll wince at our “beseechings” 
fear the justice of His sword.  (Anthropo-deity-ophobia)

http://www.ojohaven.com/fun/phobias.html


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 July 2007)

THE GREAT GLOBAL WARMING SWIM-BLE

we are running out of oil , perhaps I’ll put my money there
maybe short on mortal coil, of this planet and its air
praps ‘the answer’s in the soil’, as some Goonshow clown would claim
praps hold back from banking money in philosophies insane.

praps I’ll bet on global warming going downhill at a pace
praps I’ll bet on freakish storming and go short on human race
praps I’ll bet on hell for humpback whales and coral reefs in woe
praps I’ll bet on f***wit pollies saying “gee I didn’t know”

praps it’s long on shonky scientists, spin doctors and the like
praps it’s long on paid defy-entists concocting backflip pike
those who claim the earth is cooling or who claim it’s sun alone
but just who they think they’re fooling, and which dog they’re throwing bone.

manipulation ? maybe - where old Maggie was concerned
manipulation ? maybe - that's until these facts we’ve learned
manipulation ? maybe - that the sun is uninvolved
but worst of all pretend the roll of man is still unsolved.

It’s prompted me to want to see more data and more thorough
and maybe documentary by David Attenborough
 ………
If I want to buy a gherkin then I’ll check out channel 4
and I’ll ask that dimwit Durkin, is he liar? or Al Gore?

Rome is burning, true confessor, while the fiddler madly plays
while some oil-rich-paid professor argues red-faced in the blaze
... 'Bout this warming that we're facin' - do the humans die or whales?
As the self styled Lords of Creation   - either way , the human fails.


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 July 2007)

The DIFFERENCE BETWEEN 'now' and 'NOW'

PS.  Rather than duplicate it, and the graphs you need to refer to, I'll just post this link. 

Incidentally I forget to mention back there that the dip in temp in the 60's in the NASA Graph titled "Global Temperature" has been explained and accepted as due to a pollution - as against CO2 - the former since largely corrected, the latter,? largely uncorrected - 
- or perhaps I should say it has been "incorrected" by Durkin's program?
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=179638&highlight=Durkin#post179638


----------



## TheAbyss (13 July 2007)

HAven't checked to see if this has made it in here yet. Apologies if it has.

TODAY'S STOCK MARKET

They are as follows. . .
Helium was up, feathers were down.
Paper was stationery.
Fluorescent tubing was dimmed in light trading.
Knives were up sharply.
Cows steered into a bull market.
Pencils lost a few points.
Hiking equipment was trailing.
Elevators rose, while escalators continued their slow decline.
Weights were up in heavy trading.
Light switches were off.
Mining equipment hit rock bottom.
Diapers remain unchanged.
Shipping lines stayed at an even keel.
The market for raisins dried up.
Caterpillar stock inched up a bit.
Sun peaked at midday.
Balloon prices were inflated.
And Scott Tissue touched a new bottom.


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 July 2007)

TheAbyss said:


> TODAY'S STOCK MARKET
> Knives were up sharply.
> Cows steered into a bull market.
> Pencils lost a few points.
> Hiking equipment was trailing.



lol - yep, and maybe ..

ferries are sunk.
airlines up in the air
trains off the rails etc


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 July 2007)

Yet more bovine inspiration 


> TWO WAYS TO LOOK AT THINGS
> 
> (take 1)
> I had an old employee, he was just the nicest fellow
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 July 2007)

Already posted elsewhere, (and could be posted almost anywhere here - eg Is there a God? thread) - but very well done by this bloke imo.  His website has "prose/poetry" and he has won prizes for same in Texas.


> BIOGRAPHICAL INFO: Ernest Cline is an American  screenwriter and spoken word artist. He was born in Ashland, Ohio in 1972.
> 
> In 1998, as the anticipation over the first new Star Wars film in fifteen years was building to a frenzy, Ernie wrote Fanboys, a movie about a group of friends who journey across the country to Skywalker Ranch to fulfill their dying friend's wish to see Episode I several months before the film's release. Nearly a decade in the making, Fanboys is now in post-production and is scheduled for release on January 13, 2008. You can read more about the making of the film on Ernie's Fanboys website.
> 
> ...





> DANCE MONKEYS DANCE - Ernie Cline
> 
> Orbiting the sun at about 93 million miles
> is a little blue planet
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 July 2007)

.....


----------



## noirua (14 July 2007)

I saw some little monkeys climbing up a tree
they came tumbling down again, stung by a bee,
not put off they went up again, fast as can be
on their way down again, forgot to have a pee.

Out there are some elephants, I'm looking cannot see
give me those binoculars, good heavens, can't believe,
charging in this direction, flattenning all afore 'em
I'll die for these elephants and thoroughly adore them.


----------



## new girl (14 July 2007)

Learning a new language as an adult is very rewarding at times. You get to enjoy your little discovery and feel like a child again when you understand the meaning of new word you like. Of course not many words can do that but "ADORE" is at the top of my list 


I adore thee

John G. Nelson    

I adore thy incredible smile, pretty as love itself
I compose thou a song, tune dripping from above
I fear not any casualty, my heart seal deep in love
I rest so pleased, well content, my lass I deeply love
I joy well here, in thy ardent arms, I feel no cold

I retrace the flowery days, most wondrous sphere
I gather sweet violet, this my choice and my cheer
I glitter, the light that shines, comes from thy orbs
I wish more then my heart holds, but well absorb
I beseech thou, stay with me, may thy love proceed


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 July 2007)

.....







noirua said:


> .I'll die for these elephants and thoroughly adore them.




...  we domesticate them and they come when we summon 
and run as if drawn to some musk
and nothing to fear and so much in common 
(when they sort out the carers from 'husk')
now man must defy those odds in the sky
in some twilight endanged dusk
and add in some light for to help in their plight
while there's still an uncarved tusk.

philanthropist daring, on bullets go sparing
give up global warming and try global sharing
drop victory "v' from a "carving" makes "caring" 
while there's still an uncarved tusk.


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 July 2007)

> YOUR GOD HATES FAGS, MY GOD COULD CARE LESS (unless you mean cigarettes )
> 
> you Say that your God “hates all fags” and all gays, on account of the partners they seek
> you Say they should roll over now in their ways, and cease all this turning of cheek
> ...



..........


> .....Anyone who sees and paints a sky green and pastures blue out to be sterilized" . - Adolf Hitler


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 July 2007)

> Art is the most frenzied orgy man is capable of - Jean Dubuffet.......



what-the ?  lol  - 
"Getting a bit worried about old Jean, Tom! - perhaps he should get out more?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Dubuffet


----------



## new girl (14 July 2007)

Mother Earth And Father Time Are Angry


Mother Earth and Father Time are walking hand in hand.
They're visiting their children and checking on their land.

They view the worlds destruction everywhere they turn.
They fear their precious children are never going to learn.

''This earth should be their playground with joys beyond belief
yet, all these children seem to know is senseless pain and grief.''

''How do we teach our children to care for such a place? 
They may not get the message till we slap them in their face.''

The children are oblivious to even basic rules.
That's why so many people grow up looking like such fools  

Mary Nagy 


ps: I don't understand the need to separate the two. At times it feels that there is nothing more cruel than mother nature!

In regard to the gay thingy, my understanding is that GOD doesn't hate gays, its just that he's not fond of the actual act    personally the only thing that comes to mind is the hygiene/pain side of things, but none of my business really!


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 July 2007)

new girl said:


> Mother Earth And Father Time Are Angry
> ps: I don't understand the need to separate the two. At times it feels that there is nothing more cruel than mother nature!
> 
> In regard to the gay thingy, my understanding is that GOD doesn't hate gays, its just that he's not fond of the actual act



lol - great poem ng -

I used to be accused of being a dreamer when I was a kid - I wrote this as a schoolkid in response to people yelling at me to meet deadlines above all else :-

"some say the ticks and tocks of Father Time 
should be our thoughts our worries and our fears
but surely within hearing is enough
why carry watches fastened to our ears?!"

A mixture of day dreamer and bolshevism in my attitude in those days 

as for gay's not getting to heaven - lol - whatever - but you'd have to be a stupid bigot to throw the bible at em.  As if god gives a rats about such things . (imo lol)


----------



## new girl (14 July 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> lol - great poem ng -
> 
> I used to be accused of being a dreamer when I was a kid - I wrote this as a schoolkid in response to people yelling at me to meet deadlines above all else
> 
> ...





Speaking of bigots: 


Everybody do the 'Bigot'


Independence cha-cha-cha! 
Dance to the rhythm of revolution! 
Democracy? Oh, lalala
we've stalled a bit since its evolution
and the simple chords of freedom are drowning
in the screaming mouths spilling rivers of red.
And belief in progress is out of fashion
but my faith in humanity's a fervent passion
and yet now i see my only religion
blown up my men with less good sense
than the anarchic prick of a randy pigeon
or the U.S Secretary of Defence.

Independence? Naw, naw naw.
Weep to the beat of the prejudiced horde
and jerk to this global disco discord. 


ps: 2020, you're poetry is becoming more difficult to understand, take it easy mate 

pps: A dreamer and bolshevism is better than a bigot, *liar, hypocrite, bully (by that I mean group of bigots)* ....etc..etc IMveryHO. 

I think that we all have committed one or more of these sins  There aren't enough bibles in this world to throw  so don't let it worry you too much 


ppps: I think HYPOCRISY is the lightest sin of all of'em. Again according to Macquarie dictionary: 1. the act of pretending to have a character or beliefs, principles, et... that one does *NOT* possess. 2. pretence of virtue or piety, false goodness.

pppps: JOE, This 5 smilies per post is a pain in the @rse


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 July 2007)

new girl said:


> Speaking of bigots:
> I think HYPOCRISY is the lightest sin of all of'em.



guess  hypocrisy is why I made reference to the church  
a) being such homophobes on the one hand, and, on the other,
b) having to defend so many gay priests who have preyed (prayed?) on kids over the years 

(also c -  pretending that god could give a damn on such matters , and that they determined whether a person got to heaven or not) 

The church's "inconsistencies" on this is why Sinead O'Connor "sacrificed her career to *put child abuse on the international agenda* ...."

  Sinead O'Connor on pope incident, bob dylan concert 


Here's the original of that song by Sinead O'Connor (War) - the last few seconds is what it's about (and also the words "child abuse" (instead of racism) that she has written into the song)  

 Sinead O'Connor - War

PS ng, that poem was obviously triggered by that placard that reads "God Hates Fags" - if that makes sense to you then ..  good luck to you .


----------



## new girl (14 July 2007)

Speaking of child abuse  you reminded me of this beautiful poem of yours 2020. You come across as a gentle soul that cares about children, it must be the BUDAH in you that brings all that love  




2020hindsight said:


> THE LITTLE HERO
> 
> It was  many years ago now, when a small young boy was killed
> I read about the matter - why was such young blood be-spilled
> ...





I'm sure you're an excellent buhdist, but I would say Christianity is NOT your area of expertise  As I recall saying before the church is not God and God doesn't hate poeple, he hates sin. People hate people! 

ps: if you dont like God's defintion of sin then dont believe in him. Its that simple. I mean smelling **** on your way out is not a biggy really! like you said who gives a rat's ****


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 July 2007)

new girl said:


> if you dont like God's defintion of sin then dont believe in him. Its that simple.



ng - the poem you just posted was based on a true story (sad one)

as for the poem on religion - well, I think when I saw that lady with the placard saying "God Hates Fags" - I thought to myself 

...I thought God / JC told us not to hate, lol 
............. As I implied MY God (and I suspect also Jesus, lol - may be wrong) hates/strongly dislikes the word "hate" 

PS arguments on literal interpretation of , and/or selective quoting from Bibles and Korans etc usually happen elsewhere , suffice to say, most of us seem to have agreed to disagree  - 

heck anyone is free to post poems here - poetic licence helps - but not sure how poetic licence stacks up against parliamentary privelege though, lol.


----------



## new girl (14 July 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> ng - the poem you just posted was based on a true story (sad one) *.......yeh I know and that's what makes it sad I guess*
> 
> ............. As I implied MY god hates the word "hate" ...........*does your god have a view on "implied" hate? what about implied harm? is that a sin according to buddha*?
> 
> ...




*ps: I think its best for buddists to stick to talking about buddha and leave God alone!

pps: I love how you respond to my posts before I hit the submit button * *I mean couldn't you wait? *


*pppppppppppppssssssssssssssss: hey does hating hate imply love just like disagreeingy to disagree imply agreeing, if yes then buddha is just as messed up as the rest of us!! LOL....................................*


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 July 2007)

new girl said:


> ps: I think its best for buddists to stick to talking about buddha and leave God alone!
> 
> pps: I love how you respond to my posts before I hit the submit button  I mean couldn't you at least wait?
> 
> ...



I'm neither Buddhist nor Christian - (although I like JC's ideas on forgiveness, and I like Buddhist ideas on tolerance) won't go into it further here - pretty much all been said - 

I guess like you I can write poems here about just about anything - let's call it poetic licence  - 

I guess best to stay away from unsubstantiated hatred (implied - or for that matter in-black-white-and-on-ply )
but then again, some poems are like verbal cartoons as well , satire , all that sorta stuff.

PS In my mind, I would reason that there is a difference between hating the concept of hate , and jumping to the next level of loving 
I mean you can hate hate and be ambivalent about love can you not ?

PPS In the same way, the Middle East might start to move ahead if people stopped hating each other , yes? - (when we learn to love our children more than we hate our enemies" as Golda said)

... but no-one is going to pretend - and no one is going to expect - that opposite sides (currently shooting at each other) will love each other in the near fuure : 2twocents


----------



## new girl (15 July 2007)

just a small question 2020 what does the woman with the elephant nose represent and what religion does it belong to? do some people worship elephants? 

many thanks

and also c)....... what does ambivalent mean? 

and also also d)....... the middle east is in a mess because it has oil in it and people in the west cant seem to get enough of their riches  I'm sure if the west leaves them alone or better still help them after the fu@k ups they caused love will start flowing soon after: RESPECT my friend, respect 

E your exciting and F.................

....G you look good to me.....LOL....


----------



## noirua (15 July 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> ..........




Only difference between those two, 2020, is that Hitler forgot to smile and always be polite and friendly to people, whilst burning 6 million in the gas chambers.


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 July 2007)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha
http://dictionary.reference.com/

Hey , if anyone wants to know about a brilliant "word-finder" - try this website , whether for a poem, or even for more interesting / different vocab or different way to say something in a letter . 

http://www.rhymezone.com/?loc=top  !!

synonyms, 
antonyms,  
related words
similar sounding words
homophones
match consonants only
match 'these' letters
check spelling

also 
- get pictures (which I've never used but probably will in future )
- check quotes (Bible or Shakespeare in particular) (ditto)

This "Rhyming Dictionary" (imo) can save you a heap of time. 

Note that I searched for for the keyword "camel" (and pressed "go get it") 

Note also the subtle difference between Matthew 19:24 and Shakespeare's Richard II in the quote about camels and needles eyes etc, viz :-



> 19:24 And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through
> the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
> God.




*HEY - If the XAO keeps going up !! we're all headed for the other place !! lol* - 

(with Fred Nile's gays lol)



> KING RICHARD II: I have been studying how I may compare
> This prison where I live unto the world:
> And for because the world is populous
> And here is not a creature but myself,
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 July 2007)

They also have several quizes there 
eg Famous Shakepeare lines  such as this , lol

http://www.rhymezone.com/r/dz.cgi?ch=2&s=1184420639&p=shakelines&cmd=ans



> Famous line: The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
> 
> Your choice?
> 
> ...




heck sounds a bit extremist lol - 


Here's one I just made up ;;; - neednt be Shakespeare



> Famous line: What do I care about the law?  Hain't I got the power?
> 
> Your choice?
> 
> ...



answer ? - clue is CV. - but those picking any of the othres also get some points 


> https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/search.php?searchid=514400
> CLUES AND GUESS WHO .......
> 
> I act like I've seen it, I sound like I mean it, my Forebear got caught in the nud,
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 July 2007)

Since I screwed up posting the link to Elma Fudd, I'll post the entire poem 



2020hindsight said:


> Relevance of the following ? lol - well we all seem to be casting dispersions about this or that politician- thought I'd give you my opinion of the lot of em
> 
> CLUES AND GUESS WHO
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 July 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ganesha
> http://dictionary.reference.com/
> 
> Hey , if anyone wants to know about a brilliant "word-finder" - ....
> ...



I stand here, Richard second, thoughts confused
my kingdom for a horse (?) (no that was third)
How strange! – I’m neither high nor halfway boozed!
I speak, but then no sooner, echoes heard
to be or not to be - or praps a miss-take?
My thoughts are almost formed but then they le’-go
Its either 2020 on a pisstake 
or else it’s Thomas Becket’s ghostly echo



			
				W. Skakespeare said:
			
		

> Richard:-1A. I have been studying how I may compare
> This prison where I live unto the world:
> And for because the world is populous
> And here is not a creature but myself,
> I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.




Echo:- 1B. so What to make of this my lot in life?
it’s Difficult but here’s a crack – let’s see ….
I’m One of earthly millions here in strife
but In my mind - this prison -  only me. 



			
				W. Skakespeare said:
			
		

> Richard:- 2A. My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,
> My soul the father; and these two beget
> A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
> And these same thoughts people this little world,
> ...




Echo:- 2B. my Soul with chase my brain around my head
and When it catches up breeds naught but thoughts (naughty thoughts?)
lie, Screwed up drafts of things I almost said
lie, Discontented half endorsed reports.



			
				W. Skakespeare said:
			
		

> Richard:- 3A. The better sort,
> As thoughts of things divine, are intermix'd
> With scruples and do set the word itself
> Against the word:




Echo:- 3B. Quotations of some wise man scruple based
might Grapple with the words from other vines
and Grappling, hook my mind – and must be faced
these Lines we use to help define “divine”.



			
				W. Skakespeare said:
			
		

> Richard:- 4A. As thus, 'Come, little ones,' and then again,
> *'It is as hard to come as for a camel
> To thread the postern of a small needle's eye.'*.




Echo:- 4B. take Camel/needle’s eye as case in point
just One of much confusing ancient text
a Child who’s called, that eye of God anoints
must Pass this eye in this world ‘fore the next??



			
				W. Skakespeare said:
			
		

> Richard:- 5A.Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot
> Unlikely wonders; .




Echo:- 5B. but Camels into needle’s eyes don’t go!
it’s Hard to see a different explanation!
our Thinking minds might trick us that we know?
conFuse HIS words with OUR interpretation?



			
				W. Skakespeare said:
			
		

> Richard:- 6A. How these vain weak nails
> May tear a passage through the flinty ribs
> Of this hard world, my ragged prison walls,
> And, for they cannot, die in their own pride.
> ...




Echo:- 6B. my Thoughts may claw the bars of this “stone prison” (stoned prison?)
may Die of “lack of wise” or too much pride
praps Plagiarise some saint long since arisen
- most Like a bus companion sit and ride.



			
				W. Skakespeare said:
			
		

> Richard:- 7A. Bearing their own misfortunes on the back
> Of such as have before endured the like.
> Thus play I in one person many people,
> And none contented: sometimes am I king;
> ...




Echo:- 7B. and Knowing others passed this way before
these Uncontented thoughts in chorus sing
if I am king , then praps I’m happier poor
but, Were I poor , no doubt I’m happier king. 

Praps I , who just a man  - am!, after all,
Will never find that pleasure, earthly sought
Until perhaps I hear some final call,
Until perhaps?
............ this crown's reduced to naught?

Echo :- (suddenly getting sidetracked with King Lear lol - as per jpeg attached ) 

And should I fail to pass this earthly test
- my camel fails to pass this needle's dot-
I’ll crack a tube of Guinness (it’s the best !!)
and “drive it crackling home to the Camel Lot”


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 July 2007)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_II_of_England


> Henry II of England (5 March 1133 – 6 July 1189) ruled as Count of Anjou, Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Count of Nantes, and as King of England (1154–1189) and, at various times, controlled parts of Wales, Scotland, eastern Ireland, and western France. His sobriquets include "Curt Mantle" (*because of the practical short cloaks he wore*), "Fitz Empress," and sometimes "The Lion of Justice," which had also applied to his grandfather Henry I. He ranks as the first of the Plantagenet or Angevin Kings.
> 
> Following the disputed reign of King Stephen, Henry's reign saw efficient consolidation. Henry II has acquired a reputation as one of England's greatest medieval kings.



sounds like he was a practical cloaker to me !


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 July 2007)

> And should I fail to pass this earthly test
> - my camel fails to pass this needle's dot-
> I’ll crack a tube of Guinness (it’s the best !!)
> and “drive it crackling home to the Camel Lot”



...

as we Walk down the pavement, old camel, old friend
i'd say "Mate we've been saved!!  from a thread - bare-end !!
do you Think perhaps maybe, they were having a lend?
to Tie up our minds in a knot?

“for a Start they had YOU down as quartered and dead
praps eaten by silkworms and drawn into thread  
and laced through some needle from tail-tip  to head
and after that ? – probably be shot !

and Me they had down as a stoker in hell
unless we could lubricate you with some gel
(or call in some bloke with a heavenly bell)
it lubricates well till its hot.

I don’t really fancy this stoking of fires
eternity! – wow ! - in a eon expires!
but praps with some grease and a good pair of pliers ...
(remember to breathe when you squat!!)

oh merciful justice, I heard someone cry 
it droppeth like lust in a lover’s large sky
but mate you’d be thrust through a needle's small eye !!
(and they could care diddeley squat)

if you analyse things with a surgeon’s knife
are we pawns or kings in this struggle and strife
-   …….. as a wise God has wings “before death you’ll have life”
-   …….. as the redwood has rings “before death you’ll have life”
-   …….. as the autumns have springs “before death you’ll have life”
-   …….. as a violin has strings “before death you’ll have life”
-   …….. as the fat lady sings “before death you’ll have life”
-   …….. as mad fortune has slings “before death you’ll have life” 
................
while a pastuerised (passed-your-eyes'ed) camel has not.


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 July 2007)

PS gee, you're a tough audience, lol   (but hek - no probs - I take comfort in the fact that a few people seem to read the poems now and then ) 

I 'wrote' most of that last one - (well, memorised  bits and pieces of it - if I'd tape recorded it, it would be three times longer, lol) - as I was fixing up some pavers in the driveway this evening  -  and I was cakking myself  - ahh I love this "hypothetical ballad" stuff


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## 2020hindsight (16 July 2007)

Here's a beauty by Robbie Burns on the plight of the common man -written 1784 - around the time of 

the storming of the bastille,   14 July 1789, 

just before Australia was settled,  26 Jan 1788

 -  picture the social scene in Britain, with the jails full of convicts , and nowhere to send em  - except overseas "somewhere"   (american war of independence in 1976 had stopped any more(?) being sent there). 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bastille
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMAV_Bounty

Actually it was also just before the  mutiny on the bounty,  28 April 1789, 
as well, - another commentary in itself on the social conditions in England, - compared to amongst the Tahitian ladies  -  although that was after Sydney was settled - I wonder why Blight didnt try to make it to Sydney rather than Timor, but I guess winds etc - maybe he didnt even know about Sydney lol - and maybe he'd have been turned away, as the first year here Gov Phillip was having enough problems feeding the first fleet of Aussies.   sorry - getting off the subject again 

I think Burns based this on an existing song - and this also can be sung - not on youtube as yet as far as I can see. 



> Man Was Made To Mourn: A Dirge  1784
> Type: Dirge
> 
> When chill November's surly blast
> ...




Completely optional for this one, but this website has his poems translated into 'english' 
http://www.worldburnsclub.com/poems/translations/man_was_made_to_mourn.htm


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## 2020hindsight (21 July 2007)

happy birthday little Bindi, gee your dad would be so proud
and the kindest kindred spirit in a khaki coloured shroud
with his world acclaim so merited and hard to fill those shoes
and those qualities inherited and more than you'll ever lose

on behalf of all the wildlife with their feet and fins and wings
on behalf of the environment, of jungle and its kings
on behalf of length and breadth and depth of wildlife warrior worth
happy birhday little princess from the friends of mother earth

happy birthday little heroine, please educate us "peers"
read and finger trace if need be with your mum pride filled with tears
happy birthday from a world tuned in to the thunder of your drum and fife
may enthusiasm see you win, and wonder fill your life


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## 2020hindsight (24 July 2007)

Since my daughter is a big fan of Harry Potter, I'll repeat this one, (slightly modified) 

BOOK MEETS GIRL

Like an orphan left unmothered on the library shelf unread,
Sat a small book partly smothered by the bigger books instead,
With its pages undiscovered, from some crazy author's head,
And it sadly sat unlovered, and it's little heart, it bled.

Ahh, it wasn't Henry Lawson, with his wit that rocked the bar,
And it wasn’t Smokey Dawson with his grin and grand guitar,
And it wasn't Banjo Patterson, nor Scott nor Lochinvar, 
But, imagining it mattered, it must wait its chance to star.

And the dust collected weekly, and the months turned into years
And the little book sat meekly, and it held back welling tears,
Oh its eyes would rise obliquely every time a child appears,
Just to fall again as quickly, to its neighbour volume's jeers.

By the luck of some great cosmic ray, a bolt from who-knows-where,
The little book fell down one day, the lady found it there,
"The boss finds this - there's hell to pay - its user card is bare!!
We'll sell this book come Saturday, and I'm too rushed to care."

It went on sale exceeding fast, the cheapest there, ten cents,
A little girl was walking past, and spied it through the fence,
And book-and-girl were both aghast, their first-sight-love intense,
And ten cents later, die was cast on all that's happened hence.

.................
Half under sheets she'd read at home ('t would give a ghoul a fright!)
Half lightning flash, half Thunderdome, dark wizards in half light, 
And book-and-girl entwined would roam with knuckles waay past white,
And arm-in-page they'd read alone and raid the fridge each night.

Ahh, it wasn't colt from Old Regret, or Man from Iron Bark, 
But old regrets had disappeared, like blacksmiths in the dark - and
It wasn’t Clancy Overflow, his thumbnail dipped in tar, 
Just the overflowing vegemite - and grins from ear to jar.

I plan to take a cautious look into the land of dreams,
I plan to buy a ten cent book on wacky wizard themes,
I'm warned it's hard to 'throw the hook' once you are hooked it seems,
- and plug my ears for girl-and-book's ten trillion dollar screams! .


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 July 2007)

Today I caught train to Sydney, and alighted at Town Hall , several "floors" underground.   There ahead of me was a blind man walking along the station, then walking up the steps with his black Labrador seeing eye dog.   the thing that bowled me was the dog's tail which was wagging profusely 

MAYBE POETRY IS FOR SEEING AND FEELING

We may see a random poem as we traverse and trevail
as we gaze on hills of Rome, or a sunrise or a sail
some may paint poetic crosses with a man attached by nail
-	but today I saw a blind man and a dog with wagging tail
-	(and such things will hook my passions without fail).

Some see poems in the shapeliness beneath a dancing veil
some see poems in the broaching of a calf and mother whale
some wax lyrical on harvest moons ( the barn near full of bale)
-	but today I saw a blind man walk a platform by a rail.
-	and a dog was wildly wagging with its tail!

Whether “platform six” or parkland, ‘neath the street, or sky blue dome
he must probe a dire darkland, with a dog to lead him home
and the fact that dog is happy in his job as “seeing eye”........
-	if I wasn’t happy yesterday - today I’m gonna try!
-	and I'd love to conquer trials like that guy!.

His determination won me and right now I’m on a high
I’ll (in future) take the splinter (and the log) out of my eye,
and I doubt this man will see this well-brushed-tail wag 'fore they die
-	but I’m sure they “feel” that poem as he whispers “which way Skye?”
-	and I’m sure they “feel” that footnote… “love you Skye!”.

Sure I’ve walked past poems blindly like our friend with whitened cane
Sure I’ve profited unkindly for some selfish gotten gain
but those two have taught me "teamwork", taught me “vision”, free of "vain"
-	and have bought my soul like Jean Valjean - (till tomorrow I’m blind again?)
-	but my windows for today have a clearer pane.

Constant darkness, constant shadow, constant stumbles in the fog
only ray of light (replacing missing eyes like missing cog)
is the close-knit-warm-comraderie,  top billing in his log
-	and the lichen (like-en) in his eyelid cured by loving in his dog
-	and the pawprints round that quicksand near the bog.


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## 2020hindsight (26 July 2007)

The English Floods

Neptune said to mother England “sorry mam I’ve gotta say
as the bearer of sad tidings , there’s a giant tide today
but there’s many sadder "tide-ins" down this global warming track
till the sun and ice stop fighting, and the polar caps freeze back. 
and 'Kyoto-Man' abides by greener pact!"

and the Engish ask “could this be global warming do you think?
cos there’s water water everywhere, nor any drop to drink!”
where art thou, ST Coleridge!? , how we miss you , how we’re lost!
come back now Wordsworth! foliage! – show the room the albatross!!
the shrinking boards, the shrinking forest moss.


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## 2020hindsight (27 July 2007)

> WHAT TO DO ON THE WEEKEND AFTER BLOODY FRIDAY
> 
> the dow is in the hands of Fortune – “Bloody Friday” blues!
> should we sell or buy? (such torture!!}  well - we’ve all weekend to choose
> ...




Further to Walter Dickman's philosophy ( as expounded back there in the "is there a god?" thread https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=156561&highlight=dickman#post156561 )  - that we all have a stack of unrealised talent within us, and only a small percentage gets an airing, whereas the majority goes unwitnessed to the grave....


> ... I remember an endless loop that Walter Dickman proposed - we all have massive “reserves” of latent abilities which generally go to the grave with us unused - his proposal then , Release your Latent Abilities (RLA), Get “Job Well Done” feedback, Release more LA, etc loops etc. Here's his website (you have to disclose an email address to enter, but I believe I can vouch for his integrity  http://www.positivepath.net/walterdickman.asp
> http://www.nationalspeakers.asn.au/NSW_news.html National Speakers of Australia




here is another concept (somewhat similar in my opinion - some may dispute that.....  great concept in my opinion , some may dispute that as well lol) ... 

Orson Welles's opinion of acting - being a process of sculpting out of a larger block of stone i.e. the multitalented block that you represent now - 

to find those talents which empathise with the part you are required to portray "in some play".  Firstly I recommend that you watch the youtube video ...



> THE AWESOME PHILOSOPHY OR ORSON WELLES -  OF SCULPTING ANY NUMBER OF ACTOR's PARTS FROM YOUR MACRO-SELF
> 
> hell we’ve all been sold a pup here , cripes its nothing like its told
> wow this acting isn’t addons! – isn’t new stuff! -  it’s the old!!
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 July 2007)

OK ok – so I’m taking the dog for a walk, and I think to myself – gee doesn’t “Orson Welles” sound like “Awesome wells” so I think – heck I bet that could make another verse etc. and I ask myself “a verse?, or not averse?, that is the question”,   and the rest is history – the sort of history that no-one‘s gonna read lol.  
PS I'm also trying to cheer myself up, just wishing I'd sold instead of bought  



> THE AWESOME PHILOSOPHY OF ORSON WELLES - OF SCULPTING ANY NUMBER OF ACTOR's PARTS FROM YOUR MACRO-SELF
> 
> hell we’ve all been sold a pup here , cripes its nothing like it's told
> wow this acting isn’t addons! – isn’t new stuff! - it’s the old!!
> ...






> .............
> I just love the thought that somewhere there  are talents unexposed
> only rarely do we find them, maybe accessed through our nose ?
> Springs of youth, or droplets challenging? - in "rainshower sneeze"? or cry?
> ...




Here’s a meditation technique I read about once – 
comfortable etc, imagine you are going into somewhere like the Jenolan Caves – there’s a light – you follow – deeper into the cave where noone has ever been etc – still there’s plenty of light around to see with - there’s a slow flowing river – a boat, you push out into the stream - still following the light – etc etc forget how it ends lol  I think you end up where the river emerges as a waterfall into full daylight - at this majestic view from the top of the waterfall   But ever since I watched “Phantom of the Opera” I’ve stopped using that imagery lol.


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## 2020hindsight (29 July 2007)

A DREAM - FROM THE CITY TO SURF TO CAESAR

there’s a race they run in Sydney, where God juggles countless kidney,
starting city, THROUGH that ceiling, ending surf, 
sixty thousand take the mat, some are fit and some are fat,
just a piebald mass of humankind and mirth.

stacked like sardines in a tin, nose to nose and chin to chin,
someone fires a starting pistol in some face,
whoosh – the fast guys up the front jump like foxes in the hunt,
(that’s the last we’ll see of them till next year's race.)

count a hundred times to fifteen, slowly, slowly, feet are lifting,
(by the time you cross the start the race is won),
beep beep - lemme through there ma'm;  beep beep - lady with a pram; 
beep beep - granpa here and clear the decks there son.

through the tunnel, round the bay, soaking up the sunny day,
cos it’s always sunny when you’re having fun,
past the jazzbands for some pep, crunching cups all keeping step,
“up the heartbreak – up the heartrate!” - so it’s spun.

people hobbled getting married, some just hobble, some are carried,
some in monkey suits which suits the general magic,
some in tutus some as Tarzan, some honk Claxons as they’re passin
all are laughing, and who cares if some are "tragic".

to the lighthouse at Vaucluse, light heart cheers of ocean views,
motives worth a mint - or mintie - or a dime,
down to Bondi and the beach, lessons learnt just life can teach,
and who cares about your hamstring or your time.

paraplegics hands a mess, moral medals more or less,
paramedics pack their Vaseline and go,
countless bruises, countless smiles, countless headcounts, kids or piles,
and till next year, countless fires and inner glow.

……………………..
there I lay down on the sand, and some thoughtwaves struck unplanned
they concerned the inner motives of a man
there beside an ocean deep, sounds of waves rocked me to sleep, 
and I had a dream, and this is how it ran ……..
.....................

Today saw sixty thousand people run,
and tomorrow’s headline says that one has won,
but unless that headline writer joined the fun,
he is only partly right when all is done.

for today saw sixty thousand grinners grin,
and today saw sixty thousand winners win,
saw a piebald mass of multiculture flow,
and the ranks of “peace cosmopolites” on show.

gun-runners lose ! - today fun-runners grow!,
the war's not won - at least we struck a blow,
cosmopolites and paraplegics rule!
they may see "hills", they choose "ignore the fool"

and just as paraplegics make it home,
and worn out warriors all retire to Rome,
before the world resembles Towers of Pisa, 
cosmopolites must conquer warlike Caeser. 

- cosmopolites must learn "say no to Caesar"


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## 2020hindsight (30 July 2007)

FROM MOSQUITOS TO WAR

I wonder why God made mosquitos?
or fashioned a tonsil to snore?
I wonder why men turn bandito?
or others initiate war?

Do we march on that misfit mosquito?
Do we free up those tonsils that snore?
Do we check out those misfit banditos?
......
Do we jail men who start bludy war?


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## 2020hindsight (30 July 2007)

NOW IT's MY SON's TURN

As a young man I walked along this road
with a young man’s step and a lightweight load
and the freedom to sleep in some crude abode
then I found where the ocean boats were lowered
.....where the “free” people seemed to frequent

I didn’t know then that the world was so wide
I didn’t know then that the outgoing tide
could transport a man on a magical ride
such a self indulged yet a magical ride - 
.....but I shouldered my rucksack, and went.

As I waved my hand in brief goodbye 
I kinda suspected a man could fly
and I kinda suspected I'd give it a try - 
But ,  And as for life ? I still don’t know why !?
..... praps to die would be ‘paying the rent’?.

And nought did I know, or a zac of zen
or of ying or yang or of offshore men
nor how, nor whence, nor wishbone hence 
and nought did I know past the backyard fence
.....and which way the wind hedge leant.

Now I’ve seen a hint what the world can reveal 
to a man who's possessed with the power to feel
the pulse of a people where pain is real
yet smile through the sweat of their treadmill’s squeal
.....yet their kindness is heaven sent

and I didn’t know then what I want in a bride
not a crush, not a blush, but a bond to abide
and a pact to remain at each other’s side
and I didn’t know whether of hunt or hide
.....but I learnt what love "sorta" meant 

..............................
The same man now as I was then
My son walks these roads as the youngest of men
having watched tides swirl and return to the fen –
across the same flats like page under pen
.....(and so this whole page begins again )
.....and to dream to his heart’s content.


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## 2020hindsight (30 July 2007)

This is one of my old poems- in a book that I thought I'd lost ..  I wrote it in one sitting one night after dodging a typhoon for a couple of days across the South China Sea more or less - needless to say I was on a high at the time   Needless to say I was also single at the time lol.

A SONG OF SALT WATER

Part I
Out past the headland where breakers are tamed, out to a wild blue sea,
Out there where God can be sworn at and blamed, THAT’s where I long to be,
Out where the wind and the waves cast their spell, and sing with a single voice,
And way out of earshot of song of the shell, where you yell and give thanks and rejoice.

Out where the wind fills the sails with glee, and sweeps o’er the wings of the gull,
Out with the law of the will to be free, and the bow of a heaving hull,
And the tugging of teather as she climbs to the weather, and the lunge as she lurches to lee,
And the patches of sky as one gunnel rides high, while the other is ploughing the sea.

Out where the dome of a wide open sky can faraway fortunes foretell,
Where a cloud can be “relay” from God on high, or a sunset a message from Hell,
Out where the mind is reflected in kind by the will of a wanton sea,
Out where the soul finds its ultimate goal in the joy of the verb-to-be. 

Part II
But the magic that crowns is the magic that drowns, and the sun that elates cuts your lips,
And a sudden incline of a mad boiling brine has buried the bravest of ships,
And many’s the tale told to slapping of sail of sweat and of hardship and perils,
And many’s the lore of the loved one ashore, and her fears as the wild thunder heralds.

But the salt of the ocean is like a love potion and every old salt is addicted,
And he’s loved her the more, that sweaty old wh ore, with each of the blows she’s inflicted,
And her salt that’s encrusted in rigging so rusted attracts like the perfumes of Venus,
And she hugs to her breast each heart that takes rest when her lovers rejoin their Redeemers.

Part III
At night while the stars waltz the heaven’s afar, each rigidly locked in its place,
Where the great archer’s bow never changes its aim, nor the lion the snarl on his face,
Miss Virgo looks down with her so scornful frown on the lusty wh-ore splashing free,
She’s not heard of the moon and her feminine tune, and fertle she never will be.

But ahhhh the sea!!!  the mighty sea!!! the ever pregnant sea!!!
Who makes love with each tide like a newly wed bride and she captures the hearts of the free.
........
And the mariner’s sigh to a woman’s goodbye “Till salt water will cure all our ills..
Like the sweat from our thighs, and the tears from our eyes, and – for me – the salt air in my gills “


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## 2020hindsight (31 July 2007)

Just to put things into perspective, here's my current predicament .... 

THE AMATEUR ON THE SHOPPING ASSIGNMENT

sent upon a mission here … “shopping trip with list”
told to get some fish - (and beer), (as long as I don’t get pist)
aisle eleven, where the hell, - drive you round the bend
why not stay at bludy home, and save instead of spend.

fish in parsley? herb or garlic?, dozen or a score?
munchies, crunchies, brunchies, lunchies? – cooked or bludy raw?
kilo chicken – breast or thighs?;  asian sauce palatial?
curry, indian or thai? - doubles as a facial?

stockings – “sexy shear delight”? or “wicked wild and durable”?
“six foot legs” or “sexy feet”, or “bunion paste uncurable”?
size 10 hats (and this and that’s), “bras” or “front door knockers”
brikerbrak and nickers black, and toilet rolls for rockers?

they say they cheat with every word you read on these here labels,
my poker mates have even heard they cheat at poker tables,
the blighters mainly make it up, they say it’s almost stealing 
you’d watch em big time in a game, - especially if they’re dealing.


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## 2020hindsight (31 July 2007)

I found a great quote on the internet, which I include as a jpeg - that you place your hand in the ocean and you are linked around the world to all oceans. 

So I figured that Shakepeare should have included that in Romeo and Juliet for instance - maybe Juliet goes hiome to Naples, and Romeo stays in Sydney.    

The following is an exchange of emails - btw Juliet is marginally more romantic that Romeo.  

email sent 1.00 am from Juliet to Romeo


> "If you want to know how much I love you ,
> though we're half a world apart,
> how I envy the winds above you
> and how fierce the flames in my heart
> ...




If you think that's romantic - wait till you hear Romeo - sheesh.
Reply follows next post


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## 2020hindsight (31 July 2007)

email, Romeo to Juliet , 2.00am


> Ahh it's bound to be global warming
> or a whale did a piss or a fart,
> but I've sent off a carrier pigeon
> to bring you a raspberry tart
> ...




PS Others in this sequence  :- https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=88177&highlight=capulet#post88177


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## 2020hindsight (3 August 2007)

HOW SPECIAL WAS JESUS (Are you more than just abject conjecture)

that he lived for a fact is for certain
that he died is for certain a fact
had more gags than a young Richard Burton
and his gigs on the mountain were packed
and as usual Israel was hurtin’
and as usual Caesar lacked tact
but two questions!? at first and last curtain
was he bankrolled and big daddy backed.?

we know he could handle his chisels
we know he could make dovetail joints
could he rustle up loaves when he whistled?
did those tales of the dove make his point?
hey Jesus this bar-bq sizzles!
and there’s water-to-wine to anoint
we are left sitting cross eyed and quizzled 
did big daddy this son-god appoint?

how special was Jesus ( its scary)
no daddy on earth - wow, how rare
we know he was reared by young Mary
cripes - birth without sex - how unfair!
I’m sorry I’m just a bit wary
cos bonks unremembered abound
his DNA could be quite lairy
but DNA tests weren’t around

oh God it’s a heavyweight lecture
you ask us in good faith to swallow
that you’re more than just abject conjecture
and we all should drop nets and just follow?
since I can’t detain or detect you
I need to see facts that aren’t hollow
until then my soul has “rainchecked” you
as unlikely as sungod Apollo.

if you wander through biblical text 
there are lessons within and without
what applies in this world or the next
and what’s with or without any doubt
how today to treat man on the street
or to pray for ourselves after death
how to hear while our heart has a beat
how to fear with our own final breath

He taught to forget and forgive
and not be the first to cast stones
I reckon it’s true as I live
that Jesus and Gandhi were clones
- if reincarnated reliving
he flew down to earth on his throne
he’d say that the rest was misgiving
and he’d settle a heap of unknowns

a child that with water is branded
must follow MEN’s ideas of “church”
next country new laws are demanded
this child there is left in the lurch
hence rather than see a child stranded
and wing-clipped on some man-made perch
I’d encourage that young soul just landed
to fly all the skies of the earth

-  and find mother nature, such beauty awaits ys
and don’t take the bait if some mad bishop baits ya
include ALL the skies in your search

and oaks more or less that so rigidly guess
are kinda inclined to look strange you’ll confess
.. just watch robin’s making their beautiful nest
in the flexing branch of the birch.

and oaks you'll confess that so rigidly guess
are leading the world to some mad A-bomb mess
who will shoot at another they think of as less
..... just flex with the beautful birch 

…………..
to make your soul bigger, let go of that trigger
and find in your Bible a concept that’s mega  !!....

try washing the feet of some poor homeless beggar !!! 
....choose biblical gems to research
(and beggar the self-centred rest.)


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## 2020hindsight (4 August 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> (and beggar the self-centred rest.)



and go with the tide that is ...........................................................right!  justified!
you’re left............................... with an attitude ...........    broad as it’s .............	wide
........................................and beggar the self centred rest.....................................


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## 2020hindsight (5 August 2007)

> Time is not a line, but a series of now points.
> -	Taisen Deshimaru




THE NOW POINTS OF TIME 

I like to ask questions like “why”
of a turtle or towering pine
like a telescope trained in the sky
looking out for some heavenly sign
if “time”’s just some “now points” – wide spaced - and
it never is, was, will be “line”
I would like hourglass grains interlaced 
with a million milestones of mine.

I like to ask questions like "how"
pausing (microsope mode) at a leaf 
and I savour the “gee” and the “wow”
or humour some futile belief
I frequently listen and touch 
and with all these new “now points” enlisted
I hope they’re much closer as such
than they’d be if I simply "existed".

Shall I pause at some bush cathedral
lined with gums by some architect rare?
of some pyramid rock penta-hedral
for Egyptian monks to compare?
do I savour each moment each second
so the ‘now points’ can merge much increased?
so my time line on earth when it’s reckoned 
will emerge as some dashes at least?

remember each second, of life force that's beckoned
fullfilling my last if not least milestone reckoned
on my highway  - due west to high priest.


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## springhill (5 August 2007)

Too much intellect in this thread for me! How about some novel completions of this old limerick favourite? 

There once was a man from Nantuckit,
.....


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## springhill (5 August 2007)

There once was a man from Nantuckit,
Who bought KFC by the bucket,
His stomach grew big,
Like a lazy, fat pig,
But he didnt care, he said f**k it!

Dont blame me, blame :alcohol:


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## 2020hindsight (5 August 2007)

there once was man from Nantucket
who believed if the "law of the bucket"
if the **** hits the fan
the very best plan
is to hide under buckets - or duck it 

yep - lol - theres a few words rhyme with 'tuck' m8


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## 2020hindsight (5 August 2007)

there once was a man from Nantucket
who kept a pet hen in a bucket
and locked it at home 
- cos the damned thing would roam
and the rooster next door used to peck it


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## 2020hindsight (6 August 2007)

This is called blatant plagiarism  - best if you sing along with Sting here. 

starts off somewhat romantic, ends up a bit pessimistic , Global Warming etc  ( sorry ) - in any case, the sun's gonna burn out one day 

To those of you (other) hopeless idiots who might have likened the annual orbit or earth around sun - together with the moon spinning the earth 13 times in the process , and always facing the earth -  to a waltz on a gigantic dancefloor, (incidentally 1000 light seconds across ,  radius 8 light minutes if you prefer - light from the sun is 8 minutes old , a sunrise actually "happened" 8 minutes before you see it,  etc) ....

here are the original Sting lyrics, and also the "alternative lyrics".
capitals indicate emphasis - seriously amateur as usual - but maybe you'll enjoy the music at least ..



chansw said:


> "Until" - Sting
> (THE WORLD'S OLDEST LESSON IN HISTORY?)
> 
> if I caught the World in a bottle
> ...





2020hindsight said:


> gotta feeling this is a fast waltz
> great song posted by chainsw back there
> Sting - Until
> https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=93780&highlight=sting#post93780






> THE WORLD'S NEWEST LESSON IN HISTORY
> 
> if I caught the World in a bottle
> and Introduced a Dancing partner, moon
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 August 2007)

MORE LIKELY FIND PEACE THAN WAR

there's no problem people enquiring, 
into what is behind God's door,
there's no problem people aspiring,
to nobler deeds than before,
there's no problem people admiring,
the WHOLE world - and tolerate more,
more likely find troubles less tiring,
more likely find friend and not flaw.
.........
more likely find peace and not war.


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 August 2007)

The Voyeur


> Reading a poem from the book Stanyan Street and Other Sorrows by Rob McKuen



This kid found this book in a thrift store - "Boy Meets Book"   
shows you how a poem can get to someone I guess


----------



## noirua (12 August 2007)

The speakers on my computer are not working,
tried the headphones, the sponge found crumbling 
and nay sound cometh from them either and curse 
have found no way to get them going, all very sad.

Have tried all advice, BIOS and everything suggested
and no sound cometh from them at all, oh what to do
and then another suggestion and every effort be made
and again no sound, cannot hear 2020's posts, despair.

"My blasted speakers won't work", by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 August 2007)

noi - you talk about despair !? - lol .  I try to enrol in city2surf last Tuesday - only to be told that they are limiting this year ( forst time) to 64,000 - and enrolments closed the day before.  rats. 

Speaking of despair, and further to that song "Anthem" - the longing for homeland by an emigrant - here's a poem I found on the wall of a certain restaurant in Adelaide (I'm sure many will recognise it 
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=188944&highlight=korberg#post188944
when you get your headphones going - check out Tommy Korberg m8 - the song, the words, the presentation are just fantastic!. 
Here's another version:- (good, and puts it in contaxt - but Tommy is GREAT!  ) 
 Josh Groban-Anthem


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 August 2007)

Back to the "Voyeur" post for a sec , extract from "Book Meets Girl" poem (posted way back) - he picked up that book in thrift store. 



> It went on sale exceeding fast, the cheapest there, ten cents
> a little boy was walking past, and spied it through the fence
> and book and boy were both aghast, their first sight love intense,
> and ten cents later, die was cast on all that's happened hence"


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 August 2007)

back to south aus emigrants 
 Jolly Rogers, South Australia
 Jolly Rogers, Curvy Girls

http://www.chivalry.com/jollyrogers/
chivalry  . com ?  lol
funny bugas anyway
anyway, an american "band" has picked up on "Bound for Sth Aus", a genuine sea shanty


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 August 2007)

Jolly Rogers, Haul Away to Botany Bay

  Strong similarities to "Bound for South Aus" - the original ?


> Heave her up and haul away
> Underway for Botany Bay
> We're bound for Australia etc    ??



Plenty more humourous songs/ sea shanties there
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=jolly+rogers

e.g.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enWUGEnz48E&NR=1 Jolly Rogers, A Port in Every Girl
 etc


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 August 2007)

Further to Emigrant's longing ....  http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/w...amLindsay/verse/Miscellaneous/tomysister.html

Incidentally, I have a letter written by my great-great-grandfather to my great-grandfather... wishing him well as he sets off to Australia mid 1800's
In it he says (paraphrased) 


> "If I had a hundred sons I would send them all to the southern hemisphere - either Van Dieman's Land, or Natal.  England is sinking - not by the efforts of a foreign power (having got out of the clutches of France / Napolean etc in recent memory at that time) - but by our own efforts... " etcetc




The following verse follows from the fact that he (back to Adam Lindsay GOrdon ) proposed to a girl as he was almost about to board the boat - adding that he would rip up his ticket  - she turned away  , albeit with tears in her eyes)


> Her cheek grew pale, in her dark eye      I saw the tear-drop shine;
> Her red lips faltered in reply,      And then were pressed to mine.
> A quick pulsation of the heart!      A flutter of the breath!
> A smothered sob—and thus we part,      To meet no more till death.






> TO MY SISTER
> Adam Lindsay Gordon
> 
> ACROSS the trackless seas I go,     No matter when or where,
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 August 2007)

Speaking of which .. how's this for a beautiful poem, for a man in reflective mood .. (btw he ended up in Sth Aus initially at least ) - he seemed to spend a lot of time looking at the sea  - hence maybe the "life is mostly froth and bubble " quote
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/w.../verse/SeaSpraySmokeDrift/quarefatigasti.html



> QUARE FATIGASTI
> Adam Lindsay Gordon
> 
> Two years ago I was thinking
> ...




more on that girl he left behind ...


> Gordon had fallen in love with a girl of 17, Jane Bridges, who was able to tell the story 60 years afterwards to his biographers. He did not declare his love until he came to say good-bye to her before leaving for Australia on 7 August 1853. "With characteristic recklessness he offered to sacrifice the passage he had taken to Australia, and all his father's plans for giving him a fresh start in life, if she would tell him not to go, or promise to be his wife, or even give him some hope." This Miss Bridges could not do, though she liked the shy handsome boy and remembered him with affection to the end of a long life. It was the one romance of Gordon's life. That Gordon realized his conduct had fallen much below what it might have been can be seen in his poems .


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 August 2007)

and how's this for a load of bs    ahh - who cares , no-one's gonna read it anyways 

Road to Mandalay brought up to date with the space age.....
 Leonard Warren sings "On The Road To Mandalay"



> ship me somewhere east of aries
> where the starcount starts at first
> and there’s 123 quadrillion
> and the same if the count’s reversed
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 August 2007)

Further to previous post about Lord Byron, and his poem to his "Inscription on the Monument of a Newfoundland Dog" 
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=98641&highlight=newfoundland#post98641

http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/3411/  adds the following footnotes .... including the butler's opinion of being buried forever with the dog 


> ........
> Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,
> Pass on--it honours none you wish to mourn:
> To mark a Friend's remains these stones arise;
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 August 2007)

And (sticking with prose and/or texts from novels) then a few excerpts from Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights  - and Heathcliff's wish to be buried beside Catherine, (Mrs Linton), -  even loosening the side of her coffin so that he could spend eternity with her - whilst her husband (Linton) was in the coffin on the other side lol. 
http://www.readbookonline.net/title/8/   Wuthering Heights :-   
http://www.readbookonline.net/read/8/1315/ 



> Chapter XV ....  Heathcliff had knelt on one knee to embrace her; he attempted to  rise, but she seized his hair, and kept him down.
> 
> 'I wish I could hold you,' she continued, bitterly, 'till we were both dead! I shouldn't care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? Will you say twenty years hence, "That's the grave of Catherine Earnshaw? I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I've loved many others since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and, at death, I shall not rejoice that I are going to her: I shall be sorry that I must leave them!" Will you say so, Heathcliff?'
> 
> ...





> Chapter XVI The place of Catherine's interment, to the surprise of the villagers, was neither in the chapel under the carved monument of the Lintons, nor yet by the tombs of her own relations, outside. It was dug on a green slope in a corner of the kirk-yard, where the wall is so low that heath and bilberry-plants have climbed over it from the moor; and peat-mould almost buries it. Her husband lies in the same spot now; and they have each a simple headstone above, and a plain grey block at their feet, to mark the graves.





> Chapter XXIX ... and then,
> for the first time, allowed himself a glance round the room and a look at the pictures. Having studied Mrs. Linton's, he said - 'I
> shall have that home. Not because I need it, but - ' He turned abruptly to the fire, and continued, with what, for lack of a
> better word, I must call a smile -
> ...




 Wuthering Heights Trailer - Juliette Binoche 1992

Monty Python- Semaphore version of Wuthering Heights

Makes Hamlet's "Alas Poor Yorrick" speech seem like a walk in the park lol.  
 Hamlet - (Yorick Speech)


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 August 2007)

> "The Last Ride Together." The rapture of a rejected lover in the one more last ride which he asks for and obtains, discovers for him the all-sufficing glory of love in itself.  Soldiership, statesmanship, art are disproportionate in their  results; love can be its own reward, yes, heaven itself.



HE LAST RIDE TOGETHER
Robert Browning

I said--Then, dearest, since 'tis so,
Since now at length my fate I know,
Since nothing all my love avails,
Since all, my life seemed meant for, fails,
Since this was written and needs must be--
My whole heart rises up to bless
Your name in pride and thankfulness!
Take back the hope you gave--I claim
Only a memory of the same,
--And this beside, if you will not blame, 
Your leave for one more last ride with me.

.....
Then we began to ride. My soul
Smoothed itself out, a long-cramped scroll
Freshening and fluttering in the wind.
Past hopes already lay behind.
What need to strive with a life awry?
Had I said that, had I done this,
So might I gain, so might I miss.
Might she have loved me? just as well
She might have hated, who can tell!
Where had I been now if the worst befell?
And here we are riding, she and I.

Fail I alone, in words and deeds?
Why, all men strive and who succeeds?
We rode; it seemed my spirit flew,
Saw other regions, cities new
As the world rushed by on either side.
I thought,--All labour, yet no less 
Bear up beneath their unsuccess
Look at the end of work, contrast
The petty done, the undone vast,
This present of theirs with the hopeful past!
I hoped she would love me; here we ride.

.....
And you, great sculptor--so, you gave
A score of years to Art, her slave, 
And that's your Venus, whence we turn
To yonder girl that fords the burn!
You acquiesce, and shall I repine?
What, man of music, you grown grey
With notes and nothing else to say,
Is this your sole praise from a friend,
"Greatly his opera's strains intend,
Put in music we know how fashions end!"
I gave my youth; but we ride, in fine.
............
And yet--she has not spoke so long!
What if heaven be that, fair and strong
At life's best, with our eyes upturned
Whither life's flower is first discerned,
*We, fixed so, ever should so abide?
What if we still ride on, we two
With life for ever old yet new,
Changed not in kind but in degree,
The instant made eternity--
And heaven just prove that I and she
Ride, ride together, forever ride?*

There's old Heathcliff again lol


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 August 2007)

This one's a bit personal, but I share it nonetheless.  
My mum was widowed with three kids, she not even middle-aged, me 6, and a red setter (which we had to give away because we couldn't afford it - gotta feelin it used to terrify the neighbour's chooks as well lol)  She became a florist - made 7 pounds a week  -  but true, it was worth a lot more then.

MY MUM

I stare at this sand as it sifts through my hand, and I pen a few thoughts on my Mum,  - as if 
Sandgrains and time and a few words of rhyme, could capture but part of the sum,
From a hard working start to a heroine’s heart, from a laugh to a lullaby’s hum,
From my chromosome chart to my own kick start that I spent tangled up in her tum.

Plenty of words I could pen for my mum, like "trim" and like "taut and terrific",
"Taught" me most everything this puppy knows, both mother- and father- specific,
Helped "trim" my sails when I went off the rails, (at times it got pretty horrific), and
Finest of fallbacks when all else fails - a work ethic truly prolific.

Spent half her life giving roses away, truly my mum is so kind,
Putting her heart in some debutante's spray, lovingly sealed and then signed,
All this at three on a cold winter's morn, with ten minute's sleep half inclined, 
And finger's inflamed with the thorns she'd de-thorned, that others would not have to find.

How far was this from a bush-bred youth, or watching her buck-jumping Dad,
Jokes on the Jackaroo, prickles in saddle bags, laughs as his horse went half mad,
How far were rose-thorns from those days of "happy", and how far were those days from "sad",
But courage was something you learnt wearing nappies, and bushies don't know the word "fad".

Out there you had to resort to your wit, laughter was made and not found, 
No easy laughs when you'd much rather quit, and all that you own is parched ground,
But true grit is founded on days such as these, the starter rope just gets "rewound"
And self-starting courage, it sorta comes easy, when options are "crazed" or "unsound".

How many years did you have to fight back, how many years on your own,
How many years of happy were owed, and how many more on loan,
How far was this from a barefooted youth, and laughs at the buck-jumper's moan,
Or later a husband, and kids, and a house, and a red-setting dog,and a bone.
For you, Mum, a generous Heaven to thank - and I love when you smile on the phone.


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 August 2007)

Kate Bush -Wuthering Heights
 This is the first part of the 1939 version of the movie "Wuthering Heights", directed by William Wyler. Starring Merle Oberon as Catherine Earnshaw and Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff.
classic stuff 


> WUTHERING HEIGHTS,  Kate Bush
> 
> Out on the wiley, windy moors
> We'd roll and fall in green.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 August 2007)

Further to previous 



> BEING BURIED BESIDE YOUR BELOVED NEAR WUTHERING HEIGHTS (20 years later)
> 
> the Yorkshire Moors can breed the strangest tales
> they mother flights of fancy beyond prose
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 August 2007)

Here's a poem sent to me from a religious friend 


> On Every single evening
> As I'm lying here in bed,
> This tiny little Prayer
> just Keeps running through my head:
> ...


----------



## drillinto (23 August 2007)

A poet marvels at how another culture lives.
******************

Her Head

Joan Murray


Near Ekuvukeni,
in Natal, South Africa,
a woman carries water on her head.
After a year of drought,
when one child in three is at risk of death,
she returns from a distant well,
carrying water on her head.

The pumpkins are gone,
the tomatoes withered,
yet the woman carries water on her head.
The cattle kraals are empty,
the goats gaunt-
no milk now for children,
but she is carrying water on her head.

The engineers have reversed the river:
those with power can keep their power,
but one woman is carrying water on her head.
In the homelands, where the dusty crowds
watch the empty roads for water trucks,
one woman trusts herself with treasure,
and carries water on her head.

The sun does not dissuade her,
not the dried earth that blows against her,
as she carries the water on her head.
In a huge and dirty pail,
with an idle handle,
resting on a narrow can,
this woman is carrying water on her head.

This woman, who girds her neck
with safety pins, this one
who carries water on her head,
trusts her own head to bring to her people
what they need now
between life and death:
She is carrying them water on her head.



From "Looking for the Parade", 1999
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 August 2007)

Even more further to previous...  (and further from sanity lol)

Here's a multiple choice ending to that poem (concerning the relative age of Heathcliff and Catherine at the time of his being buried beside her, and since then) :-



> he died much later , full score years her older
> their coffins buried, sides removed, unlatched
> he joined her (as he planned) so keen (if colder)
> .............



a) but could you say that she'd been "cradle-snatched"?? 
b) or praps not pretty - praps just pretty matched?
c) or praps she'd aged by forty since despatched?
d) or praps the whole idea is Heathcliffe-hatched?
e) at least  they lie at peace , their quarrels patched?
f) and praps still smiling,  buried, bury-batched


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 August 2007)

great poem there Drill - what a beauty - and so damn true it's not funny .
But will we ever let them get a bit of dignity / security / freedom from the worry of starvation?  some piped water supplies maybe?  no way !  we'd prefer to stay "number one"  
Maybe you've seen that documentary on that American kid who organised a charity to get them a drillrig to drill for water in just one village (forget which African country) - he delivered the drillrig personally - arriving amongst them, lined along the dusty road leading to the village, to be met like a hero - all 4 foot of him


----------



## Nicks (23 August 2007)

snap back to reality
oh there goes gravity
last week my shares fell
and it felt like hell
this week shares are top
again next week theyre not
youve only got one shot
do not miss your chance to blow
coz opportunity comes once in a lifetime yo


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 August 2007)

Nicks said:


> last week my shares fell
> ..again next week theyre not



lol - good one nicks.

Last week the world went mad, and the market went big dipper
for those who sold I'm sad, for the buyers bludy ripper
I made a buck or three, but I didn't make a bucket - 
I've got my health - and free 
for the rest I say - ahh what the heck .


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 August 2007)

Dawkins on science


> the biologist loius walport :- "science as opposed to technology does violence to common sense"
> every time you drink a glass of water , the odds are that you will imbibe at least one molecule that passed through the bladder of Oliver Cromwell - it's just elementary probability theory - the number of molecules per glassful is greater than the number of glassfuls (or bladders-ful) in the world
> 
> likewise you have just breathed in a nitrogen atom that passed into the right lung of the third iguanodon to the left of the tall cycad tree... etc




I found this a great concept , hence this poem intended as a toast - next time I have a beer  lol - like ten minutes ago ....



> TOAST TO THE TASTE OF HISTORY
> 
> whether Glass of beer or champagne, there are molecules galore
> some from Each and every campaign, from the torrid days of yore
> ...


----------



## Nicks (24 August 2007)

think eminem tune before you read......


.....


snap back to reality
the Ords dropped like gravity
all my shares fell
and it felt like hell
this week shares are top
again next week theyre not
youve only got one shot
do not miss your chance to blow
when the shares hit a low
so save some stash
and make some cash
coz opportunity like this comes once in a lifetime yo


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 August 2007)

One of the papers today had the headline "SICK JOKE " - about the Sydney busdriver's strike.
could it be that this filters down from the top ? 



> WHAT IF EVERYONE DID THAT
> 
> when you're classifying actions, as to how to sort them out
> how to cull the noble factions, from the robber, pimp, or tout...
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 August 2007)

(One) Council saying "only 150 calls by volunteer SES" lol
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/25/2014945.htm


> THE MIGHTY S.E.S.
> 
> If I'm asked "do I love Aus"
> I would yell emphatic "yes"
> ...




PS I have a theory that Katrina / New Orleans would never have been allowed to happen in Aus  - If "officialdom"  didn't act, then the SES , etc, (weekend warriors) , would have gone in - boots and all - and sorted out the bureaucrats lol !

Meanwhile bad foods in USA as well 
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/08/24/2013695.htm


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 August 2007)

Many have probably heard of the poem HOW I BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX, (Browning - who incidentally had a big influence on Adam Lindsay Gordon - see excerpt from his  "From the Wreck"   https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=82825&highlight=saddling#post82825) 
.... and indeed many have probably also heard this parady HOW I BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM AIX TO GHENT (OR VICE VERSA)

Because I am trying to highlight the latter I will post it foremost  - (if that makes sense) -  I personally find it bludy hilarious. 

Some research I found posted elsewhere :-  http://www.emule.com/2poetry/phorum/read.php?4,12161,12319


> The comparison "the one  describing the saving of Aix from a great catastrophe (which incidentally noone seems to know lol) , whereas the parady is full of ridiculous and farcical happenings"
> 
> ... come across a reference which says Browning wrote this at sea while wishing he was at home riding a horse he'd bought. At the time he was also reading Harrison Ainsworth's novel 'Rookwood' which has a poem in it similar in style and meter, and which also talks about Dick Turpin's ride (I think that was from London to York or vice versa, undertaken in record time to establish an alibi for one of his highwayman adventures). It's not clear whether the poem in Ainsworth's book is about Dick Turpin or not. The reference also said the Aix to Ghent ride was fictional.
> 
> ...





> "Hugh's version / theory" :- Looking at my huge National Geographic map of the area, it seems a strange way to get from G(h)ent to Aix (Aachen). He goes east to Lokeren and Boom, then farther east to Dueffeld, and has to backtrack in a southwesterly direction to Mercheln. No reason to go through Dueffeld that I can see, unless he was bypassing an obstacle that I cannot see on the map - straight shot southeast from Boom to Mercheln. Then east to Aerschot and Hasselt, drops south to Looz and Tongres, and east again to Aix, apparently bypassing the more direct route of Hasselt, Maastricht, Aix.
> 
> So, there were either roads that only went that way, or he was avoiding something by taking that route.
> 
> ...






> HOW I BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM AIX TO GHENT (OR VICE VERSA) = Parady
> RJ Yeatman & W C Sellar
> 
> I sprang to the rollocks and Jorrocks and me
> ...





http://www.bartleby.com/246/644.html



> “How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix”
> Robert Browning (1812–89)
> 
> *I SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris, and he;
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 August 2007)

Then there's Adam Lindsay's poem , already mentioned


> http://www.middlemiss.org/lit/author...mthewreck.html
> From the Wreck by A L Gordon
> 
> Excepts:-
> ...



not to mention "There was movement at the station for the word had passed around etc. " 
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/w...Banjo/verse/manfromsnowyriver/snowyriver.html 
No suggestion that these have copyright problems - just that they obviously imitate Browning.  

(but all of which are ripe for parodying , you'd think , lol)



> http://www.publaw.com/parody.html
> Parody: Fair Use or Copyright Infringement
> © Copyright 1999 Lloyd L. Rich
> 
> ...





> ........... etc
> 
> Conclusion
> 
> The importance of the Acuff-Rose case, even though segments of the case were remanded for further findings was that the Supreme Court reached the unequivocal conclusion that a parody falls within the scope of the fair-use defense. A future article will discuss two of the more recent cases involving parody and the fair-use defense, Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. v. Penguin Books U.S.A., Inc. (commonly referred to as The Cat In The Hat case) and Leibovitz v. Paramount Pictures Corp. (*commonly referred to as the Naked Gun case*) and will draw conclusions and provide guidelines relating to parodies and the fair-use defense that may be of assistance to both author and publisher.



You can imagine Naked Gun causing problems lol.


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 August 2007)

NAMECHANGES , MARRIAGES, AND POLITICS

why do Governments all change the names of departments ?
preTending they're "better read"?
and Heaps of old letters thrown over escarpments?
beCause of the wrong letter head?
a Rose , mister minister,  still smells the same
if a "Rose" is renamed "public miracles"
could it Possibly be that the new-given name
means Nothing – just more right / left lyrical ? 

and if Privatised wow !!  - you've got someone to blame?
or is That being cynic - satirical?

if This catches on girls will marry again
and Mainly with name-change intent
you Go in as “Mrs Smith” , out “Lois Lane”
is That a new start (or just bent? )
praps Couples should try it !! in Vegas or Spain ?
and Let all frustration just vent ?
just Change BOTH your names, him to "Superman Lane"
and she can be “Supergirl Kent?" ?


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 August 2007)

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=195723&highlight=red#post195723

TO THE CHILD BORN DURING A BLUSH-RED LUNAR ELIPSE

between the sunset and the dawn , 
the nightly prophets meet
and when young Billy here was born, 
the moon put on a treat !! - 

the nannies bowed and talcum-ed him 
and toasted him with yeast !!
a blushing moon has welcomed him !?
he must be God at least !!


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 August 2007)

> For imagine my shame when asked what I meant
> And I had to confess that I'd been, gone and went
> And forgotten the news I was bringing to Ghent,
> .........
> ...



.. telegrams, anagrams and all , lol. - (well I enjoyed it anyways)


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 August 2007)

Clamp the Mighty Limpet
Pam Ayres 



> I am Clamp the Mighty Limpet
> I am solid, I am stuck
> I am welded to the rockface
> with my superhuman suck
> ...



lol - Ruler of the Waves indeed


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 August 2007)

THAT BROTHERHOOD (and SISTERHOOD) MAY PREVAIL, IRRESPECTIVE OF DISADVANTAGE

he who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,
he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere,
there's less liberty and equality, in the slope of the roads we walk,
but at least there can be fraternity, (maybe hope) in the way we talk.

do me make a point when we meet on the street to vocally fraternize?
or as most of us do, just look at our shoe, or simply avert our eyes?
when a young boy is backward, and standing at bat, do we lolly-pop-bat-rinize?
in the end my friend, HE’s the one who must judge 
did we play ? – 
or just patronise?


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 August 2007)

as I was driving to work , I heard them ask "and should we in hindsight have vaccinated our horses - as they do in Europe?"

answer " maybe, the minister is looking into that right now" 

So I scribble this down at the red lights I hit over the next few km 



> EQUINE FLUE AND RECLINING BUREAUCRATS
> 
> So the minister thinks of injections
> so the horse flue can somehow be halted
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 August 2007)

> DANCING PARTNER OF THE NIGHT SKY
> 
> Dancing partner of the night sky, as we cartwheel through the dark
> with a red face on your bright side, rising ruby from the park
> ...




PS Personally , I'm getting some pink champagne in tomorrow to share with the missus - and the moon  - should be an evening to remember.  (sorry - think I've been reading too much Pam Ayres)


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## natashia (28 August 2007)

Hey thats a nice poem....Thanks for that.. Listening to a song by Frank Sinatra out of curiousity (Sweet Tough Guys) that was posted on here 
( music you tube I think the thread is called LOL)and coinciding the two (purely by accident) variables ie- poetry and song was complimenting and peaceful


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## 2020hindsight (28 August 2007)

natashia said:


> Hey thats a nice poem....Thanks for that.. Listening to a song by Frank Sinatra out of curiousity (Sweet Tough Guys) that was posted on here
> ( music you tube I think the thread is called LOL)and coinciding the two (purely by accident) variables ie- poetry and song was complimenting and peaceful




hey natasha,
anyone who doesn't believe in lunar eclipses will find out tomorrow !!
either the moon or the scientists will have red faces


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## natashia (28 August 2007)

LOL ....They have to learn by now the moon is always right (well at least it smiles )


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 August 2007)

THE PROBLEM FOR MEN BEFORE GALILEO AND COMPUTERS AND STUFF

how do you know when the moon will be full?
by the tidal range?  or the mood of the bull?
praps you go by day to a golden beach 
and you see how far the seaweed can reach?

or you watch out at night for a golden sky?  
watch the late returning gulls fly by?
it gets full like clockwork - like uncle ned !
(but there's no-where to blog when the moon will be red) 
cripes !! - how do you guess when the moon will be red !!?  

the "Town Flyer"'s read each morning at dawn
the town crier's red when he has to read pr0n ! - 
but who ever heard of red moons in the sky !?
cept -  a man on the booze?  with a bloodshot eye?

I'm planning to work out the ways of God
I'm Galileo, and I am good!!
with an ironed page, and my iron will, 
...........
but I'm guessing t'will take me at least one quill.


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## BIG BWACULL (28 August 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> hey natasha,
> anyone who doesn't believe in lunar eclipses will find out tomorrow !!
> either the moon or the scientists will have red faces




Hey 20 
i totally forgot about the lunar, 
it seems to have eclipsed my mind
But now you gave my mind a jolt
And for this i give  payment in kind

Tonight the night the moon he sleeps
and then again awakens
all of this done in a wink of an eye 
or you could say miliseconds (not quite but ya know)

So dont forget tonight 
to look to the Heavens
Not sure of the time 
Probly round  Half seven 

Not Quite Haileys comet
Or Fireworks I might add
But all the same it is an event
That you can say that you've Had

By B.B


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## 2020hindsight (28 August 2007)

gday BB and wys, 
gday one toks lol

I include wys, since you first alerted us to the elipse way back 
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=189937&highlight=eclipse#post189937

Thanks for  your thread on tomatoes lunar
I thought it was later , but turns out it's sooner
you posted that when? cripes a full month ago
quick ! stock up the fridge! and get set for the show!

I'm thinkin I might get red-faced with the moon
and drink to red lights - join the dog in a tune
and toast the tomato with fridge full in tow
might throw out the vegies, give champagne a go.

might get me a shanghai, some catapult large
an upended kangaroo?, on the garage?
and catapult tomatoes, to orbit on high
you just watch tonight !! - I'll get a bulls eye!!
.....
(by the end of the week several moons in the sky?)

(what a load of bs lol - ava good one)


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## Stan 101 (28 August 2007)

enter the fray headstrong
momentum bordered on full
endeavour to thrive on circumstance
to extreme the ego explodes

glint of an eye in an unmatched crowd
a rowdy one finds a home
listen, learn and compliment
encourage a sweet, sweet sound

moments that pass change to turn of a leaf
unearthing, devouring whats known
the fever is growing, increasing tenfold
with the walls closing in we go..

KS


cheers,


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## Stan 101 (28 August 2007)

I made the change
I took my chances
there's more to go

I made the break
I found the answers
There's more in store... for me

Have you seen a road
that extends for miles?
yes you've been there
I see it in your eyes.

I know what you have seen
I want to see the same
come a little closer now...to me


KS


Cheers,


----------



## Stan 101 (28 August 2007)

Tommy broke the news today
the banks forclosed. Assesors on the way
the wife broke down and she was heard to say
what are we fighting for?

We're caught in the crossfire of a government war
why do we bother they've no say any more
our children are puppets for political schemes
swept under the carpet of politiical dreams
power of people is completely outlawed
we're caught in the crossfire of a government war


KS..


I actually don't truly believe this anymore, but the 20 year old that I once was did..


Cheers,


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 August 2007)

just got home with the booze ( perfect timing )

:alcohol:we were toasting the moon kinda mellow, 
we were having a wee little drink
some yellow champagne while ish yellow  (hic)
shom pink champagne while ish pink
"FOr sheesh a jolly goofellow" (hic)
ooops - forgotten how to think ..."
in a mishture of laughing and bellow
 I jush ordered the missus a mink !:jerry


----------



## natashia (28 August 2007)

2020 Thats so funny lol......Interesting thread.

Cant see a thing here...Alot of cloud cover ....
Got till 9:30pm....


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## 2020hindsight (29 August 2007)

THE NIGHT I PASSED A HEARSE

last night I was dreaming I passed a hearse
i thought I'm in trouble! but gee whiz he's worse!
i dodged down a side track, and slammed in reverse
made a brief “do or die” pact , committed to verse.

I’m keeping my back well ahead of that dude, 
with my backpack intact and a “front pedal mood”
and sidestep big buses and falling pianos
as I “climb every mountain” between life’s “viennas” . 

I’m keeping my back well ahead of that dude, 
with the wind in my face and a fatalist mood
as I search for that fountain, philosopher’s food 
................
with the best to embrace 
and the worst to exclude .


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## 2020hindsight (29 August 2007)

Stan 101 said:


> Have you seen a road
> that extends for miles?
> yes you've been there
> I see it in your eyes.



ripper poems thanks sanqs


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## 2020hindsight (29 August 2007)

COLUMBUS AND THE APOCALYPTIC ECLIPSE OF THE AZTECS



> I'm thinking of making a time machine
> and of recreating a world that’s green
> I would set back the clock – Fourteen ninety two (1492)
> on an Aztec rock, with a dazzling view
> ...




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moctezuma_II
http://starryskies.com/The_sky/events/lunar-2003/columbus.eclipse.html


----------



## 2020hindsight (29 August 2007)

SHOW THEM, JESUS !!

there are those who preach from pulpits what can only lead to aids
while the cemetries are full pits , like the craziest crusades
like the matador in bull pits , where the bull must die in pain
or like sheep deprived of woolclip, just before some freezing rain.

they can’t hear the people crying, with their nose pressed in a book
show them, Jesus!! -  people dying, and which Bible page to look,
tell them those who seek confession as an answer for their sin
cannot use the same excuse next week, it’s out there in the bin.

tell them you were first and foremost just a teacher who was kind
and the world deserves some moral law (and you were such a find)
tell them should they find some pages in that book (you never signed) 
that suggested people die in pain, then TEAR IT FROM ITS BIND!!


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## 2020hindsight (30 August 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> COLUMBUS AND THE APOCALYPTIC ECLIPSE OF THE AZTECS



REPRISE / ENCORE - THE MORAL TO THE STORY 



> I would warn Montezuma - and Jamaicans as well
> that his contacts weren't lunar, they're the fires from Hell
> tell them ask "King Columbus - if you're so bloody pure
> let's repeat it again - ta be shurre, to ba shurre"
> ...



PS This lunar story is an interesting yarn. Let's assume it's true
29 th Feb , 1504 .  mmm
well at least they didn't pick 29th Feb 1505


----------



## 2020hindsight (31 August 2007)

THE TIMING OF LIFE’S CONTINUUM

when a couple plant a garden , when they plan a family tree
there are parts A, B, and hardener, and parts of “you” and “me”
but when single girls on one night stands are left with one night “seed”
is that one night man entitled to have equal say decreed?
-( you don’t have to be guilt ridden or to breed.)

whether half reluctant partner, or praps keen as mustard Ken
he must see her as head gardener, and to her wishes bend
and no way does he have equal say in where the story ends
she must make her own decision – (he must try to make amends)
(a kiss perhaps  – unless that kiss offends.)

whether missionary or moral fink, or keen as mustard Ken
he must understand his time to think responsibly was “then”
she can choose the option “later”, praps a few years down the track
she can reason “life’s continuum”, and pressure off her back.
-( she has vines of eggs - and timing's out of whack. )

we must ALL bow to her wishes, SHE’s the one who has the choice
you can back off popes and bishops, you can terminate your voice
don’t dictate a mother’s sentence, she is competent to sign
whether SHE’ll accept this sentence of a child in eight month’s time
-( and your one eye doesn’t mean that eye’s “sublime”.)

stop pretending, men , we’re shepherds, while they’re sheepish ewes and cows, 
for each vote that any man has, let these sows have twenty thousand
and stop changing spots like leopards, make a list of all YOUR sins
and then make a list for someone else, and throw it in the bin!

who are men? the bludy Taliban? where we make all the rules?
first we salivate for sex, and then we treat the girls like fools?
next we’ll circumcise young women so they won’t grow up as “wh-ore"!
God forbid that they’d be “just themselves” – as God designed them for. 

so - does life start at conception or does life begin at birth?
heck they can’t decide twixt Adam, or some mud, primeval earth!!
and to listen to the ignorant who lecture womankind 
when it’s all a flaming figment of their celibating mind.

like a double sided placard both pro life and then pro war
or the double standard hypocrites (the priests and many more)
............
*sure the Hippocratic oath dictates there should be some uneasiness !!
but it’s JUST about the medical !! – and it’s secret women’s business!*


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## natashia (1 September 2007)

Heres a wee poem ( I think)  one of a few that I jotted awhile back.....


Universal Smile


Coming of Life sanctioned by the universe
Abiding escalated thoughts meaningful success
Failures meander sentimental uselessness
Impartial differences reveals us less
Thus another day has come and gone 
Deeming sky having the limits and not alone
Orientation in life we’ve only just begun
Every follicle of smile to you I have become


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## 2020hindsight (1 September 2007)

beauty natashia 
this one so much prep school by comparison 
I wrote it to a girl I met once (100 years ago lol)

YOUR SMILE 

first the eyes give a flash then the cheeks start to grin 
and the forests and sky and the air all join in 
and those features that know only sunshine and spring 
the dimples that laugh and the lips how they sing 
you can tell that a frown simply wouldnt be right 
on those features of yours - such a beautiful sight!  

:1 cent (compared to yours) - thanks


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 September 2007)

natashia said:


> Coming of Life sanctioned by the universe
> Abiding escalated thoughts



And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thought   - Wordworth's Tintern Abbey 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintern_Abbey_(poem)



> Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey, on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye During a Tour. July 13, 1798., often abbreviated to Tintern Abbey or Lines, is a poem written by William Wordsworth. The poem's seeming emphasis on nature makes it a characteristic work of the Romantic movement but belies its true message of revolution and dark deeds from the mentioned anniversary date. Tintern Abbey is an abbey abandoned in 1536 and located in Monmouthshire, Wales.
> 
> The poem is written in blank verse (unrhymed iambic pentameter). This poem is more philosophical than previous Wordsworthian poems, which explains Wordsworth's philosophical way of writing it. Though Wordsworth wrote this poem in 1798, the subject is of what he remembers from 1793. This poem takes place in the poet's mind. Wordsworth's emphasis in the beginning of "5 years have passed…" and constantly using the word "again" shows how important time is to this poem. Furthermore, one will notice that the stanzas/lines in the poem are not all the same. This demonstrates a lack of conformity and a 'rebellion' of sorts that was characteristically seen with romantic poets. "Tintern Abbey" represents a decline in religion during the romantic era. People began to see and feel a divine presence within nature and from this arose the romantic poet. Following this 'ideal', Wordsworth's poem describes how the Abbey is a healer, it makes him feel better, peaceful and it teaches him about life. Additionally, he wants to teach others about "his place", which is why he is so happy to show 'his abbey' to his sister Dorothy Wordsworth. He is ecstatic that he is able to share his experiences with Dorothy.
> 
> ...



It's a long one,  - only if you've got absolutely nothing to do ...
But early in life I decided that this bloke made more sense than the Church (and I still think so ) 
http://www.online-literature.com/wordsworth/518/
excerpts only follow,  sheesh 


> William Wordsworth » Lines composed a few miles above Tintern Abbey
> 
> on Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour, July 13, 1798
> 
> ...




purpose in life?
to have a memory like that?
"a mansion for all lovely forms" lol

then again , as Lewis Carroll said, 
" it's a pretty poor sort of memory that only works backwards" 

Maybe life is about somehow having those attitudes in the present as well - if you get my ghist.


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## natashia (1 September 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> beauty natashia
> this one so much prep school by comparison
> I wrote it to a girl I met once (100 years ago lol)
> 
> ...




Aww Thank you (have they got a blushing smiley?lol)...There is more I wrote about Universe- Mind -Future -Soul-Eyes etc.. and I cannot find it...was done early hours in the mornings...I could not write it again as it was just once in a lifetime occurrence ..(you know what I mean) Will try and look for it....
Your writting started me lol


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## 2020hindsight (1 September 2007)

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=86879&highlight=thiang#post86879

the following poem is intended to be read either before or after the youtube 
- either way - they are inseparably linked 

as are carers and their charges - (bless you, you great people) 



> THOSE CHAMPIONS THE CARERS (Something Wonderful)
> (Praps relevant and valid more, for invalid than king)
> 
> there’s a cross that some folk bearest
> ...



 Something Wonderful
 Something Wonderful (King and I)
 05 Something Wonderful (Carly Simon Live 1990)


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## noirua (1 September 2007)

I've struggled hard at poet-ry
often from a branch of a tree,
a big strong wind came up fast
and now I've breathed my very last.

Fell out of a tree, by noirua


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## 2020hindsight (2 September 2007)

noirua said:


> and now I've breathed my very last.
> Fell out of a tree, by noirua



noi, can we assume there is "another side"? - and they have commputer terminals - lol

must be just a matter of time before someone claims to have received a message on their computer screen from a dearly departed .


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 September 2007)

concluding verse of Kipling's IF :-

"If you can fill the unforgiving minute, 
with 60 second's worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it
and - which is more - you'll be a man, my son.  "



> THE UNFORGIVEABLE PRESSURE FOR PROGRESS
> 
> A tortoise wise there was, who once thanked God he was so slow,
> I may be going the wrong way Lord, and how am I to know ?
> ...




PS I don't have too much trouble with the rest of his poem - except no longer do I 
"make one heap of all my winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,"
 ........... because I've learn that 
it's too easy to "lose, and start again at your beginnings"
........ 
and too difficult to  "never breathe a word about your loss"  


> "If"  By Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936).
> 
> If you can keep your head when all about you
> Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
> ...


----------



## noirua (2 September 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> noi, can we assume there is "another side"? - and they have commputer terminals - lol
> 
> must be just a matter of time before someone claims to have received a message on their computer screen from a dearly departed .




Hi 2020, Whether there is another side or not, there's nothing we can do about our present existance or any next existance, that's set already. I prefer not to think or give advice on such matters as the last person who did, to me that is, slipped on wet grass when out running, hit his head and as they say in East London, where I stayed 20 years ago, he wound up "Brown Bread". 

Of course they've got computers on the other side and all you have to do to make contact is...


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## natashia (2 September 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thought   - Wordworth's Tintern Abbey
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tintern_Abbey_(poem)
> 
> 
> ...




:iagree:



Clipped Wings

The world revolves or lay silent while 
Sweeping strides our destined style
Creator stills us by to see another display of man made sights
Yet blinded by the very stretch of futile imagination heights
Clarity in unkind gesture rotating in ones brazened mind.
Assurance a distant as a thwart bird flying high
Wooing moments of beauty flee to rise
Clipped wings unearth in rustic clouded skies 
Spreading freedom horizons lies
Stationed minds beneath us cries
Keeping awe in wonderless pry
Fast it will be, slow it will move
Reminiscing stars shunt disapprove
Sway the world deepens a bright 
Revolving around light by night
Perhaps ones abreast desires no will
Vividly escaping the living tranquil
:bricks1:  

Thats it from me  ...Though I will catch up and read


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## 2020hindsight (2 September 2007)

ARE HUMANS BEASTS ? - (any offence to the other beasts, although probable , is unintended) 

I take it that we all agree, all animals have traits 
but just to various degrees – which ? - varsity or fate?
and bully bear – or bully person – more depends on weight
than which is “beast” or “worst”, or praps, which one is Satan’s mate.

when porpoises ride waves beside, a human on his board
what purpose could a human find, to separate them Lord?
both out there living,  playing,  in the gold god-given sun 
while the pedants at home are praying (or are hunting whales with gun) 

ask people who have lived with apes, and chimps, and "kings of beasts"
which laws of jungle matter most, and which ones matter least
man, self-styled "Lord of all things" – surely gets the dunce's cap
and God must rue he made man king – and give the rest a rap. 

you search the traits of this small world, the “traitors” carved in granite
you’ll see how much God screwed up / erred - when he chose the world to "man-it"
you watch "the Planet of the Apes", which God has “boy-and-girled” 
...
which other creature first pack rapes -  and then PACK RAPES THE WORLD. ?


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 September 2007)

one more run, and one more verse, one more definition "worse!!"
one more run, with dog in tow, one more mental note "oh no"
one more neighbour scratching head, "why's that man so damned gesticular?
as he stumbled up the street -  mumbling ?  nothings in particular ?!" . 

ah a quick check that I guessed the right meaning for 'gesticular'  - hard to think straight and run/walk straight at the same time 

- give my left hand to be ampidexterous 



> gesticulate :- verb  - to wave one's hands and arms about when speaking





2020hindsight said:


> ARE HUMANS BEASTS ? - (any offence to the other beasts, although probable , is unintended)
> 
> I take it that we all agree, all animals have traits
> but just to various degrees – which ? - varsity or fate?
> ...






> eliminate the Jeckle for a second in our hide
> be "Doctor Hyde, respectful", and go forth - our better side
> we’ve now reached pest proportions, and ignore it at your peril
> Sam play-it! – in slow motion –...
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 September 2007)

REALITY, MY WINE CELLAR, AND A CLEAR CONSCIENCE 

I’m thinking that reality’s a sorta phantom cause
I’m thinking in totality mine differs heaps from yours 
I’m thinking it’s a myth and all !!- keep prodding life’s pizzazz !!
its attitude!! -  red methanol can taste like ....? rare shiraz!! 

directors take a bottle home – costs hundred dollar bills
a rare cab-sav, a taste of Rome, so what if half it spills
I buy a cask of cat’s piss, and I mix in H2O
pretend the cat’s were royal at least, ......and my conscience lets it glow. :alcohol:


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 September 2007)

THE AGM OF THE ALICE SPRINGS SHARE TRADING CLUB 

if they only knew, its that dart that I threw, and the damned thing landed on gold,
that I picked that "sweet spot" in the business review, that "bulls eye” to blue chips untold !
had a purple patch there, when I rose to a dare, but it bounced like a roo in a stew 
twas the blackest I’ve been, but thank heavens I’m green,  and beginner’s luck turned the sky blue.

now I’m much better read, and I study in bed, and the market prevents me from sleep
and I watch zinc and lead, and I count shares instead, where a few months ago it was sheep :sheep:
with a volatile Dow, you just gotta know how, to avoid swapping humpy for shed
the trick is I think – to end up in the pink – instead of the bright bludy red!

as my abo(riginal) friend brags its like red and black flags, and you walk that fine line in between
and let sheep that you count jump a bludy great mountain of money all bright bludy green
stay out of the red, that's it ! enough said!, - ( I hit paydirt, just don’t try to find me )
now it's back to tracking shares, and I’m climbing these stairs!! – and my blacktracking days are behind me!


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 September 2007)

noirua said:


> Hi 2020, Whether there is another side or not, there's nothing we can do about our present existance or any next existance, that's set already. I prefer not to think or give advice on such matters as the last person who did, to me that is, slipped on wet grass when out running, hit his head and as they say in East London, where I stayed 20 years ago, he wound up "Brown Bread".
> 
> Of course they've got computers on the other side and all you have to do to make contact is...




noi,  Lol - who's to say you or I aren't from the other side ? 

naaa - although I prefer "brown bread" to white, it's not worth dying for 
- and for now, I'm off to work or I'm "toast".  adios amigos


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## 2020hindsight (4 September 2007)

RIP JFK 

when presidential cavalcades are being planned these days
in light of history’s sadly taken tolls 
they obviously miss those spots where snipers maybe lay 
and also (you would guess) those grassy knolls ?


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 September 2007)

THE AGM OF THE WEWAK SHARE TRADING CLUB

me listen long youpela
and me walkim long stock market
and me tok tok pella seller
he say piss off , me say park it.

then me buyim plenty lik lik shares 
next day they go likeim rocket
ABC and XYZ - who cares 
me buyim pants with bigpela  pocket

me findim kava recipe
now me getim big pella gut
me fillim fridge with beer, SP, 
and me bar with betel nut.

me haus he lookim same same opera house
me like like what I see
me lik lik high on copra juice
me tok tok my marie

these days me no need go long work 
my mari , me,  we kiss 
and me tink tink “gee – dispela goodpela lurk!”
gee – mepela could get used to this !”


----------



## natashia (5 September 2007)

hehehehe


----------



## noirua (7 September 2007)

Some poems it seems just don't make sense
as silly as dancing on top of a fence,
worse of all is to explain the story
think i'll go back to a bit more snoring.


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## 2020hindsight (7 September 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> THE AGM OF THE WEWAK SHARE TRADING CLUB



translation ( ....I hope lol) 

i listened to you blokes, 
and I went to the stock market
I spoke to the man who sold shares
he said piss off , I said park it.

then i bought a heap of penny dreadfuls 
next day they went like a rocket
ABC and XYZ - who cares 
and i bought some pants with bigger pockets

I found a recipe for kava 
now I've got a big belly
I filled the fridge with South Pacific lager 
and the bar with betel nut.

My house now looks like the opera house
I like what I see
I'm a little bit high on copra juice
and I spend my time talking to my wife

these days there's no need for me to go to work
my wife and I, we kiss.
and I'm thinking “gee – this is a good lurk!”
gee – I could get used to this !” 
 
correction :1 one cent  


noirua said:


> worse of all is to explain the story
> think i'll go back to a bit more snoring.



noi, spot on m8, lol


----------



## noirua (7 September 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> noi,  Lol - who's to say you or I aren't from the other side ?
> 
> naaa - although I prefer "brown bread" to white, it's not worth dying for
> - and for now, I'm off to work or I'm "toast".  adios amigos




 2020, As I'm bound to get to the other side before the rest of you, I promise to post a message on ASF when I get there. 

Some always prefer brown bread to white
as others starve and watching, the fight,
for many days no bread to eat, not right,
still the war grinds on and on, their plight

The numbers are four as matters grind on
no sympathy in sight, really, can we sleep,
food a plenty as we see ourselves, a roast
he with four numbers, helps, deliver toast.

On Sunday settling down to our deliverance
forgetting those who stare and see no bite,
far away they have no roast, no bread or toast
and no choice do they have, brown or white.

No bread, roast or toast - by noirua


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## 2020hindsight (7 September 2007)

Once I get a theory that makes sense with the available scientific data
or I’m told it does lol
then I happily “sign up the adoption papers” and take it on board 
- if what I’ve adopted grows with time, then that is good
and if what I’ve adopted turns out to be just hot air, 
then it can be released into the rest of the atmosphere  (like a bad smell lol) 
with a clear conscience  (preferably not in a lift)
because it was “nothing-nil-zilch” in the first place to owe allegiance to.

WHY I LIKE RICHARD DAWKINS

as to why I am pushing evolution
when George Bush says “the jury’s still out”….
- this is no time for circumlocution !
when we follow that man without doubt !
call it “passive thought-based revolution”
from a small little land down south
Johnny Howard might follow his tuition 
but I’m damned if I’ll follow his mouth.

if you’re wondering why I’m persistent
on the matters of where man began
it’s to start from foundations consistent
with the stuff that I half understand
there are men out there hyper-resistant
who INSIST we build houses on sand - 
WE proclaim that their drumbeat is wisdom 
I proclaim that they’re mentally unmanned.

I will study a theory - adopt it
(full adoption papers on board)
sure if found to be wrong I will drop it
if the bigbangis found to be flawed - 
sure with time I’ll enlarge it (or crop it ?)
and if shown to be wrong it’s ignored !
the adoption will end – I won’t prop it !
(nor “invent” hot air for the “Lord”).
(nor invent “hot air” from the Lord).

does a man become more emphatic
when the topic is something he loathes
when the “terrier” in him’s “dog”-matic 
that the king’s minus ethics AND clothes
does it spur him to fight “things sporadic”
and to tolerate “plain wrong”  much less
with this leadership so damned erratic 
and the world in this God-awful mess.

Make Richard Dawkins “King Dick”!*
Gee - the Whitehouse suddenly glows 
instead of the current prank*
and the stuff from their mouths that flows
it’s like seeing a dog with a tick
you’ve a God-given cause !!, do you doze?
do you doggedly try (double quick) 
there’s a god-driven war to expose!

please excuse me for any offence
try to understand whence my tyrades
like a ‘gator that’s thrashing some fence
that prevents his return to the ‘Glades
when I see men take penance for Lents
when they’ve just lead the maddest crusades
do you take a stand worthy of defence
or take leaders who failed their first grades?

if you see your way clear to support this
this ranting of one half baked mind
we can protest in posts  – and get pissed
we can research the science we find
it’s unclenching our minds (and his fist)
we can ponder “is Hell below crust?”
I suspect heaven’s crossed off the list 
but - I’ll taunt Hell alon if I must.

hey - I’m not gonna slit any wrist
but I’ll argue till Doomsday if I must.

Note ** shame that Dawkin’s first name isn’t “Frank”
then it would rhyme


----------



## noirua (7 September 2007)

I read an article somewhere, can't remember where, it said, that the world is expanding as it should be. I suppose all these wars are very sad but the comment probably ignores these factors as the population expands anyway and eventually mankind are pushed off the earth. Millions of years to go yet. 

I feel a poem coming on.

In a million years time on starship enterprise
a new captain arrives, captain noirua, a surprise,
found a spaceship that someone has left empty
a long comes a new captain, ah yes, 2020.


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 September 2007)

oldie but a ripper 



> The Slave's Dream
> Poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
> 
> Beside the ungathered rice he lay,
> ...


----------



## drillinto (7 September 2007)

The Poet

Tom Wayman

Loses his position on worksheet or page in textbook
May speak much but makes little sense
Cannot give clear verbal instructions
Does not understand what he reads
Does not understand what he hears
Cannot handle “yes-no” questions

Has great difficulty interpreting proverbs
Has difficulty recalling what he ate for breakfast, etc.
Cannot tell a story from a picture
Cannot recognize visual absurdities

Has difficulty classifying and categorizing objects
Has difficulty retaining such things as
addition and subtraction facts, or multiplication tables
May recognize a word one day and not the next


From In a Small House on the Outskirts of Heaven, 1989
Harbour Publishing(USA)


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2007)

drillinto said:


> The Poet
> Cannot handle “yes-no” questions
> Has great difficulty interpreting proverbs



then again  m8, what is a businessman - 
i mean deep down ?
but a frustrated poet , lol.

I'm doing well in my business,  I'm doing well in my love affairs, I change secretary often  
...................................... I can't accept misery   ..............only one regret ..............
I wanted to be an artiste, To have the world to do again, To be able to tell  .....  ..... why I exist ...

Bruno Pelletier and Celine Dion - Le blues du businessman


Live performance. Features Celine Dion and Bruno Pelletier. Taken from the millenium concert. Le blues du businessman.
I've already posted this elsewhere, except that this a great duet version (previous was Celine alone).
Le Blues Du Businessman lyrics (the message is in summarised by the title)



> J'ai du succes dans mes affaires, J'ai du succes dans mes amours , Je change souvent de secretaire
> *I'm doing well in my business, I'm doing well in my love affairs, I change secretary often*
> J'ai mon bureau en haut d'une tour, D'ou je vois la ville a l'envers, D'ou je controle mon univers
> *I have my office on top of a tower, From where I see the town upside down, From where I control my universe*
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2007)

This one something similar ( but I think I prefer the first mentioned french song - 
others might say this one Trumps it though ) 
not sure I thanked you for posting this way back breakeven   - gr8 poetry / song / bit of philosophy.  thanx

Guess both are judgemental of him to a degree, this one more external - reference to epitaph "no one more lonely" etc..

the French song is totally frustrations "within" the man - self judgement I guess - "only one regret"  that he has not pursued or achieved in life the things that matter etc  

but both are gr8 imo. 


 MR. BUSINESSMAN - RAY STEVENS (TOMA'S TIMELESS TUNES #456)



breakeven said:


> There is a song by Ray Stevens called Mr Businessman and it lyrics are so true of the hectic lifestyle many of us lead today.  It goes like this:
> 
> Itemize the things you covet
> As you squander through your life
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2007)

hey drill , if you're allowed to *repost*- the I'm allowed the same *reposte* ! lol



> Does not understand what he reads
> ....May recognize a word one day and not the next






> riposte  :-  In fencing, the riposte (french for retort) is an offensive action made by the fencer who has just parried an attack.
> Explanation
> In sabre and foil, the priority switches when the parry is successfully executed; *the defending fencer now has right of way and may immediately attack with a riposte*. The riposte may be direct, or may include compound footwork. If the riposte is delayed, the original attacker's remise gains priority.
> 
> ...




ok - it ain't quick and it aint witty 
but at least it shows that this poet can look up a dictionary 

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=144521&highlight=categorizing#post144521


> drill, you're probaly right
> Its hard to make some sense of it , especially set to verse
> You try defining poets you just make em ten times worse
> The poet will get stuck in corners every time he paints
> The rest of us are logical - and rational - and saints


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2007)

while I'm at it, dredging up old poems - maybe this one is applicable to APEC ? 



> OKKER AUTONOMY (call it an Easter message of peace if you prefer  )
> 
> There’s a little fledgling nation, call it Oz, or “Okkerland”
> While sitting at Eureka said “c’mon ! let’s make a stand!”,
> ...




I really liked the English Archbishop of Canterbury's Easter message ...(something like) ..

*"We might get peace , but not before Moslems stop thinking of Christians as Crusaders
and Christians stop thinking of Moslems as Terrorists"*


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2007)

apparently Statue of liberty is a nickname
real name? -  quote from wikipedia :- *Liberty Enlightening the World *(French: La libertÃ© Ã©clairant le monde), 
known more commonly as the Statue of Liberty (Statue de la LibertÃ©).



> THE STATUES OF LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY
> 
> why is french as french is spoken still by far the more romantic
> than the language of manhattan far across a mad atantic
> ...






> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue_of_Liberty The statue is of a female figure standing upright, dressed in a robe and a seven point spiked rays representing a nimbus (halo), holding a stone tablet close to her body in her left hand and a flaming torch high in her right hand. The tablet bears the words "JULY IV MDCCLXXVI" (July 4, 1776), commemorating the date of the United States Declaration of Independence.
> 
> The statue is made of a sheeting of pure copper, hung on a framework of steel (originally puddled iron) with the exception of the flame of the torch, which is coated in gold leaf. It stands atop a rectangular stonework pedestal with a foundation in the shape of an irregular eleven-pointed star. The statue is 151' 1" (46.5 m) tall, with the pedestal and foundation adding another 154 feet (46.9 m).
> 
> Worldwide, the Statue of Liberty is one of the most recognizable icons of the United States,[2] and, more generally, represents liberty and escape from oppression.


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2007)

I was gonna introduce this as "a bit more bullsh1t" - but in fact it's better described as "a bit more horsesh1t": 2 twocents
........................................................      
	

	
	
		
		

		
		
	


	






> THE CIRCUITOUS JOURNEY OF HOW ‘FLEXION’ GOT HIS NAME
> 
> here’s this book – here’s its name – “dic-shun-ree”
> it’s the best on the whole selection
> ...





> RIPOSTE
> “RIPOSTE :- “in French – it’s a fencer
> may include some compound footwork -
> who has just parried an attack” ???
> ...





> REMISE
> “REMISE” :- means “surrender a deed”
> that’s assuming you’re in USA
> but some Frenchmen (it says) disagreed
> ...





> REMISE (2).
> "an expensive or high class hack-ney"
> gee that’s sounding a bit more like fun
> cos girls here in town all have acne -
> ?? a hooker that’s turned thirty one??





> HACK-NEY pronounced flexion.
> 
> so I look up the meaning of “HACK-NEY”
> “a horse of an  English sort
> ...






> *riposte* :- In fencing, the riposte (french for retort) is an offensive action made by the fencer who has just parried an attack.
> Explanation
> In sabre and foil, the priority switches when the parry is successfully executed; the defending fencer now has right of way and may immediately attack with a riposte. The riposte may be direct, or may include compound footwork. If the riposte is delayed, the original attacker's *remise* gains priority.
> 
> ...





> *remise* :-  noun
> 1.  (fencing) *a second thrust made on the same lunge *(as when your opponent fails to riposte)
> 2.  *an expensive or high-class hackney *
> 3.  a small building for housing coaches and carriages and other vehicles [syn: coach house]
> 5.  v.   to give, grant, or release a claim to





> *hack•ney   *A horse of a breed *developed in England*, having a characteristic gait...  *pronounced flexion of the knee. *1.	A trotting horse suited for routine riding or driving; a hack.
> 2.	A coach or carriage for hire.
> 3.	hack•neyed, tr. v.  To cause to become banal and trite through overuse.


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2007)

speakin of horses - here's a sad one from Henry Lawson - 2 horses, 1 man and 1 dog - only one comes home 


> The Ballad of the Drover
> Mar. — 1889   Henry Lawson
> 
> ACROSS the stony ridges,    Across the rolling plain,
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2007)

here's another reason to exist -  
to find songs like this ... sheesh .. (no need to travel to vegas folks )


> Pour pouvoir dire pourquoi j'existe
> pour poo vwar dear pour kwar jjjexist
> To be able to tell why I exist




 Celine Dion and Garou live in Las Vegas


> This very RARE Clip was broadcasted in 2003 live from Celines Colloseum in Las Vegas!   "Sous le vent" with garou at Celines





> SOUS LE VENT
> Translation: Under the Wind
> 
> And if you think I was frightened
> ...



Here's "businessman blues" sung with less (initial) volume - 
gee I love this song 
words / lyrics already posted ( incl translation) - see back half dozen posts
 Céline Dion - Le Blues Du Buisnessman LIVE 1995


> A stunning live performance of a wonderful French-Canadian singer showing off her magnificent stage presence and absolute vocal power. This version comes from her Zenith concert from autumn 1995


----------



## chicken8 (8 September 2007)

I like the toilet
the third from the right
because it locks


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2007)

why did the chicken cross the road 
cos he wanted to go to the toilet?
for another behind a locked door episode?
so the knocking of cops won’t spoil it ?

 The Boy from Oz Hugh Jackman 2004 Tony telecast
 HUGH JACKMAN'S PETER ALLEN IMPRESSED MICHAEL CAINE


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2007)

why did the pussies cross the street
for a suntan with several martinis  ?
but because "immodest" can look like meat
they decided to wear their bikinis


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2007)

:viking:  (you'll see I'm wearing a helmet lol)

DESCARTES ADDRESSES NASA 2007

that “we think”,  gentlemen, is for certain
hence “we are”,  that’s for certain a fact
but beyond that invisible curtain
what "we know" can become inexact

if we measure the moons of yon Venus
as old Galileo once did
we find that the planets have seen us
as things co-rotating in Id.

Now we ain’t in Kentucky no more
so it’s "welcome to wizard-world" folks
there’s quadrillions of sun’s at each core
all with planets rotating like spokes.

If we look at a light source receding
we see there’s a clue cos it’s redder
when we track em all back theres a meeting 
so the “Big Bang” is on (double header) 

But the hard questions still are unanswered 
*  was the first kick-off taken by God?  :bowdown:
*  who's stolen that first page of Hansard?
* and third, was the first second odd? 
(or even)


----------



## Sir Burr (8 September 2007)

> If I Had My Life to Live Over
> (I would pick more daisies)
> by Nadine Stair
> 
> ...




Read on a pinboard at a nursing home today.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 September 2007)

thanks Burr - that's a ripper
why is it we only find out these lessons when we reach retirement homes lol. (or nursing homes as you say )


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 September 2007)

THE CLIMATE CHANGE DECLARATION
Johnny’s Last Stand

about the need for a gob-full pact
about this globular warming
to try to halt the “high tide fact”
the deserts, and the storming
this stand-up knock-down document
is such a major feat !!
so pin your ears back gentleman
I suggest you resume your seat 

a chance perhaps for action
divert some serious bucks 
a song with genuine traction 
(or a swansong for lame ducks)
a chance for fancy motorcades
whether Cadillac / Holden / Desoto
and then of course there's the photo page
just … no one mention Kyoto
…………….

*DRAFT*
ok here’s the new draft fellas
*"that we might one day perhaps"*
hey if this is too strong tell us
*"sign  err something ??" *(ok chaps?)

*“that we’ll all try oh so diligently 
to see that goals are set 
and we all agree to DO it
just we don’t quite know WHAT yet.
next -  we’ll all be oh so earnest
then to see that goals are MET
to avoid a global furnace
still we don’t know what when yet.”*

that the air is getting hotter 
cripes - from Nambour to the Nile
you ought to feel my collar sheesh
since Rudd came “into style”
we’ll tackle the question of letterheads 
when we meet next “in a while”
when we sober up with betterheads
and we fan out this air of denial

and we promise once we leave here
to go out and spend real money
more caviar, George? - you're smiling !
say did I say something funny?
now to go out for the photo shoot
first here’s your drizabone
but be careful when you put it on
don’t hit your funnybone.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 September 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> THE CLIMATE CHANGE DECLARATION
> Johnny’s Last Stand  .



I meant to add this under last post 
not me laughing lol - (it's meant to be Johnny and George) 

http://www.clicksmilies.com/

ROFL






PS Maybe it should be renamed "Johnny and George’s Last Stand"
since they both enjoy the same credibility on globular warming and stuff
and neither will give an inch if it means that our standard of (wasteful) living falls one inch / cm whatever. 

By that I mean SHORT TERM standard of living
like - based on electoral cycles 
(sheesh at this stage , we'll all know about cycles soon enough - 
 we'll all be riding one )
1.4 billion Chinese can't be wrong. 




> will the US go to metric, Mr Bush, sir
> "*it's a cinch
> hell it's drafted - its a pushover
> we'll go there inch by inch*"
> ...


----------



## numbercruncher (9 September 2007)

I went to a party, 

And remembered what you said. 
You told me not to drink, Mum 
So I had a sprite instead. 

I felt proud of myself, 

The way you said I would, 
That I didn't drink and drive, 
Though some friends said I should. 

I made a healthy choice, 

And your advice to me was right, 
The party finally ended, 
And the kids drove out of sight. 

I got into my car, 

Sure to get home in one piece, 
I never knew what was coming, Mum 
Something I expected least. 

Now I'm lying on the pavement, 

And I hear the policeman say, 
The kid that caused this wreck was drunk, 
Mum, his voice seems far away. 

My own blood's all around me, 

As I try hard not to cry. 
I can hear the paramedic say, 
This girl is going to die. 

I'm sure the guy had no idea, 

While he was flying high, 
Because he chose to drink and drive, 
Now I would have to die. 

So why do people do it, Mum 

Knowing that it ruins lives? 
And now the pain is cutting me, 
Like a hundred stabbing knives. 

Someone should have taught him, 
That it's wrong to drink and drive. 
Maybe if his parents had, 
I'd still be alive. 

My breath is getting shorter, Mum 

I'm getting really scared. 
These are my final moments, 
And I'm so unprepared. 

I wish that you could hold me Mum, 

As I lie here and die. 
I wish that I could say, 'I love you, Mum!' 
So I love you and good-bye. 

MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Drivers)


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 September 2007)

NOTES ON DRYZABONES

isn’t that just bloomin’ lovely - that the sky is dryzabone
for the photo on the footsteps - of the opera house on loan
guess they could go out to Bourke and try - to suck juice  from  a stone
cos they’d understand the subtle quirk - what it means, this “dryzabone”

so apropos of nothing - that you choose the opera sign
a burst of Pavarotti - someone stole his columbine
but you’d probly miss the point sir - with your heart of solid stone
your eye so blind to sadness  - and like the future, dryzabone

those leaders -  some selection!!  - with their raft of multi-talents
there’s just a small correction - ‘bout the sex and creature balance
there’s mothers - one or two there - but they’re missing things more moral
Mother Nature!!, why aren’t YOU there? - nor a polar bear? – nor coral?

just a token lump of coral - praps with colours artificial
that was washed upon some sandy beach - a gift-box superficial
but it’s dead you see, you miss the point - some hot high tidal zone
and I’m sorry now to disappoint - but the coral’s as dryzabone.

you may think that this is cynical - and perhaps you’re partly right
just that “stupid”’s reached new pinnacles - in real un-cynic light
you may charge me that my humour - (mr bonsai bush-man clone)
is the humour of a cynic - my intention?  dryzabone.  
 Pavarotti Vesti La Giubba - I Pagliacci

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=101044&highlight=Pagliacci#post101044


> VESTI LA GIUBBA Lyrics
> (pagliacci)(on with the show)
> 
> Recitar!...mentre preso dal delirio
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 September 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> NOTES ON DRYZABONES



so I'm helping hang out the clothes - (not that there's any sun lol) and these extra verses just blow through my head



> DRYZABONE FOOTNOTE
> you accuse me of being a cynic - when I say that it's all about "photo"?
> may I recommend, sir, an eye clinic - here's the elephant !!  -  *"why not Kyoto!!?"*
> and should I be judged hypocritical, for comparing your actions with "stone"
> ...


----------



## noirua (10 September 2007)

Oh, to have a dumb computer
that says it is speaking loud,
and all the time I'm wondering
why, I'm feeling, so very sad.

All this seems to be happening
since XP's introduction too,
and all the time I'm wondering
****-a-doodle-doo.

Some of us are packing, yes
is it service pack two,
and all the time I'm wondering
what to bloody do.

Time it came for loading
was it, reinstalling too,
and all the time I'm wondering
I have it all to do.

Hours and hours have passed now
windows updates, more and more,
and all the time I'm wondering
feeling, very, very sore.

The time has come to try it out,
good grief, it's grayed out once again,
and all the time I'm wondering
yes, have I got a brain.

I tried for Mensa once before
and turned away, felt insane,
and all the time I'm wondering
why I'm suffering so much pain.

They gave me only 133
and said, 150, it's the door.
and all the time I'm wondering
why, they showed me, I'm on the floor..

I'm speechless about this computer
that is driving me round the twist,
and all the time I'm wondering
yes, I only need a push.

Ayers rock I am to visit soon,
It's up there very high,
and all the time I'm wondering
yes, am I going to die.

Death by computer - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 September 2007)

PUBS and POKIES
(4 corners suggests that pokie licences are migrating from the bush to the citiy )



> It's lonesome away from your kindred and all
> By the campfire at night where the wild dingos call
> But there's nothin' so lonesome, (morbid or drear) *or so damned un-blokey*
> Than to stand in the bar of a pub (with no beer)*with no pokies*.
> ...






> I MEAN !!!
> - a joke's a joke
> and a poke's a poke
> but serious sheeeh
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 September 2007)

those who saw tonight's "Enough Rope"  (on Cancer) might understand this one 


> ANDREW DENTON's ENOUGH ROPE 10.09.07
> 
> is cancer a figment, a foliage
> can a tree divest it's gnarled wood
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 September 2007)

Traveston Dam was an issue put to Queenslanders at the last election.  - one person / farmer / townsperson  =  one vote . (them's the rules in a democracy) 

TRAVESTON DAM

They say I'm in the flooded zone
they say my farm will "die"
they wave this deed - my land is .."gone"
insist I say "goodbye"
praps I'll fight for a correction
praps I'll build a bludy moat
maybe "drawbridge" all directions
maybe ? waterproof the goat.?

So it went to an election
where I only had one vote 
"Should they drown MY dad's selection?"
(sheesh -  I muster from a boat?? )
ahhh... the travesty is mine alone
I'm "low-life" and you're "high"
but ...   Traveston's my heart ,  my home..
and this flood is from mine eye.


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 September 2007)

THE NEW CINCINNATTI CREATION MUSEUM (Under Aussie Management) 

we remarried the missus and I 
whilst in Vegas on our vacation- 
looked like Elvis,  the celebrant guy- 
with his toupee and facelift foundation- 
so beautiful – just made us cry
I remember most the sincerity.
Like the Grand Canyon's history nearby 
and its fossils – just comes with the territory

well we went to some hotel nearby
and we yielded ‘fore long to temptation
and we both gave a virginal sigh
(twas our 8000th copulation)
then we found us some “highway to heaven”
and set off on a bonking probation
still we rested on day number seven 
I forget where – some Aussie creation

twas a sorta museum of sorts
with the dinosaurs meeting some Pharaoh
and its fully fact-based (all reports)
he’s a dinky dye true Aussie hero
he can prove there was winnie the pooh!!
coexisted with Christopher Robin!!
there was Ee-yore and Tigger too
that he’d stitched up with cotton and bobbin

he could prove every beast in the zoo
had been for a ride in the ark
there were bruises that left a mark blue
when Noah let loose for a lark
there was proof there’d been no transition
there was even a unicorn’s pelvis
he was simply a bludy magician
he was even better than Elvis .


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 September 2007)

PS
he said he was from Ironbark
why he’d gone to the US – who knew? 
yes this bloke was a bit of a lark
(with an hint - just a hint - of cuckoo. )


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 September 2007)

Any of you folks lucky enough to hear Phillip Adams being interviewed today on "the conversation hour" - I happened to be driving to a site meeting.  Such a brilliant mind - 
 he makes a couple of points
a) the fact that an asteroid caused the death of the dinosaurs is the only reason man is here!!!
b) we are a fluke result of that incident !! 
c) we should nonetheless marvel at the fact that we are alive; and
d) how could anyone be bored with this adventure called "life" 



> THE BIG BUMP THEORY
> 
> let’s assume evolution’s "ok"
> (though we argue on big banging theory)
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 September 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> Any of you folks lucky enough to hear Phillip Adams being interviewed today on "the conversation hour" - I happened to be driving to a site meeting.  Such a brilliant mind -
> he makes a couple of points
> a) the fact that an asteroid caused the death of the dinosaurs is the only reason man is here!!!
> b) we are a fluke result of that incident !!
> ...



Adams had another couple of comments  (seriously paraphrasing here - hopefully that interview will be posted on ABC website one of these days) :-

e) the mystery in the fact that we are unique - so unique that only THAT sperm with THAT egg could have ended up (months later whatever) making us.
f) that the odds against you being YOU (and not your brother for instance, i.e. the next sperm) are millions to one
g) that we then enjoy (on average) 630,000 hours of life =  72 years approx,
h) hence we are a "half-millionaires" with 630,000 hours allocated (again on average); and
j) that we treat each hour as a gift,  and 
k) he simply cannot understand how people could be bored with life given the beautiful mysteries and coincidences behind it all  




> THE TRIATHLON OF LIFE
> 
> into the valley of womb and life
> swam the 60 thousands
> ...





> PS
> Maybe I’m broke in the money sense
> or a half millionaire – it depends
> on whether I count wealth in dollars and cents
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 September 2007)

more on the same theme
hopefully there's a message in there amongst the bs 


> HOW FAR TO THE FUTURE
> 
> what do YOU call the present?
> this hour plus or minus a thousand?
> ...


----------



## dalek (13 September 2007)

Julia said:


> Rich,
> 
> So they did,
> Right there among the woodbines and guinness stains,
> ...




Hi Julia
many (perhaps 15) years ago while listening to a broadcast of poetry reading I heard a piece, part of which stuck in my mind but I was not able to discover the source.

"But let's unclip our minds
And let tumble free
The mad, mangled crocodiles of love.

So they did,
Right there among the woodbines and guinness stains,
And later he caught a bus and she a train
And all there was between them then
was rain"
Hi Julia
Many, (perhaps 15) years ago I was listening to a radio broadcast and heard a poem which I was unable to forget, yet could not discover it's author.

I joined this forum only 1 week ago and  I couldn't believe my eyes that you had posted, and I had found, this poem !! and on a fear & greed site of all places 
Perhaps now I can get it out of my head.
Now if I can only do the same with that bloody ABBA tune 

Thanks


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 September 2007)

MORE U-TURNS THAT A CARPARK FULL OF GRANNIES

would I rate this year as extraordinary?
with the progress in matters tabu - 

so out of the federal “ordinary” 
so out of the poll driven blue.

would I rate this year as bizarre ?
(is a "red sky at dawn" sailor's warning?)

more u turns that a 5 storey carpark
full of grannies on Saturday morning.
........................
more uturns than sheep at a shearing
when the sheepdogs are snapping at heel;

more uturns that a dodgem car veering
with a drunkard asleep at the wheel;

or fishing by "casts" fully frantic
and a knot-entwined rusted-on reel; 

more uturns that a yacht mid atlantic
that had lost its helm and its keel.


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 September 2007)

IF IT WEREN’T FOR THE FACT

If it weren’t for the fact that a man’s beliefs
are a province deep in his heart
We’d be winning Iraq, without all the grief
and we wouldn’t be “post event smart”
If it weren’t for the fact that a man sees the sunshine
that lands on HIS land as his
We’d be winning Iraq, no more frightened kids, gun-shy 
of things from the sky that go “whiz”. 

If it weren’t for the fact that a man is possessed
will a will to be “him” alone
not some stooge of some powerful bully, obsessed
with oil – that he drills with bomb cones. 
If it weren’t for the fact that a man is committed
to “provinces” all his own
We’d be winning Iraq, and it wouldn’t be littered 
with bodies with blood and with bone.

If it weren’t for the fact that we all scratch our head
and wonder why we are there
there’d be far more alive, and far fewer dead 
in a land where there’s anger to spare
Has it come to this? we’re no better than Stalin?
and possibly worse than a Hitler?
we wouldn’t be gnashing our “I-teeth” and snarling
and the mess we are in would be littler.

If it weren’t for the fact that we’re way off track
and the world is not ours to “stage manage”
We’d be out of Iraq, and our boys would be back 
and we wouldn’t be in this caged panic
If it weren’t for the fact we ignored the UN
when we set off on quests so questionable
we’d have conscience intact, and this angry pen
wouldn’t curse our lords so  “aggressionable”.

If it weren’t for the fact that the world will remember 
George Bush , long after he’s gone
not so much for a righteous defence of “September”, 
nor a righteous Kabul later on
If it weren’t for the fact of one George W Bush
(George senior , you’ve got quite a son there )
*We’d be winning Iraq, - forget “one last push” !!
cos we’d never have bludiwell gone there. *

Baghdad would be free of the Afghan AlQuida  
and both would be free of extremists
there’s no point in praying “hey God catch a glider
to somehow come down and redeem us”
they tell us it’s too late! – no point asking “WHY!!!”
now that devils are here and abeam us  
….
*Are there STILL things to do?? -   for my grandkids and you ??!
WHO must think this thing through ??  – WE must. !!  *


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 September 2007)

-..


> Forth went the thunder-god
> riding on his filly,
> "I'M THOR!!" he cried!!
> His horse replied
> ...






> thump n shake
> the ketchup bottle
> none'll come
> and then a lot'll
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 September 2007)

> reg·i·cide     –noun
> 1. the killing of a king.
> 2. a person who kills a king or is responsible for his death, esp. one of the judges who condemned Charles I of England to death.



http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=john+howard+in+power&meta=

KING JOHNNY DISCUSSING REGICIDE WITH HIS TROOPS

I’ve called this meeting this morning
cos the polls have us out on a ledge
and this talk of a “Regicide” (??) dawning
well not while I’m bludy REG
I prefer a swandive with some backfiips
than ungrateful ungraceful swan songs
in my “blue-G-string-half-brickie’s-crack” flips
what Blair and friend Bush would call thongs.

I’m Robin of Loxley whatever
I’m the Rex of my seat Benalong
now to ponder if I’m the most clever
cos I’ve “ben a long” time as REG KONG
well the polls say the party is sinking
yet the polls adore ME (REG)  arms wide 
if YOU LOT were liked, I’m thinking
then gravity might be on OUR side

I’ll spike all your drinks with half vodkas
that‘ll teach you to bludywell sledge
I’ll publish a youtube for podcasts
that my name is still KING REG
I’ve stll got my super-annuation
(if the Caymans go broke, then I’ll hedge)
like the way to police this nation
I’ll find some political wedge.

If you give me that damned “King-is-dead” word
I’d say that that doesn’t make sense!!
that’s worse than that “watch-under-bed” word
what the heck?  “Long live the Prince??”
and nobody mention this new word
(I just heard whilst out on that ledge)
this "Regicide" (haven’t a clue!) word 
*cos my name - do you HEAR - is still REG!!*

I’ve one thing to say to young Kevin
choose the ring and come down here you blighter
cos gravity’s a law unto heaven
(pretty please come and fight like a man )
it that ALSO sounds stupid “King Kevin”!!
You’ll be headless like bludy Queen Anne
and my spine is aquiver and revving
*come down and fight REG, Spiderman*.

.........
as to whether (King John) this is personal
or this power thing's arguably tidal
10 years wed for better-or-worse-an-all - sheesh
if you walk then it's not "regicidal"!!
I hope you don’t mind this, your highness
when recalling this all later on
with Robin of Benalong behind us
can we then call you... just ...   Little John?.


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 September 2007)

THE BACKYARD OF BROKEN DREAMS

the block was a full quarter acre
and the house  built on weatherboard themes
a boat in the backyard half finished
awaiting completion it seems
twas sold four times in one decade
and the boat progressed little more
it progressed just a little past wreckage
or a badly messed “bottom drawer”

each person who passed by dreamed bigtime
of sailing the world in this boat
they dabbled a few hours of "jigtime"
but never “took project by throat”
they saw her with sails full feathered
they saw her chine carving the sea
they dreamed of her climbing to weather
they dreamt that these dreams would be 

and year after year that potential
remained in their eyes just a gleam
that “world dream” so quintessential
would slowly run out of steam
ahh things that were inconsequential
would slowly strangle their schemes
... in the boring old house residential
with its backyard of broken dreams


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 September 2007)

HAS THE WORLD GONE BI-POLAR

Why aren't penguins eaten by polar bears
because they are poles apart
but slowly the gap between appears
to be growing as icebergs depart
things are warming up year after greenhouse year
whether man's blame is "part-a" or "whole-a"
but to sit on our hands and do nothing, I fear,
simply proves that mankind is bi-polar. :eek3:


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 September 2007)

I WONDER WHY QUESTIONABLE CURLEY THEORIES GRAVITATE TO  USA

He could have gone north to New Guinea
with its Adam and Eve of bananas
but the crowds who'd believe him are mini
praps a dog and a few iguanas  :bananasmi

Could have preached amongst Queensland lantanas
showing Japanese tourists "The Way"
“Camp Pie to the God of bananas!”
hey come back, not so fast, hey please stay. :headshake 

Could have preached amongst Kiwi sheep farmers
(which is where his delusions began)
today , “Mr hand-glove-bananas”
tomorrow I’m “come arti-chokes Man” :sheep:

But no, he took up God’s harness
(there were too many bills to pay)
- if you want to go big time bananas
go bananas bigtime USA!! :silly:  

now he takes down his royal banana
and he goes to the lakeside to pray
and on weekends goes Copacabana 
and he’s going (financially) ok :bandit:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLqQttJinjo


----------



## noirua (18 September 2007)

He spent his life, in prayer, in god like repose,
having god, in childhood, stuffed up his nose,
the more he thought, the sadder he became
and in time, thank god, forgot his dam name.

For god is within, and has no repose, no name,
it is you who are god, and god is inside, your veins,
followers of god are followers in vain, yes, no name
Remember, god is not outside, but inside remains.

Inside, search thee not outside - by noirua


,


----------



## >Apocalypto< (18 September 2007)

Why don't you buggers start your own Poetry forum! it looks like on of the busiest threads in ASF.


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 September 2007)

hey Trade, 
a) we'd be the only ones there 
b) these are the only posts 100% guaranteed not to ramp, and
c) at least a couple of people seem to read em occasionally 

IN SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD

Were I you, I would say " my shout!! I'll pay!!" 
Were you I, you'd reply " that's fair, I bludiwell shouted yesterday"


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 September 2007)

IN SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD IN A SCOTTISH PUB

If I were you, I would shout 
"THIS ONE'S MINE"
If you were me, you'd say 
"bout bludy time"
If I were you, I'd say 
"HERE'S YOUR FIVE BUCKS"
If you were me, you'd say 
"thanks very much"

If I were you I'd say 
"MY TURN AGAIN?"
I'd probly say " yep, 
and make mine a ten"
you'd probly say "this rate !!
I'm gonna be POOR !!!"
I'd probly say "DITTO, but
....
what're friends for "


----------



## noirua (19 September 2007)

What's that 2020: "Guaranteed not to ramp", hmmmmmmmmm:

I rode on my skooter and battery became flat,
just as power ran out, Oh no, not a ramp,
as I thought further, and invested more
a new battery, yes, advice, charge the ramp.

As I approached, the ramp rose ever higher,
fell back, stop ramping, cannot reach the floor
and invested even more, bigger battery and
advised more, charge the ramper for the floor.

Fortunately, Joe Blow arrived and deleted the ramper
and it was lowered, charged the ramp once more,
they gave advice on the run up, charge again
thank god, no ramper anymore, I reached the floor.

Defeated the ramper - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 September 2007)

WIDE RANGING THOUGHTS WHILST STUCK IN A TRAFFIC JAM. 

*some bastard is barping , we’re stuck in this jam !
barping his horn in this... cram a la cram !*
Ahh   in times like these I will let my thoughts fly
praps traffic awaits some jam session on high?

I was thinking I’d like my ashes stirred
with the waves of the ocean to travel the world
be that as it may be, as Gods may decide
for some future low day, and some future high tide

swim with plankton adrift in the dancing sea
with her many mad moods yet so windswept and free
praps to old coral islands I missed whilst alive
maybe saunter half lost in a last scuba dive 

praps flash past Cape York in some wild tidal rips
praps search through the cabins of old sunken ships
praps ride in the bow-waves of native canoes
or some ferries of Greece?,  or some QE2’s ?

*there’s that bastard blasting his horn again*
ahh back to “eyes glassed” – and this mental pen
maybe check out some islands where beauties swim nude 
maybe pause in the shallows and soak up the mood.

praps check out the bright lights of Capetown and Spain
praps surf through the Suez , then swim round again
praps play with the dolphins on steep cresting waves
praps broach with a whale beside white passing sails.

praps swirling with tuna to strange seagulls' tunes
as first sunshine's sunbeams are dimming the moon's
(*praps served with some mustard inside some damned prawn !!
praps choke that loud bastard who’s honking that horn !! *)

ahhh there’s two things await that we cannot deny
of the lamb and the shepherd - both born - both will die
and .. Apollo will one day explode in the sky
and my friends on that day twill be one great....  lamb’s fry?.

on that day my friends,  though our ashes may try
even ash will burn - even ash will fry


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 September 2007)

Noi, here's one in reply to the question of ramping...

we all ramp (short of lied) wishful thoughts time to time
watch this bludger share slide !! , watch this beauty stock climb !!
but to go out "offroading" with freedom to roam
this thread comes prepacked with a licence to poem.  (**)

(**) poem = noun, but in this case used as a verb, under poetic licence to the "ASF Poetry Thread"


----------



## noirua (20 September 2007)

Right 2020:

A poem a day keeps apples away
and the doctor reads poems too,
he sent me an apple to cure my flue
and, yes, I sent him a poem or two.


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 September 2007)

noi
if an apple a day keeps the doctor away
and their cores are the cause of "good life"
does that mean if the wife of said doctor will "play"
you'll have tons of fun with his wife?


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 September 2007)

PRIORITIES FOR THE MAN ON THE LAND

I plan to go plough some paddocks today
and to furrow from five from five
but bugger the bank and the bills to pay 
I PLAN TO COME HOME ALIVE  
and damn ploughing mountain sides - stick to the meadow
let’s call it a risk assessment
cos I don’t want my mountain bride end up my widow
cos   we’re mutually our best investment .


----------



## noirua (21 September 2007)

No point ploughing a meadow at all
if in the end, you find, no rain doth fall,
five to five, seven to six, a very big risk
no mountain bride and no crop to pick.

Don't blame the Bank or mountain side
it's not there fault where you reside,
if you plough the paddocks, dawn to dusk
pray for rain or you go bust.

No rain and busted - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 September 2007)

misunderstandings and hard times abound
am I planting a crop or just fooling around  
but you're right about praying (though I’d rather get pissed) 
to become - both rained on - and opti-mist.   (?)


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 September 2007)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booligal,_New_South_Wales


> Booligal is a village in the Riverina area of western New South Wales (NSW), Australia.  It is located on the Cobb Highway, on the Lachlan River north of Hay.  Booligal is a part of the Hay Shire Council local government area.
> 
> population 42
> 
> The name of the village is an Aboriginal word meaning either (1) 'windy place', or (2) 'large swamp', 'place of flooded box trees'.[4]



A. B. 'Banjo' Paterson (1864–1941) wrote a poem called Hay and Hell and Booligal [16] about the district.  (concluding lines)



> "Just now there is a howling drought
> That pretty near has starved us out—
> It never seems to rain at all;
> But, if there should come any rain,
> ...



 - apologies to anyone from Booligal who might not want to be reminded of this poem .  
I was actually looking for a poem about Wilcannia - the search continues


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 September 2007)

If anyone is interested in the story behind Walzing Matilda, then here it is. (see bottom of page 66 and top of page 67 in particular 

http://ro.uow.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=unity



> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waltzing_Matilda  Reasons for the strong empathy Australians feel for this song include its appeal to a rural ideal, its featuring of an underdog or anti-hero, its allusions to Australia's origins as a British penal colony, and its status as unofficial. The song also has links to a historic shearers' strike which was crucial to the labour movement in Australia, and uses of many obsolete words and phrases that give native Australian English speakers an insider's knowledge about the song's meaning






> "Waltzing Matilda" is probably based on the following story:
> 
> In Queensland in 1891 the Great Shearers' Strike brought the colony close to civil war and was broken only after the Premier Samuel Griffith called in the military.
> In September 1894, on a station called Dagworth (north of Winton), some shearers were again on strike. It turned violent with the strikers firing their rifles and pistols in the air and setting fire to the woolshed at the Dagworth Homestead, killing dozens of sheep.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 September 2007)

IS THE AUSSIE IN THE WARZONE, OR THE WARZONE IN THE MAN?.

Did I hear you right there sonny, you were saying as we marched
where is Martin Place’s dunny? pass the parchment? you were parched?
sorry son I’m hard of hearing, its my eardrums blown away,
into fear? or interfering?, in some war zone miles away.

Bloocher boots are great for marching don’t you think, or praps you don’t
hey they work ok on asphalt, - when you get in mud they won't
padre's prayers to help anoint us so we'd face some foe annoyed,
boys were all we were back then, my boy, with crazed young hopes were buoyed. 

Mortified or mortar fired? canonised or blown apart?
bain of mankind , bayonets? have a heart or had a heart?
overhead heat seeking missiles ? missus back home seeking warm?
war the ugly side of humans ? peace the humane side of storm?

pass a round for Betsy here? naval guns or navel wound?
pass a round of Anzac beer? laughing mates or trigger tuned?
missile point or missed the point? nuclear future - no clear path?
Martha likes to sweep the joint? - who will sweep up "aftermath?" 

...........
Tis something to be horrified , yet glorified as well
those friends that were dismembered, I'll remember 'fore they fell
where victory and lunacy and courage raw and heart 
and manliness and madness were but half an inch apart. 

there's something to be honoured where your innards might rebel
when cannon fire and murder daily follow fall of shell
and faces blank in no man's land, look back towards their mates
who died out there some yesterday - and forecast future fates.
............

was it all about the battlements, or what the battle meant?
were we simply sheep or cattle, (yet both hell and heaven sent  )
was it valid or invalid, now that invalids are left
or the stuff of folklore ballad, and the law of folk bereft.

In the end my boy you ask yourself this little question here 
(while) we share this Anzac medal called "a blood-oath promised beer"
this question's all important son, please try to understand...
is the aussie in the warzone? or the warzone in the man?


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 September 2007)

2BL PERSONNEL

Our 2BL has many types , it's like a mini world - 
the serious blokes who read the news each day 
and then there's those reporters where the pollies' dirt is hurled
and then the ones who joke and want to play
.......
I had a little nightmare that they played a giant hoax
the ABC had shuffled up their crews 
I turned it on one morning to John Logan telling jokes- 
who crossed to Adam Spencer for the news??


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 September 2007)

Example of what might happen when John Logan handed over to Adam Spencer for the news...

the traffic's so bad, don't leave your abode
and now for the joke of the day
"why did the chicken cross the road
it was something to do with foul play" 

and now for the news, Mr Spencer kind sir
"wow!!!  there's 1000's more planets they tell us !!!
and at this rate the number with life is a blurr
all inhabited by uninhibited fellas


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 September 2007)

MY ABC / SBS / AUS

I’m an avid fan member, and mad ABC’er
love their work! every word they inform us!
and a “Media Watch”ed is a media free-er
to explore all the world’s "Four Corners"
and I thank their bright stars, and the Rainbow Serpent
I’m a son of that Southern Cross blinking
and my “8 cents a day” (between boozing and burping)
makes just ABC sense, I’m-a thinking.

But what adds to my love is a hint of a fear
that they’ll take away something enjoyed
on that day that it goes, my Aus disappears 
to be replaced with a void,
replacement of “Insight and Aussie guest panels” 
by “cheering for CNN tanks” 
and the “global warming” of Discovery Channels
and a global cooling t’wards Yanks.

Sure there’s lighter and laughter and Chasers and wallers 
with a message inane or important
Then there’s pollies and panels and footy and hollers
and the full cross-section assortment…
…..
I reckon get kids involved!
 ............ listen in lambs!!
Nintendo’s for sheep!,
..........  missing links!
These 4 cents per day say “I laugh, hence I am”
And these 4,  *“I am, hence I think”!!*.........


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 September 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booligal,_New_South_Wales
> 
> A. B. 'Banjo' Paterson (1864–1941) wrote a poem called Hay and Hell and Booligal [16] about the district.  (concluding lines)
> 
> ..I was actually looking for a poem about Wilcannia - the search continues



oops the poem was written by Paterson about Walgett 
from 116 years ago - when the river was full (er)


> BEEN THERE BEFORE
> by A. B. "Banjo" Paterson
> 
> There came a stranger to Walgett town,
> ...





> http://www.nnsw.com.au/walgett/history.html For the students of history, the district of Walgett is most interesting.
> Notable aspects of the history of the district include:
> 
> 1818 - Explorer John Oxley explored the Macquarie River
> ...



http://walgett.localinfo.org.au/ourtown.htm


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 September 2007)

Shakespeare Revisited:-
objective :-  "That An Austral Shakespeare may rise, whose living page  To Nature true may charm in ev’ry age" 

Here's a way to have a bit of fun with Shakespeare - and at the same time really think about what he is saying - I mean every line is potentially a gem (as if I'm qualified to comment sheesh)

But then you try to say something similar ( or a pisstake whatever - like the one below) in your own words - 
Hamlet Act III, scene I.... the 2B or not 2B soliloquy...

(and obviously need not have any techical, grammatical or literary merit - but you may of course choose to be more - or less - flippant than me (than I?)

you can search for a keyword here (for any shakespearean quote)  :-
http://www.rhymezone.com/r/gwic.cgi?Path=shakespeare/

Could be judged on 
a) did the "sequel" achieve the same meaning?
b) what parts of Shakepeares meaning were lost
c) are we all lost
d) is the world lost
e) or can it be refound
f) these and other questions will be revealed - provided people have a go lol :

ava good one 



> If I should sign off on this diary's text
> what world would follow in what dreamlike state?
> would this world’s problems follow to the next
> or judge me with that fire that follows fate?
> ...




 Shakespeare sketch


some other quotes here :-
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=180130&highlight=shakespeare#post180130

and other example(s) here :-
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=180195&highlight=shakespeare#post180195
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=86026&highlight=shakespeare#post86026

speaking of "Australianising" Shakespeare  :-


> Poem #1 by William Charles Wentworth is somewhat similar - herewith some excerpts ... (first mention of Warragamba in poetry ?)
> http://www.bartleby.com/249/1.html
> From ‘Australasia’
> ....
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 September 2007)

also in that soliloquy... (about line 20)
(and if you can't improve on this you're not trying .. 


> HAMLET :-    who would fardels bear,
> To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
> But that the dread of something after death,
> The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
> ...




we're born into a life "SORTA understood"
yet forced to choose this 'drother or the other
who, torn in two, would choose "NAUGHT understood"?
- we take the devil known before another


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 September 2007)

> To be, or not to be: that is the question:
> Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
> The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
> Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
> And by opposing end them?




to zee or not to zee, that is the question
whether tis nobler in the mind to snuff out 
on these swings and hammocks with outrageous snoring 
or to flay your arms against a sea of bubbles 
and by not opposing, befriend them.



> To die: to sleep;
> No more; and by a sleep to say we end
> The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
> That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
> Devoutly to be wish'd.




Today: to sleep;
	and snore; and by that sleep to say we end
	The heartaches and a really serious shock
	That flesh is hairy too, 'tis a constipation
	Devoutly to be wish'd. 

etc etc (bs bs )


----------



## drillinto (28 September 2007)

Hand Shadows
Mary Cornish

My father put his hands in the white light
of the lantern, and his palms became a horse
that flicked its ears and bucked; an alligator
feigning sleep along the canvas wall leapt up
and snapped its jaws in silhouette, or else
a swan would turn its perfect neck and drop
a fingered beak toward that shadowed head
to lightly preen my father's feathered hair.
Outside our tent, skunks shuffled in the woods
beneath a star that died a little every day,
and from a nebula of light diffused
inside Orion's sword, new stars were born.
My father's hands became two birds, linked
by a thumb, they flew one following the other.


from Red Studio, 2007
Oberlin College Press, USA


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 September 2007)

http://unionsong.com/u149.html
A poem from the Depression days 
Let's be thankful we didn't live then 



> The Hungry Mile
> A poem by Ernest Antony©Ernest Antony 1930
> 
> They tramp there in their legions on the mornings dark and cold
> ...




http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/09/28/2046207.htm


> Farewell to an era as Darling Harbour wharves close
> By Adele O'Hare
> Updated 1 hour 1 minute ago
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 September 2007)

THE MYANMAR MONKS 

call it Buddhist lead alignment  
where their laws are worse than worst
call it Buddhist lead refinement
where the generals’ law comes first 

and the monks' bald heads are bleeding 
as they march past rifles butts
of the people they are leading
so much courage, so much guts 

and your saffron robes are bloodied
and your sovereign rights are nil
and your Buddhist pearl is muddied
with the blood that trickles still

and your leaders are as smarmy
as their neighbours in Tibet
may you come back as the Army
may your Buddhist pearl shine yet.

such a shallow cry “good on you”
when you fall – yet such a debt
with the world’s blind eyes upon you
may your Buddhist pearl shine yet. 

...........
as for Bush protesting “violence”
should he push "Democracy" 
he’d do better keeping silence
else be charged hypocrisy.


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 September 2007)

SLOWLY MARK II (by anon - with modifications) 

slowly a snail makes its silvery trail
slowly a blind child will learn to read braille
slowly the whale calf becomes the whale 
slowly old people grow fragile and frail

slowly a bird learns the skills of the nest
slowly the migrating geese seek rest
slowly the ocean wave comes to a crest
slowly the sun settles deep in the west

slowly a child learns to crawl and to walk
slowly the dove learns to hide from the hawk
slowly a skeleton turns into chalk
....
- slow grows the champagne - and slow grows the cork   :alcohol:
.....

slowly the hour hand of life span sweeps 
slowly discover the sleep of all sleeps
end of the line for those fence-jumping sheeps
slowly the permanent slumbering creeps


----------



## golfmos123 (28 September 2007)

This poetry thread is getting way too high-brow for my liking.   Time to bring it back to a much lower level....(just so I don't get asked questions soon, Kaczynski was the Oklahoma unabomber)


Said President Clinton to a young Miss Lewinsky
We'd best not leave clues like Kaczynski
You look quite a mess
So take the hem of your dress
And wipe that stuff off of your chinski.....

I love a good limerick....any more out there.....


----------



## 2020hindsight (29 September 2007)

golfmos123 said:


> This poetry thread is getting way too high-brow for my liking.   Time to bring it back to a much lower level....(just so I don't get asked questions soon, Kaczynski was the Oklahoma unabomber)
> 
> 
> Said President Clinton to a young Miss Lewinsky
> ...



as Bill said to Hillary - wow that's bizarre
that romp was bout average - if not well on par
but with what's-her-name Monica
it went ultrasonica
... we went close dear - but mmmm - no cigar


----------



## 2020hindsight (29 September 2007)

AUNG SAN SUU KYI

we may wish that our gods would send us some rain
or the weather man turn magician
we may wish that the Burmese did not live in pain
or the generals tried general contrition
we may want that the innocents stopped being slain
and the goons gave up firearms for fishin - 
maybe wants (maybe wishes) may all be in vain
but it won’t be for want of wishin

we may wish that the hoodlums and Klu Klux white-hoodists
would be locked up with dregs who push dope
we may wish other Burmese would not shoot on Buddhists
praps a quiet aside from the Pope
we may wish for a u turn by men trained and shrewdest 
on a blood splattered slippery slope
praps reality’s awakening is this time the rudest
but it won’t be for want of hope

praps we freeze any assets and cut any ties
and matters Myanmar reject
praps we bring back “Old BURMA” without all the lies
with a leader the people elect
though she sings to the end of her heroine’s breath
and her life as a mother is wrecked - 
praps the mother of Burma unsung until death
but it won’t be for want of respect.


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 September 2007)

THE BLIND EYE TO THE DARK SIDE OF FRIENDSHIPS

Let's assume that we know what we're doing
and a cracked egg has egg yolk unbroke
to that egg yolk there’s white goo still glueing
but the goo won't have traces of yolk –
In the same way when dealing with friendships
there are friends in the darkness to find
but if looking for darkness in friendships
let's pretend that our eye is half blind.


----------



## noirua (30 September 2007)

God save our Gracious Queen
in our race we truly trust,
just let us rule ourselves alone
no chance that we'll go bust.

The strength of the British throne
that's thrust down us night and day
give us the chance to vote again
so we can be awarded a holiday.


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## noirua (30 September 2007)

The Open Eye to the Bright Side of Friendships

Let's not assume we know what we're doing,
and a good egg has egg yolk unbroke
to that egg yolk its white is awaiting
the egg yolk hard boiled, white not broke-
The same way when dealing with friendships 
those friends who are found in the brightness
look thee only for light in those friendships
no need to be blind, the light does the rest.


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 September 2007)

noirua said:


> The Open Eye to the Bright Side of Friendships
> 
> Let's not assume we know what we're doing,
> and a good egg has egg yolk unbroke
> ...



noi, spot on,  lol
or maybe "always look for the bright side" maybe?
 Always look on the bright side of life - Monty Python


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 September 2007)

VARIOUS TAKES OF FRIENDSHIP

General:-

there are several quotes on friendship
mostly thought through and mostly part true
and there’s limits to “borrow and lend-ship”
if exceeded you part mostly blue
and there’s always exceptions to rules
there are always exceptional friends
hey there’s also  exceptional fools
and the break-ups and make–ups and mends. 

A thousand friends:-

he who has a thousand friends 
has not a friend to spare
he who has one enemy 
will meet him everywhere
or perhaps have a huge “half-friendly crowd”
but a bit smaller “core” of “true friends”
they’re the ones where you think out aloud
they’re the ones to whom one lends

On being deceived:-

It is better to have been deceived
than never (at all) to have trusted
that’s provided you’ve just been relieved
of a buck-or-two, but not a bucket
hey there’s no point in feeling aggrieved 
just bad luck-or two – sorta like random
let those bonds become sorta – less weaved
tell that friend to respect the word “tandem”


The team player version…

Let's assume that we know what we're doing
and a cracked egg has egg yolk unbroke
to that egg yolk there’s white goo still glueing
but the goo won't have traces of yolk – 
course the yoke argues goo is essential
that an egg is an egg till it’s kickin’
Praps for friendships to reach full potential
it takes teamwork to make a damned chicken

The globe trotting Don Juan …

Praps when dealing with all kinds of kinships
there are friends in the darkness to find
but in searching the darkness for friendships
praps it helps to be three-quarters blind. ??
praps you’re trying romancing in French
praps you throw in a tin white lie
but to chat up a chick on a bench
you will need an “eggs spurt” eye.


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 September 2007)

A SPOKE OF THE WHEEL JUST SPOKE

I much prefer scrambled than poaching
and kaleidoscope mishmash of folk
and the great wheel of life if approaching 
and for some a much sadder joke
If my conscience is "into" "scrambled egging"
then perhaps it is time I awoke
for I just heard a distant voice begging 
and a spoke of that wheel just spoke

praps it’s not so much NEEDING a conscience
praps it’s more about letting it grow
praps it’s more about FEEDING that conscience
just to keep me informed on “my bro”
praps it’s not about LEADING that conscience
it was born in your heart don’t you know
praps it’s more about HEEDING that conscience
feel the warmth of its consciousness glow. 

praps it’s more about character content
than some character being content
if you HEAR what the poor man wanted
heck!! he only wanted “one tenth” 
praps it's more about small children orphaned
who will make it to teens if they're lucky
while we trigger our endless endorphins
while the third world dies silent and yucky. 

while we trigger our TIN-heart endorphins
but hey TINMAN !! - the world's not Kentucky!!


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 September 2007)

THE BUDDHIST WHO SWALLOWED THE FLY

he was walking and whistling 
and swallowed a fly
that was obviously oblivious
(with it's headphones on high)

then his tune stopped abrupt 
he went cross-eyed and cried
"poor fly!! - last supper supped 
that's the last time he flied !!"


TODAY'S FINANCIAL TIMES (posted elsewhere - probably belongs here - some might say in the bin lol- whatever) 

It's a sign of my financial times
and the sad slide to "now" from "then" 
for five hours I just memorised rhymes
while I searched for a 10 cent pen - 
It was lost in a suburb (or suburbs)
I searched up and down streets ( and again!!)
and t'find it  - the joy defies proverbs
and defines me the happiest of men.


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## noirua (1 October 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> TODAY'S FINANCIAL TIMES (posted elsewhere - probably belongs here - some might say in the bin lol- whatever)
> 
> It's a sign of my financial times
> and the sad slide to "now" from "then"
> ...




2020, Perhaps it means the guy lost most of his money following advice from the Financial Times and needed the pen to pick a horse in his racing paper.


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 October 2007)

noirua said:


> 2020, Perhaps it means the guy lost most of his money following advice from the Financial Times and needed the pen to pick a horse in his racing paper.




you mean, the way a few of us choose our shares ?
close your eyes and stab...

I personally prefer a dart, lol

btw, true story m8 - ok maybe for 1 hour - and maybe the pen cost more than 10c ..
btw "for five hours" meant to sound like 4 5 hours etc


> for an hour I just memorised rhymes *
> while I searched for a *twenty* cent pen -
> 
> * = (and swore at the dog because rather than help find the pen she only wanted to play with a bludy ball)




and also I swallowed that bludy fly lol
used to do it regularly - back when I used to whistle all the time 
but yesterday as I was coughing and trying to spit the damned thing up, (unsuccessfully) I suddenly wondered what the fly's take on all this was... 

PS very awkward meterage...
If I were writing it again I'd probably rewrite it as follows:-

btw, not much you can do with "obviously oblivious"  = (/ - - - - / - - )  = a string of unstressed syllables -  - 
except maybe (what I would do anyways) 
a) pretend it's intentionally awkward, and just enjoy messing around with words   (refer next post) 
or 

b) leave out half the verbs and prepositions and (hopefully optional) syllables and stuff and hope people understand what the hell you're trying to say ... (would help if I added some punctuation marks I guess)

PS I have recently twigged that if you make lines shorter, e.g. split them into two - then it's easier to pick up the meter earlier in the poem   (PS I have a lot to learn about this lol ).  Sometimes I make first stressed syllable start with a capital - I doubt that anyone else before of since has needed to do that - in good , even half-decent poetry it should be obvious I guess. 

PS 'buzzer' meant to sound like 'bastard' - which is something a buddhist monk wouldn't say presumably - who nose?



> THE BUDDHIST MONK WHO SWALLOWED THE FLY - TAKE 2
> 
> - - / - - / - - / - - / ,
> he was Walking and Whistling and Swallowed a fly
> ...



yes I know - pathetic lol - whatever


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 October 2007)

JUST MESSING AROUND WITH WORDS 

Some men get their kicks just messing with boats
or messing with irons and woods
and some get their kicks just messing with quotes 
- or   just messing around with words. : 1.5 one and a halfcents

(PS If I could afford it, I'd be out playing golf, m8 - or messing around in boats for that matter - ahh,  whatever.  )


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 October 2007)

an article based on an interview with Frankie Hyde.. in the Catholic Weekly...
(first time I've read that particular publication  - but I agree with the bottom line, he was a good man) 
http://www.catholicweekly.com.au/02/jul/28/16.html


> Conversation: *A life of faith ‘straight between the posts’ *- Frank Hyde, football player, coach, journalist, broadcaster
> By Damir Govorcin
> 
> *Frank Hyde, MBE, OAM*, regarded as the doyen of rugby league broadcasters, has packed a great deal of living into his 86 years.  He has been a player, coach, administrator, journalist (he wrote a sporting column for The Catholic Weekly for 25 years), pop star (he had a top 10 hit in the 1970s with Danny Boy), charity worker, family man (he and wife Gaby – married for 60 years – have six children) and devout Catholic.
> ...






> THE BOUNCE OF THE BALL
> 
> that’s the end of another season
> and a pause in the sportscaster’s call
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 October 2007)

SIMILES AND METAPHORS
I found this in some old school book...
how many of each in the above
I make it 7 of each (I guess)



> CONCRETE MIXERS
> by Patricia Hubbell
> 
> The drivers are washing the concrete mixers;
> ...





SIMILES AND METAPHORS (1)
the date was going swimmingly
they’d paid the bill and run
he suggested what he was sweating for
was to stay up and see the sun
the girl said smiling “simile
it’s not like I’m a nun”
and that was what he’d metaphor
to have a bit of fun

SIMILES AND METAPHORS (2)
If you say your brother "is" an ass
well that’s a metaphor,
it’s better to say he’s "like" an ass
cos that’s  just a simile dig, 
but if you say when he’s at the table
(and constantly yelling for "more")
it isn’t a question of "like" or not
he bloodiwell IS - . .. a pig!!


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## 2020hindsight (1 October 2007)

further to previous post, and the 
concrete mixer (truck) = elephant metaphor 

Incidentally, I found a drink called a Cement Mixer - and post it to add some complete irrelevance..
reminds me I used to make a drink as a kid - pineapple cordial with milk - the milk instantly curdled , lol - just magic it was - tasted like (what I imagine) a spittoon would taste like (simile - not a metaphor) 

moral to the story? - similes are powerful lol


> The two components of a Cement Mixer.
> A cement mixer is a shot drink. It consists of:
> •	1 part Bailey's Irish Cream
> •	1 part Lime juice (lemon juice may be substituted)
> It is drunk by taking the shot of Bailey's, holding it in the mouth, then sipping the lime juice and swirling the two around the mouth. The acidic lime juice causes the cream-based Bailey's to curdle.


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## 2020hindsight (2 October 2007)

THE IDLE MAN'S MIND IS THE WORKSHOP OF THE DEVIL

some men heal and some swing hammers
some lead horses round with rope
some men preach or teach in slammers 
some just cruise and some just cope
but the minds the most attractive 
for the devil to elope
are the sad and bored inactive
with no work, no help, no hope. 

some men plough a field at sunrise
some get home long after dark
some men make an Easter bun rise
some play Santa for a lark
some retire into oblivion
no more to make their mark
but the devil's far best dividend?
those men just stuck in "park"!

it’s often through no fault of theirs
the way the dice have landed
the ones employed say “hell who cares
so what if they are stranded”
I allude to need again folks
we’re agreed that needs aren’t “level”
but the idle mind of men folks
is the workshop of the devil

some are racked with inhibition
but they struggle on in pain
some lament their own condition
but their struggle’s not in vain
some men’s spirit's into fishin
some men twirl their spirit levels
but the idle disposition
is the fishing hole of devils

let’s assume a gentle shin up
is the trigger some men need
just a chance to get their chin up
so self dignity can seed
let em just get one good win up
so their favoured side is freed
let em find a different pinup
to the devil and his breed

..............
Footnote on drugs

praps from "warn-ignored" “drug ember”
he turns sadist, sad self killer
and the man you won’t remember
turns to ugly and gorilla
praps the ugliest of ugly
praps the frightened-est of fear
may his mind get super lucky
may his monkey disappear.

may you both get super lucky
may his devil disappear.


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## 2020hindsight (2 October 2007)

HEY - "NO INSULTS" CRIED THE CHIMP

sometimes Photographs are juxtaposed 
to Show them as dead ringers
(different goaty praps or flatter nosed
or lullabies they sing us)
- comparisons extrapolated
- which is mental blimp ??
- whose brain cell's more dilapitated?
......
"no insults!" cried the chimp!!


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## 2020hindsight (3 October 2007)

THE WINE LIST AT MY WAKE

I’m thinking I’ll stock a “penultimate fridge”
and fill it all up with beverage 
it can range from insult to filthy rich
(and there’s damn all there that’s average)

and the plan would be that “the last out” pays
when I push off this mortal coil
and the range in booze can reflect my days
with the tons of fun and the toil

and throw in a case of a good shiraz
for the spice along the way
and throw in champagne for a bit of pizzazz
and a couple with which to spray

and throw in some coconut milk and yeast
and give them an hour of "romancing" 
and see if the inhibition’s released
and the girls don’t start hula dancing

I wasn’t real smooth so a merlot’s not right
and I wasn’t real subtle – no sake
and I wasn’t real couth, so my mate’s can get tight
(there was plenty of course and khaki)

but the very best – yes the absolute bests
they will bludiwell have to guess at 
..........
what I didn’t drink here, I gave to LIVE guests
OR I’ve taken on high – to bless at


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## drillinto (3 October 2007)

“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?"

Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.


From Fever, 2006
Red Hen Press (USA)


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## 2020hindsight (3 October 2007)

Fiery Jack - Ye Jacobites



> http://www.thebards.net/music/lyrics/Ye_Jacobites_By_Name.shtml Background: Song about the Jacobite Revolution of 1746. The song was re-written by Robert Burns in 1791. Patrick D. writes, "I doubt that it is written about the Jacobite Uprising in 1745, and may be more of a warning against Jacobite sympathies and the possible consequences. Alternatively, since it was written in 1791, it could be a warning against Jacobinism during the French revolution




YE JACOBITES BY NAME (rewritten by Robbie Burns)

Ye Jacobites by name, lend an ear, lend an ear;
Ye Jacobites by name, lend an ear;
Ye Jacobites by name, 
Your fautes I will proclaim,
Your doctrines I maun blame, you shall hear.

What is Right and what is Wrang, by the law, by the law?
What is Right and what is Wrang, by the law?
What is Right and what is Wrang?
A weak hand and a strang, 
A short sword and the lang,for to draw.

What makes heroic strife, famed afar, famed afar?
What makes heroic strife, famed afar?
What makes heroic strife?
To whet th' assassin's knife
Or hunt a Parent's life, wi' bludie war?

Then let your schemes alone, in the state, in the state;  
Then let your schemes alone, in the state;  
Then let your schemes alone, 
Adore the rising sun,
And leave a man undone, to his fate.



> http://www.mysongbook.de/msb/songs/xyz/yejacobi.html  The conventional perspective is again apparently discarded in Ye Jacobites by name, one of Burns' best party songs, which deals with the human misery lurking behind political slogans and begins with a bold challenge to the legitimists: [chorus].
> 
> This sounds like a Whig song, but it is not. The singer's strictures are framed in humanitarian terms, and form a grim exposé of the suffering and misery glossed over by the glib formulae of political theory. *Divine Right however exalted is shown to be like other kinds of state power, ultimately based upon brute force; and lurking behind the fashionable cant about 'the just war' are the tragic realities of murder and parricide: *[verses 1,2]
> 
> ...


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## 2020hindsight (3 October 2007)

SCAB - Will Ye No' Come Back Again



> Traditional Scottish Songs   - Will Ye No Come Back Again?
> After the defeat of Bonnie Prince Charlie at Culloden and his escape back to France, with the aid of Flora MacDonald, there were still many who hoped that he would return, some day. Here is a song about that sentiment, written by Carolina Oliphant (Lady Nairne) in the first half of the 19th century). There are a number of versions of this song, this is one of them.
> You can download an MP3 version of this song from Margaret Donaldson's Web site.






> Will Ye No Come Back Again?
> 
> Bonnie Chairlie's noo awa',
> Safely ower the friendly main;
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 October 2007)

Another brilliant eulogy to a dog 



> The House Dog's Grave
> by Robinson Jeffers (1887-1962)
> 
> I've changed my ways a little; I cannot now
> ...


----------



## drillinto (3 October 2007)

Very good poetry site ==> http://www.poetryfoundation.org/index.html


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## 2020hindsight (4 October 2007)

Robinson Jeffers is a self- proclaimed pantheist 
http://members.aol.com/PHarri5642/jeffers.htm
http://pages.infinit.net/noxoculi/jeffers.html


> Robinson Jeffers' evocations of the divine in nature are so powerfully
> depicted in his poetry that he has served to revive our modern religious
> sensibilities. His spiritual insights were in three major areas: First, he
> has inspired mankind to see the world anew as the ultimate reality. Second,
> ...






> Jeffers and his wife Una moved to Carmel in 1914. He described the
> mid-California coastal area of the Monterey Coast/Santa Lucia Range as the
> chief actor in his poetry. It was the beauty of this area that marked the
> final shift of Jeffers' spirituality from hand-me-down Christianity to a
> ...






> Sign-Post is a theological directive written by the poet who
> has no dogma to dispense--except the fundamental realization that transcendence is needless
> if the realization of divine immanence is achieved within the real world.
> This perception is the basis of Jeffers Pantheism.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 October 2007)

JEFFERS continued ... 
a poem to his "dearly departed" wife...


> In his final years, with his beloved wife Una now gone, Jeffers continued to  write. In his final narrative poem Hungerfield, Jeffers concludes with a  note to his wife which explains his understanding of death.
> 
> HUNGERFIELD
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 October 2007)

drillinto said:


> Very good poetry site ==> http://www.poetryfoundation.org/index.html



thanks m8
maybe manjana


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## 2020hindsight (4 October 2007)

...







> My name is Cocaine
> (by anon)
> 
> My name is Cocaine - call me Coke for short.
> ...






> Crack-cocaine delivers an intensity of pleasure beyond the bounds of normal human experience. Unfortunately, it delivers suffering beyond the bounds of normal human experience too. The pleasure it yields is brief. The suffering that follows may be prolonged. The brain's hedonic treadmill isn't easily cheated.
> 
> For all drug-taking - whether recreational, clinical, or even tomorrow's designer-drugs - is little more than glorified glue-sniffing compared to what's in prospect in centuries to come. Revolutionary gene-therapies, systematic germ-line re-writes and nanoscale hedonic-engineering can transform a fleeting crack-like intensity of well-being into an ingredient of everyday mental health. Our descendants may also be smarter. They may just conceivably be nicer. Until then, euphoric happiness of a crack-like intensity is probably too dangerous even to contemplate.
> 
> Yet kneejerk doom-mongering about Drugs is wrong. The future may be inconceivably better than we imagine. Crack-cocaine offers only a hellish parody of what lies ahead.




http://www.cocaine.org/resource/index.html

... How to Quit cocaine ...
http://www.cocaine.org/justsayno.html 

alternatively how to fool the bladder cops ... 
http://www.cocaine.org/drugtestfaq/index.html

http://www.theantidrug.com/teachersguide/activities_antidrugpoetry.asp
suggests teachers get kids involved with writin poetry about drugs

http://www.theantidrug.com/drug_info/drug_info_ecstasy.asp


> Ecstasy
> 
> MDMA, called "Adam," "ecstasy," or "XTC" on the street, is a synthetic, psychoactive (mind-altering) drug with hallucinogenic and amphetamine-like properties. Its chemical structure is similar to two other synthetic drugs, MDA and methamphetamine, which are known to cause brain damage.
> 
> ...



etc I'm sure you all know all this stuff...


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## 2020hindsight (4 October 2007)

EXPERIMENT AT WILL / EXPERIMENT WITH A WILL

try these drugs without restraint
experiment at will
this nice young pusher such a saint
says these are such a thrill
and if you’re feared of feeling faint
or freeze or fry or chill
it’s probably just a head complaint
so pop another pill

try these drugs they’re quite all right
and safe as barbie dolls
they’ll have you dancing half the night
like morons and mafia molls
hey don’t believe the stuff they write
that your old man espouses
ignore him – feel your brain ignite
you're the envy of all the wowsers

try these drugs, they’re all ok
they leave your mind full blown
just pay the pusher come what may
(but it’s YOU that he will own)
and after this you’ll be au fait
you’re heading for “combat zone”
hey crikey – now you’re instant grey!!
and.....  let’s hope you grow out of this groan. :eek3:


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 October 2007)

THE PUSHER (uncensored)

In the hurly burly hub hub - down the backstreets of debauchery
malevolent and menacing the pusher makes his way
they say he's blind to agony, the bodies on the balconies 
the dirt and the depravity, the victims of his play.

the hookers lined along the street they play some game of hide and seek
their dresses up around their cheeks, their knickers full of holes
one blind to caution counts her bills from stockings lined with filthy frills 
he grins his grin of countless kills – he flatters and cajoles  

………………………………

her mind’s transported from her bed, by chemicals inside her head
back to a small suburban shed, where childhood dreams began
the lace and laughter singing , in her mind confusion ringing
while her laced up mind is clinging , thanks to pushers and their plan

they say that something has to give, in order that one lace will live
and which will take and which will give, demand exceeds supply
they say release is just an edge, you jump off to a broken pledge
beyond some non–returning ledge, where lace has gone awry

before the dancing of her demons, lacey pants and clients' semens
anything to humour he-mans, morals built on clay
and way back when the boy next door, would clumsy whisper “I adore”
before the cruel nickname “wh-ore”, and things just went astray  

.........

The morning sun across her floor reveals an arm stretched out for more
a needle still impinging, and a tiny pinhole "gash"
no longer sad, no longer soiled -  her youth so bright, her old age foiled
her mortal coil is now uncoiled – past pushers counting cash


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 October 2007)

THOUGHTS BESIDE A LITTLE WHITE-WATER CREEK IN THE SUNSHINE

sun upon my head and shoulders
like a torch in ancient Rome
sets alight some mental folders
now to summarise that tome
from those fires and fire-walked boulders 
that I’ve walked on as I’ve roamed
from those embers half remembered 
something smoulders to a poem

blue as blue the sky above me
cyber ocean as it were
truly mother nature loves me
truer still that I love her
bonfire of my thoughts just now
make my outlook much more warm
help me keep it burn somehow
help my “Norm” change to this norm.

clear as clear the air is sunning 
in my lungs and nostrils too
I can push it when I’m running
thoughts of air can fire the flue
as the warm thoughts guide and govern me
settle at my feet – accrue
truly mother nature loves me
have no doubt ma’m, I love you!

………..
sandstone layers here inclining 
origins are long since filtered
where the sand was laid and binding 
and the land has long since tilted
meanwhile berries birds are finding
as they squawk and chirp and boast
wonderful ! – I need reminding 
blood is warm and rocks are toast

reflections on a chequered pool 
of leaves and clouds on high
reflections of a life half cool
but much more warm in style  
reflections of a side of me 
with Nature as my wife
reflections where I only see
a bright reflective life.

……………………………

As I pass your babbling creek
where the waters splash and play
the babbling in my mind I seek
- rocks washed since bygone day
because those sounds are so unlike 
the TV or the mobile phone
I’ll state them here, this verbal micre
this fade-out for this passing poem. 

kersplash with racing notwithstanding
standing waves in strings galore
little crash onto rocky landing
next a waterfall or four
rapids racing round a corner
where the current changes tack
echoed semicircles born where
nature’s message bounces back.

…………

some little birds are draining beakfuls
drowning out their fears
the rain we used to get one week falls
roughly in five years
but when the global warming ****-falls
high priests argue with peers
But there’s no doubt that climate pit-falls
leave Mother Nature in tears


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 October 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> Fiery Jack - Ye Jacobites
> YE JACOBITES BY NAME (rewritten by Robbie Burns)
> 
> Ye Jacobites by name, lend an ear, lend an ear;
> ...




extra verse.... 

Ye Jacobites by name, don yer kilt, don yer kilt;
Ye Jacobites by name, don yer kilt;
Ye Jacobites by name, 
if fornication's your game :casanova:
or when your ass is on flame,  don your kilt. 

PS read somewhere that the kilt is the ideally practical choice for a highland man - perfectly adapted for fornication and diarrhoea


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 October 2007)

> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/05/2051401.htm Australian diggers honourably laid to rest
> Posted Fri Oct 5, 2007 6:28am AEST
> 
> Five Australian World War I soldiers have been re-buried with full military honours in a Commonwealth war cemetery in Belgium. The men's remains were discovered in September last year during digging for a new gas pipeline.
> ...






A BURIAL SITE TO GO WITH THE MEDAL

Five Anzacs have been found in Flanders, two have been ID’ed
their 90 year old photographs look on as they are freed
there’s healing for that stumpy branch that constitutes that tree
their family’s, and the nation's – for they died for you and me 

they’ve been granted just a little luck to have a look around
it beats a nigh-on-century of lying in the ground
I wonder what they’d think of things a second time around
I wonder if they’d think the things they fought for have been found.

no longer just a medal stuck behind some aging glass
no longer unknown soldiers pushing up some foreign grass
no longer just some “metal stuff” ignored each time I pass.
no longer an unanswered and unanchored piece of brass

your future died a week before this medal’s die was cast
since then you’ve lain a vassal in a battlefield so vast
a bullet holed your uniform the day you breathed your last 
a hurried service buried by some road the years have passed.

does it matter that that medal isn’t cast in solid gold
does it matter that their feet were facing forward brave and bold
heck yes! for if we paid them what their sacrifice was worth
we’d have long since had to sacrifice our corner of the earth

for us they put their fears aside, for us they tempted fate
for us their kissed their photo-ed bride, then charged some gun with mates
at least they’re found, a grave at last, and named albeit late
Jack Hunter and George Calder –   at last you lie in state.

what matters in this story is -  this story ISN’T  closed
what matters? – what has happened to the world as those five dozed
have things they fought for happened? or just hypocrites exposed
or now (as then) is it just the just men, die with justice juxtaposed.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 October 2007)

Inspiration for this poem ? - it is intended as a response to Leonard Cohen "Take this Waltz" 
I can honesty tell you I have no idea what he is talking about in that poem lol
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=210186&highlight=waltz#post210186



> Apparently he copied Frederico García Lorca
> (here are the two poems side by side ..)
> http://www.webheights.net/speakingcohen/waltz.htm
> 
> ...






> Apparently he copied Frederico García Lorca , viz:-
> Little Viennese Waltz
> 
> In Vienna there are ten little girls
> ...




FROM BUSH BAND TO ORCHESTRA, ACCORDING TO A PLAN

I used to go to dances in a bushwacked bygone day
a clumsy mix of prances while some 3 man band would play
my hair was bushy, wild yet bland, but bushy was ok
but bushiest of all ? the band!! it sounded like pure hay

the pianist he sounded pissed, but still he kept a tune
it sounded like a blend of Liszt and a sex starved wild baboon 
I never quite could comprehend how he got the whole damned room
to resonate around the bend and the seats would “hertz” with each boom

the drummer then accomp’nied him - not sure if he followed or lead
he sounded like a reject from that group the Grateful Dead
he’d often lead the singing, and “elope with the words as if wed”
though it sounded more like an antelope that had fallen out of bed

the saxophone took out top billing (according to his rating) 
a sexy moan that could be quite chilling – or sound like elephants mating
was mainly Beatle mania – as they crawled from behind some grating -
he’d blast a tune, the girls would swoon, (cos they’d had a whole week waiting) 

the MC used to join in with a song to thrill us all
was something like an episode of  “all creatures great and small”
but he’d mix up all the square dance steps with such a confusing call
now I know why it’s called ‘ballroom’ – sheesh - we’d be tied up in a ball !

I must have spent a fortune on those dance admission fees 
the mem-ories worth twice as much – they gave me “dancing knees”
I must have heard a million times “select your partner please”
for gypsy tap or barn dance, - or just share half cultured fleas. 

we’d trip the light fantastic, though fantastic it was not
a few of us were hopeless, and the rest had lost the plot
but slowly of so slowly we learned that damned gavotte
(we pretended we were goalies ‘bout to face an eight yard shot)

……………….

the moral of this story is I then became a man
and all these clumsy three-steps had been fashioned to a plan 
swap jeans for fancy cummerbund, read orchestra for band
I whirled a ballgowned princess, and her name (I recall) was … forget.  

 Sting - Until
Now there's a great poem / song / waltz / concept   lyrics here :-
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=187750&highlight=waltz#post187750


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 October 2007)

Frederico GarcÃ­a Lorca ...
Amazing what you can discover with google and wiki ... 


> Cohen has described Lorca as being his idol in his youth, and named his daughter Lorca Cohen for that reason




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_García_Lorca


> Federico GarcÃ­a Lorca (June 5, 1898 – August 19, 1936) was a Spanish poet and dramatist, also remembered as a painter, pianist, and composer. An emblematic member of the Generation of '27, he was killed by Nationalist partisans at the age of 38 at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War.
> 
> .....Although not shown for the first time until the early 1930s, in 1926 Lorca wrote the play 'The Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife', which was a farce based on the relationship between a flirtatious, petulant wife and a henpecked shoemaker.
> ......In 1931, GarcÃ­a Lorca was appointed as director of a university student theatre company,
> ...




 Federico Garcia Lorca asesinado por el fascismo (his assassination)

 Federico Garcia Lorca - a song / poem

One thing's for sure - Leonard Cohen would have had a few more joints than this bloke   (even if those two poems, Take this Waltz etc,  are similar at the end of day)


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 October 2007)

I post this purely for completion of this checkout of this sidetrack.. 
Joan Baez apparently recited this poem - one of Frederico's
(still pretty weird if you ask me )    
   Introduction with the poem 'Ghazal of Dark Death' by Federico Garcia Lorca.


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 October 2007)

Apologies to Shirley Bassey's "GOOD BAD BEAUTIFUL"...

THOUGHTS AFTER WATCHING THE NEWS

I've seen good 
but bleeding Buddhists
- mankind's "better side"

I've seen right
and Gods of might
and Western law

I've seen need
and Gods of greed
and thin-veiled genocide

I've seen spin
(coalition's kin) 
and Gods of War

Since your reign
the number slain 
has truly multiplied

I've seen gods 
of love replaced 
by warlike Mars

your spaceship gents
contains some tents
and even food supplied 

good luck on Mars
(amongst the stars)
and "bon voyage"


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 October 2007)

should Burmese generals rule? a valid question!
legitimate as valid questions come, 
but here's an illegitimate suggestion....
those bastards killed those monks and then played dumb!


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 October 2007)

Charles Kingsley "Young and Old" Poem movie animation



> Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) was born in Devon in the west of England and was the son of a vicar. He studied at University college London, before finishing his studies at Magdalene College, Cambridge.  .... married .........argued that religion and politics were intertwined ..... ..writing The Water Babies in 1862 (from which this poem is taken);.....
> 
> *The joys of youth and the grim prospect of old age are something we all must bare, but lets hope we have enough joyful memories so that in our old age we can look back and enjoy the happiness of once being young*.






> Young and Old
> 
> When all the world is young, lad,
> And all the trees are green;
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 October 2007)

Def Poetry Jam - Alicia Keys - POW


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 October 2007)

If anyone saw "Adventures in English" tonight 
the following is an extract... 

Background :- Wickliffe wrote the first English Bible (see lollards).  For his sins he died, was dug up by the priests of the day - bones removed, burned, and his ashes scattered in the Avon..

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Wycliffe
http://www.bartleby.com/100/pages/page483.html



> As thou these ashes, little brook, wilt bear
> Into the Avon, Avon to the tide
> Of Severn, Severn to the narrow seas,
> Into main ocean they, this deed accursed
> ...




After Wickliffe came Tyndale -  who also had to hide overseas whilst he dared to translate the bible into English, "the language of the ploughboys" 
killed for doing so.


> William Tyndale (sometimes spelled Tindall or Tyndall) (ca. 1494–1536) was a 16th century Protestant reformer and scholar who translated the Bible into the Early Modern English of his day. Although a number of partial and complete Old English translations had been made from the 7th century onward, Tyndale's was the first to take advantage of the new medium of print, which allowed for its wide distribution. In 1535 Tyndale was arrested, jailed in the castle of Vilvoorde outside Brussels, Belgium for more than a year, tried for heresy and treason and then strangled and burnt at the stake in the castle's courtyard






> Following the publication of the New Testament, Cardinal Wolsey condemned Tyndale as a heretic and demanded his arrest[citation needed].
> 
> Tyndale went into hiding, possibly for a time in Hamburg, and carried on working. He revised his New Testament and began translating the Old Testament and writing various treatises. In 1530 he wrote The Practyse of Prelates, which seemed to move him briefly to the Catholic side through its opposition to Henry VIII's divorce. This resulted in the king's wrath being directed at him: he asked the emperor Charles V to have Tyndale seized and returned to England[citation needed].
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 October 2007)

Further to last post 
http://www.ukstudentlife.com/Ideas/Fun/Wordplay.htm#Plurals


> Double Trouble
> A poem for English students
> by Mark Chandler
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 October 2007)

.. 
http://www.ukstudentlife.com/Ideas/Fun/Wordplay.htm#Pronunciation


> Sounds and Letters
> A poem for English students
> 
> When in English class we speak,
> ...





> A flea and a fly flew up in a flue.
> Said the flea, "Let us fly!"
> Said the fly, "Let us flee!"
> So they flew through a flaw in the flue.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 October 2007)

QUESTIONS OF OUR LEADERS SHOULD THERE BE A TELEVISED DEBATE

First question noble leaders
since you're obviously adored
the apples that you feed us
from which promises are cored
are they more like hot air heaters
in some big balloon unmoored?
.. are you hot air, yet you need us?
are you all we can afford?

Next question noble statemen
post election are you bored?
once you've fooled electoral gatesmen
are your promises ignored?
are we now the best of mates then
with some madman wielding sword?
is a "stuff-up" understatement?
is calamity assured ? 

Last question noble minister
should you become "first lord", 
are you hatching something sinister
in liberal or labour ward?
are the ethics you administer
where darts land on some board?
praps your clever speech-write spin(i)sters
should be the ones we drag aboard?


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 October 2007)

A couple of alternatives - I'm probably of the second school 



> It Couldn't Be Done
> By Edgar Guest
> 
> Somebody said it couldn't be done,
> ...





> It Couldn't Be Done II
> by anon
> 
> Somebody said it couldn't be done,
> ...




btw, even Edgar Albert Guest saw the humourous side of all this ....


> Father
> By Edgar Albert Guest
> 
> My father knows the proper way
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 October 2007)

A Psalm of Life
By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 
(What The Heart Of The Young Man Said To The Psalmist.)

Tell me not, in mournful numbers, 
   Life is but an empty dream! 
For the soul is dead that slumbers, 
   And things are not what they seem. 

Life is real! Life is earnest! 
   And the grave is not its goal; 
Dust thou art, to dust returnest, 
   Was not spoken of the soul. 

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow, 
   Is our destined end or way; 
But to act, that each to-morrow 
   Find us farther than to-day. 

Art is long, and Time is fleeting, 
   And our hearts, though stout and brave, 
Still, like muffled drums, are beating 
   Funeral marches to the grave. 

In the world’s broad field of battle, 
   In the bivouac of Life, 
Be not like dumb, driven cattle! 
   Be a hero in the strife! 

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant! 
   Let the dead Past bury its dead! 
Act,”” act in the living Present! 
   Heart within, and God o’erhead! 

Lives of great men all remind us 
   We can make our lives sublime, 
And, departing, leave behind us 
   Footprints on the sands of time; 

Footprints, that perhaps another, 
   Sailing o’er life’s solemn main, 
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother, 
   Seeing, shall take heart again. 

Let us, then, be up and doing, 
   With a heart for any fate; 
Still achieving, still pursuing, 
   Learn to labor and to wait.


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 October 2007)

> Thieves seize skis.
> ------------------------------------------
> A bloke's back bike brake-block broke.




sheesh, I have enough problems with "red leather, yellow leather" (repeated say 10 times fairly fast of course)


----------



## noirua (13 October 2007)

When you ride your motorbike,
wear tough strong leathers, alright,
if you don't, you'll not be hiking
and be sure, certainly not  biking.


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 October 2007)

> background reading , in the unlikely event that anyone's interested
> 
> https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=211800&highlight=pell#post211800




IN THIS ONE YOU LINE UP WITH THE PELLS OR THE GORES

they say the world is changing, and it’s getting extra warm,
a bit like (praps) late onset menopause?
a whisky lead recovery? - no ice will be the norm ? 
we ask quite rightly, “hey are men a cause”?
to strike a blow for earthly life, pre-emptively inform, 
you line up with the Pells or with the Gores,
the worst that it can pan out, it’s the lull before the storm,
at best? -  just add the first and second wars.

no man should take another by his soul or suit la-pells,
no man should preach against a sense of caution,
you silly man, the deaths you share by your “non-action yells”
by 15 million times out-rank abortion.
don’t preach against this logic as we’re heading into hells
don’t change the subject with divine contortion,
cos hell is where we’re heading, and denial sorta smells,
they’re earthly facts, they don’t need your distortion.

no “choral” in the chorus and no polar in the bear
some flowers mark their last and final breath
some spin doctored thesaurus, and some yarns denial-shared
accompany deniers unto death, 
if someone knows the chorus - why we shouldn’t act (and now),
not guessed, not jest, not blessed – give it your best.
so what if facts are porous, there’s no water anyhow
cos man has been one deadly earthly guest.

Sir George the rogue approached the rock, and made a holy wish
ignored the storm, ignored the warning bell,
“that rock’s a lot of poppycock”, he cried, to man and fish
“the swells just small, and further, all is swell”,
but then it all got wishy washy, “maybe I was wrong,
perhaps the rest were right to hear that knell”; 
well just to keep it mutual in the way they hear your song
you might as well insist – ignore No-bel. 

there’s no-one has the right to preach that everything is fine
there’s no-one has the right to preach “ignore”
my grandkids want to know why we ignored the warning sign
and why we charged on foot flat to the floor,
as stewards of this earthly dome, there’s morals to combine,
to fight against an ever rising shore,
don’t make this home a hell on earth, a smoking charcoal shrine
don’t listen to George Pell – believe Al Gore.

............

we ought to give it our best shot on where we want to steer
we ought to try to get ourselves on track
hey sure the sun is massive, and its hotter there than here
but still we need defending AND attack
till better then to curse the light - than curse the dark and fear,
"a candle lit" might be too many mac!
be careful of that candle for it's all now so severe
it might perhaps just break the camel's back


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 October 2007)

The Inchcape Rock
by Robert Southey,  Bristol, 1802 

An older writer mentions a curious tradition which may be worth quoting. ‘By east the Isle of May’, says he, ‘twelve miles from all land in the German seas, lyes a great hidden rock, called Inchcape, very dangerous for navigators, because it is overflowed everie tide. It is reported in old times, upon the saide rock there was a bell, fixed upon a tree or timber, which rang continually, being moved by the sea, giving notice to the saylers of the danger. This bell or clocke was put there and maintained by the Abbott of Aberbrothok, and being taken down by a sea pirate, a yeare thereafter he perished upon the same rocke, with ship and goodes, in the righteous judgement of God.’ – STODDART’S Remarks on Scotland.

No stir in the air, no stir in the sea, 
The ship was still as she could be, 
Her sails from heaven received no motion, 
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

Without either sign or sound of their shock 
The waves flow’d over the Inchcape Rock; 
So little they rose, so little they fell, 
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

The Abbot of Aberbrothok 
Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock; 
On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, 
And over the waves its warning rung.

When the Rock was hid by the surge’s swell, 
The mariners heard the warning bell; 
And then they knew the perilous Rock, 
And blest the Abbot of Aberbrothok.

The Sun in heaven was shining gay, 
All things were joyful on that day; 
The sea-birds scream’d as they wheel’d round, 
And there was joyaunce in their sound.

The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen 
A darker speck on the ocean green; 
Sir Ralph the Rover walk’d his deck, 
And he fix’d his eye on the darker speck.

He felt the cheering power of spring, 
It made his whistle, it made him sing; 
His heart was mirthful to excess, 
But the Rover’s mirth was wickedness.

His eye was on the Inchcape float; 
Quoth he, ‘My men, put out the boat, 
And row me to the Inchcape Rock, 
And I’ll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok.’

The boat is lower’d, the boatmen row, 
And to the Inchcape Rock they go; 
Sir Ralph bent over from the boat, 
And he cut the Bell from the Inchcape float.

Down sunk the Bell with a gurgling sound, 
The bubbles rose and burst around; 
Quoth Sir Ralph, ‘The next who comes to the Rock 
Won't bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok.'

Sir Ralph the Rover sail’d away, 
He scour’d the seas for many a day; 
And now grown rich with plunder’d store, 
He steers his course for Scotland’s shore.

So thick a haze o’erspreads the sky 
They cannot see the Sun on high; 
The wind hath blown a gale all day, 
At evening it hath died away.

On the deck the Rover takes his stand, 
So dark it is they see no land. 
Quoth Sir Ralph, ‘It will be lighter soon, 
For there is the dawn of the rising Moon.’

‘Canst hear,’ said one, ‘the breakers roar? 
For methinks we should be near the shore.’ 
‘Now where we are I cannot tell, 
But I wish I could hear the Inchcape Bell.’

They hear no sound, the swell is strong; 
Though the wind hath fallen they drift along, 
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,― 
‘Oh Christ! It is the Inchcape Rock!’

Sit Ralph the Rover tore his hair; 
He curst himself in his despair; 
The waves rush in on every side, 
The ship is sinking beneath the tide.

But even in his dying fear 
One dreadful sound could the Rover hear, 
A sound as if with the Inchcape Bell, 
The Devil below was ringing his knell.


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 October 2007)

(I notice Kennas on the car thread suggested he was going on "two feet and a heartbeat"  - so you can blame him for this extra contribution to cyber-pollution - at least there are no pulp-and/or-paper-pages involved lol) 

TWO FEET AND A HEARTBEAT

I think Forrest Gump’s my hero
cos he never drove a car,
with his impact next to zero
yet he came to get this far,
he just babbled on at bustops
with well travelled expertise,
I think Forrest Gump's my hero
- for the wishbones in his knees.

When we’re born we’re all on P plates
till we learn which knee goes first - 
Forrest kicked his extra knee plates
(and the rest was unrehearsed),
and he took off bipeds flying, 
on these mad gyrating legs,
it was all so breath-defying,
on those death-defying pegs.

Well he frowned at a Ferrari
and he never owned a Fiat,
he just walked on to “where are we”
with a V1 not a V8,
with his motor never missin'  
(that he didn’t have to start),
just a biped on a mission,
and a bivale in his heart.

Man has always had this motor
since young Adam was a boy,
now his heartbeat’s a Toyota
or some other four wheel toy,
but I now suspect some quota 
says the brand new custom fleet
are two kneecaps on a rotor
and a heartbeat and two feet.

..........
We can all make this decision
and it ain't too late to start
we're all bipeds on a mission,
with a bivale in our heart.


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 October 2007)

Paul Keating - The Redfern Address - Australian Labor Party


> On December 10, 1992. The Hon. Paul Keating Prime Minister of Australia gave the following address to launch the International Year of the World's Indigenous People. This speech was recently voted as the most important speech ever given in Australia




Roll On A Fair Australia

I personally can’t wait to put a tick upon that square
the one that asks you who should lead "Advance Australia Fair"
and who is best and fairest, so a "Fair Go" is assured
(that day before the three years when the voter is ignored.)

I personally can’t wait to put a tick and take a chance
cos anyone is fairer - for a "Fair Oz" to "Advance"
where boils of racial overtones need learning, light and lance
(and skip the lecture please about my personal finance).

The Sorry movement needed someone capable of feeling
'Twas all about a golden chance to bring about some healing
It didn’t need a “Mein Kampf!!” speech - which brought a black rebuttal- 
(which goes down in our history as the moment most un-subtle.)

The black man knows his reptiles, and he calls a snake a snake
He’s watched since Keating's Redfern speech as Canberra turned fake
He wants a white man’s true respect, prepared to have it earned
But he needs a chance – and the chance is here – ....

may the rebuttal be returned. 

  Howard admits failings on Indigenous issues
check the 1 minute mark


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 October 2007)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/15/2059904.htm

Carer's week (could just as easily be mental health I guess - something that doesn't have the jingle of a productivity cash register attached  and where less fortunate Aussies are doing it real real tough - in the case of carers, try a life sentence - closest thing you can compare it to)
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/16/2060642.htm

THE LONELY VOICE OF CARERS IN AN ELECTION CAMPAIGN

Forget the nation's dilemnas
forget its moral soul
forget single mum's bleak Decembers
or the carers left out in the cold
forget the nation's ethics
let's go for something more bold 
....
what they offer to be re-elected
are thirty odd pieces of gold


----------



## wayneL (26 October 2007)

One of my favourites:

The Story of Mongrel Grey

This is the story the stockman told
On the cattle-camp, when the stars were bright;
The moon rose up like a globe of gold
And flooded the plain with her mellow light.
We watched the cattle till dawn of day
And he told me the story of Mongrel Grey.

He was a knock-about station hack,
Spurred and walloped, and banged and beat;
Ridden all day with a sore on his back,
Left all night with nothing to eat.
That was a matter of everyday
Normal occurrence with Mongrel Grey.

We might have sold him, but someone heard
He was bred out back on a flooded run,
Where he learnt to swim like a waterbird;
Midnight or midday were all as one --
In the flooded ground he would find his way;
Nothing could puzzle old Mongrel Grey.

'Tis a trick, no doubt, that some horses learn;
When the floods are out they will splash along
In girth-deep water, and twist and turn
From hidden channel and billabong,
Never mistaking the road to go;
for a man may guess -- but the horses know.

I was camping out with my youngest son --
Bit of a nipper, just learnt to speak --
In an empty hut on the lower run,
Shooting and fishing in Conroy's Creek.
The youngster toddled about all day
And there with our horses was Mongrel Grey.

All of a sudden a flood came down,
At first a freshet of mountain rain,
Roaring and eddying, rank and brown,
Over the flats and across the plain.
Rising and rising -- at fall of night
Nothing but water appeared in sight!

'Tis a nasty place when the floods are out,
Even in daylight; for all around
Channels and billabongs twist about,
Stretching for miles in the flooded ground.
And to move seemed a hopeless thing to try
In the dark with the storm-water racing by.

I had to risk it. I heard a roar
As the wind swept down and the driving rain;
And the water rose till it reached the floor
Of our highest room; and 'twas very plain --
The way the torrent was sweeping down --
We must make for the highlands at once, or drown.

Off to the stable I splashed, and found
The horses shaking with cold and fright;
I led them down to the lower ground,
But never a yard would they swim that night!
They reared and snorted and turned away,
And none would face it but Mongrel Grey.

I bound the child on the horse's back,
And we started off, with a prayer to heaven,
Through the rain and the wind and the pitchy black
For I knew that the instinct God has given
To prompt His creatures by night and day
Would guide the footsteps of Mongrel Grey.

He struck deep water at once and swam --
I swam beside him and held his mane --
Till we touched the bank of the broken dam
In shallow water; then off again,
Swimming in darkness across the flood,
Rank with the smell of the drifting mud.

He turned and twisted across and back,
Choosing the places to wade or swim,
Picking the safest and shortest track --
The blackest darkness was clear to him.
Did he strike the crossing by sight or smell?
The Lord that held him alone could tell!

He dodged the timber whene'er he could,
But timber brought us to grief at last;
I was partly stunned by a log of wood
That struck my head as it drifted past;
Then lost my grip of the brave old grey,
And in half a second he swept away.

I reached a tree, where I had to stay,
And did a perish for two days' hard;
And lived on water -- but Mongrel Grey,
He walked right into the homestead yard
At dawn next morning, and grazed around,
With the child strapped on to him safe and sound.

We keep him now for the wife to ride,
Nothing too good for him now, of course;
Never a whip on his fat old hide,
For she owes the child to that brave grey horse.
And not Old Tyson himself could pay
The purchase money of Mongrel Grey.

A B Banjo Paterson


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 October 2007)

Here you go Wayne - a going away present 
must admit, I've always pictured the water a bit deeper than she's painted it here lol. 

PS I agree - that is one ripper poem.
http://www.acay.com.au/~severn/illust/illust.htm


> Julianne Kershaw
> Woombye, Queensland, AUSTRALIA
> "The Story of Mongrel Grey" - 2001, relief print using Graphic Chemical oil based inks and printed on Stonehenge Paper
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 October 2007)

Obviously some difference of opinion between Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson (the solicitor and the sometimes-alcohol-challenged-but-loved story teller)  ....  

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/w...o/verse/saltbushbillandother/answerbards.html

An Answer to Various Bards
Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Paterson

WELL, I’ve waited mighty patient while they all came rolling in,
Mister Lawson, Mister Dyson, and the others of their kin,
With their dreadful, dismal stories of the Overlander’s camp,
How his fire is always smoky, and his boots are always damp;
And they paint it so terrific it would fill one’s soul with gloom,
But you know they’re fond of writing about “corpses” and “the tomb”.
So, before they curse the bushland they should let their fancy range,
And take something for their livers, and be cheerful for a change. 

*Now, for instance, Mr. Lawson—well, of course, we almost cried
At the sorrowful description how his “little ’Arvie” died,
And we lachrymosed in silence when “His Father’s Mate” was slain;
Then he went and killed the father, and we had to weep again.
Ben Duggan and Jack Denver, too, he caused them to expire,
And he went and cooked the gander of Jack Dunn, of Nevertire;
So, no doubt, the bush is wretched if you judge it by the groan
Of the sad and soulful poet with a graveyard of his own. *

And he spoke in terms prophetic of a revolution’s heat,
When the world should hear the clamour of those people in the street;
But the shearer chaps who start it—why, he rounds on them in blame,
And he calls ’em “agitators” who are living on the game.
*But I “over-write” the bushmen! Well, I own without a doubt
That I always see a hero in the “man from furthest out”.
I could never contemplate him through an atmosphere of gloom,
And a bushman never struck me as a subject for “the tomb”. *

If it ain’t all “golden sunshine” where the “wattle branches wave”,
Well, it ain’t all damp and dismal, and it ain’t all “lonely grave”.
*And, of course, there’s no denying that the bushman’s life is rough,
But a man can easy stand it if he’s built of sterling stuff;*
Tho’ it’s seldom that the drover gets a bed of eider-down,
Yet the man who’s born a bushman, he gets mighty sick of town,
For he’s jotting down the figures, and he’s adding up the bills
While his heart is simply aching for a sight of Southern hills. 

Then he hears a wool-team passing with a rumble and a lurch,
And, although the work is pressing, yet it brings him off his perch.
For it stirs him like a message from his station friends afar
And he seems to sniff the ranges in the scent of wool and tar;
And it takes him back in fancy, half in laughter, half in tears,
To a sound of other voices and a thought of other years,
When the woolshed rang with bustle from the dawning of the day,
And the shear-blades were a-clicking to the cry of “Wool away!” 

Then his face was somewhat browner and his frame was firmer set—
And he feels his flabby muscles with a feeling of regret.
But the wool-team slowly passes, and his eyes go sadly back
To the dusty little table and the papers in the rack,
And his thoughts go to the terrace where his sickly children squall,
*And he thinks there’s something healthy in the bush-life after all*.
But we’ll go no more a-droving in the wind or in the sun,
For our fathers’ hearts have failed us and the droving days are done. 

There’s a nasty dash of danger where the long-horned bullock wheels,
And we like to live in comfort and to get our reg’lar meals.
For to hang around the townships suits us better, you’ll agree,
And a job at washing bottles is the job for such as we.
*Let us herd into the cities, let us crush and crowd and push
Till we lose the love of roving and we learn to hate the bush;
And we’ll turn our aspirations to a city life and beer,
And we’ll slip across to England—it’s a nicer place than here*; 

For there’s not much risk of hardship where all comforts are in store,
And the theatres are plenty and the pubs are more and more.
But that ends it, Mr. Lawson, and it’s time to say good-bye,
We must agree to differ in all friendship, you and I;
So we’ll work our own salvation with the stoutest hearts we may,
And if fortune only favours we will take the road some day,
And go droving down the river ’neath the sunshine and the stars,
And then return to Sydney and vermilionize the bars.

('vermilionize' = paint blood red (?), colourful language perhaps?)


----------



## INORE (26 October 2007)

Benny's in the poo again 
He's got himself arrested 
But not for indecent exposure 
Although he was bare-chested 

Give us a sample of your blood young Ben 
He heard the coppers say 
But Benny flatly refused to comply 
His answer was "No Way" 

So they searched the car from top to bottom 
Until they found the loot 
They cuffed our Benny on the spot 
And chucked him in the boot 

The Eagles have to sack him now 
They have no other choice 
They have to get together 
And speak with one loud voice 

The trouble with these heroes is 
They get paid too much money 
With so much time to spend it 
They flush it down the dunny 

 Juddy's gone to Carlton now 
 And Wooden has retired 
 Chicky's not on contract 
And Benny "you are fired" 

But alls not lost, do not despair 
You'll have to face your 'Mockers' 
You've done the crime, now do your time 
And come and join the Dockers!!


yeah i think benny and the dockers deserve eachother


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 October 2007)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Earth_clock_hg.png

WILL THE WORLD LAST TWO MORE MILLISECONDS?  (i.e. 200 more years) 

It was 17 seconds to midnight
that man and his madness evolved
that he watched his first sunset sink westward
as a welcoming wide world revolved; 

With a full 12 hour clock as creation
_(making 4.5 billion years old) _
we’ve had 17 seconds probation
_(we’ve watched 1.8 million unfold). _

Will we see out another second?
_(that’s a THOUSAND centuries to run? - 
heck the way we are going you’d reckon
we’d be lucky to see out just ONE.)_

Praps mankind will miss the inventory
(if you've something to do, do it quick),
praps we’ll see out about ??  two centuries ??
that’s just two milliseconds to tick.

May all creatures between then and now
dance as two milliseconds elapse - 
maybe man's final sunset somehow
will give life to the others - ?   perhaps?  



https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=158576&highlight=pleistocene#post158576
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale



> An Earth clock showing relationship of duration of the various era/periods of the earth history to one day. The Quaternary, comprising the last 2 million years, is just 17 seconds on a clock where 24 hours (** see note) are related to the total age of the earth of 4.5 Billion years.
> 
> Permission  ..(Reusing this image) Own work, share alike, attribution required (Creative Commons CC-BY-SA-2.5)



Note **   Although that website says that it's a 24 hourclock, I think they mean 12 hour .  

easy to check 
17 seconds = 1.8 million years of man
therefore 4.5 million years is only 12 hours ( not 24)

also (as I say above), 1 second = 1/17  x 1.8 million = 100,000 = one thousand centuries
and one millisecond = 1 century. 
two milliseconds = 2 centuries etc


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 October 2007)

FILES ARE PEOPLE

when the docs lady gets a case study
all so neat in it's red-ribboned file
praps she paws through the words all so muddied (?)
praps she'll walk in their shoes a brief mile (?)
when she reaches to grasp that brown folder
she'll imagine she's shaking their hand (?)
sunken cheeked, some in need of a shoulder
do those words cry out.... "life's so unplanned"?.


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 October 2007)

Beautiful regular rhythm in this ballad by Banjo Paterson... 
(personally I really like these "galloping rhythmical rhymes" )



> HOW GILBERT DIED
> Andrew Barton ‘Banjo’ Paterson
> 
> THERE’S never a stone at the sleeper’s head,
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 October 2007)

An Extract from Gordon's "Bush Ballads and Galloping Rhymes"



> HOW WE BEAT THE FAVOURITE by Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833 - 1870)
> A LAY OF THE LOAMSHIRE HUNT CUP
> 
> "Aye, squire," said Stevens, "they back him at evens;
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 October 2007)

and again .. (ALG)
too long to post the entire poem ( which can be found here) ..
http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/w...dsay/verse/SeaSpraySmokeDrift/kettledrum.html


> The Roll of the Kettledrum;
> or, THE LAY OF THE LAST CHARGER
> Adam Lindsay Gordon
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 October 2007)

WHAT DO TRADING AND ELECTIONS HAVE IN COMMON

My mate is into "control freak"
he’s taken to trading in shares
he bought oh so bold – ( and then sold meek )
seems he can’t control bovines and bears (?)
it’s not that he’s stricken with cold feet
it’s just that he treads with more care
once you’ve bought you’re up “out-of-control” creek
and no paddle except “double dare”.

many pollies can kerb their control streaks
to advance baby kissing careers
they have alternate out-of-control weeks
needing breath fresh! or breath of fresh air!?
one day they’re like god - then the polls reek
of Fed onions (unions?) (up with which we’re all fed)
but for mine it’s called national soul week
for my kids’ greener pastures ahead.

sure a few kids are "lazy lousy dole cheats"
but then a streetkid’s sole friend is a louse 
once you’ve voted, swap “**** creek” for “shot crete” 
and no paddle except Upper House.- 
what they need is a house of rebuke
to get back to a moral core
what we needed? a reconciled spook
what we got? some Iraqi war.

first we decimate Aus R&D (editor’s note : scientists overseeing our Research & Devt)
and ignore Kyoto with others (editor’s note : USA)
now our scientists  “oversee” overseas
they’re the ones that can call the world “brothers”
yes we chased out our bright sparks and finest  
now in fact we are miners ! – no more !
what will happen when we no more are miners ?
guess there’s always the US and some war. 

what we need are a few more lone voices
to remind what democracy’s for
so the tones that are Barnaby Joyce’s
aren’t so lonely when crossing the floor. 
what they need is to feel voters’ push
thick or thin, green or brown, man or mouse
- (man or mouse when it comes to George Bush)
Green and Brown when you talk upper house.


........
Footnote on the way Politicians answer the question "Why did we go to Iraq?"

when the willing coaltion are questioned
why they went into blood-soaked iraq
they will mumble some futile regression
they will answer miles wide of the mark
they will try to escape to the future
and ignore what they did in the past
cos to talk of past sins doesn’t suit ya
when you’re nailed to a fast-sinking mast.

If the GM of BHP mining
went and set up on Fiji for oil - 
spose there’s none – would he then be resigning ?
or say “trust me, and stick to your toil!!” ?   
....
If John’s asked "was intelligence twisted
and were countless prime speeches all spin ?"
Can he answer “we were just ham fisted" (?)
- "we invented a war there to win".(?)


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 October 2007)

RUMSFELD'S LAMENT

there are things that we know we don’t know
(there’s “Iraq” where “good oil’s” all he lacked)
there are things we don’t know we don’t know
.....
(I wonder if he knew he’d be sacked. )





> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Rumsfeld
> [edit] Calls for resignation
> Eight retired generals and admirals called for Rumsfeld to resign in early 2006 in what was called the "Generals Revolt", mostly questioning his military planning and strategic competence.[40][41][42] Rumsfeld rebuffed these criticisms, stating that "out of thousands and thousands of admirals and generals, if every time two or three people disagreed we changed the secretary of defense of the United States, it would be like a merry-go-round."[43] Conservative commentator Pat Buchanan reports that "Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, who travels often to Iraq and supports the war, says that the generals mirror the views of 75 percent of the officers in the field, and probably more."[44] President Bush responded to the criticism by stating that Rumsfeld is "exactly what is needed,"[45] and also defended him in his controversial decider remark.
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 October 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> ........
> Footnote on the way Politicians answer the question "Why did we go to Iraq?"
> 
> when the willing coaltion are questioned
> ...



it's an interesting thing when you ask of Iraq
why they always look forward and never look back
would the manager stand up? the one in the know?
may I ask you again sir, why is it so?


----------



## 2020hindsight (29 October 2007)

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=160645&highlight=quarter#post160645

nothing to do with the quarter moon - in fact it was pretty full last weekend.

Just that I bought this new digital camera - and I'm practicing to do my own version of the "Hubbel photo"  



> ...... Praps a softly whispered hello to this space companion mellow
> compliment her gold and yellow (where Egyptians used to pray)
> Rolling silently with Earth, dragging tides around its girth
> Giving night skies their rebirth and deserved sleep by day.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 October 2007)

now for the poem to go with it ... 
there was a sad one back there about bushfire season .. 
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=100976&highlight=flailing#post100976


> Koalas chewing tips of gums, swing heads to face the threat of fire, !
> the booming of the angry drums, that turn a brave man to a liar, !
> “Be still my soul, Godzilla comes! I wonder should I climb on higher ?
> I wonder with this death that numbs, will I make handsome funeral pyre ?”
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 October 2007)

A POSTSCRIPT TO ALVIN TOFFLER's "FUTURE SHOCK"
or 
SHOULD I WORRY ABOUT HOW WE ARE GONNA CUT OUR FINGERNAILS IN THE FUTURE? 
(when we've run out of fingernail cutters - having just noticed 4 pairs here, one pair of which works )

A wasteful lot us baby boomers, (X & Y are worse)
take cutting nails, with clippers steel ! (the planet's in reverse !)
why not just ONE such set of clippers? - in some drawer that's near?
we waste today - tomorrow ? - gee I bite my nails in fear.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Toffler


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 October 2007)

Extract from "The Adventure of English" - The Biography of a Language - by Melvyn Bragg
..


> Queen Elizabeth I has a fair claim to be the best educated monarch ever to sit on the throne of England.   Apart from her mastery of rhetoric, she spoke six languages and translated French and Latin texts.  Furthermore she enjoyed writing poetry...
> 
> "I grieve and dare not show my Discontent;
> I love and yet am forc'd to seem I hate;
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (31 October 2007)

Is Heaven Monogamous? 

Mrs Walsh was widowed 
not once, two times, but thrice
and each of them thrice widowered
(and chasing marital "spice")
but personally I ponder
how they're gonna sort things out
when they go to Heaven yonder - 
and they all share just one cloud


----------



## 2020hindsight (31 October 2007)

The Man From Snowy River - Banjo's Poem


> Banjo Paterson wrote the poem 'The Man From Snowy River'. Its as Australian as you can get. He tells the story of the tough horsemen of Snowy Mountains. Footage is from the movie 'Man From Snowy River' presented by Michael Edgley International & Cambridge Films - perhaps the greatest movie ever made in Australia by Australians. It stars Tom Burlinson, Jack Thompson, Sigrid Thornton and Kirk Douglas (for US distribution purposes & the money men), he did a pretty good job all in all




 Man From Snowy River - The Descent

My Kid Loves Man from Snowy River

 Sydney 2000 Opening Ceremony - Welcome


> The Opening Ceremony began with a tribute to the heritage of the Australian Stock Horse, with the arrival of a lone rider, Steve Jefferys, whose Australian Stock Horse, Ammo, reared. Steve Jefferys then cracked his stockwhip and a further 120 riders and their Stock Horses entered the Stadium and performed intricate steps, including forming the five Olympic Rings, to the music of Bruce Rowland who composed a special Olympics version of the main theme which he had composed for the 1982 film The Man from Snowy River. A giant banner, painted by Sydney artist Ken Done, said "G'Day" to the world.


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 November 2007)

SCREWED TO A CROSS

I used to loan to addicts on some
never-never plan
they never paid me back because
they never stayed but ran - 
I don't enjoy financial loss
and I don't like being crude
but I've never not been nailed to a cross
and I've never not been screwed.


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 November 2007)

IF ABE LINCOLN WAS STILL AROUND
Gone with the Wind - the Sequel

I guess you need to understand
how modern pollies think
it’s less about the cards in hand
it’s more how rare they blink
it’s less about the morals 
and/or whether "they" believe
it’s less about the truth per se
it’s more what “we” perceive.

Abe Lincoln would be lost today
he wouldn’t stand a chance
the man who healed a nation 
after civil warring rants
the man who held a nation 
and who preached equality
and took his land to war so that 
some slaves could all go free.

He took it to the people 
in a civil rights campaign
the sort of moral steeple 
you’ll unlikely see again - 
these days the pollies are political wh-ores
in a “state of aggressive war”
but the state we're all in - when the war is o’er?
….
he’d have asked – “what’s this fighting for ?”


----------



## drillinto (2 November 2007)

Hand Shadows

Mary Cornish

My father put his hands in the white light
of the lantern, and his palms became a horse
that flicked its ears and bucked; an alligator
feigning sleep along the canvas wall leapt up
and snapped its jaws in silhouette, or else
a swan would turn its perfect neck and drop
a fingered beak toward that shadowed head
to lightly preen my father's feathered hair.
Outside our tent, skunks shuffled in the woods
beneath a star that died a little every day,
and from a nebula of light diffused
inside Orion's sword, new stars were born.
My father's hands became two birds, linked
by a thumb, they flew one following the other.

From "Red Studio", 2007
Oberlin College Press, USA


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 November 2007)

drillinto said:


> Hand Shadows
> ..... or else
> a swan would turn its perfect neck and drop
> a fingered beak toward that shadowed head
> ...



gotta feelin this was on Spiks and Speks last wednesday 
Hand shadows No FAKE!!

 Raymond Crowe an interview.


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 November 2007)

Speaking of ABC shows - Denton interviewed Terri Irwin last Monday, "one year  on"  

She's writing a book btw. 

TERRI IRWIN ONE YEAR ON 

heard Terri Irwin interviewed 
on Denton’s show last week,
a humourous exchange between 
a heroine and geek,
but touching on some touchy ones 
like how close is that cloud
where Steve sits smiling watching 
in his khaki coloured shroud.

an easy going mother 
and perceptive eyes as well,
protective of the balance
with a wildlife call to sell,
her husband and their father,
did they feel his helping hand?
and she answered in a way I thought
particularly grand.

his toothbrush hangs upon the wall, 
his shirts "just there" and neat 
his tramping boots are empty 
(and there’s none to fill his feet)
their marriage vows omitted words 
“till death’s jaws do us part”
she recounts with a smile, that they walk back that aisle,
“as long as we BOTH shall live”

I grin at the optional grammar, 
(I admire her oh so much)
this brave adoptive Aussie, 
with the master wildlife touch,
when she stands with young Bob and young Bindi, 
all I see are four khaki quins
and I pray to Gods Christian and Hindi
that the good guy (and gal and kids) "win".



> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/10/29/2072726.htm
> Terri Irwin: one year on
> Posted Mon Oct 29, 2007 9:18am AEDT
> 
> ...



there's a photo there...
personally I've never cuddled a koala (as per that photo), though I did move one off a road once - he was sitting there in the middle watching the semitrailers go past - I grabbed him as gently as I could, but he put on one right royal hissing fit  - whatever - I put him back in the bush, and felt better for my efforts.


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 November 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> she recounts with a smile, that they walk back that aisle,
> “as long as we BOTH shall live”
> 
> I grin at the optional grammar  ...



PS ..

I believe she implied
joking real or aside
as a young groom and bride, 
he "knot-tied" her

I believe she implied
that he's STILL by her side
(neither here nor there but..)
"both" 
here means 
"either"
.....

(neither here nor there but..)
"both here"
means 
"either"  



> when she stands with young Bob and young Bindi,
> all I see are four khaki quins...***
> and I pray to Gods Christian and Hindi
> that the good guy (and gal and kids) "win".



**
ok ok should be quads - (cept that didn't ryhme with "win")


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 November 2007)

MY MATE, THE WOMBAT, AND THE BUSY ROAD

My mate was driving home one rainy day,
and saw a wombat with wet and weary load,
he stank of mud (and stuff I’d rather not say) ,
and appeared to want to run across the road,
my mate was quite alarmed – on many levels,
the risk of trucks! to run exceeding rash!,
and yet this wombat lined up like a dare devil ,
about to race a hundred metre dash.

He parked beside the road and walked (now soaking),
and closed his eyes and wished he’d pegged his nose,
and picked the wombat up (the stench was choking),
to hell with suit and tie and business clothes,
he waited till the traffic had a gap there,
and ran across with heffalump in tow,
and placed it down, and gave himself a clap there,
believing that his sainthood was on show.

No sooner down, and man and wombat parted,
It ran and found a culvert under foot,
and charged back to that point at which it started,
as if some game or joke was here afoot.
.....
My mate drove off, (the mammal still played dumb),
he looked back quickly swearing at the rain,
rear-visioned there, he saw another come,- 
and driver run to help "dumb beast" again.


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 November 2007)

terri irwin interview...(just for completeness)
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/video/default.htm?program=enoughrope&pres=20071029&story=1
parts 1 2 and (in particular ) *part 3*.


----------



## noirua (4 November 2007)

I worry each day about thermal
is it good for the country, Australia,
more importantly is it terminal
and encourages growth, Australia.

Without it the economy, it grows weaker
and with it our throats, in our Australia,
more importantly does it need a teacher
energy, defence, parched land, Australia.

Others provide it instead of our country
and be sure, the best, is in Australia,
the ports grow ever more crowded
as they grow and expand in Australia.

It's needed to grow economies and help them 
China, Korea, Japan and benefits Australia,
they choke in the clouds of smoke and hate us,
well at least Greenpeace, Good olde Australia.

Thermal Coal expands the World - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 November 2007)

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=171298&highlight=manchurian#post171298

there are a few websites featuring academics who compare Bush to the Manchurian Candidate (sleeper politicians who play into the hands of the bad guys) ...
http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=manchurian+candidate+bush&meta=



> http://hnn.us/articles/32618.html by Mr. Buzzanco, Professor of History, University of Houston, is the author of several books and articles on Vietnam War
> *If enemies of the United States had gotten together *a few years ago to devise a plan to damage America and undermine its global position–diminish its power and credibility, drag it into a stubborn war, harm its relations with allies, create international financial disarray, run up huge deficits, create political openings for the Europeans and China to exploit and become equals in global economic matters, motivate terrorists, bring the U.S. image in the Middle East to its nadir, restrict civil liberties at home, and so forth–*they would have been hard-pressed to create a program that would be more effective than the Bush administration’s policies on these issues of war, terrorism, and global economics have*.
> 
> Indeed, if one is an “enemy” of the U.S., then he/she would have to be heartened that Bush has pursued this agenda and would have to be elated that the war in Iraq continues today. Given enough rope, Bush may hang not only himself, but American influence and credibility, and the global economy. *Like a “sleeper” agent, or Laurence Harvey’s famed character, Sgt. Raymond Shaw, in The Manchurian Candidate, George W. Bush, the ultimate insider, is doing more to damage America than Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Hassan Nasrallah, the Syrians, the Iranians, or any other enemy du jour, ever could.*
> ...





> http://bigpicture.typepad.com/comments/2005/10/manchurian_cand.html
> the longer President Bush occupies the White House the more it becomes clear that his big-government domestic policies, his preference for Republican and business cronies over talented administrators, his lack of a clear intellectual compass and his superficial and often wrong-headed grasp of international affairs – all have done more to destroy the legacy of Ronald Reagan, a President who halted then reversed America’s post-Vietnam decline, than any left-liberal Democrat or European America-hater could ever have dreamed of. As one astute American conservative commentator has already observed, President Bush has morphed into the Manchurian Candidate, behaving as if placed among Americans by their enemies to do them damage.




THE MANCHURIAN WHO INVENTED ME-TOO-ISM

like a cult of Manchurian candidates
who are sleepers to act on commands
who respond as if brain programmed mandates
and will go and attack foreign lands
who will play as if bad guy bidden 
and dimwittingly into his hands
to agendas so blatant half hidden
to bolster the ranks of his bands

if Bin Laden has prayed for a blessing
in his best dreams he’d conjure Iraq
with three turkeys all ripe for the dressing
who’ll ensure him the soldiers he lacks
thanks to George-Tony-John (and to Allah)
what was “down and out”’s now “fighting back”
looking back it was “madness” not “valour”
(ah if only I had that vote back.)

like a cult of Manchurian candidates
who will dance in a hypnotised spin
who will cover their tracks with spun “bandaids”
and blame somebody else for their sin,
who will plunder incredibly dumbly 
and the saddest thing, some are believed
you’ll be relieved when I tell you something
as of “soon”, you’ll all be relieved.

since Johnny you’re into namecalling
whether unions or scientist sceptics
praps you’ll find it a little heart warming
that we’re leaving behind moral septics,
Since Johnny you’re into namecalling
neither trick treat or trite but a truism
as your sun in the west is falling
you’re “the man who invented me-too-ism”
……..
“the manchurian who invented me-too-ism”


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 November 2007)

Brilliant words - intertwining the stories of "Victor" and Billy - until they meet. 

 Billy Joel - Leningrad



> LENINGRAD - Billy Joel
> 
> Viktor was born in the spring of '44
> And never saw his father anymore
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 November 2007)

THE DEPARTMENT OF WHISTLE BLOWERS 
(A new Dept to consider for the next departmental reshuffle, Federal or State ) 

I'd like some new departments both for federal and state
replace the one for tampa-ing with facts or fuelling hate
replace the rules permitting only ministers to speak
and redefine as "spring of truth" what's now called "nasty leak".

this new department’s name would be “the rights of whistle blowers”
where clerks and secretariats could flood the press like Noahs
or nurses could step up to bench and state the facts as eyeballed
without the threat – as now occurs – thereafter being blackballed

so long as it is more than ‘gos’, or fall-out with a mate
employees could dob in their boss and guaranteed no hate
and none found floating somewhere with thin wires through their lips
at times like this we must have truth, and loose lips might save ships

of course there’s things taboo out there, that might get to our foe
the trigger for an Abomb – (sheesh, as if they didn’t know)
let’s hear about corruption in the ranks of our police
and a “grassing” cop might win the day so that fights over “turf” might cease. 

DoCS now has a case to answer  - “Ombudsman to fix”
hey, what the !?!  pass the buck to them to help deflect the bricks?
the Ombudsmen are doing work that others ought to do
and sweat for yet more sad reports when things go all askew

HEY - personally I'd love it if the Ombudsman was king !
the trouble is there’s too few saints to help to run the thing
and who would “watch the watcher” if it wasn’t you and I?
*we need our whistle blowers!  and protect them to the sky!.* 

these days a public servant signs to say his lips are sealed (?)
- it’s not commercial confidence if bad guys are revealed?!?
nor yet if he discloses that the minister’s a liar
the truth-he-says should not affect his chance of promotion higher.

don’t think of it as whistler blowers , call it warning bark
(if Hans Blitz had been listened to, we might have skipped Iraq)
with In-trays full of thistles and inaction stuck in park
take the eyepatch off one eye at least – and whistle at the dark. !!


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 November 2007)

SOME ANTICS WITH SEMANTICS 
(Background – Johnny Runs Over Maxine’s Dog - correction his shoe does)

Johnny said “Maxine, I was out for my jog
when – *I’m Sorry - my running shoe skittled your dog*” -
so she took him to court and maintained, cut and dried
he was guilty as sin, or else b) he had lied. 

So he countered “No way there’s alternative  c)
as my SHOE passed, the dog just appeared from a tree
an encounter just happened back there in the fog – 
plus - you must have misheard -  *twas my SHOE killed your dog*!

“Now the body has limits – I’m “up from the feet”
and you cannot incriminate “up with this beat”
and *I* needn’t say sorry, it’s the fault of these shoes!!
so in answer to that, Maxine – I win you lose.!

Now I’ll speak to the court on my shoe’s behalf 
If you promise to listen (Maxine, please don’t laugh)
This sole’s a bit slippery, his tread's a bit worn,
cos my feet (and my reason) are riddled with corn.”

And the Beak said “aha – now the riddle is solved
with some antics I find there’s semantics involved
since you say that your shoes are what keeps YOU in shape
*I imprison you too – just to keep THEM in shape*". 

………….
If you’d said all along there was fine print involved
and you’d sing the full song as the planet revolved
and each day we’d be given a hint and a clue
john we’d know who to trust.  ....   and


dear John, 
not you.


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 November 2007)

since the election season will soon give way to the cricket season 
here's a website with some cricket humour.   -

plus some definitions therefrom

plus a poem that is similar to something Banjo might write  

http://www.cricinfo.com/link_to_database/MISC/HUMOUR/

Just a few definitions from "A Cricket Dictionary"--



> APPEAL- A 250 decibel scream made to overcome the obvious congenital deafness so common in the umpiring profession.
> 
> AVAGOYAMUG- The mysterious, almost religious chant that comes out of the mouth of the cricket spectator.Sometimes it can be repeated by the one person 1200  times in  an  afternoon,especially  if the Englishmen are batting.
> 
> ...






> A MAD GUIDE TO CRICKET TERMINOLOGY
> APPEAL - What is left in the fruit bowl after the lunch break.
> BAIL - What a batsman does immediately after getting out cheaply.
> BLOCK HOLE - Cured with a good Sri Lankan curry.
> ...




"HOW McDOUGALL TOPPED THE SCORE" - Thomas E. Spencer  (1845-1910)
http://www.bushverse.com/contents.html


> How McDougal Topped The Score
> 
> A peaceful spot is Pipers Flat. The fold that live around
> They keep themselves by keeping sheep and turning up the ground
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 November 2007)

I SAW GOD ONE DAY 

I saw god one dawn as the first sunbeams smiled
he was crossing the sky like a golden haired child
some gull heading seaward , some “call of life” heard
and he looked for all worlds like a parenting bird

I saw god one morn, he was leading a band
as they juggled some leaf to a blade of warm sand
not a word did he preach, neither brimstone nor rant
but he looked I beseech you – the tiniest ant.

I saw god one noon , a magnificent creature
as he arched for a breach  – as the ultimate teacher
which? feminine? nature? or hairy old male?
no my friend, god was (that day) a frolicking whale

I saw god one afternoon high in a tree 
with his beady black pupils reflecting on me
then he sprang to a branch where a blossom looked on
and he looked for all worlds like a wild possum’s son

I saw god one eve-ning as twilight turned grey 
just a spider and web that was blocking my way
they were radiant spiralling splendid and splayed
and I bowed my head there and together we prayed

I saw god one night in a magic black sky
with a zillion small lights where eternities pry
and a cascade of light years like cheese in a cage 
and I know I’m a speck and my sparkplug must age

and I give my respect - and I smile at this page.


----------



## drillinto (12 November 2007)

A New Poet

Linda Pastan

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day - the odor of truth
and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.



From "Heroes In Disguise", 1991
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 November 2007)

as you say noi, one for Remembrance Day..
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=222622&highlight=kipling#post222622

http://home.clara.net/stevebrown/html/expeience_of_war/kipling_my_boy_jack.htm



> 'My Boy Jack' (1916) Rudyard Kipling
> 
> 'Have you news of my boy Jack?'
> Not this tide.
> ...





> Kipling's son, John, was lost in action during the Battle of Loos, September 1915. His body was never recovered until long after his father's death and the war's end. Kipling and his wife had to endure long years of uncertainty regarding their son's fate.
> This poem was published to accompany some articles written on the Battle of Jutland, May 1916 - the largest naval engagement between British and German warships during the war. British losses - of men and ships - were heavier than that of the Germans, although the German High Fleet never attempted to come out of port again for the rest of the war.



https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=85542&highlight=kipling#post85542

PS The church maintains (probably correctly ?) that "Thine ancient sacrifice" applies to JC and not to the fallen.
Incidentally Recessional = a hymn that accompanies the exit of clergy from church - everyone knows that lol - I've known that for oooh - 3 minutes  

If you're real keen check also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recessional_(poem)

http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Po...g/Epitaphs.htm
Best Kipling you've ever read!!

*A SON (An Epitaph - one of many he wrote) 
My son was killed while laughing at some jest. I would I knew
What it was, and it might serve me in a time when jests are few. *

AN ONLY SON 
I have slain none except my Mother. She
(Blessing her slayer) died of grief for me.


http://www.anzacday.org.au/anzacserv...ice/hymns.html

LEST WE FORGET (Recessional)
Rudyard Kipling

God of our fathers known of old
Lord of our far flung battle line  etc 
http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Po...ling/index.htm


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## 2020hindsight (15 November 2007)

WAS IT WORTH IT BEN - NOW THAT YOU HAVE TO GIVE THE PREMIERSHIP BACK TO THE SWANS 

was it worth it young marion jones
you’ve admitted your speed was imported
and your relay team medals were loans
and your teammates now reckon they’re rorted

was it worth it young junkie-joe-johns
that you whipped other teams when you captained
now the medals you won are all cons
let’s pretend that those wins never happened

hey benny was it worth it – respond!!
when you won and your foes were defeated
eagles’ medals returned to the Swans
cos where truth is concerned ben - you cheated. 



> Year	Results	Crowd
> 2007  Geelong 24. 19. (163) def. Port Adelaide 6. 8. (44) crowd 97,302
> *2006  West Coast 12. 13. (85) def. Sydney 12. 12. (84) crowd 97,431*
> 2005  Sydney 8. 10. (58) def. West Coast 7. 12. (54)  crowd 91,828*
> ...




amended version


> Year	Results	Crowd
> 2007  Geelong 24. 19. (163) def. Port Adelaide 6. 8. (44) crowd 97,302
> *2006  Sydney win on a drug-related forfeit,  crowd 97,431 get their money back *
> 2005  Sydney 8. 10. (58) def. West Coast 7. 12. (54)  crowd 91,828*
> ...


----------



## priji (15 November 2007)

Welcome Julia 


                           Very interesting & lovely Poem.



thanku you very much


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 November 2007)

priji
I hope you're not eating those mushrooms unsupervised lol 

PS give a clue here
like
throw us a bone !!
*which poem are you referring to lol*


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 November 2007)

BALIBO FIVE IN CONTEXT

the coroner today decreed 
and all five widows heard her
that ghosts of billabongs are freed
that Balibo was murder

she introduced some other words
like “war crimes” by one “yunis” 
for which (says Ruddock) AFP
will look right into “soonas”.

now how can that be juxtaposed 
with simple minded mules
who just suppose were dobbed in to 
those federal copper fools

on one hand “war crimes” in the air
the other, “fairness rules”
I‘ll be hanged if that sounds even halfway fair
where the feds just fed em to the wolves. 

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/16/2092767.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/16/2093260.htm
http://abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/16/2093533.htm?section=justin


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 November 2007)

I personally think they should get their ashes back
....(needless to say they've been burnt to destroy evidence of how they died) ...
and give em a State Funeral


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 November 2007)

THE CURTAIN DRAWS NEAR 

it's not so much the instant death 
by a couple of meteor splashes;
it's not so much by a mad macbeth, 
as a death by a thousand lashes;
its not so likely an asteroid 
or some intergallactic implosion;
it's more - for sure - by a copulating 
populating explosion.

and so men march to a final curtain
with a strange reluctance to steer,
when the fall to the orchestra pit is for certain
and the final act is so near,
with the stagefloor a salted and earthcracking drought
and a rising tide and the fear,
.............
but there's no longer doubt that the world's worn out 
-  and "we didn't like it here"


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 November 2007)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/19/2095123.htm?section=justin

WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE A MEAN AUSTRALIAN

We’ve been told we’re in fact really mean 
and says Geldof that’s cause for no pride
what does "liberal" actually mean?
are they taking that word for a ride?.

For they claim to be Christian and sainthood
yet how sad and how sickening too
when they preach like a Jesus it's tainted 
they fit better in Judas’s shoe. 

It would seem we’re a miserable team
it would seem we’re a miserly friend 
what it means in the end is obscene
cos it seems it’s all means to an end; 

what it means in the end to be mean?
it's the same as to be Australian.


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 November 2007)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/20/2095571.htm

JOHNNY STILL THINKS IRAQ WAS A GOOD IDEA

we vacate the moral high ground
and we’re vulnerable as sin
and we vapourise their country 
till some bad guy’s given in
till each second person over there 
has casualties for kin
and we then are fed like ostriches
that that’s a bludy WIN!?


----------



## noirua (21 November 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/20/2095571.htm
> 
> JOHNNY STILL THINKS IRAQ WAS A GOOD IDEA
> 
> ...




Johnny sees the moral high ground in Iraq

We're always on moral high ground
and in prayer, our sins forgiven
and we help protect your country
from the bad guys, the evil men,
'till every person who's over there
sees our honesty in saving them,
we don't hide our heads like ostriches
we're out to save your kith and kin.

noirua


----------



## noirua (21 November 2007)

Hi 2020 et al, Bob Geldorf fails to see that Australia is a small country, by population, and has fought wars on very many fronts when other countries have opted out. Many of these countries have populations far and above Australia's.

Some may disagree, but so many countries have improved their position in Asia due to the very many minerals, coal, oil, iron ore etc., that has been sent in vast quantities.

So, Australia has supported Asia greatly and the likes of Bob Geldorf should put more pressure on other countries to help. He doesn't seem to go to Latin American countries, Hong Kong and Taiwan or the very many Arab countries that have great wealth.


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 November 2007)

THE EVOLVING GOD OF THE FUTURE

the sundials will keep wearing out
the planets keep revolving
one day we’ll wear it’s bearing out
till then gods keep evolving
since noone’s ever seen him close
I’m voting undecided
which watchmaker do you suppose 
will meet us undersodded

which meld or melting pot of Buddhas
waits evolves all “latticed”
I hope that god evolved is gooder
survival of the fattest 
the universe keeps going round
the matchmaker just morphs
invented oh so pure profound
one milliminute to twelve. **

the sundials just keep wearing down
the pyramids turn dust
the buildings lost to “tearing down”
the metros lost to rust 
praps man is freed from pain and sorrow 
perhaps we’ll learn to trust
perhaps some far off GRAND tomorrow
perhaps we’ll learn we must.

Editor's note:- If the earth has been around for 4.5 billion years, (which we'll call 12 hours) 
and if man has been around for 1.8million years (which is 17 seconds) 

then let's suppose that the jewish religion can pretend it goes back to Adam and Eve ( 6000 years) , 
this is only 0.06 seconds, which is 60 milliseconds = 1 milliminute


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 November 2007)

BOOK TITLES, "God" and "Science"

spose god is like a book name
that you saw in lost and found
the intro like a shepherd’s crook
to gather people round
and chapter one’s a longer look
and wine to pass around
Tahaitians called him Captain Cook
Hawaiians called him drowned.

you’ll note that book is not alone
upon it’s massive shelf
and all there search the great unknown
to find the great Himself
there’s books on Buddha, books on idols
wizardry and wealth,
and books on nuns and bridalled bridles 
books on spirits, stealth.

now sposing there’s another row
of books of equal length
their title is more “what we know”
called “scientific strength”
and everything can be repeated
simple and so clear
I ask you which book - bound and sheeted
best disperse-eth fear.?

and both rows represent "ideas"
each on different themes
and reading which leaves wider ears?
painting "what life seems"?
suppose you read the first row
and you then peruse the second
which tempts you that there’s more to know
and which is “truth€ you’d reckon?


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 November 2007)

GET RID OF THOSE USELESS ASSETS

Aussies had these useless assets when our Johnny came to power
things like Telstra that were hoarded like those birds that build a bower,
so his good news was to sell it (and some iron ore and felspar)
but the bad news (tell it, zealot) – you can only once sell Telstra. 

Now I’ve learn my economics from what Johnny does up there
and I’ve listed out my assets like this house and desk and chair
and my good news? – under-feated ! - till I’m buried under loam
but I can’t keep cake and eat it, and I’m slowly eating my home.


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 November 2007)

Who says they didn't have elections back in Shakespeare's day? 

http://www.rhymezone.com/r/ss.cgi?q=election&loc=rz1&mode=k


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 November 2007)

Just that Googlemaps on another thread reminded me of the overlay (recent TV show) of Captain Cook's painstaking efforts of mapping coastlines, versus a simple photo - albeit from a satellite. 

“OLD WORLD, MEET THE NEW”

There are many introductions, you can ponder on and smile,
when you have an idle minute, or you walk an idle mile,
where the new world, bold yet tragic, meets the old, back up the track,
but there’s sadly no such magic, and there’s no more going back.

“Here now new world, meet the old world”, just imagine how they’d look,
“Galileo meet Neil Armstrong”, “Googlemaps meets Captain Cook”,
fire brigades save London burning, shrinks help Nero turn out sane,
but the Hansard’s page keeps turning, and we won’t go there again.

“Shakespeare, Churchill, Harry Potter” ; “Chaser, Chaucer”, just for fun,
“Henry Eighth meet wifebash rehab”, “Chapman’s Homer, some home run”, 
“Homer Simpson, Simpsons donkey”;  “Simpson’s donkey, medivac”,
“medieval, evil modern”;  “hairy caveman, meet mc-shack”.

“Orange William, blushing Lizzie”, “Caesar welcome back to Rome -
things have changed round here a tissie, we have Forums in our home”,
“Alexander, George, Afghanistan”, they’d all meet in Iraq,
but that’s not the way things “outward pan”, and there’s no way to “pan back”.

And the middle eastern problems, are all handled slightly better,
praps things wouldn’t be so wobbly, “hey blood-brother, meet blood-letter”,
“hey you blind crusading madmen, meet a line of nasty crack -  
take a wrong turn, play some badminton, but please just don’t come back”.

yes some medieval weirdos, meet your modern types that rant,
and the evil you inflict upon the simple folk who plant,
just get swallowed by some Jonah’s whale, or rip-tides-in-Rea-Sea,
oh if only God had followed up, - we could rewrite history.


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 November 2007)

"IT’S A MORAL" SAYS JOHNNY 

Campaigning is all over
some careers have run aground,
the last 10 you’re in clover 
and the next in "lost and found",
a campaign unbelievable
mismanaged from the “get go”
proclaiming only he could lead
(now Johnny has to let go).

Did Howard stay too long they ask
and hence the avenging sword?
some sin exposed, some flaw unmasked
or baseball bats or bored?
repaying his electorates
his chosen few on greed?
but not enough inspectorates
and not enough on “need”.?

Did Johnny stay too long they say
as if they’ll now admit it?
OK for him, he walks away
(his dummy and he’ll spit it).
And taking out Costello like 
a selfish centred fool
leaves voting-kids to judge the fellow 
“THAT was most un-cool”!

And is Costello “Heaven sent”
AND SURELY he’s still keen?
... But .. difficult when Johnny spent 
the last year venting spleen. 
Too late, Costello gets the nod,
John makes the team now pay,
but “there but for the grace of God 
goes God” as John would say.

*“It’s a shoe in” said the Labor poll
a “moral” said the Libs*, 
Last night we searched the nation’s soul
on which they thought were fibs,
tomorrow there’s a change of guard
and Johnny’s a “has-been”,
*and the other Libs go ack to work
on “what does moral mean”*.  .


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 November 2007)

Just watched Tanya Costello quoting from this - at Peter Costello's side as he claimed he was declining the leadership because he needed more tme with his family . 

THE SENTIMENTAL BLOKE by C.J. Dennis 

XIV. THE MOOCH O' LIFE 

This ev'nin' I was sittin' wiv Doreen,
   Peaceful an' 'appy wiv the day's work done,
Watchin', be'ind the orchard's bonzer green,
   The flamin' wonder of the settin' sun.

Another day gone by; another night 
Creepin' along to douse Day's golden light;
   Another dawning when the night is gone,
   To live an' love -- an' so life mooches on.

Times I 'ave thought, when things was goin' crook,
   When 'Ope turned nark an' Love forgot to smile,
Of somethin' I once seen in some old book
   Where an ole sorehead arsts, "Is life worf w'ile?"

But in that stillness, as the day grows dim,
An' I am sittin' there wiv 'er an' 'im--
   My wife, my son! an' strength in me to strive,
   I only know -- it's good to be alive!

*Yeh live, yeh love, yeh learn; an' when yeh come
   To square the ledger in some thortful hour, 
The everlastin' answer to the sum
   Must allus be, "Where's sense in gittin' sour?"*

Fer when yeh've come to weigh the good an' bad --
The gladness wiv the sadness you 'ave 'ad --
   Then 'im 'oo's faith in 'uman goodness fails
   Fergits to put 'is liver in the scales.

Livin' an' loving learnin' day be day;
   Pausin' a minute in the barmy strife 
To find that 'elpin' others on the way
   Is gold coined fer your profit -- sich is life.

I've studied books wiv yearnings to improve,
To 'eave meself out of me lowly groove,
   An' 'ere is orl the change I ever got:
   "'Ark at yer 'eart, an' you kin learn the lot."

I gives it in -- that wisdom o' the mind --
   I wasn't built to play no lofty part.
Orl such is welkim to the joys they find;
   I only know the wisdom o' the 'eart.

An' ever it 'as taught me, day be day, 
The one same lesson in the same ole way:
   "Look fer yer profits in the 'earts o' friends,
   Fer 'atin' never paid no dividends."

Life's wot yeh make it; an' the bloke 'oo tries
To grab the shinin' stars frum out the skies
   Goes crook on life, an' calls the world a cheat,
   An' tramples on the daisies at 'is feet.

But when the moon comes creepin' o'er the hill,
   An' when the mopoke calls along the creek,
I takes me cup o' joy an' drinks me fill,
   An' arsts meself wot better could I seek.

An' ev'ry song I 'ear the thrushes sing 
That everlastin' message seems to bring;
   An' ev'ry wind that whispers in the trees
   Gives me the tip there ain't no joys like these:

Livin' an' loving wand'rin' on yet way;
   Reapin' the 'arvest of a kind deed done;
An' watching in the sundown of yer day,
   Yerself again, grown nobler in yer son.

Knowin' that ev'ry coin o' kindness spent 
Bears interest in yer 'eart at cent per cent;
   Measurin' wisdom by the peace it brings
   To simple minds that values simple things.

An' when I take a look along the way
   That I 'ave trod, it seems the man knows best,
Who's met wiv slabs of sorrer in 'is day,
   When 'e is truly rich an' truly blest.

An' I am rich, becos me eyes 'ave seen 
The lovelight in the eyes of my Doreen;
   An' I am blest, becos me feet 'ave trod
   A land 'oo's fields reflect the smile o' God.

Livin' an' lovin'; learnin' to fergive
   The deeds an' words of some un'appy bloke
Who's missed the bus -- so 'ave I come to live,
   An' take the 'ole mad world as 'arf a joke.

Sittin' at ev'nin' in this sunset-land,
Wiv 'Er in all the World to 'old me 'and,
   A son, to bear me name when I am gone....
*Livin' an' lovin' -- so life mooches on.*


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 November 2007)

call it a sentimental goodbye to the democrats 

 the party's over - Shirley Bubbley


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 November 2007)

KIDS, ICEBERGS and POLITICS

I’m genuinely glad that kids are given vote and voice 
praps “work choice” kept them off the skids– except there was no “choice”
apart from maybe “yes” or “no” -  like “take or leave it dude”
but as their young fair minds will know - that’s euphemist for “rude”.

A generation generally jumping in their jeans 
and genuine regeneration where the future leans
and Kevin might be past his prime, and probably (kid-speak) ‘stale’
I hope that kids learn – in good time - what moral stuff entails.

Past father figures, (Scrooge’s voice) whined “how much will it cost”
but as for any moral voice? - 10 years that voice was lost.
the future’s hot !– a fact now! -  it’s no sweat that they’re on board
- essential we all act now! – so their future is assured.

I’m genuinely glad that kids can start to steer the ship
(while selfish stupid dinosaurs go find a rubbish tip)
it’s not that there are icebergs anywhere to cause a crash
but that is due precisely to the fact they’ve turned to ash .


----------



## noirua (28 November 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> call it a sentimental goodbye to the democrats
> 
> the party's over - Shirley Bubbley






Very sad 2020, "video is no longer available", shucks.

Maybe the Democrats haven't gone
I clicked on the video, yes it's gone,
Howard and Costello are waiting in the wings
one slip by Rudd and they're straight back in.


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 November 2007)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/29/2105652.htm

NELSON SAYS NO NEED FOR SORRY

"I'm so proud of white Australians, when they fought their bludy wars
but praps not of 'piscapalians, when they murdered Abs galore";

why not compromise, fair brendon - try to marry up the two 
Just say "sorry" to those Abs that fought and died for me and you


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 December 2007)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/11/27/2102505.htm

SURF's UP, and INCIDENTALLY, RAPE IS UNJUSTIFIED

Aussie males have mad ideas 
and a most peculiar custom
they treat their womenfolk as peers
- both pedestalled and lust em, 
and summer days we worship/ crave
so too a fun filled life
and it’s shirts off, skirts off, catch a wave
and laugh with someone’s wife.

If someone else finds flesh obscene
this lifestyle too Satanic,
I question why and what they mean
I see unmanly manic,
They argue "rape is justified" 
these truly mental men
…
these words are most “un’trustified”
and the words of “un-gentlemen”.


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 December 2007)

TITANIC and GLOBAL WARMING Compared

it was early nineteen hundreds
when Titanic slipped her berth
and I find that I am wondrin
of the parallels with earth -
sure it’s similar between them 
and so sad (for what it’s worth)
that they both sailed on in ignorance
the warnings drowned in mirth.

as the rich and idle stuffed themselves
on the waste of societies cream,
as they milked the earth’s resources
in their “milkcow-beam-to-beam”,
and with idiots controlling
standing side by side on watch
with the aim of greed out-polling 
(yearning something else to botch).

priorities were wrongly set
and warnings were ignored,
but then the danger dead ahead
came through the hull on board,
all hell broke loose, but all too late
they queued for lifeboats rare,
unselfish , some elected fate 
whilst STILL some yelled “my share!!” 

the idiots who then (/now) reigned
thought themselves less-like-men ,  more mules
(not penis size, more peanut brained
and stubborn stupid fools),
why don’t they turn the ship around 
and take a different course,
that way we might have fewer drowned
with the will of unselfish force. 

too late to curve their massive wake
or turn from that dangerous ground,
they sailed down through that rising lake 
and woke to wakes all round.
the last thing that is paralleled
"Titanic" and this "Warming",
in the morning the floating flotsam smelled
and all pointed to New York reforming.

.....................
PS from an earlier post ....
sorry I find I have a bit of a fixation about this ship.. 


> TITANIC (Wrong boat, wrong time, wrong attitude)
> 
> Its a Heaven-sent night to be out on deck, and we're hundreds of miles from shore,
> No radar invented but what the heck, the Captain's been this way before,
> ...






> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic
> The RMS Titanic, a British Olympic-class ocean liner, became famous as the largest ocean liner built in her day and also for sinking on her maiden voyage in 1912 with a tremendous loss of life. Estimates vary, but around 1,500 people perished in the accident; the disaster ranks as one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters in history, and is by far the best remembered. The media frenzy about the incident, the discovery of the wreck in 1985, and the box office successes of three major films have perpetuated the fame. *The loss of life affected many aspects of maritime law and safety practices*.
> 
> Building and design
> In the early part of the 20th century, *White Star Line sought to compete with the rival Cunard Line which then dominated the luxury niche for Atlantic transit, with the large and opulent Lusitania and Mauretania*, which were the fastest and largest liners afloat.


----------



## weird (6 December 2007)

AD Hope, Australia,



> A Nation of trees, drab green and desolate grey
> In the field uniform of modern wars,
> Darkens her hills, those endless, outstretched paws
> Of Sphinx demolished or stone lion worn away.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 December 2007)

brilliant poem there weird - 

This one dedicated to Nick Xenophon, who shares the balance of power in the Senate (after 30 June 2008) 

THE NICK OF TIME

There’s a bloke down there near Adelaide
they call him Nick the Greek,
In another life he’d probly sell you nectarines or leek
and he knocked around with pollies 
and the knack of pollie-speak
when you knock on doors , some open - 
Nick you’ve won a Senate seat!

The folks down there say Nick, he could’ve
won it in his nickers,
with one arm fighting bandits
and the other punching nackers, - 
Now the question Nick, where stand you 
not just pokies - there’s the nexus - 
are you powered by wind and solar
or just wind from some solar plexus?.


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 December 2007)

PS 
You never knock a trier
and you never knock a Nick
he might be vergin' on virgin
and he may not take a trick - 
He's "green" perhaps? more ways that one?
is he "left", "right", "out"? or just reckless?

My guess is that Nick will we swamped with nickels
and his wife will be swamped in "necklace". 

PS think I've exhausted this one


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 December 2007)

Sometimes the lyrics of a song really "resonate" -  and they probably qualify for poetry as much as just lyrics (IMO anyway) ...

  John Denver - Eagles And Horses

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=john+denver+eagles&search=Search

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&q=eagles+and+horses+lyrics&meta=



> Horses are creatures who worship the earth as they gallop on feet of ivory.
> Constrained by the wonder of dying and birth, the horses still run, they are free.
> My body is merely the shell of my soul but the flesh must be given its due.
> Like a pony that carries its rider back home, like an old friend that's tried and been true.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 December 2007)

High Flight John Gillespie Jnr (plus some excerpts put to music)
  In Memory -10th Anniversary Of The Passing of John Denver


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 December 2007)

Just noticed this quote by WC Fields - re Proof, Belief, and Fishing Stories etc. 


> http://louisville.edu/~kprayb01/WCQuote.html#A6
> RELIGION and POLITICS
> 
> (NOTE: Fields' view of Christianity is best revealed in his devastating critique of the Bible, which comprises the whole of chapter five of Carlotta Monti's book W.C. Fields & Me.)
> *"To me, these biblical stories are just so many fish stories, and I'm not specifically referring to Jonah and the whale. I need indisputable proof of anything I'm asked to believe." *




WHAT I BELIEVE “BELIEF” MEANS

The word “belief”’s a riddle, different meanings me and you,
some find talk of God a “fiddle”, and some find it “tried and true”,
some say Man is at the “centre”, some say “middle road” is truth.
some ask “why invent inventor, true belief begins with PROOF?” 

Are beliefs just dreams or granite, we explore them passing through
one short stay upon this planet, some “believe” they’re “born anew”, 
are we talking “feel-good” symptoms?, that you catch much like the flue?
are they measurable codes of conduct, that we KNOW avoid a “blue”?

A Buddhist KNOWS that meditation leaves him feeling strong
a mental thing, at one with earth, a MEASURED heart rate song, 
true Christians KNOW forgiveness is where virtue should belong, 
- no need to judge the others, - casting first stones is all WRONG. 

BUT as for God Apollo, and/or planets, thunder, rain,
those that science proved as hollow, they’ll be never Gods again - 
except to jungled tribes of men, where the rainbow’s worshipped “for good”
like the other missing vibes of men?, praps they’re “rainbow gods-till-understood”?

As for tales of Jonah, Noah’s Ark, that give young kids a thrill,
let’s assume they teach them for a lark, or to feed young minds with krill,
lets assume that science will light the dark, and replace all that’s scary with skill,
and the rest? any missing question mark? can be gods to that time until.

There are levels of belief and stuff, and levels of conjecture
and half-thought theories in the rough, and theorems from some lecture
some chewing gum for mind and soul, or passions that direct ya
and these parts make you, “yourself, the whole”, …
…………………….    BELIEVE it!  they affect ya.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 December 2007)

CAROLS IN THE PARK - that ignored the weather forecast. 

the deckchairs were all set up and the picnic blankets laid
at first the angels joined in - then they pissed on our parade !!
I know we sang hail mary but we didn’t need the hail !!
that’s it folks - no blaspheming, or praps God denies us bail.

next year we’ll start our evensong (let’s assume it’s even song)
much earlier folks before these storms and I’ll let God prove me wrong
I’m sure that’s what he’s telling me – yes – I’m sure that I am right
mid afternoon when there’s still de light ( stead of afternoon delight). !

it’s really hard to sing here lord, with the puddles all knee deep
you did it last year too lord, does the singing make you weep?
If you are so omnipotent then give us folks a break
maybe close your divine ears to our bad notes – and FORGIVE!! - for Jesus' sake.


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 December 2007)

FIFTY PERCENT REDUCTION by THIRTY YEARS AFTER I’M DEAD 

When we told you we wanted something achieved that was more than a 10 minute stroll
on a Bali beach , or a 10 minute speech, to your mates on “planet patrol”,
we were all more inclined to a concept designed to achieve than to simply console,
and a bolder decision, and a much bolder vision, than some nebulous 50 year goal.  

So it’s up to our grandkids to see (when they’re grey) whether WE have obtained our objective,  
For mine that’s too far in the distance to say, and beyond any logic’s perspective,
Is it crystal ball gazing, or just window glazing, to destroy the momentum collective?
We must act now, today, and must MILESTONE the way -  we must hear in a year we’re effective. !!

PS   I promise we'll all have teachers galore, and public health and wealth and more
but there's only one catch - it's a promise non-core!
it'll happen in 2200!!



PS I sure hope we will know before too much longer that we can do better than offer a promise for a goal measureable in 50 years time (i.e. 50% reduction by 2060 for crysake) 



> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/11/2116137.htm
> Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has met with Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to discuss climate change and the relationship between the two countries.
> 
> Mr Rudd is in Bali as part of Australia's delegation at the UN climate change conference.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 December 2007)

IF BUDDHA HAD TO DRIVE IN SYDNEY TRAFFIC

I was driving quite close at the end of a queue
when a P plate pulled up beside,
and he stuck in his nose in the foot or two
twixt the bloke in front and I,
and to my surprise his blinker blinked
and he forced in -…. his win and my loss- 
and I braked as required but my subconscious winked
“you’ll get yours or I’m not Stirling Moss”.

By the time I’d passed him, I’d upset a truck
and three semis, or was it four,
and the whole bludy queue had run amuck
with a dozen fights dripping in gore;
so the next time I’ll probably just pretend
what insult! .. what P plate! ... ignore!
and I’ll drive in my own cacoon and “transcend”
without risk of another war.

Now the Dalai Lama and I are soul mates
I smile at young pr1cks who cut in,
I listen to songs on 2CH
about love and why neighbours are kin,
But just for some fun, every now and then,
I let those mad backwheels spin,
and I watch their eyes light to the turbocharged might
of the company’s car – and I grin.


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 December 2007)

PS we have a turbo-charged ute at work - 
very easy to spin the wheels (in fact difficult not to) when you have an empty load )


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 December 2007)

> Originally Posted by 2020hindsight
> Cardinal Pell says in the past, pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate the gods but today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.




MANY AN IGNORANT WORD SPOKEN IN BLESSED

My granpa was the cautious type, he drilled the bore real deep
If now he saw that dried up pipe, I'm sure that he would weep
It's fifty metres deeper than it needed then be drilled
It now needs fifty metres just to see the trough half filled

Some bishop jokes that animals were sacrificed of old
Upon a pagan altar that would make your blood run cold
The sad thing is this egghead doesn't know how close he is
To the truth of what is happening. or how much the blame is his.


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 December 2007)

THANK YOU BALI - FROM THE GENERATION AFTER THE NEXT

Bali finished, ................seeds of promise, 
Oz at least at last on board, 
no soul-diminished-.........doubting-Thomas-
yankee- umbil-ical-chord,
liked the bit .........when the votes came in
how the rest of the world fairly roared,
and particularly too.......... that final cave in - 
and the nay-sayers being ignored.

The two-faced stuff grew heated, 
two tears from a world two-tiered,
some dinosaurs unseated,
by the breakthroughs as Penny steered,
A penny for your thoughts, lass, 
white and Wongly you were cheered, 
we particularly liked how the towering U-S
were shown up, and conning-tower-jeered.

How kind of Mister Howard 
to step down as an old has-been,
we've moved on from those cowardly days
to a world of a wiser green,
the old world's now "Decembered"
may these good guys ring a new bell,
and may Bali long be remembered
- as the first Penny in the Wishing Well. 

"Give me Barley we can build on 
may it's message yield full well,
give the grain to future children,
give the chaff to Cardinal Pell."


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 December 2007)

posted on "tunes" - but qualifies here ... what a song -sheesh!

  Linda Eder - I Never Knew His Name 


> This is Linda Eder singing the hauntingly beautiful "I Never Knew His Name" from the musical by her husband, Frank Wildhorn, called "The Civil War".






> Linda Eder - I Never Knew His Name
> 
> I never knew his nam
> As he called to me
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 December 2007)

THE IRISH PUB DISCUSSION ON GLOBAL WARMING

Some arguments are seconds long 
and some a bloody hour
some power on for generations
(generating power)
It’s rare I guess to change direction, 
then again, - perhaps 
if “uniformed” or isle marooned, we’d be 
ill inform-ed chaps.

Let English have their arguments 
where “for” can argue white
“against” can argue ebony black
and maybe they’ll find “right”
but whether truth is grey or blue 
or colours yet unseen
They’ll come on board to Irish ways
and future’s that are “green”.

Then there’s “Bloody Murphy” pubscenes
that are more like muddy blurr,
telescopic stellar topics
that are bigger than Ben Hur- 
where we charge along in chariots 
and we splash mud at each other
though we share the same road, same direction,
and same fate , my brother.


----------



## $20shoes (24 December 2007)

Thought I had better contribute some poems I've penned over time, as 2020 puts in some hard yards to keep this thread going... Hope you enjoy...be merciful with your critique 

*Season*


Shocking aim she had that year,
Landing well short. Blanketing
in a Melbourne melancholy, days
that promise romance, And 
deliver nought but a gin-soaked sky,

Fat, Slow and Grey; soaking up
The vast horizon. With
her blathering sentiment
shrouding from a tram load of
damp, black overcoats, 

The park’s decree – Better to burn out
than to fade away. The encore 
singing in its own decay.
With a chill, bastard wind,
To leave stark those limbs,

Imploring Like a Child its Mother,
with knotted eyes, For
hugs against such Southerly blows.
To await with body exposed,
the first caress of the summer sun.


----------



## $20shoes (24 December 2007)

*Take This Poem for instance*

Although I want to be,
I’m not much of a writer.
More a rejected try-hard –
Take this poem for instance.
That’s it! Be Abstract!
Tell them all
They’re guilty of misinterpretation;
Lose them in the confusion;
Write with awkward evasion.

And though armed with pen,
I’m as pissweak as can be, 
Not one that you should read,
Take this poem for instance.
Be Warned! This Desire! 
It can thieve
from the poetry of living,
With lips kissing, and
feeble thoughts a’stirring..

And though I be no wordsmith, 
All Words seem resolute
To be but chewy on my boot.
Take this poem for instance.
And While This! Poor Shot! 
Employs licenses Erratic
And so desperately ungrammatic,
There remains poetry in my breathing,
In my flowing rhythmic breathing.


----------



## $20shoes (24 December 2007)

*Melinda’s Eyes*



They are not like yours. And they are unlike mine.
Life abundant. Love Swollen: Such eyes has the girl I love-
a satellite snapshot of the Amazon basin.
And as though an object from space,
I have hurtled under her gravity toward my resting place.
The canopy: a fertile, lucent foliage,
Variegated with radial streams.
Where pliant, lays an April morning,
Through a poor man’s smudge of mist.
Where rips a course of rivulets, basin bound: 
The final unction for sun-blest Vapour’s birth. 
To be lost within; to be but lured.
    To perforate the panoply of vines
         And traverse the canopy
	     For her teeming echolalia.


Sustenance. Indefatigable sustenance. 	 


_These eyes would pull you in.
These eyes will draw your free falling whole
and make you wonder where you’ve been all your life
make you wonder if your heart’s been beating all this time. 
No use a ticker that just pumps blood.
You could be alive…and dead too._
I know it well - I have drained through her basin,
Where pooled in peaceful dichotomy,
Lies melded, the blessed End; the wondrous Spring.


They are not like yours. And they are unlike mine.
Life abundant. Love Swollen: Such eyes, has the girl I love.
An eco-plenitude of love sensation. 
These tannin stained streams invigorate.
Leeched from the heart, they rush these beds,
pushing the atom smashed heads
Of her heart,
To the burgeoning lowland waters. 
(Such perturbations seek their own level).
The blood-let waltz downstream.
The refugee seeks emancipation,
And claims rebirth in the meandering melody;
Such a blessed orchestration.


Re-oxygenated. Rejuvenated. Re-elevated.




_She’ll show you this world and half the next.
Make you remember; make you understand a little more.
You’ll swim until your heart should fail;
Until you doubt you’ve earned the right._

The flit across the eyes:
Who can say how long the journey? 
Who can know the labyrinth of her life…even thus exposed?
_This unbridled charity extols an eeking price:-  
the cost of her provision – a selfless soul agape.
In but a glance for those who see:
See brimming banks, ready to revive.
Such is the wife’s true love; such must be the mother’s._

At day’s end I lay beside her,
With the forest growth complete,
Like Max’s room.
That I might sail, In and out of days,
to seek the most wild thing of all: 
the sure grace of this God-grazing land,
Forever young.

Her defences are but chameleon. 
There is no castle where man would be undone.
Why tilt at a love so pure?  A perfect concentrate –
She richly gives and richly links – me to her, her to me.
Do you finally see, where Love’s let in?
Where it is echoed back?

         It is why I love her and why I fall.

It is true, which I tell you – Her eyes.
They are not like yours. And they are unlike mine.


----------



## $20shoes (24 December 2007)

*30 Montagu Road*

Light streaming in through the sunroom windows,
With that particular air as much a part of the scene 
As the warmth that remains from when I was a boy.
Not the musty smell from closed windows and damp rooms,
But a lifetime of living inhabits the home;
An imprint of memories that binds the decor.

That belongs to me only; that can’t be stipulated in a will,
But is all I want – to live a sentimental life now, 
With Pop dozing in the sunlight and Nan dishing up garden vegetables,
As part of a sit down meal at the family table with no T.V.
And then to retire to the larger-than-life lounge room chairs.
With the arms wrapping around me like a mother’s hug. 

To steal some lollies from the jars on the sideboard.
To know not how long they had been there…and not care.
And to stare out of the windows above the bookshelves 
Where plovers hog the school grounds across the gravel way.
And to expect nothing more but that the roar of a logging truck
cement the scene, that now leaves me not.

We watched Border bat it out on a hot summer day.
(Later we would take that oval with bat in hand, and dream some more). 
With Mum and Nan’s chatter filtering from the kitchen like a lullaby.
And the drawn out squeak and thwack of the back door 
As Pop went out to toil in his vegetable patch.
To do whatever it is he did out there.

This was his domain. We often wandered past the fibro garage 
Leaving a civilised path to take mule tracks through the 
Garden beds. It was magical this place. It made me feel strong to eat its produce,
Not only for its taste but that it was picked by Pop tilling his garden.
That he did this for me while I played like a child and cared not a care,
(To know a peace I would not find again outside of childhood).

Each year to sift through the bookshelves in the sunroom,
Like I had done the year before and the years before that.
To not always read but to ache for their smell.
(My love of reading stemming from here as much as anywhere).
With Pop in his chair reading the daily paper in silence,
And the Boy blowing bubbles for us on the wall


----------



## $20shoes (24 December 2007)

Thought I had better contribute some poems I've penned over time, as 2020 puts in some hard yards to keep this thread going... Hope you enjoy...be merciful....


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 December 2007)

20shoes - thanks , Montagu Rd is a beauty  (as are the others - fan bludy tastic )

Earlier today I was thinking to myself about the great dogs I've had - in fact (funniest thing) I showed a photo of one of my favourite dogs ( from about 15 years ago) to my current dog - they are so so similar in character - both absolutely beautiful dogs (well, she's a bitch), and lol - she reached out with her nose and kissed the photo of him with a lick of her tongue lol 

Big dogs sadly don't seem to live as long  - how sad it is to lose a dog !!   - when the vet told me that that first beautiful dog was only gonna live a few months (due to leukemia), I couldn't bring myself to tell the family - but I made him ring the missus to explain it)

Anyway here's a poem that came to mind - based on 10 dogs being about the same as 1 human life. ...  (might be erring on the high side  :2 twocents ) 


TEN DOGS TO ONE MASTER

A dog will age much faster 
but ten dogs outlast one master
until finally you pass on 
- praps a howl from your last hound; 
Since the buried former nine
have been cause for you to pine
is that final whimpered whine or two - 
your final smiling sound.?

When I push off from the world
I want kennels with me hurled
into Heaven where I’m heading
since my dogs are surely there, 
and I’ll lie across their tops
and then, when the tenth dog flops,
then we’ll take some dogsled Santa-like
and bark beyond compare.  

some brotherly dogsled fantasy
exploring Heaven's air.  :2 twocents


----------



## Wysiwyg (25 December 2007)

I liked Montague road most of all.


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 December 2007)

CO2, PLANT FOOD OR CACTUS FOOD?

if we all drive giant autos (while we opiate with bongs)
as we sit around some carcass (and we sing our desert songs)
and if co2 is plant food round the oxen’s rotting hide
are those plants (like us) praps cactus?, (due to car-bong-die-ox-hide?)


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 December 2007)

20shoes - re montagu rd
"walls" can "live" yes?

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=91145&highlight=walls#post91145


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 December 2007)

of 100 people asked whether 2008 would be bull or bear,  most said stuff like "there's a bear in there" , but also "a lot of bull".   

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=91607&highlight=mooing#post91607


----------



## $20shoes (26 December 2007)

2020hindsight said:


> 20shoes - thanks , Montagu Rd is a beauty  (as are the others - fan bludy tastic )




2020/WYSIWYG - thanks for taking the time to read them, and for the encouragement. It's most appreciated. Merry Christmas to you both.


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 December 2007)

HOW GRANMA WOULD HALF-STING THE BEANS 

I used to stay with granma when a bench-high lad and young
she'd gone a little gargar and her best songs were all sung
I remember how she'd string the beans (leaving most still highly strung)
and she'd do the dishes, - I would wipe - where the gravy still half-clung.

she'd tell me stories old and wise, and plenty full of action
cos granpa gave her many highs, and close to needing traction
there could have been a few white lies, for she told a story well
me a wide eyed kid like apple pies - and totally under her spell. 

how the horses bolted , she alone with reins to help (somehow?)
the dray was jumping stumps and roots like a half crazed stumpjump plough 
how granpa'd mount the nearest horse and gallop to her rescue
(I remember my gramps as an old frail man - how cruel is age I ask you?)

she'd sing me songs with spice or fun, or tell some Tennyson poem
she'd help me write a letter or a birthday card to home
to tell my mom I loved her, of the crows my shanghai scored
or scribble lines that sorta rhymed, and anything but bored. 

I used to stay with granma when a bench-high lad and young
she sowed the seeds of learning and the noble English tongue
the sowed the seeds of lullabies and other songs she sung
......
but she sure as hell scared witness those poor beans she served half-strung 

more on the same subject 

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=83019&highlight=petticoat#post83019


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 December 2007)

(happy new year's resolutions 
and happy imminent birthday to those folk born on 29 feb)

TRY A LEAP INTO THE LEAP YEAR 

If you’re starting out a new year
(if you’ve been there you will know)
it is customary to implant in your ears
those grains that you should sow,
you should plant the seeds of exercise
no pain, no sprain, no gain
and you scrawl it – big words-  textasize
that to grow, you just "go with the grain".  

Let's plan to hum to a new years hymn
let's start to march by March
by june we'll be ready to tackle some gym
where they make you leap an’ arch
they recommend beans , and grain fed game 
and wild organic papayas
by the time Beijing has lit its flame
....
we’ll be up there on the dias !!!


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 December 2007)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/27/2127754.htm
Moti fights deportation to Aust: authorities
http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/new...speeding-ticket/2007/12/10/1197135337833.html
Former judge 'lied under oath' over speeding ticket

SOME NOTES ON JUSTICE

In theory she’s a lady blind, who holds a pair of scales
she’s fair (instead of cruel or kind), she knows not “heads or tails”
she sees not where the balance in lined, she reads the decision with brail
and it’s either she let’s you off (praps a fine), or she kicks your butt into jail
……
but with judges like Marcus Einfeld, sheesh, he’d pin donkey’s nose with tail.

of course if it then gets reheard on appeal, it’s amazing how often she swings
the scales must take on a different feel, praps it’s just the way of these things
a barrister bellowing “c’mon !! get real!!”, who charges the ransom of kings
is somehow more likely to get a good deal, without those judicial strings.
……
and even attornies general steal – and julian motti’s have “flings”.


I’m sure she would add that she finds it hard, when it’s “paybacks” she has to defend
yet she mustn’t relax or lower her guard, on which message she still has to send
I’m sure she would add that it disappoints, when a sin goes against a trend
or a man may be cowered on bent knee joints, but that doesn’t mean justice must bend
……
she must stick to her game, make her own set points, trust the common folk comprehend.


when a nurse is charged with a speeding offence on route to an injured child
when a boy is charged for stealing ten cents when he’s hungry – that too is quite mild
but what about Hurricane Katrina my friend, where two starving men fight for some food?
and one thieves from the other ?  - WHERE THE HELL WAS BIG BROTHER!! – since the rescue was totally screwed. 
........
and for all those murders over food in flood waters, praps the Whitehouse should be the one sued.?


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 December 2007)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2007/12/16/2120080.htm


> Cricket makes emotional return to tsunami-hit stadium
> Posted Sun Dec 16, 2007 5:22pm AEDT
> 
> England and Sri Lanka will mark one of cricket's most poignant moments when they contest the third Test at the previously tsunami-ravaged Galle International Stadium on Tuesday.
> ...




THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF ASIAN TSUNAMI

Only those who've seen a battefield -  dank, dark, and drowned in gore,
could claim they understand the feel of a post-tsunami shore,
where the land and sea fought battle, over boundaries between,
.......
now the cricket bails can rattle, by 300,000 seen 
.........
in the open air, so the ghosts can stare, 
and the land now all grassy and green.


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 December 2007)

BLUE ROSES (I suspect Kipling)

Roses red and roses white
Plucked I for my love’s delight.
She would none of all my posies,—
Bade me gather her blue roses. 

Half the world I wandered through,
Seeking where such flowers grew;
Half the world unto my quest
Answered but with laugh and jest. 

It may be beyond the grave
She shall find what she would have.
Oh, ’twas but an idle quest,—
Roses white and red are best!

http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/w...dyard/prose/TheLightThatFailed/chapter_7.html


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 December 2007)

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO SOCCER, BASEBALL, PRE-BODY-LINE-CRICKET, and EXTREMISM

PART 1 

It seems to me…..mankind’s ……..divided in 4
there’s soccer,…. there’s baseball …….there’s cricket, 
and then there’s that group where the rules are ignored
“who cares that’s not cricket, just stick it!”

As for baseball – methinks, whoever heard ethics
like “that’s just not baseball there, son"
and likewise in soccer, a "dive" wins an Oscar
but you laugh cos you’ve cheated and won. 

A smile from a player who gets off the mat
after having a free kick awarded
should be given a pat on the bum with a bat
after which he’d be hung drawn and quartered.

Though cricket has spread through the Empire of old
on steamers canoes and been portered 
I still prefer cricket balls flying around
than smart bombs by dumb bums (or mortared).

A baseball that’s pinged at the head of some “mate”
so he staggers to dugout escorted
and a pitched bruise sure stings while you’re standing at plate
(that’s body-line as Jardine taught it), 

but ignoring that body line, cricket at least
taught that “fair-play” was moral , and sought it,
and at least it’s not “body lines” where wild warring beasts
have gone mad and where hundreds are slaughtered  

PART 2

They say that the old British Empire, 
even prior to Waterloo
expanded like red-coated vampires
with a pint of red corps blood or two
but it couldn’t reside in Afghanistan
or the line there it seems couldn’t hold
now the tide of a Taliban Koran
on an out-tide would turn your blood cold.

The Russians took Kabul “Kaboom”, 
The Taliban soon got it back
and turned the soccer pitch to a tomb, 
with the goal mouth a hanging rack,
there’s something they just don’t understand
how best to curve a round ball
they prefer to cheer , and to rise to a man, 
when they curve someone’s neck in a fall. 

Does it help that the law and the British ways
have been pretty much ripped from the book
though I spose to be fair in O-Cromwell’s days
it was “Lord Protect rules that I’ve cooked”
Does it help that the despots become more , more, MORE
more desperate, demanding and cunning
and sure they’ll permit an election in store
......
as long as there’s no one else running.


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 December 2007)

A PHANTOM NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION

I notice that it's new years eve (well give or take a day)
so here's to resolutions (to adhere to "come what may")
I'm thinking of a "Phantom promise" - backing off the grog
and I'm practicing "glass of milk please - and some water for my dog".

I understand it's best to know karate drinking milk 
there's ruffians and crooks to throw and people of that ilk
cos people don't like wimps who don't drink booze (till they're obese)
I'll maybe get two dogs or three - so then I can drink in peace. 

This Ghost Who Walks 400 years as "Man who Cannot Die"
well stuff it, I'll give up my beers - then maybe so will I
I'll be "Guardian of the Eastern Dark", (and my pigmy bankers will cheer) 
but the price of milk!! - compared to home  brew!! - mmm maybe wait a year. 



> "Ghost Who Walks Will Never Die": The Phantom's First 400 Years.
> Before Batman, before The Shadow, before The Green Hornet, before The Lone Ranger, the comics' first masked mystery-man hero had long since been striking fear into the dark hearts of the wicked.
> 
> Indeed, by the time the world-famous adventures of The Phantom were first recorded in print more than six decades ago, the grim champion of justice had already been around for nearly 400 years.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (31 December 2007)

GOOD ENOUGH TO FIGHT OUR BATTLES, STOLEN KIDS - ALL's FAIR IN WAR

Good enough to fight our battles
good enough help win our wars
then they want the rank of cattle 
we reply please show us cause,
fight for Empire, Queen, Tobruk
good enough to leave our shore
having their loved children took
- to white man claims “all’s fair in war”. 

Good enough to lead a company 
Captain Saunders loved by all
leading white men, fifty something
“follow me boys” was his call
good enough to risk his noggin
leading fifty into wars
when demobbed – “go feed the dogs and 
here’s your broom and here’s your chores”

Down the gangplank, celebrations,
thirsty tales, homecoming jars,
“hey not you, your pigmentations
no way you can breast our bars”,
Settlement grants for postwar soldiers
carved from prewar Ab reserves son,
but those Abs from whom those boulders 
had been stolen didn’t deserve one. 

Torres Strait indigenous ranks true
paid but one third army wage,
that’s until a belated thank you
and forty years they had to age, 
Three, four thousand so affected
served, dependents, widows, vets 
history (40 years) corrected
justice means we pay our debts.


Capt Reg Saunders ...
http://www.awm.gov.au/korea/faces/saunders/saunders.htm
http://www.awm.gov.au/fiftyaustralians/43.asp

When he came back, albeit a hero of the war, and leader of men, he was subjected to the full racial discrimination thing - for a while he swept railway stations

When they disembarked after the war , the Abs were not allowed into the bar to share a drink with their white soldier mates.
When they came back they were still not included on the census - although cattle were.
Many lied about their age to get in the army -  and/ or said they were Maoris or Indians.
In one case, the Ab reserve belonging to either Saunders or Peters was taken and divvied up for Soldier Settlement Grants -  "Black soldiers need not apply". 
In the Torres Strait, there were soldiers hept there in reserve.  Indeed the Japs didn't reach them , but they nonetheless served there ( as did thousands in Darwin) . Only difference was the blacks in Torres Strait were paid about one third army wage - this injustice was corrected in the 1980's.
Having said that 3000 - 4000 vets and/or dependents should be entitled to benefits.  (for equality with others).  THis is an ongoing issue that could well be resolved soon.   

The children of some Ab soldiers on active service were stolen under stolen generation rules. 


> Captain Reg Saunders
> “Reg Saunders was one of the best company commanders I had served under and he was admired by the company as an excellent leader.”..Private Joe Vezgoff
> 
> Many Aboriginal Australians have been a part of the Australian armed forces since the Boer War. Although not permitted to become Australian citizens until 1968, service in the armed forces was one area where Aborigines experienced less discrimination than in the wider Australian society. Captain Reg Saunders, MBE, is perhaps Australia's best known Aboriginal soldier, being the first indigenous Australian to be commissioned as an officer into the Australian Army, in 1945. In Korea, he served as Officer Commanding, C Company, 3 RAR.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (31 December 2007)

continuing ... http://www.awm.gov.au/korea/faces/saunders/saunders.htm


> Black ANZAC  , by Cecil Fisher, another Aboriginal Australian in Korea
> 
> They have forgotten him, need him no more
> He who fought for his land in nearly every war
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 January 2008)

THE ROSEBED AT THE AIRPORT 

My mate works at the airport
with a mop to dry the floors,
He finds there's equal floods of tears 
at arrival and departure doors, 
He keeps the teardrops separate
and he waters the roses outside,  
and they bloom red and blue respectively
.....
- like emotions that loved ones have cried.


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 January 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> THE ROSEBED AT THE AIRPORT
> 
> My mate works at the airport
> with a mop to dry the floors,
> ...



Gee mum, but you look so sweet and cute
with your mascara starting to flow,
I'm in need of a prop, not a blubbering flute
or a prop from a Rocky Horror show,
Here's a token to symbolise "love o'er the waves"
a georgeously pure (dropdead) rosebud
sown and grown on the tears from ten Mabels and Daves
in that tearshed, mopfed, rosebed.  

(groan )


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 January 2008)

(speaking of groan, here's another ..) 

THE CALL OF THE WILD – DOGS AND OLD CHIMPS ALIKE

my dog sings along with the siren’s plight
does she think it’s a call from the pack ?
a threat that requires either fight or flight
or some terror is on the attack?
now the strange thing is, she is wagging her tail 
and I’m talking a half circle ark ! - 
I reckon she'd bark "it’s just time for a wail
or a whale of a time for a lark". 

Now, apart from the fact that I pine for the sea
with the pangs of a homesick child,
Or I look at a forest or climb up a tree
and I’m gripped with some “call of the wild”, 
from somewhere the stub of some long lost “thing”
some unfinished tale (tail) of the free, 
Like Tarzan, I feel the desire for a fling
in my Mazda tree-to-tree (323).  



> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccyx
> The coccyx (pronounced kok-siks) (Latin: os coccygis), commonly referred to as the tailbone, is the final segment of the human vertebral column. Comprising four fused vertebrae (the coccygeal vertebrae) below the sacrum, it is attached to the sacrum by a fibrocartilaginous joint, which permits limited movement between the sacrum and the coccyx. The term coccyx comes originally from the Greek language and means "cuckoo," referring to the shape of a cuckoo's beak[1].




Thought for the day .... does that mean that when God gave Adam (and Eve) their coccyx-es, that he added a bit of "cuckoo"?


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 January 2008)

THis post on the new year resolutions thread...


Doris said:


> Failing to plan is planning to fail.  But you MUST wanna do it!
> 
> And you've got to be positive.



thanks Doris 
just taking those two thoughts, combining them, and running with em 

PLANNING AND NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS...

I don't plan to plan very much,
though I won't plan to fail or fall,
see - I won't plan to succeed as such
...... I just WON'T fail  ! - that's my plan ! - thassall  !! 

Unlike Quixote, I won't charge the windmill 
and it's not like I'm on the attack
It's just that the retreat plan would be sinful
it's been ripped up !! - miles back the track 


PS Like Montgomery - RIP UP THE ALTERNATIVE RETREAT PLAN. lol


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 January 2008)

lol - there's this funny old dude down the road....(call him Fred Smith for this exercise).   He shows me this poem and tells me he wrote it for his wife - for the new year.... 

He are his wife both well into their 80's lol - So he changes one word of this poem by Elizabeth Browning  (thee to *you*) - and claims authorship, lol   (although he mentions her, EB in the lesser credits).  




> HOW DO I LOVE *YOU*?    by Fred Smith, (.........with  some assistance from Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
> 
> How do I love *you*? Let me count the ways.
> I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
> ...




Incidentally, it gets rave reviews on this website ... (whatever ...  he's still a funny old dude, and lol - his missus loves him for his eccentric ways) 

http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/poems/269.html


> This poem was recently chosen the greatest love poem of all time in a large
> readers' poll - not surprisingly, it has found place in nearly all large
> anthologies. It formed part of the Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "Sonnets from
> the Portuguese", written in her Italian days at the Casa Guidi. It is addressed
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 January 2008)

DAVID HICK'S BLONDE PERIOD

Aged just one score year and six, down the road comes David Hicks
(some might say he's thick as bricks, but that's another matter)
next he's found inside a truck, out of weapons out of luck
fetched the finder many bucks to make him out a ratter..

will another mere Australian, moslem, jew or piscapalian
see a cell where they simply nail-ya-in?
five years ?, - retrospective law?, 

sodomised with white plastic bore? left on "a third party unknown shore"
where they make up the rules if they can't be sure? ........
quoth the raven.. "nevermore".


----------



## noirua (2 January 2008)

I headed home full of apologies
and I hope you'll let me be free,
locked me up, as innocent as can be,
I'm not leading you up a gum tree.

let you down, thought I'd say
afterall, it was a long stay,
giving it thought, Australia free,
I'm not leading you up a gum tree.

They will let me out, to roam free
gave it my best shot, believe me,
now at home, penitent, happy,
I'm not leading you up a gum tree.

All the same, you cannot be certain
who will bring down the final curtain,
all that matters, I am now free
I'm not leading you up a gum tree.

For the future, they look to me
who I really think, should be free,
my alegance changed, believe me
I'm not leading you up a gum tree.

Maybe, just maybe, it ain't true
I'm just taking you all as fools,
never mind, I'm back and free,
Have I lead you up a gum tree?


Up a gum tree - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 January 2008)

lol - cripes but you find some weird stuff on the internet ...



> Mark's Contemporary Literature Blog
> From Mark Flanagan,
> Your Guide to Contemporary Literature.
> FREE Newsletter. Sign Up Now!
> ...




http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html

I plead guilty to this bit of multiple plagiarism 

QUOTH THE RAVEN , Y'ALL
2020 with assistance from Edgar Allen Poe and Kool Moe Dee

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary,
Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,
As of some one gently rapping, tapping at my chamber door.
`'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `*rapping* at my chamber door - ??
Only this, and nothing more.

"To the beat y'all, To the beat y'all
To the - to the, To the beat y'all
Ain't nothin but a party, everybody come along
Keep your body movin while I'm groovin with the song
I got funky rhythms, funky rhythms with a beat
Funk-funk-funk-funky rhythms for the street
Keep clappin while I'm rappin, while I'm rappin, clap your hands
To the beat y'all, To the beat y'all
To the - to the, To the beat y'all"   :eek3:
........ (etc )
quoth the raven nevermore !!


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 January 2008)

Doris said:


> People who see their cup as being half empty CAN be focussing on what they want to fill it and set goals, not just being negative about what they don't have.
> 
> People who see their cup as half full can be complacent and not really be grateful for what they have.




HALF A GLASS ACCORDING TO BUDDHA

We either see a glass half filled,
or equally a glass half drained; 
the pessimist thinks.. "damn !! drained !! it's spilled !" 
the optimist thinks...  "dam is filling, -  it's rained " 

But extremes of spill or constant raining 
lead to floods - or nought remaining...
if you turn it on its side (as Bhuddha has showed)
you have yourself - dada  - the MIDDLE ROAD!! .


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 January 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade_(poem)

Note:- If you go to that website - you can download Lord Tennyson himself reading that poem  

The Charge of the Light Brigade 
Alfred, Lord Tennyson 

Half a league, half a league,
 Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
"Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.

"Forward, the Light Brigade!"
Was there a man dismay'd?
Not tho' the soldier knew
 Someone had blunder'd:
Their's not to make reply,
Their's not to reason why,
Their's but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
 Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
 Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,
Flash'd as they turn'd in air,
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
 All the world wonder'd:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro' the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel'd from the sabre stroke
 Shatter'd and sunder'd.
Then they rode back, but not
 Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
 Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro' the jaws of Death
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
 Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
 All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
 Noble six hundred.


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 January 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_of_the_Light_Brigade


> The Last of the Light Brigade is a poem written in 1891 by Rudyard Kipling echoing - forty years after the event - Alfred Tennyson's famous poem The Charge of the Light Brigade. Exploying synecdoche, Kipling uses his poem to expose the terrible hardship faced in old age by veterans of the Crimean War, as exemplified by the cavalry men of the Light Brigade




The Last of the Light Brigade 
	-- Rudyard Kipling

There were thirty million English who talked of England's might,
There were twenty broken troopers who lacked a bed for the night.
They had neither food nor money, they had neither service nor trade;
They were only shiftless soldiers, the last of the Light Brigade.

They felt that life was fleeting; they knew not that art was long,
That though they were dying of famine, they lived in deathless song.
They asked for a little money to keep the wolf from the door;
And the thirty million English sent twenty pounds and four!

*They laid their heads together that were scarred and lined and grey;
Keen were the Russian sabres, but want was keener than they;
And an old Troop-Sergeant muttered, "Let us go to the man who writes
The things on Balaclava the kiddies at school recites."*

They went without bands or colours, a regiment ten-file strong,
To look for the Master-singer who had crowned them all in his song;
And, waiting his servant's order, by the garden gate they stayed,
A desolate little cluster, the last of the Light Brigade.

They strove to stand to attention, to straighten the toil-bowed back;
They drilled on an empty stomach, the loose-knit files fell slack;
With stooping of weary shoulders, in garments tattered and frayed,
They shambled into his presence, the last of the Light Brigade.

*The old Troop-Sergeant was spokesman, and "Beggin' your pardon," he said,
"You wrote o' the Light Brigade, sir. Here's all that isn't dead.
An' it's all come true what you wrote, sir, regardin' the mouth of hell;
For we're all of us nigh to the workhouse, an, we thought we'd call an' tell*.

"No, thank you, we don't want food, sir; but couldn't you take an' write
A sort of 'to be continued' and 'see next page' o' the fight?
We think that someone has blundered, an' couldn't you tell 'em how?
You wrote we were heroes once, sir. Please, write we are starving now."

*The poor little army departed, limping and lean and forlorn.
And the heart of the Master-singer grew hot with "the scorn of scorn."
And he wrote for them wonderful verses that swept the land like flame,
Till the fatted souls of the English were scourged with the thing called Shame*.

*O thirty million English that babble of England's might,
Behold there are twenty heroes who lack their food to-night;
Our children's children are lisping to "honour the charge they made-"
And we leave to the streets and the workhouse the charge of the Light Brigade!*


(some things, proper treatment of vets  after the war, etc, never change )
As for the charge itself ....


> http://www.geocities.com/johnhussey1@btinternet.com/woolton.htm
> The French General Bosquet watching from the heights remarked in wonderment ;
> 
> "It is magnificent but it is not war.  It is madness".
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 January 2008)

http://www.geocities.com/johnhussey1@btinternet.com/woolton.htm


> James Glanister (one of the Light Horse Brigade)
> 
> Although not strictly speaking a Liverpudlian, having been born in Northamptonshire, James Glanister enlisted in Liverpool as a Private in the 5th Dragoons.  At Balaclava, he reached the Russian guns and broke his sword upon the helmet of a Russian soldier.  A Cossack then fired his pistol at Glanister, shattering his jaw.  He was assisted back to the safety of the British lines by a Private Martin and later invalided out of the army later settling down in West Derby where he died in 1901 at his home in No 3 Apple Terrace.  Buried in West Derby cemetery, his grave number is C of E, section 5, grave no. 193.






> Robert Martin (one of the Light Horse Brigade - rescues Glanister)
> 
> The bullet that hit Glanister narrowly missed Private Martin who despite his own arm being shattered helped Glanister back to the lines.  But Martin was struck by another bullet and was lucky to escape with his life.  He did lose his arm which was amputated  at the Scutari hospital where Florence Nightingale plied her trade so well.
> 
> ...




BALACLAVA VETS, after 5 mins, then 45 years on. 

Glanister old mate - jump up on my horse
did you think I would leave you to die
excuse all the blood but it could have been worse
it's only my arm not my eye,

rats 
there goes another - thanks god we're back brother
two bullets are all I can handle
Lord Cardigan's "campaign" - now he's drinking his champagne 
(that stupid old fart is a scandal ! )

gee there's Florence Nightgale, after the fighting's wail
walks through the wounded and dying
my arm they have taken, her lamp shows me shaking
at least she's a honey for trying

they'll bury us mate by some cemetery gate
some day when our numbers are up
let's exchange our grave numbers, before our last slumbers
and we'll once again see death closeup.


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 January 2008)

Ode to an opalised ammonite fossil 

artifact from a long distant dream time - 
you have taken an eon to form
while mankind (stupid fools) in the meantime
rush about - like a leaf in a storm 

beware little ammonite fossil
man is not necessarily friend
in our energy fires quite collosal
your brothers help fuel our fool's end


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 January 2008)

sorry folk - but (speaking of shells) here's a repost of Pam Ayres   Clamp the Mighty Limpet
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=195759&highlight=limpet#post195759

http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/blueplanet/factfiles/molluscs/limpet_bg.shtml


> Habitat
> Limpets are abundant on rocky shores, where they attach to rocks or other hard substrates.
> 
> Diet
> ...




How's this for a confusing sexlife... 



> Reproduction
> Limpets are hermaphrodites (producing both male and female reproductive cells) and undergo sex change during life. They mature as males at about 9 months of age, but after a couple of years they change sex to become female.
> 
> Spawning occurs once a year, usually during winter, and is triggered by rough seas which disperse the eggs and sperm. Larvae are pelagic for a couple of weeks before settling onto a hard substrate.


----------



## noirua (4 January 2008)

If you'r short it's not your fault,
If you'r tall, you'r not a fool,
If you'r fat, well, that is that,
If you'r thin, that's fault of kin.

Never mind, we're of a kind,
Ne'er blame yourself or else
be unhappy, that's not the way,
carry on your way, and you'll pay.

Pay! Indeed you must, if indeed,
you can change the way you feed,
the way I feed in quantity, or is it
not, what it is, yes! And you'll pay.

Change our ways, indeed we must,
happiness is not so big to bust,
Yes! No! Don't care? Be fair today,
Do not, I fear, yes indeed, we'll pay.

Take action and do not pay - noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 January 2008)

RECENT DOWN TRENDS 

how to get Down off an elephant's back?
you don't - you get down off a duck 
I once bought some Down shares 
when the Dow took a smack,
I was hoping that Down would go up;
But the damned price of Down went down with the Dow
and the update is Down won't come back
Down is now down and out, but my ducks anyhow
are upbeating their down and  "up-quack"


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 January 2008)

> how to get Down off an elephant's back?
> you don't - you get down off a duck
> I once bought some Down shares
> when the Dow took a smack,
> ...




it's a beat up - root for Down
"UP Down , UP Down"
NEWS :- "Down up" !!!  

with a 
knick knack paddle quack.

That's it - I'm off to mow the lawn 

PS  It's enough to ..

knick knack paddle quack
give the duck a frown 
the up-quack update is 
Dow's up - and Down!.  

(groan?)


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 January 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> lol - there's this funny old dude down the road....(call him Fred Smith for this exercise).   He shows me this poem and tells me he wrote it for his wife - for the new year....
> 
> HOW DO I LOVE YOU? by Fred Smith, (.........with some assistance from Elizabeth Barrett Browning)
> 
> ...



might as well throw this in


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 January 2008)

already posted back there , but what the heck...


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 January 2008)

HANDING DOWN ZEN TO THE KIDS

I bought me a book on Buddha and men
and on motorbike bits and the journey 
on zig zags and zombies, exams about zen
on LIFE!  (and not “Weekends with Bernie”) 

I now worship nuts and I’m learning ‘bout air,
things loony tune, lunar and “moo”,  
.......
(which I'm told is the answer to  “hey were you there
when the cow jumped over the moon?”   )

whether breast of a hill or breast of your maid
there is beauty to love and to share, 
and where tolerance-fashioned-foundations are laid
there’s a karma that’s right royal and rare.

whether sunrise by dawn or the gold of a noon
find karma in chroma or sod,
or the beat of lapels or a two stroke tune
on some bike handed to us by god.

.................
I’m thinking of sketching some lines in the sand
and teaching my kids yoga stances,
but they tell me “hey pops, don’t worry old man
cos dads are just s%$#t  as breakdancers." 

So these lines in the sand will be taken by tide 
and time will erase all my poem
except for - perhaps - a scent of some thyme 
........
which in time they’ll relearn on their own.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance


----------



## noirua (6 January 2008)

An interesting road on the investment scene,
A warning, no entry, therefore don't be seen,
some may venture where only a few will go
and then find themselves buried in the snow.

Last year, we could invest by way of a pin
never mind if you had, had many a gin,
now the weather is very, very much changed
and storms and strong winds and driving rain.

Your portfolio risk, is one for all, to carefully assess,
otherwise, you may find, you're somewhat undressed,
if it's only your shirt, that you have lost, don't careless
if it's all you've got left, heavens, will see you unblessed.

So look my friends, carefully, to the gravity of your scene
and don't let me tell you, yes, regret where you've been,
it's yourself that you really, need to strongly address,
otherwise, you may, be wishing, you could be put to rest. 

Take care with your investments in 2008 - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 January 2008)

noi, yet another weekend of waiting to see the reaction (Monday) to Friday night's drop in the Dow.  (- 250 whatever)

I remember the days I used to tell the wife ... "You're looking better than the Dow Jones Industrial Average, dear" .... . I've stopped saying that - for fear of getting a black eye in return, lol.  

lol - like it :-


			
				 noi said:
			
		

> Your portfolio risk, is one for all, to carefully assess,
> otherwise, you may find, you're somewhat undressed,
> if it's only your shirt, that you have lost, don't careless
> if it's all you've got left, heavens, will see you unblessed.




THE DOW HOWLS AT NIGHT

I go to bed like a helpless pawn
and I sleep whilst the Dow “does it’s thing”
If the Dow goes down I wake forlorn
If up then I wake like a King; 

I wish that I knew what awaited at dawn
but prior to the mischievous moon, 
and I wish that I knew whether bloom or thorn
awaited –
-  ... in the prior afternoon.

Will I wake to the "hair of the dog" in some tent
will the tail of the dog wag soon 
will the evening bring subprimes with evil intent
primevals that howl at the moon; 

They say that the subprime is primed to go off
then they say – place your bets! – (just don’t blow it)
I sometimes just wonder if brokers show off - 
if they’re scared IN ADVANCE they should show it !

By the time that they sing to one tune with one voice
game’s up ! and we’re all out of time;
ahh - until then I’ll go with my natural choice 
my heart – and my lucky dime 

Will it slope up or down, is it "shaped" short or long
or the view from a mountain-goat climb, 
and who or which soothsayer sang the right song ?.......
all that we will learn in good time


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 January 2008)

HEY BROKER , WON'T YOU TELL ME WHAT IT MEANS

I looked to my sofa and took a brief rest - 
and I dreamt if the market would trough or crest uh-huh

and I dreamt of a bear with a bullhorn (you guessed) -
and beside him was a sleeping bull bearing it's chest ?? uh-huh

and a bear with a bullhorn ate the sleeping bull (boiled) uh-huh
then the bull said sompin bout oils aint oils ?? uh-huh    

well the missus just looked at me stupid
and I don’t have a clue
So don't be cruel broker
Help me I beg of you

Hey, hey, hey Broker !!!!
Won't you tell this poor poor fellow !!!!
What does this crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy dream mean?
Oh, yeah 

 Pharoahs Song Song of the King - Joseph

 Pharoah's Song - Uwe KrÃ¶ger 



> SONG OF THE KING (to JOSEPH)
> When they sing this song, they invariably impersonate Elvis - Hencewise (I guess?) it's titled the Song of the King
> 
> 
> ...







> PHARAOH's DREAM EXPLAINED (JOSEPH)
> 
> Seven years of bumper crops are on their way - Years of plenty, endless wheat and tons of hay
> Your farms will boom, there won't be room - To store the surplus food you grow
> ...


----------



## noirua (6 January 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> noi, yet another weekend of waiting to see the reaction (Monday) to Friday night's drop in the Dow.  (- 250 whatever)
> 
> I remember the days I used to tell the wife ... "You're looking better than the Dow Jones Industrial Average, dear" .... . I've stopped saying that - for fear of getting a black eye in return, lol.




Hi 2020, At least your wife knows what the Dow Jones Industrial Average is.
Markets aren't that bad, it's only if we get forced sellers and they send everything down. 
Australia is the Far East and Asia so the blows are cushioned. 
Mind you, people do grumble. No rain and they curse the drought and now it's all coming down at once and flooding the place. - noi


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 January 2008)

"I SEE NO SHIPS, ONLY HARDSHIPS"

Nelson was a leader and a noble English Lord
with his red and white and blue and gold and scrambled egg and sword
there were enemy ahead but only fifty to his one
so he called out Hardy first mate, let’s go forth and have some fun?
…..
stand by foremast, first things foremost, - first a second fifth of rum. !

Now his boss in those days (Jervis) was a much more cautious dude
- when he sent the flags aloft for “caution” Nelson nearly booed
but instead he used a trick he’d learnt when his wife or her mother nags
saying (spyglass to his glass eye) simply …..“I don’t see no flags”.

well they charged into the battle and the rest is history
flinging cannon shot to windward sometimes straight up and to lee
and he scored brave hits on bigger ships and won it by a mile 
they promoted him to Egypt as de leader of deNial. 

He had a certain knack with men – it was called “the Nelson touch”
he could get the most out of most of them – (and he loved the women much)
He lived with Emma Hamilton - while his wife lived back at home
the Ambassadoress to Naples, (faced with Nipples act like Rome). 

Some years rolled by … Trafalgar  - deadly kick-box  with the frogs
in his dashy little runabout where they had floating logs
and he leapfrogged through their party, green eyes staring in their ships
till they shot him – "Kiss me Hardy – cheek man !! not my bludy lips!!" 

The moral? well there isn’t one, it’s totally immoral
and even Lords of "Nile - ons"  end up food for cods and coral
and don’t mix up fifths of rum and "take-no-quarters"-freddy-frog
or Fred Nile and his wowsers will find some fault – that you’re spiced up on the grog.

...........
When you’re handing out the “how to votes” and handing out the kisses
you can plant a kiss on his baby, but don’t try it with his missus
important too to leave unkissed the bouncers of the party
or you’ll end up being called limp wrist –  and the taunt of “kiss me Hardy”  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Nelson,_1st_Viscount_Nelson


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 January 2008)

THANKS FOR THE OFFER OF A LAST MEAL 

Far be it .. for me.. to suggest a goose chase
but I really like goosewings in gooseberry paste
while baking the goose wings, use truffles to  baste 
and cook it real slowly, it's fatal to haste.

I suggest about forty degrees for a week
then 30 more years - mmm - at 45 peak
then leave it to cool on a sill overnight
during lunar eclipse for the optimum light.

Then as for the gooseberries to use in the paste
you need a selection that are here and there based
I love those blue gooseberries that grow in the wild
I saw them at Cape Horn (when the weather was mild).

Then the wild desert gooseberries found in the Simpson
Then Crimean gooseberries crunchy and crimson
then the bird-eating gooseberries where the wild Niger flows
and the red-and-blue-striped ones found? god only knows!?.

Far be it for me to suggest a goose chase
I can't save myself, but I still savour taste
it must be from wild geese, flying east within reason,
and virgins, and left wings, and caught out of season.

I thank you for the offer for the last meal I'll taste 
did I mention I get heartburn, if I eat in half-haste.


----------



## drillinto (9 January 2008)

“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?"

Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.



from Fever, 2006
Red Hen Press, USA


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 January 2008)

Who overcomes by force hath overcome but half his foe. - John Milton (Paradise Lost)

HEARTS MINDS AND OIL 

To overcome with hateful force
is to overcome but half your foe
the other half is heart of course
and "win the peace" is "way to go";
to conquer lands for oil and gas
with full unhealthy appetite
will always have a hint of crass
and never make that conquest right.


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 January 2008)

WEATHER vs CLIMATE

Are differences so massive twixt what's weather and what's climate?
it's whether you use an eggtimer praps, or old Big Ben to time it 
for instance think of weather as one grasshopper, (or one warm)
but when there's millions in a line - that's climate! - and a locust storm.

the answer isn't yes or no to whether the future's stark
the claims that say it's getting cold are the only question mark
as NASA said it's "here and now" (and CSIRO)
It's not which way or why or how, it's the speed and how far it'll go. 

http://www.greenhouse.nsw.gov.au/what_is_climate_change/global_trends


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 January 2008)

FIRST DRAFT OF LAST WORDS

oh what a great spring scene was there 
when I first opened eyes on the world
as I strolled through my youth with a naive stare
as my flag was designed and unfurled

oh what a brilliant summer flashed by
as I strove to avoid the worst strife
as I climbed on through laughter, and smiles and cry
and immersed myself in life

what a fantastic autumn display
in the forest where noone could find me
and the downhill breeze on the loose leaf day 
and my hair slowly fell out behind me

a bitter sweet winter, of losing old mates
there’s memories that leave a man speechless
but I hear that old Peter keeps oiling those gates
to ensure that one’s passing is featureless

I’ll meet you less
greet-you-less
and the world one old creature-less
treat-you less
preacher-less
one old fool teacher-less

that was life 
adios …..
finito


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 January 2008)

CULTURE

Culture – the Japanese excuse for whaling; 
Culture – the Chinese excuse for locking bears in cages and milking their bile; 
Culture – the Spanish excuse for a slow death of a bull amongst cheering leering spectators; 
Culture – the excuse for **** fights to the death,
dog fights till one is maimed irreparably, 
dogs in packs fighting bears before a crowd, 
dogs, man's best friends, being asked to kill a pig – and sometimes being killed by them. 


Culture ......
can be so uncultured  
I think I hate culture - especially when it has degenerated to nothing but an excuse.


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 January 2008)

Sung by Baez - To Dylan 
"Diamonds and Rust lyrics performed by Joan Baez. ... it is autobiographical and the man she is singing it to is Bob Dylan "

 Diamonds And Rust -tribute to Dylan and Baez



> Diamonds And Rust Lyrics (Joan Baez)
> 
> Well I'll be damned
> Here comes your ghost again
> ...





> the ease with which pain is changed to sarcasm




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGMHSbcd_qI&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f01UehWq3v8&feature=related


----------



## Wysiwyg (17 January 2008)

From Cairns to Coolangatta, north to south poles
The people they scamper, into their safe homes
To find one of truth, honesty and pride
Someone to love, you don`t have to hide
May take some time, something we learn
And one day we all, shall have our just turn. 

With time always winner, and time never end
Do what is needed, with lover as friend
For time is a constant, and aging too swift
To give of one selfless, true lovin` a gift

W


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 January 2008)

the queenslander showing in you wys..

from Cairns to Coolangatta and also the bahamas
we know how to bend em!
 - now can you straighten bananas?

ps great poem.


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 January 2008)

.....
queenslander's lunchbox


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 January 2008)

DEAR TRADING DIARY – A FEW SIMILES I'm trying to SMILE AT. 

Should I force a smile for the firing squad
as the Dow and the all ords sink,..?
in a storm should I go hold a lightning rod
and then stare back at God and don’t "blink"?
"SHOOT STRAIGHT! you old bathtub" with a nonchalant nod!
(and hide what you can’t bear to think)
"Just remember old greybeard, my piece of green sod
and on Friday’s I like a wee drink."

There are many I’m sure, who are equally poorer
and still hold a stiff upper lip,
now the world’s gone all mean with a definite lean
since some iceberg emerged amidship,
the inflation round here is incredibly dear
like an outgoing tidal wave rip,
though the future's in doubt, I’ll not kneel, down or out
to slings, darts, fickle fortune, nor whip !

I’ve retraced my bold steps to my very first bets
and the source of this journal’s ink,
my high wire-ing act was quite foolish in fact
as I balance my bank on some brink,
Ahh I’ve been here before and it’s sorry and sore
I return to my paycheque so sad,
....
and I’m starting to think, for the sake of one "blink"...
-  which I didn’t  - but I wish that I had.


----------



## bvbfan (23 January 2008)

This has probably been posted before but thought it was fitting for the current market.

One of my favourite

  IF you can keep your head when all about you 
 Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
 If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
 But make allowance for their doubting too;
 If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
 Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
 Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
 And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: 

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
 If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
 If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
 And treat those two impostors just the same;
 If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
 Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
 Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
 And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: 

If you can make one heap of all your winnings 
 And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
 And lose, and start again at your beginnings
 And never breathe a word about your loss;
 If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
 To serve your turn long after they are gone,
 And so hold on when there is nothing in you
 Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
 ' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
 if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
 If all men count with you, but none too much;
 If you can fill the unforgiving minute
 With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
 Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
 And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 January 2008)

thanks bvb , I needed that 
- "trust yourself when all men doubt you " - lol - one can only assume that Kipling wasn't a rich man - or didn't deal in shares maybe . 



> If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
> If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
> *If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster*
> And treat those two impostors just the same;
> ...




I'm starting to wonder if, in a lemming charge - it's best to stay with the pack?  
the trendy lemming is your friend?

you know, I was thinking (for some strange reason) - about 2am last night - 
about an incident once when I was walking across a really busy highway with 4 little kids , two of mine, and two of the neighbours at the time (great friends). 

We held hands in a daisy chain (mine-neighbour-me - neighbour - mine) - and started to cross the road - there being only one car and he was "miles away".
 Then two things happened.   My smallest boy ( probaby 2- 3 yr old) decided he liked the look of a pebble or something on the road - stopped , let go the hand of the kid next to him, and bent down unsteadily to get it . But simultaneously , for some crazy petrolhead reason, this hoon in the car accelerated from a great distance, and went past at a rate of knots - seriously fast  - and in the end missed my kid by inches. 

So the market goes down ?

so what !


----------



## bvbfan (24 January 2008)

I don't know about lemmings

And I don't ususally recommend anything on CNBC but if you watch only one thing from them make it Fast Money!

I may not like some of those guys(gal) as traders but they seem to be a cluey bunch of people.

Were calling for a climax event which I thought was yesterday but I suspect given today's rally that it may be a day early.

The bull is stomping its feet but will it charge.

The bear may be preparing to hibernate for the winter.

Once the US elections are out and a winner is found then the fun will begin


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 January 2008)

http://www.robertburns.plus.com/louse.htm

To A Louse On seeing one on a Lady's bonnet at Church.
Robbie Burns

Probably written late in 1785.
The use of Lunardi to denote a type of bonnet, then the very height of fashion, is an allusion to Vincenzo Lunardi who made several balloon flights in Scotland that year. Incidentally, the first manned flights in the British Isles were made in Sept 1784 by James Tytler, editor of the Encyplopaedia Britannica and a collaborator with Burns in the Scots Musical museum.

This is one of the most remarkable of Burns Poems and in so many respects the antithesis of the Mountain Daisy.

In the Daisy Poem he laboured to produce a histrionic moral emotion, whereas in the Louse perhaps better than anywhere else, he shows his ability to direct an apparently casual, occasional poem to a didactic conclusion, this conclusion expressed with all the simple gnomic quality of a country proverb.

The poem is alive with bright descriptive touches and an all-embracing humour.

The opening with its exclamatory suddenness, carries us right into the situation:
Ha! whare ye gaun, ye crawlin ferlie!
Your impudence protects you sairlie
I canna say but ye strunt rarely
Owre gauze and lace
Tho' faith, I fear, ye dine but sparely
On sic a place

Not only do we see the louse crawling in the unconscious lady's bonnet but we see the poet himself watching it with exaggerated indignation. A note of social satire creeps in as the poem continues

Ye ugly, creepin, blastit wonner
Detested, shunn'd, by saunt an' sinner
How daur ye set your fit upon her
Sae fine a Lady!
Gae somewhere else and seek your dinner
On some poor body

The theme is developed at some length.

Swith! in some beggar's haffet squattle
There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle
Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle
In shoals and nations
Whaur horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle
Your thick plantations

Now haud you there, ye're out o' sight
Below the fatt'rils, snug an' tight
Na, faith ye yet! ye'll no be right
Till ye've got on it
The vera tapmost, tow'ring height
O' Miss's bonnet

My sooth! right bauld ye set your nose out
As plump an grey as ony groset
O for some rank, mercurial rozet
Or fell, red smeddum
I'd gie you sic a hearty dose o't
Wad dress your droddum

I wad na been surpris'd to spy
You on an auld wife's flannen toy
Or aiblins some bit duddie boy
On's wyliecoat
But Miss's fine Lunardi! fye!
How daur ye do't?

The contrast between the vulgarity of the louse and the social pretensions of the lady on whose bonnet it is creeping produces ever greater mock outrage on the poet's part until he finally, with effective abruptness, drops the pose of the disturbed onlooker and turns to address the lady herself. As soon as she is named - by the simple country name 'Jenny' - she ceases to be a fine lady and becomes just a girl to whom the poet is addressing a friendly remark. The note of amusement is not dropped, but it has become kindly.

O Jenny, dinna toss your head etc
An' set your beauties a' abread
Ye little ken what cursed speed
The blastie's makin'
Thae winks and finger-ends I dread
Are notice takin

And so the poem ends on a simple proverbial note

*O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as others see us
It wad frae monie a blunder free us
An' foolish notion
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us
An' ev'n Devotion*

This last verse contains the often quoted lines and shows Burns depth of understanding of human nature.
Note the capital P in Pow'r denoting God.



> This last verse translates as
> 
> *Oh, that God would give us the very smallest of gifts
> To be able to see ourselves as others see us
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 January 2008)

just watched Knight's Tale (Channel 7) in the background

HEATH LEDGER RIP 

what a talent - what a loss - what a man - and so much merit
how respected by his acting peers - they only had to dare it
how much cruel misalignment of the planets o'er his head...
how so Lord - he's only 29  - how so his soul has fled ?

how so Lord - this houshold hero - how so Lord you want him dead?


----------



## Wysiwyg (26 January 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> DEAR TRADING DIARY – A FEW SIMILES I'm trying to SMILE AT.
> 
> Should I force a smile for the firing squad
> as the Dow and the all ords sink,..?
> ...





Reads like the lament of a date raider, not the trials n tribulations of a hardened, wisened and determined stock market investor.:


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2008)

Wysiwyg said:


> Reads like the lament of a date raider, not the trials n tribulations of a hardened, wisened and determined stock market investor.:




Was I wise not to sell - crawling shot and speared
by a misbehaving Dow ?
as I watched as it fell - till the dust was cleared
in a paralysed "holy cow!"

Was I wise? good question- I'm right royal sheared
as I hitch my back to the plow- 
Are my dollars gone west? - (some have reappeared  )
......
well,   I'm bludiwell wisened now !

thas for sure lol

PS That other poem was written the night before the big rebound - in the depths of my crisis - not that I'm sure I was alone  

PS wys, the silly thing is, I was thinking "gee if only I could go short ... but with a SMSF you can't - 

"I would if I could but I can't so I won't" sort of thing  - 
but lol
I didn't have the sense to translate that as Put it in the bank !! - at the very time I was saying so on other threads lol.
Ah only money.


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2008)

GILLIE's LEGACY 

Gillies gone and hung his gloves up
put his bat back in its chest
with the photos of his centuries
you were baggy green at best
the fastest ton by an aussie
and the man of many a year
whether “has been” or just “wassie”
izzie great bloke?  – is this beer?   :bier:

The sixes from his willow
that went bouncing round the stand 
they’ll keep landing on my pillow
when I dream of sloggers grand
and the catches and the shoulder rolls
the sportsmanship and smiles
and the walks and winks and wonder
of the king of sporting styles. 

When we're browsing future history books
of past lights that have shone
of the dinky dye true Aussies - 
just a few come near the Don- 
theres'll be sighs to ancient photos, mate,
of Gillie, now he's gone
as a memory prized - to motivate
.....
as the kids and the show go on.


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2008)

> DISTANT HILLS
> by ... a certain unhappy Far Side cow
> 
> 
> ...




coldn't find a Far Side Cow cartoon - but here's a Far Side polar bear one lol

or this one (you'll have to imagine it .. 


> There is a FAR SIDE that I see in almost every theatre projector booth I go to...
> 
> It is a picture of an audience in the theatre chanting FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS!
> And hanging out of the projection booth window is the goofy projectionist looking at the floor where he tried to see his glasses that have fallen on the floor.




Heaps more Far Side memories here :- 
http://www.acsu.buffalo.edu/~insrisg/nature/nw95/farside08



> I've always appreciated the cartoons that insert ordinary situations into a
> scientific context -- for example, the two scientists ripping each others'
> radiation suits in a radioactive chamber. With extreme examples, Larson showed
> scientists as ordinary people.
> ...






> "The rooster stared back at me, his power and confidence almost overwhelming.
> Down below a female paused warily at the coop entrance. I kept the camera
> rolling. They were beautiful, those 'Chickens in the Mist'."
> flipside lol
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2008)

omg there are some funny memories on that website ... lol
never realised before that you could describe one of Larson's cartoons and get nearly as many laughs 

I remember seeing one with this bear's cave , and Father bear reading to a little bear (bit like a human reading Goldilocks) - and saying like "Then the first hunter said 'yoo hoo - yoooo hoo - hey Joe I think we can try this one, it's empty'" ... and there in the corner of the cave are a few skeletal bones stacked neatly plus vests and rifles and stuff. 



> Aside from the biological/scientific nature to Larson's cartoon, I think the
> characteristic that pervades most of my favorfite ones is that the humor lies
> in what is about to happen rather than what is already shown.
> An example: Man with lion entering elevator, assures the elevator occupants
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2008)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prehistory_of_the_Far_Side



> ... Larson shows his cartoons that have provoked controversy, even outrage, and he reprints some of the indignant letters of protest. Some of his cartoons are thought to be in bad taste, as one featuring a couple of dogs playing "Tethercat." In such cases, he argues that readers either were oversensitive or misunderstood the cartoon.
> 
> One time, a representative of the Jane Goodall Institute attacked a Far Side cartoon in which two chimpanzees are grooming when one finds a human hair and asks, "Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?" Larson was ready to apologize to Goodall, until it came out that Goodall loved the cartoon and had no idea someone in her organization had complained.







> one section to mistakes that he made, .....or scientific errors (like one featuring polar bears and penguins in the same habitat)


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 January 2008)

Deteriorata (Fluke of the Universe) 



> National Lampoon, Deteriorata
> 
> Go placidly amid the noise and waste,
> and remember what comfort there may be in owning a piece thereof.
> ...




the original? ... 
 Desiderata MV 

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=156671&highlight=desiderata#post156671
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=156675&highlight=desiderata#post156675


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## 2020hindsight (27 January 2008)

http://www.alistairdavidson.com/poetry_fictions__2002_the_tennis_racquet_poem_about_love.htm 
A poem this bloke wrote after he'd been staring at big Taurus in the Heavens - 440 light years away (close) 


> A Thousand Stars Falling On Our Heads
> Alistair Davidson
> July 29, 2002, in memory of the Pleiades, last summer
> 
> ...




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleiades_(star_cluster)


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## 2020hindsight (28 January 2008)

2020 said:
			
		

> Larson... One time, a representative of the Jane Goodall Institute attacked a Far Side cartoon in which two chimpanzees are grooming when one finds a human hair and asks, "Conducting a little more 'research' with that Jane Goodall tramp?" Larson was ready to apologize to Goodall, until it came out that Goodall loved the cartoon and had no idea someone in her organization had complained




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall
Speaking of Jane Goodall, I found this poem of hers as well ..- see jpeg attached (Five Herons) - .  (plus a few quotes)
http://www.lessonsforhope.org/scrapbook4.asp?sec=7&pgid=111

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/jane_goodall.htm


> Selected Jane Goodall Quotations
> 
> • The greatest danger to our future is apathy.
> 
> ...






> • There are an awful lot of scientists today who believe that before very long we shall have unraveled all the secrets of the universe. There will be no puzzles anymore. To me it'd be really, really tragic because I think one of the most exciting things *is this feeling of mystery, feeling of awe*, the feeling of looking at a little live thing and being amazed by it and how its emerged through these hundreds of years of evolution and there it is and it is perfect and why.
> 
> • I sometimes think that *the chimps are expressing a feeling of awe, *which must be very similar to that experience by early people when they worshipped water and the sun, things they didn't understand.




I heard her interviewed recently - and needless to say, she's terrified of what will happen to her chimps once she's gone, especially as a lot as  being eaten by hungry refugees


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## 2020hindsight (28 January 2008)

and  ... Speaking of evolution... I found this on ABC website ...

"Were our ancestors intimate with Neanderthals"? 

Now I wonder if they were consenting couples?
and which was the bloke and which was the girl? 

and whether they ever imagined in their wildest dreams that they'd be found out ? 

PS And here's a book of "Barry Humphries Signed Neglected Poems 1st Edition" up for sale on e-bay ..  
 Mint http://cgi.ebay.com.au/Barry-Humphr...tcZphotoQQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

and others... 
http://search.ebay.com.au/search/poems_W0QQfclZ4QQfnuZ1


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## 2020hindsight (29 January 2008)

ONE OUT OF FOUR IN THE CITIZENSHIP TEST

1. Who do you think was the greatest Aussie ever to play the game cricket?
CLICKET? mmm DON BLANDAM?

2. Here's a football, show us how you'd hold the thing and kick it ?
ahhh DON BLADMAN? 

3. Who do you think was the best PM that Aussie's ever seen?
ooo ummm DON BLADMAN maybe?

4. And on top of the pile is a lady - what's the name of the current Queen?
mmm could vat be DON BLADMAN?


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## BIG BWACULL (29 January 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> ONE OUT OF FOUR IN THE CITIZENSHIP TEST
> 
> 1. Who do you think was the greatest Aussie ever to play the game cricket?
> CLICKET? mmm DON BLANDAM?
> ...



Sorry to hear you are not a citizen DON BLADMAN 
But Geez your a great cricketer
Wonder what to say if they asked you your name 
uuummmm ooohhh DON BLADMAN


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## 2020hindsight (29 January 2008)

Apologies for the self indulgence here.

MEMORIES
Like the trinkets in a memory bank,  old quotes from show and tell
old words -  abrase with emery from before we learnt to spell 
a coo-ee to old countrysides, an echo from some shell
a brew sometimes confronting, 
the depths of a thoughtful well


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## 2020hindsight (29 January 2008)

Think this has been discussed ad nausium before - but here it is again 

I personally think it should be contemn -  meaning to "treat with contempt"
rather than condemn - meaning "to judge" 
(but I'm thoroughly outvoted lol)

http://www.anzacday.org.au/education/tff/rememwords.html


> The Ode
> They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
> Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
> At the going down of the sun and in the morning
> ...




Other sites disagree 
http://deadcantrant.com/blog/archiv...-sun-and-in-the-morning-we-will-remember-them


> Laurence Bunyon, For The Fallen
> 
> With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
> England mourns for her dead across the sea.
> ...


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## 2020hindsight (29 January 2008)

BIG BWACULL said:


> Sorry to hear you are not a citizen DON BLADMAN
> But Geez your a great cricketer
> Wonder what to say if they asked you your name
> uuummmm ooohhh DON BLADMAN




lol - he'd be in trouble if he had a memory lapse there 
Sorry old man- you're visa just expired  lol

I hear Rudd is fighting to keep it in the list of questions, lol
He must be the closest thing to the original Aussie Bhudda yes?  

Maybe we should suggest to "nomore4s" that there's a good case for choosing a middle name as "Bradman"


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## 2020hindsight (30 January 2008)

for those kids starting tomorrow 

http://www.poemsabout.com/poet/c-micheal-james-dennis/page-4/

That link is page4 of 9 by the way - here's page 1..
http://www.poemsabout.com/poet/c-micheal-james-dennis/



> Going to School ... CJ Dennis
> 
> Did you see them pass to-day, Billy, Kate and Robin,
> All astride upon the back of old grey Dobbin?
> ...


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## 2020hindsight (30 January 2008)

Ran into a couple of words today, and decided to write this bit of bludy nonsense..   I don't a-cclaim that it's any good - perhaps I should just a-cquit   ... still better than being a-pathetic I guess 

- just the difference between A-muse and A-moral  the second use of "A-" to sorta reverse the meaning...



> A-moral - having no moral standards, restraints, or principles; unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong






> Musing - A product of contemplation; a thought. "an elegant tapestry of quotations, musings, aphorisms, and autobiographical reflections".




A-ttributes to A-void

if a moral is a positive – much better than A-moral 
should we twist the thing around and be A-war, and praps A-quarrel?  [aware and A-war, and A-quarrel?]
if musings find unblinkered truth beneath the trough-fed news
does that mean that we’d do more thinking is their target wasn’t to A-muse?

if awake is bright eyed bushy tailed – is that the same as A-sleep?
are crowds of people laughing when they’re actually A-weep?
do we have a serious problem if accountants all A-ccount?
ahh 
much more amour! , much less “A-more”! champagne! and forget the A-mount. 

Is that glow a light or praps “A-light” at the end of the damp dark tunnel?
is the garden abloom or praps A-bloom , with the flowers are all a-funnel?
are the stars aligned or praps A-lined with respect to our own divinity?
I guess we’ll find out in the fullness of time – and so on until in-finity.


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## 2020hindsight (31 January 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> are the stars aligned or praps A-lined with respect to our own divinity?
> I guess we’ll find out in the fullness of time – and so on until in-finity.



and so on until A-ffinity?

PS 
if A-theist means "not theist", 
and A-symmetric means "not symmetric"
does A-pathetic  mean "not pathetic"  

just thinking A-loud - meaning "thinking softly" )


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## 2020hindsight (31 January 2008)

Is the fact that these important matters don't get any attention due to ignorance or apathy?
I don't know and I don't care.


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## 2020hindsight (31 January 2008)

THE BOOMERANG - ME AND MY BROTHER, MAN. 

Me:

I’d like to go out in the bush with my brother
return to the scene of the crimes - 
be there with the mrothers when Canberra and others 
say sorry for stolen times,
I’d like to be round the campfire’s flare
to see those sad eyes partly mended
who were round or related to babies negated 
their life Mother Nature intended

cos God gave em folks who loved em like spokes
in that wheel that their Serpent had made
they were loved yet were taken- their future forsaken
in scams of some white shoe brigade,
these ignorant prigs then just dumped em in "gigs"
that played out in neglected abyss
these ignorant fools who now bullsh1t like mules -  
....
but then ignorance always loved bliss.


My Brother :

I’d like to go out for a last walkabout  
beyond Namatjira’s Range
and meet Rainbow Serpent – as one of his servants
from the time when things didn’t change
overpowered as he was by the lord of the whites
who obvious knew about “best”
what a shame that this Jesus – so cruel as to seize us
and our lives as such just went west. 

We’re still reaching for justice, reaching for help 
reaching for “fair go my brother”
a Rudd-er with lustre, and freed from the kelp 
and perhaps a quick meet with my mother
just a quick word “hello”,  as old age deals its blow
and the oldie moves onto “next bus”
Hey Brendan, if we need you, just leave us your number
but we’ll ring you – please don’t ring us.


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## 2020hindsight (2 February 2008)

WHERE DO THE POLLIES STAND ON SORRY  
The Gospels of Malcolm Kevin Malcolm and Peter. 
(Turnbull Rudd Fraser and Costello).

In the case of the sorry curveball
in this pilgrimage to heaven
do they stand with Malcolm Turnbull 
or the gospel of Kev 07, 
with the gospel of Peter Costello 
and the “other-than-mean-and-heartless”
forget the rest – their opinions went west
cos it’s gonna happen regardless. 

I could’ve sworn that the good book
says that peace and forgiveness are healthy
and like Robin Hood, take a good look
just how lucky are white blokes and wealthy,
and I can’t help thinking that Howard
was the most destructive of men
as for Brendan, he says he’ll allow it
but he’ll argue till hell about when. 

If I want to go see entertainment 
I guess there’s Abbott and Costello
I’d go see Peter – he’s merriment 
He’s a worthwhile and Christian fellow,
as for listening to eggheads like Abbott
as he takes the spin-doctored piss.
He wouldn’t know Christian from rabbit
I think that I’d give it a miss.


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## 2020hindsight (2 February 2008)

I know a bloke whose eardrums broke
from the wind of his wife's tongue waggin'
He'd say with a croak when he met new folk
"I'm St George, and this is ... the missus."


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## 2020hindsight (2 February 2008)

SOME THOUGHTS AS WE GO TRADING AND BLUNDERING ON 

All this nonsense about the blue of the sky
and pollution and stuff – who cares!
the only old growth I care about 
is the rise in my blue chip shares, 
and the streams are all rich with dioxins and such 
and the incoming tide’s not much purer, 
I like big income streams , and investment share schemes
I’ll retire to my world-wide sewer. 

..........

I recall as a child with my hair coarse and wild
how we’d fish and dive in at the deep end
now the creeks gone all brown and the fish are all drowned
since I started this fishing for dividend
the creek bed is yuck since the death of the duck
now the birds live in bleak biohazard
and it's sad that I say, that the price that we pay
is the world lost to tangible assets. 

Explored and exploited, the world’s reconnoitred
for chances to drill and pollute
Is man such a dope that he’ll place the noose rope 
round his own neck and jump through the chute?
rounded and routed, trading floors shout it
animals hide from the noise
“mankinds gone quite mad - and it’s all so damned sad
what’s it mean? a mean death!  - he destroys!”

:topic PS The bloke down the road thinks that this is a picture of a net tangible asset :-
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=252363&highlight=shots#post252363


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## 2020hindsight (5 February 2008)

There's apparently a new Ad that asks poms (seriously paraphrased "Are you sick of things in UK - the weather etc - well then move to South Australia" 

Here's an attempt by a hypothetical young Advertising clerk to write the Ad:-  (3 minutes lol - as if it isn't obvious)

Come to Australia the land of the emu
a bird that is gawky and grounded
Don't be a failure- come find the "extreme you"
those parts that are probly unfounded...
Leave all those grey clouds, and juvenile breakouts
in pubs, "rose and shamrock".. or "thistle"
Come bring the missus - go camping - and make out...
- it's a lovely day for a whistle


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## 2020hindsight (5 February 2008)

THE UM - NIPOTENCE OF YOUTH

the graphs of life go up and down 
like yo-yo’s on a spit
back then my mates could paint the town
with youthful jokes and wit
whatever the opposite of omnipotent
that’s the word and we were it
perhaps we might have done things different
but the moving pen has writ.


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## 2020hindsight (9 February 2008)

Spike Milligan on Highway (21.12.86) 

A few more of Spike Milligan's poems 
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bump/


> A Silly Poem
> Spike Milligan
> 
> Said Hamlet to Ophelia,
> ...





> Bump
> Spike Milligan
> 
> Things that go 'bump' in the night
> ...





> Mirror, Mirror
> Spike Milligan
> 
> A young spring-tender girl
> ...





> Have A Nice Day
> Spike Milligan
> 
> 'Help, help, ' said a man. 'I'm drowning.'
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 February 2008)

Kev Carmody was on ABC's conversation hour today ( just after the Sorry statement).

He made the point that the concept of oral history required that the story capture the imagination.   And that his (mother's and) father's stories were rich in imagery.  

Four of Kev Carmody's quotes "handed down"  :-

The Earth is my cathedral.
Listen to the music of the Wind.
The rivers are like the arteries and veins through a living landscape

This one from his mum ..
Gentle as the moonlight on skin.


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## 2020hindsight (13 February 2008)

OVATIONS for RUDD and NELSON - STANDING and SITTING RESPECTIVELY.

As Kevin Rudd resumed his chair – to loud applause and wild
So Brendan took the lectern to be bi-part-reconciled
His speech a wishy washy mess with contradictions piled
Of children raped and drowned no less, the rapist also child.

How split it left the rest of us, why spit on hope renewed?
how crass approaching festering puss, how irrelevant and rude
How apropos of nothing - like the mind from which it spewed
They turned their backs to your ugly mike - (you flip-flop-fool) - and booed 

Till then twas such a grand event, as Aussie starts to heal
and Rudd and co were Heaven bent to set her back on keel
His speech was truly statesmanlike, he empathised in kind
But Brendan – search your dwarfish psyche – for a hint of humane to find.

Ahh heck it’s far too nice a day to worry about the misers
Today the sun discards old rays, and tomorrow brand new arises
To see a thousand tears or two, no precedent methinks 
But Doctor Nelson , no thanks to you  - and your bedside manner stinks.


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## 2020hindsight (17 February 2008)

OLDER? No NEWER THAN YESTERDAY!

Each dawn wipes the stars from the half dome
Each morn rises ripe and a-new
From lawns of our past maybe half grown 
A dew lifts and bids us adieu
But ignoring old Father Time’s ticking
And wrinkles that crinkle and grow
We are newer today – if still kicking-
Than we were a few wrinkles ago.

With that ‘yo-yo’- ing sun, 
And the past on the run
We are newer with each rising ‘yo’

If your craft’s built with honest day’s toiling
If the jagged rock's way off to lee
If that lighthouse still marks the sea’s boiling
And its beacon’s still easy to see
With your compass (and mobile) on ‘roaming’
With your sails set and all wrinkle-free
Put  your heart in each wild waking moment
As you’re here-and-now-wake carves the sea.

And when ‘going about’
Let the world hear your shout
I’m Papillion, I’m ‘now’, and I’m free.

If your sheets are all trimmed and are set well
If all ropes bear an equal-ish strain
If you understand weather  (or bet well)
For your share of both sunshine and rain
If your ‘now’ flies free with the sea-birds
And your bow joins the dolphins at play
You can live to the full on just three words
NEWER THAN YESTERDAY! 

While your wake dances free
With its mate, ‘verb-to-be’
It’s all sleeping,  the wake of yesterday.


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## 2020hindsight (17 February 2008)

OLDER? No NEWER THAN YESTERDAY!

Each dawn wipes the stars from the half dome
Each morn rises ripe and a-new
From lawns of our past maybe half grown 
A dew lifts and bids us adieu
But ignoring old Father Time’s ticking
And wrinkles that crinkle and grow
We are newer today – if still kicking-
Than we were a few wrinkles ago.

With that ‘yo-yo’- ing sun, 
And the past on the run
We are newer with each rising ‘yo’

If your craft’s built with honest day’s toiling
If the jagged rock's way off to lee
If that lighthouse still marks the sea’s boiling
And its beacon’s still easy to see
With your compass (and mobile) on ‘roaming’
With your sails set and all wrinkle-free
Put  your heart in each wild waking moment
As your here-and-now-wake carves the sea.

And when ‘going about’
Let the world hear your shout
I’m Papillon, I’m ‘now’, and I’m free.

If your sheets are all trimmed and are set well
If all ropes bear an equal-ish strain
If you understand weather  (or bet well)
For your share of both sunshine and rain
If your ‘now’ flies free with the sea-birds
And your bow joins the dolphins at play
You can live to the full on just three words
NEWER THAN YESTERDAY! 

While your wake dances free
With its mate, ‘verb-to-be’
It’s all sleeping,  the wake of yesterday.


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## 2020hindsight (23 February 2008)

Prose (well written imo) :-..
Whether or not you agree with Dawkins on religion, 
and whether or not you believe (as I do) that he knows what he's talking about on DNA / biology at least,
this is still an interesting comment about the past – and prediction about the future. 



> Like sandbluffs carved into fantastic shapes by the desert winds
> like rocks shaped by ocean waves
> camel DNA has been sculpted
> by survival in ancient deserts
> ...




prediction:-


> I believe that by 2050 we shall be able to read the language. We shall feed the genome of any unknown animal into a computer which will reconstruct not only the form of the animal but the detailed world in which its ancestors (who were naturally selected to produce it) lived, including its predators and prey, parasites and hosts, nesting sites, and even hopes and fears.




THE CAMEL AND HIS DNA

The camel is a creature weird
the ship of the desert land
he’s high off the ground and he’s lowly geared
and his nostrils can block out the sand
He’ll follow or lead through the desert storm
those storms that are gritty and dry
and the camel train is their "modus norm"
cos it's trained in their DNA “pie”. 

The camel is a creature strange 
with clubs like Irish spades
his heart has forgotten the feel of the rains
long ago when he crawled from the ‘glades';
The diamond in his repertoire 
is the hump upon his back
which permits him to walk to a sandier “far”
than the bones of dead mules by the track.

They say that camels have acquired those cards
self-selecting the aces of the pack 
whether training the engine or the following guards
there’s little about “deserts” they lack. 
They say they are like an oasis of thought
for another philosophical day
and they came by this way, "self-genome-taught" - 
here's a toast to their DNA. :bier:

http://www.sfusd.k12.ca.us/schwww/sch618/Animals/Animals.html



> How are camels adapted to the desert environment?
> 
> Hump: Camels store fat in their humps. They can go for 5 - 7 days without eating or drinking. When they haven't eaten for a while, the hump shrinks in size and flops over to one side.
> 
> ...


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## 2020hindsight (27 February 2008)

As I was walking the dog just now, I was wondering to myself what one could possibly say about God (pretty much any God) that hasn't been said before.  And likewise the near impossibility of finding God without any "tuition" along the way. 

IS TUITION THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT IN FINDING GOD?

Most will happily claim 
to have found some "god"
"unique to ourselves" 
we say with a nod; - 
I ponder how much 
"he" relies on a word
we've been taught - or have read 
or just...  hearsay we've heard ?


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## 2020hindsight (28 February 2008)

THE UPCOMING US ELECTION

There's a test they apply to new presidents 
in the land of the red white and blue
"would you buy a car from this guy or this gal
when they've "got such a great deal for you""

This 'bomb' will (let's hope) outlast 4 years
of bumps as the future's unfurled,
and the only thing triggered are votes - and/or tears
(from Hollywood to Disney World)


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## 2020hindsight (29 February 2008)

THE ECONOMIC GURU (HISTORIAN)

I was thinking of writin' 
a book to enlighten
"The Economy - How It All Works"
and how to foretell 
when to buy or to sell
and millions of guaranteed lurks;

but I've had second thoughts
since some recent reports
that in truth the damned market's a mystery
so I've rewritten screeds
and the title now reads
"A Brief Economic History"


----------



## moneymajix (29 February 2008)

*Rumi Love Dogs*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF4_KZfIfVI&feature=related


*
Rumi's Nightengale *

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLvkQXEaUdA&feature=related


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## 2020hindsight (5 March 2008)

THE BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO REINCARNATION

We fly in from some cliffface, and we learn to smile and goo
we work out toes and ears and eyes, and the why and when and who
and then the days just blur past, and we’re suddenly 92
and then that flaming cliffedge looms - and we return to saying goo.


----------



## explod (5 March 2008)

Were at Grand Nephews minding them for a few days and they were enjoying honey,  spontaneously I said "honey makes you funny" then from my childhood it clicked and blurted:

"There was a little bunny
eating bread and honey
while sitting on the dunney
waiting for his mummy
to wipe his little bummy"

The laughter was amazing and I was made to repeat.

Very un-hygenic, but something not thought about in the early fifties.


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 March 2008)

explod lol
bit of a worry when your long term memory starts creeping up to the surface.  

My mum is mid 90's 
suddenly comes out with song lyrics from the 20's and 30's etc   example :-

"Whattya know, she smiled at me in my dreams last night
My dreams are getting better all the time,
to think that we were strangers just a couple of nights ago
we didn't even know how to say hello
and now we can't stop saying it. " etc 

plus as for her jokes, lol. - moral of the story - beware what you memorise m8 .


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 March 2008)

A RARE AND SO KISSABLE FROG

I saw a small green frog yesterday 
hiding in some potplants
‘rare and so kissable’
hugging the green glazed enamel
wet from some recent rain.
it’s been at least a year. 

still – deadly still 
perhaps knowing that to be seen by man
meant some ugly termination.
perhaps hoping against hope that 
he had been born to a planet 
without that mad beast for company. 

And last night I dreamt that mankind 
descended on me in droves 
insisting I kill it.
loud angry voices in my sleeping ear.
“squash it!”
this little prince from a bygone healthy world.

I guess this will sound like the exaggerations
of some dope high on dope -
perhaps some lunatic -
but it’s true,
and perhaps all mankind
are only lunatics pretending to be sane.


----------



## explod (6 March 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> explod lol
> bit of a worry when your long term memory starts creeping up to the surface.
> 
> My mum is mid 90's
> ...




Thanks for the warning 2020 but old Farther Time will have his way.   The other week excitedly relating to No.1, a story on silver, and started heading to the bathroom with dinner plates.

Sorry off topic


Teddy bear sat in a chair
with ham and jam plumb and pear
this is queer said teddy bear
the more I eat the less is there

Mate at school wrote this in his anthology book every year from grade 1 to grade 4 because he hated writing but loved doing the drawing.   Only five in our grade and things went up a gear in grade five, the senior teacher


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 March 2008)

explod said:


> ...and started heading to the bathroom with dinner plates.



lol - like the mate's father in law - puts the dishes in that ... white round porcelain dishwasher thingo

PS also :topic    Tips for oldies making love...

Put bifocals on. Double check that you're with the right partner.
Set alarm on your clock for 2 minutes... in case you doze off in the middle.
Set the mood with lighting. Turn 'em ALL OFF !
Write partner's name on your hand in case you can't remember what to scream out at the end 
Take your false teeth out - leaves more room for your partner's tongue 

Found this poem - not sure I agree lol.  but at least it's back on thread... 



> OVER THE HILL (by anon)
> 
> We're over the hill but don't feel sad
> This side of the hill ain't all that bad.
> ...


----------



## noirua (6 March 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> Found this poem - not sure I agree lol.  but at least it's back on thread...
> 
> OVER THE HILL
> 
> ...



We are over the hill and feeling so sad
those of us here are old, but not bad,
so give us a smile and we'll get five
years that is, before we're due to die.

We ask you to make a pledge today
as soon we are surely on our way,
it does no matter what thee do'th say
no chance they'll come'th here to stay.


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 March 2008)

Some Coed quotes ... 
YOU'RE GETTING OLDER WHEN...

- You wonder how you could be over the hill when you don't even remember being on top of it.

- When a sexy babe catches your fancy and your pacemaker opens the garage door nearest you.

- Going bra-less pulls all the wrinkles out off your face.

- Happy hour is a nap.

- The twinkle in your eye is only the reflection of the sun on your bifocals.

- Let's face it, traveling just isn't as much fun when all the historical sites are younger than you are.

- Every time you suck in your gut, your ankles swell.

- Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can't remember them either.

- Your supply of brain cells is finally down to a manageable size.

- Your joints are more accurate than the National Weather Service.

- You're sitting on a park bench, and a Boy Scout comes up and helps you cross your legs.

- You light the candles on your birthday cake, and a group of campers form a circle and start singing "Kumbaya."

- Someone compliments you on your layered look.... and you're wearing a bikini.

- It takes a couple of tries to get over a speed bump.

- You sink your teeth into a steak, and they stay there.

- You don't remember when your wild oats turned to prunes and all bran.

- You finally got your head together, now your body is falling apart.

- You don't remember being absent minded.

- Getting lucky means you find your car in the parking lot.


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## noirua (6 March 2008)

Very Good 2020, and its been the worse summer in Melbourne for 50 years and the tourists have stayed away. What for the oldies during the winter down there?

I lost my car in a parking lot as I didn't realise there were East and West car parks. I was about to report it stolen, then the penny dropped, as they used to say.


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## 2020hindsight (9 March 2008)

noi, lol - been there done that as well.

THE WHITE WATER YEARS OF LIFE

Time is like a canyon flow
into which we all are cast
going with the undertow
reaches slow and rapids fast

Useless to resist I know
watching future turn to past.
eddys dancing to and fro
thousands in the current vast.

Who is there for us to thank
for our turn at “think or thwim”
who out there holds “top dog” rank
granting life as if on “whim”

Start and finish in a blank
in the meantime time is “bonne”
till that day when on some bank
we are dumped, and time moves on.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 March 2008)

http://ffrf.org/day/?day=26&month=3
"Frost was awarded the Pulitzer Prize four times. Frost was sly in revealing his position on religion, telling freethought encyclopedist Warren Allen Smith (Who's Who in Hell) that the answer was to be found in his work."



> Not All There
> 
> “I turned to speak to God
> About the world's despair
> ...




"On this date in 1859, Alfred Edward Housman was born in England. He took a "passing degree" from Oxford, and received several university appointments, moving permanently to Trinity College in 1911. His most famous work, a book of poems called A Shropshire Lad, has stayed in print since it was first published in 1896. His second, long-awaited volume of poetry, Last Poems, was published in 1922. After he died, his brother put together posthumous collections. Housman's writing was irreverent, including such lines as, "It is a fearful thing to be The Pope. That cross will not be laid on me, I hope." His poem below, with its lines "let God and man decree/Laws for themselves and not for me," was a special favorite of Margaret Sanger's. D. 1936."



> “The laws of God, the laws of man,
> He may keep that will and can;
> Not I: let God and man decree
> Laws for themselves and not for me;
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 March 2008)

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=157373&highlight=sagan#post157373

 Carl Sagan - Carl Sagan Speaks 

 Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 March 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> Carl Sagan - Carl Sagan Speaks
> Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot



SAGAN - THE MASTER OF LYRICS

Sagan – professed wise by plebs and peers 
- died before his ten and three score years
- does that make the lowly rest of us 
who speculate on space and ponder thus
your Professors?

Enlightening, your words still echo forth
some musical domain - and such great worth
some “internet” that captures time deferred
so we that wish can find your spoken word
"forever"?

Enlightening yet not at all confusing 
and turning English words into great music
and leaving stunned the Chimpanzee and Ape
our wide eyed distant rels to gauk and gape 
your mind, your thoughts, your words, and your ideas - 
all mindblowing  


(just a bit of bs ok - call it an experiment - that could do with some serious brushing up )

He even makes maths interesting 
 Carl Sagan on Drake Equation
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SHc67Hep48&NR=1


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 March 2008)

Carl Sagan, "We are one planet" 

we spend a trillion dollars a year on preparations for war .....

how would we explain all this to a dispassionate extra-terrestrial observer?
what account would we give of our stewardship of the planet Earth?
we have heard the rationale offered by the superpowers
we know who speaks for the nations
but who speaks for the human species? 
- who speaks for Earth?

From an extraterrestrial perspective our global civilisation is clearly on the edge of failure. - and the most important task it faces - preserving the lives and well being of its citizens and the future habitability of the planet. ...

..........
(yet) ... the old appeals to racial, sexual and religious chauvinism, and to rabid nationalist fervour are beginning not to work. A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism, and recognises that an organism at war with itself is doomed.  We are One Planet.


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## 2020hindsight (15 March 2008)

COLOURS, CLOTHES, and EQUITY IN LIFE 

When faced with bills and statements that are always in the red
the house needs painting maybe and the mortgage must be fed
I’m tempted to (green- envied) moan with the plaintive cry of the oboe
or the blue perhaps or purple mood of the poor and humble hobo.

There are many who would love to swap me my imagined woes
their rags and bits of teabox for my wardrobe walls and clothes
my long sleeve shirts unwrinkled for their rolled up Carer’s sleeves
my lounge-room rug for a glimpse of sun to a child slave who just weaves.

There are many who would love to swap me my imagined pains
the kids in warring nations who can barely rattle their chains 
my world of pretty colours for their world of black and mud
I have TV news - so stressful – they have death rites in their blood.

There are many who would love to swap me “poverty / disease”
equality’s a joke to some and liberty a tease
I force myself to spare a thought for children born in strife, with …
no guaranteed tomorrow – and no equity in “life€.


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## 2020hindsight (21 March 2008)

FREE THINKING AND AGW 

The reason you are biased, and the reason I am right
is you prefer to cut and paste from an IPCC site
or news and views from ABC , or articles you’ve read
where I like science fiction from free-thinking in my head.

I free-thought “cavemen power plants!” in archaeological digs
and it’s therefore only logic they made co2 in the gigs
it’s not as if the planet hasn’t been this way before
and we’ve always pulled through somehow, and we will again I’m sure.

I freethought up a theory that it’s all about the moon
the cheese is going mouldy and it’s heating up my room
I feel it radiating when I stand at the window sill
on moonlit nights, with a bottle of rum, as I give my glass a fill.


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## 2020hindsight (22 March 2008)

DECISIONS TO ACT (PS TURN AGAIN DICK WITT INGTON, You Might Be Going The Wrong Way) 

You’re boarding “Dodgey Airlines”, who have recent had a crash
You’ve managed to convince yourself that fear is balderdash
You notice that one pilot’s pissed, the other lacking cred
I think I’d probly miss that flight – and take the next instead. 

You race a yacht to Tassie, they say “ 30 metre seas”
you’ve seen some flaming giant waves , but you ain’t seen one of these
do you go forth “with abandon”, or "abandon back to base"
just -  Don’t ask us to follow as you die in YOUR rat race.

………….
When you’re aiming at a target with your eye against the sight 
there’s a front one and a rear one and you have to get them right
but there’s only one adjustment (short of pointing somewhere new)
to the rearsight (call it hindsight) and a lesson learnt or two

Do you set the sights the same today as next year’s moving ducks
does the data input intray mean the truth’s a state of flux
you must take stock of all knowledge gained until that point of time
so the hourhand and the firing pin are space and time aligned. 

A manager must do all that and also plot the trends
which factors are unhealthy and which factors are our friends
so pick the pilots carefully, and the navigators too
- then "challenge" if the risk permits, then DO what you must do. 

………….
There’s no need that you “check” volcanoes, diving in the lava
though you MIGHT end up in Heaven and you MIGHT meet God the Father
you MIGHT prove we’re his image –  whether “long shot” or “palaver”
but you’ll bet your boiling condiments, you’ll end up stewed guava. 

…………
Let’s talk about the planet shall we, Nature’s gift of "home"
a place to settle down in, and a place for us to roam. 
our species has unparalleled the brains for facts inferred
to understand what’ll happen though it hasn’t yet occurred.

Do we just dismiss the scientists who plead for some restraint?
and listen just to what we like and brand the rest with “taint”
and EVEN IFF the balance comes out level, “yes” and “no”
we should surely side with “Mother Earth”, !- there’s nowhere else to go. !

Man’s been through quite a journey, since the planet rose from starstuff
the dinosaurs went peaceful-like,and now they oil our carstuff
survival of the fattest doesn’t work – nor yet the braun
but survival of the fittest - well it’s all about the brain, 

We’ve now evolved to the point my friend we can dial up “mass destruction”
with global warming, lack of green,  or leaves to give some suction
the question only – which will come first ? – the knowledge we have triggered it ?
or the trigger point of no return,  through pride and simply bigoted.? 

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=rcU1BsfrM2kC&pg=PA78&lpg=PA78


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 March 2008)

Harry Truman's favouorite poem apparently. He kept a hand written copy in his pocket :-
(The following is seriously abbreviated .  - it goes on for eons. )

http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/tenny02.html

LOCKSLEY HALL   
Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Comrades, leave me here a little, while as yet 't is early morn: 
Leave me here, and when you want me, sound upon the bugle-horn. 

'T is the place, and all around it, as of old, the curlews call, 
Dreary gleams about the moorland flying over Locksley Hall; 

Locksley Hall, that in the distance overlooks the sandy tracts, 
And the hollow ocean-ridges roaring into cataracts. 

Many a night from yonder ivied casement, ere I went to rest, 
Did I look on great Orion sloping slowly to the West. 

Many a night I saw the Pleiads, rising thro' the mellow shade, 
Glitter like a swarm of fire-flies tangled in a silver braid. 

Here about the beach I wander'd, nourishing a youth sublime 
With the fairy tales of science, and the long result of Time; 

When the centuries behind me like a fruitful land reposed; 
When I clung to all the present for the promise that it closed: 

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; 
Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.-- 

In the Spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast; 
In the Spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest; 

In the Spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove; 
In the Spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. 

Then her cheek was pale and thinner than should be for one so young, 
And her eyes on all my motions with a mute observance hung. 

......

And she turn'd--her bosom shaken with a sudden storm of sighs-- 
All the spirit deeply dawning in the dark of hazel eyes-- 

Saying, "I have hid my feelings, fearing they should do me wrong"; 
Saying, "Dost thou love me, cousin?" weeping, "I have loved thee long." 

Love took up the glass of Time, and turn'd it in his glowing hands; 
Every moment, lightly shaken, ran itself in golden sands. 

Love took up the harp of Life, and smote on all the chords with might; 
Smote the chord of Self, that, trembling, pass'd in music out of sight. 

Many a morning on the moorland did we hear the copses ring, 
And her whisper throng'd my pulses with the fullness of the Spring. 

Many an evening by the waters did we watch the stately ships, 
And our spirits rush'd together at the touching of the lips. 

O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more! 
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore! 


.....................
For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see, 
Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be; 

Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, 
Pilots of the purple twilight dropping down with costly bales; 

Heard the heavens fill with shouting, and there rain'd a ghastly dew 
From the nations' airy navies grappling in the central blue; 

Far along the world-wide whisper of the south-wind rushing warm, 
With the standards of the peoples plunging thro' the thunder-storm; 

Till the war-drum throbb'd no longer, and the battle-flags were furl'd 
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world. 

There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe, 
And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapped in universal law. 


........

Howsoever these things be, a long farewell to Locksley Hall! 
Now for me the woods may wither, now for me the roof-tree fall. 

Comes a vapour from the margin, blackening over heath and holt, 
Cramming all the blast before it, in its breast a thunderbolt. 

Let it fall on Locksley Hall, with rain or hail, or fire or snow; 
For the mighty wind arises, roaring seaward, and I go.


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## 2020hindsight (22 March 2008)

Typical Bob Dylan - arguably belongs in poetry as much as in tunes.. 
(He and Baez used to be bouncing bosom friends btw)

 Joan Baez - With God on Our Side (Live 1966) 



> Joan Baez sings "With God on Our Side" (by Bob Dylan) in Stockholm, 1966





> WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE,  Bob Dylan
> 
> Oh my name it is nothin'
> My age it means less
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 March 2008)

BobDylan said:
			
		

> If God's on our side
> He'll stop the next war.





THE MILITARY FUNERAL

There is tortured mass confusion
at the funerals for young boys,
Political illusion
it’s the price as he deploys, 
He comes home from the battlefield
so young and pale and strifeless,
And a family partly shattered
and a young life lost and lifeless.

It’s the same at any one of these
all give a final wave,
The women stand with welling tears 
around some humble grave,
They are loaded with emotion
but what breaks the final straw
is the military commotion - .......
and they  weep as the rifles roar.


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## 2020hindsight (24 March 2008)

THE DIRECTIONAL BIAS OF THE LITTLE PATH UP TO THE VILLAGE GRAVEYARD

It’s a simple little village 
with a graveyard on the hill
with a view that arcs from hospital 
through meadow to the mill
and the path keeps wending upwards 
to the little graveyard gate 
so I guess that you could follow it 
from "waking up" to "wake".

And the people gather round up there 
to farewell some old friend,
as God keeps rolling dice somewhere
to see which life will end,
It’s as if the treads keep wearing down – no – 
wearing up the track, 
cos there’s always more (or heavier) prints 
going up than coming back.


----------



## 2020hindsight (29 March 2008)

> ARE HUMANS BEASTS ? - (any offence to the other beasts, although probable , is unintended)
> 
> I take it that we all agree, all animals have traits
> but just to various degrees – which ? - varsity or fate?
> ...




POSTSCRIPT ON GLOBAL WARMING...

To those of you who care enough to talk of care and caution
that forethought has a place in this , and progress in proportion
well done if you avert this cliff, - let’s learn to hug those trees
and those who wish to rape you, earth, please flick em off like fleas.

To those of you insisting that the news must be precise
to those of you insisting that you need a bigger slice
be careful, there’s a balance between mouths and cups of rice
and careful how you shoot that roll of fateful fitful dice

To those of you, the deaf blind few, who shun the Earth’s advice
who say the world’s their oyster in the plans o’ men and mice
remember plans oft gang aglay, remember there’s a price 
and try to give up raping cos it really isn’t nice.


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## noirua (29 March 2008)

I pile my rubbish, I'll pile it high
you'll collect my plastic 'til I die,
the plastic bags they float the seas,
I don't care about you, or disease.

The coral seas are being left laid waste,
I couldn't care that's not to my taste,
toxins and plastic are destroying the place
Yes, I couldn't care about the human race. 

The birds swallow plastic, choking and dying
their wasted bodies, strangulated and crying,
it's your problem not mine, I really don't care
get stuffed Australia, it's not my cross to bare.

Couldn't care - by noirua


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## 2020hindsight (29 March 2008)

noirua said:


> The birds swallow plastic, choking and dying
> their wasted bodies, strangulated and crying,
> it's your problem not mine, I really don't care
> get stuffed Australia, it's not my cross to bare.
> ...



...


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 March 2008)

Last night there was a great sunset - really golden – I was walking directly towards it, and there on the concrete path was an early autumn leaf, which, like me, was casting a comparatively long shadow. 

THE WHEREAFTER and/or THE HEREAFTER

there’s a radiating cloud formation, gold and silver lining
as I walk into some sunset, with my shadow long,  reclining
on the sidewalk there are autumn leaves with a fading afterglow
and St Peter there to hand them out – like tickets to some show.

which? tragedy or triumph ? in that final curtain call?
most humourless/humourous/humbling and/or most golden day of all?
whichever and whereafter, may I dial up a grin on my dial
and recline with my shadow and those golden leaves, and /or “beam me up” with a smile. 

and recline of the end of that pathway of life, when I’ve measured my golden mile.


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## 2020hindsight (6 April 2008)

THE KINGS PARK MEMORIALS

Call it meaning in running to anchor an attitude
planted and reinforced way before dawn, -
to run out and back by the same set of footprints
except for some attitudes lassoed in lawn.
A Cenotaph there where the prints out are left side
and right shortly after, as home they’re re-worn
the obelisk there becomes object of exercise
totem pole tokens? or values reborn?

………..

I went for a run, today, in the rain, 
on the hill of the Park of the Kings
whether outward or homeward, my paths were the same, 
except for some lassoed “things”.
My prints at these places went past on the left 
returning went past on the right,
like a fishing net set round a school of ideas
that would bond me to them if pulled tight.

The first thing I lassoed - an obelisk blue
with thousands of war-inscribed names,
who had fallen with courage as young men and true
and whose memory still flickers in flames -
they’re remembered up there as the heroes of old
looking out as they watch the world grow.
There are different wars now, there are different tales told -
different rows that our soldiers must hoe.

The next thing I lassoed , a monument there, 
to the Wassies cruel Bali devoured,
to the brave ones who helped in the heat and the flare
to counter the bomb planting coward, -
when Aussies are tested, they spring to the cause
“Sure I’ll help, Sure I’m brave, but don’t shout it”, 
just a small line of walls where the sun sometimes falls
on these victims and heroes undoubted. 

There’s another plaque there in the moist morning air
not far from the statue of Forrest,
“Explorer and Statesman” and bloke debonair
who decreed this stay natural forest.
“So when kids cross this fence, say 1000 years hence
they will find it the same as explorers”
and I lassoed that plaque, with its lonely old bark
and it’s words that plead “please don’t ignore us”.

I returned to my room with a new mental broom
having roped in these gems of the morning,
engravings and bold of our soldiers of old
reflecting THEIR dreams for OUR dawning,
My lasso has tethered these words to my heart 
which my footbeats have circled like drums
an obelisk here, eternal flame there,
stately words, stately men, and some gums. 

Inscription reads "Erected by grateful citizens, in remembrance of the men of this state, who at the call of duty gave their lives for freedom and humanity. The Great War 1914-1918."


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 April 2008)

TO THE BEST DOG THAT EVER LIVED ON EARTH, IN THE OPINION OF THE MERE HUMAN "OWNER", no "FRIEND".

goodbye good dog, big brown-eyed clown
goodbye good friend, and lay you down,
come back again to wipe our frown, 
sleep gently in your coffin.

goodbye old mate you’ve barked your last, 
although the neighbour’s dog walks past,
the flag of love now hangs half mast,
we’ll think of you and often.

your precious woofs behind the door
as we come up the stairs ? – no more - 
your lead between your gentle jaws 
to take us for a wander,

a “W”, “A”, an “L” and “K”
no need to spell them out this day
your collar kissed and put away
your soul has moved on yonder. 

did I own you, or you own me?
or did we set each other free?
to walk a path or two or three
to share some rolling miles.

for sure, for certain, now you’re gone,
there’ll be a darkness where you shone,
I guess one day we’ll all move on,
but thank you for those smiles.


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 April 2008)

THE FISHHEAD FEAST 

The taxi queue at airports make a pecking order line
Like birds who hail from here or there, and twice a day they dine
The morning rush hour, evening snack, and in between just cruising
Bold pelicans who fight for fishheads paranoid of losing.

Should one push in the waiting wings resort to frantic flaps
They leap at people pulsing out like yet more fish head scraps
The last plane lands, their gravest fears, the whole scene turns to acid
Then zap, the queue just disappears, and the lake returns to placid.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 April 2008)

A DANCE TO LOOK FORWARD TO. 

Long ago we would dance in Zimbabwe,
and we'd mess up our hair and we'd rave,
then along came Mugabe, a man minus soul, 
a new concept in mad / misbehave;  
We used to dance like a lighthearted kite
with an African smile and a wave, - 
Please God just grant that my timing is right, - 
May I dance on that bastard's grave.!

We'll be black men and brindle and yellow and white,
such a colourful dance on that grave.


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 April 2008)

MEANINGFUL TIBETAN AUTONOMY 

A free Tibet ? the chance is nil that they gain true independence, - 
try “meaningful autonomy” - (with Buddhist charm and pendants) - 
When those outside set their sights too high, the jailer might get stressed
and set his jaw to “fight or die” and bunker down for “de  test”. 

PS there’s the same chance of a free Tibet, 
as secession for the West.  
(as in WA).

(sorry this is just a typical seriously amateur string of words that end up going around my head  after taking the dog for a walk)


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 April 2008)

copied from a tin of Chinese coffee (on internet) 



> I'll love you dear, I'll love you till China and Africa meet,
> and the river jumps over the mountain,
> and the salmon sings in the street.
> I'll love you till the ocean is folded and hung up to dry
> ...




now why don't we have poetry on our coffee tins like that !!(?)


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 April 2008)

THE WAR CEMETERY IN A FAR OFF LAND.

they lie in distant meadows close to where they fell to earth,
they died among their comrades, unreal courage, and real worth,
will we bring one home ? re-bury him beside his hometown gates?
well maybe – yet I’m guessing they’ll rest just as well with mates. 
and visited by home town reprobates. 

they lie in fields in Europe where the Anzac name was made,
we visit them in cemeteries where mothers since have prayed,
the world moves on, new battles, now we’re friends with Turk and Hun,
a brief life in the saddle, and a brief time in the sun,
we pat their headstone - then we too move on.


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 April 2008)

perhaps we call those graveyards just a little part of home
perhaps they'll let us say our land extends across the foam
or take a kookaburra there on Anzac day each year
to fight off any home sick thoughts - and give the lads some cheer.
and lift their spirits with a toasted beer.


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 April 2008)

THOUGHTS ON WAKING

I rise from bed in a trancelike state
and make some toast and honey,
unlike my bank, my lungs expanding, 
heartrates on the money,
some kookaburra laughs outside, 
his mate said something funny,
each second day is overcast
each second day is sunny.

I slept with lids of thickest velvet
totally opaque.
no sounds I heard, nor cat nor dog,
till in the morn I wake,
so what, my bank's in sharp decline!
(and it's doesn't have a brake), 
to underrate a lungful of air
would be my greatest mistake.


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 April 2008)

Thought for the day .. (Adam Lindsay Gordon)  (repost)

"Oh the vigour with which the air is rife !
The spirit of joyous motion;
The fever, the fullness of animal life,
Can be drained from no earthly potion!
The lungs with the living gas grow light, 
and the limbs feel the strength of ten,
While the chest expands with its madd'ning might 
GOD'S GLORIOUS OXYGEN.

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=82852&highlight=oxygen#post82852


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 April 2008)

The Raven- Edgar Allen Poe - Vincent Price (fair warning - it's a long one )


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 April 2008)

QUOTH THE FROGMOUTH "NOT ANY MORE"

Ah, distinctly I remember twas that night of the great knee trembler
in the caravan in Port Kembla, bouncing on the lino floor
then that frogmouth owl appearing, sat there on the wheel just peering
suddenly he started cheering “is this what they call hardcore?”
interspersed with wildest clapping – quoth the frogmouth – 
“encore! more”

Salt and pepper shakers shattered Madge and I were all that mattered 
imagine how the neighbours chattered -  what was going on inside?
soon the carhorns started honking, hey you two cut out the bonking
sleepless in Seattle’s one thing – but your shock absorbers fried
still, a memory’s quite a fun thing – quoth the frogmouth
“what a ride.” 

These days in a morning dreary, blinking blind and blanket bleary
with my coco pops exploding as I eat my feast and fill
whilst I watched the frogmouth landed, nodded knowingly and candid
interspersed with piebald crapping, there upon my window sill
“Howdy partner” I said tapping, “my, how time has caught us napping” 
quoth the frogmouth “one keeps rapping”
“suddenly we’re over the hill”

There we sat and reminisced, wine-soaked birdseed, soon got pissed
reminisced about Port Kembla, and the couple on the floor
“life’s a bitch, but never bore.”
smiled the frogmouth “not any more”


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 April 2008)

.... ps  A friend is into wild life rescue - had a couple of tawny frogmouth chicks in his garage / toolshed.  I borrowed his toolshed to drill some aluminium  - those frogmouths watched my every move for half a day


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 April 2008)

suppose the count to "bomb Iran" (convert its border to a moat)
exceeds the count to build a bridge -  would that mean we're too sad to vote?


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 April 2008)

IDEAS FOR THE SUMMIT

Number one- the flues need cleaning
this pollution’s quite demeaning
let the power stations preen themselves -
put carbon deep in hills; 
then my second slogan placard - 
“eat more cabbage” - raw (and chew hard)
then my third point -  “fight the flatulence”
with charcoal flavoured pills.

Number four – since charcoal’s buried
why not “charge” it, get it married
with the methane it can carry to the 
bottom of the well?,
drop these gas sinks (used but once)
to the devil and his bunch 
so that farts are locked forever
in those far off depths of hell.

Number five is clean the creek out
so the kids don’t drug-  and freak-out
and to teach ‘em bout some honest joy
in fun filled swimming holes,
let them swing out on a rope,
much more fun that pot or dope,
and to plant a tree for future ropes
and die contented souls.

Number six, adopt a frog
take it with you when you jog
teach it how to live with man and smog
and how to catch a fly,
number seven, use your brain
and don’t follow men insane
…..
number ninety -   burn the chainsaws
learn to love the earth and sky.

learn to love your fellow critters
earn the love of earth and sky.


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 April 2008)

MORE IDEAS FOR THE SUMMIT

101 recycled earswax
102 and cycling bivouacs
103 and climbing flagpoles
and encourage more boot-scooters,
next is fibre to the nodes,
next is digital abodes,
then there’s old recycled roads made out of 
one year old computers.

next new GM three foot corn
and short GM types of lawn -
don’t need mowing after sowing 
no more mowers spitting hay,
and it comes in different colours,
green or if preferred there’s others,
so that people who hate “greenies’ 
might prefer theirs “concrete grey”.

next that long sought Bill of Rights
as to how to sort out fights
between people without passion
- and the others – and the force, 
also who can hold a gun,
who can cull the deer for fun,
and/or whether culls extend to 
third world countries without laws. 

then perhaps some referenda
where republic’s the agenda,
how to let the country grow up
how to stand its six foot height,
stead of hunched or on our knees
trying oh so hard to please
bonnie Charlies overseas somewhere 
in lands where day is night.

proper Charlies overseas who dare 
us, “come us  - fight or flight!!”

then the pensioners might say
“spin the world the other way”
that tomorrow I am younger 
and the next I’m fit and strong, 
Soon Adonis is upon us, 
just one week Lord, call it bonus,
of this life and all its magic
that is wasted on the young, 

just one encore of this magic Lord, 
just one more verse of song.


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 April 2008)

speaking of Adonis.. 

1. "Hold that thought dear , I'll be right back after I take the dogs for a walk! "

2. "Venus, I told you to go easy with that leaf that looks like tomato plant!"

3. "Honey it's 10 o'clock, we've been at it all night - and the head shepherd will be getting REAL pissed off!"

4. "Adonis ! - you nearly forgot to do up that button on your shoulder strap!"

5. "Adonis ! I'm not gonna let you leave until you promise to call at the grocers and get another can of Leggos"!

6. "Adonis! - wait! - Fred over there just said the weather bureau is predicting scattered thunderstorms with hail!"  

&. "Nope ! - not until you tell me what you think of my hair in a bun!"

9. "And then (I think I heard the Choreographer right) - I throw my left leg over your right shoulder..." 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adonis


> Adonis - He is an annually-renewed, ever-youthful vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity whose nature is tied to the calendar. ... His name is often applied in modern times to handsome youths.


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 April 2008)

......
http://www.reconnections.net/thorn_birds.htm


> THE THORN BIRDS
> By Colleen McCullough
> 
> Long Ago, there was a bird who sang just once in its life.
> ...




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thorn_Birds


> The book's title refers to a mythical bird that searches for thorn trees from the day it is hatched. When it finds the perfect thorn it impales itself, singing the most beautiful song ever heard as it dies.



http://www.rhymezone.com/r/gwic.cgi...xi//&Word=lean'd+her+breast+up-till+a+thorn#w


> XXI. Poem Shakespeare
> 
> As it fell upon a day
> In the merry month of May,
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 April 2008)

speaking of expatriates - who became dual patriots.. 
this is what is written on Stevenson's tomb on a hill overlooking Apia, Samoa...  



> Robert Louis Stevenson
> REQUIEM
> 
> UNDER the wide and starry sky
> ...






> Author Robert Louis Stevenson, famous for his pirate novel, Treasure Island and also known as 'Tusitala' (the Samoan name for teller of tales - or writer of tales), spent the last four years of his life in Samoa. When Robert Louis Stevenson and his wife, Fanny, decided to stay in Samoa in 1889, they bought 314 acres of virgin land on the slopes of Mount Vaea above Apia and named the estate Vailima - or Five Waters because five streams crossed the property.
> 
> They cleared about eight acres and lived there in a small shack for nearly a year. This rough existence didn't last long, however, and in 1891 they built the first part of a mansion. When it was completed, the house had five bedrooms, a library, a ballroom large enough to accommodate 100 dancers, and the only fireplace in Samoa. The Stevensons even shipped 72 tons of furniture from England!






> It’s a poignant and peaceful spot with a panoramic view. Fanny died in America in 1914 and her ashes were later buried with Robert. Her plaque, which bears her Samoan name Aolele (Floating Cloud, perhaps after her restless spirit), also has Stevenson’s words…
> 
> 
> Teacher, tender comrade, wife,
> ...


----------



## noirua (20 April 2008)

I am an Aussie Chinaman
as it's easy for all to see,
honoured are all before me
and justice, my girt by sea. 

Aiming to be a good person
visiting all these countries,
seen to be of good virtue
Prime Minister and we'll see.

Aiming to rule all Australia
as far as the eye can see,
how long will that surely be
yes, guessed it, it'll be 2020.

Then I'll be your first President
and honoured you'll certainly be,
continuing visiting the continents
please deliver your trust in me.

Rudd for President, by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 April 2008)

THE 2020 SUMMIT AWAKENING OF ORIGINAL THOUGHT

I’m guessing that the mind expanding drug has hit its nerve
we’re suddenly encouraged to contribute and observe
and would you guess! ideas and thought! are suddenly in fashion!
and who knows maybe spirit and exuberance and passion


----------



## doogie_goes_off (20 April 2008)

To think what is to be thunk
Is better than to be drunk
But to be drunk and to think
Is what I thunk I just did

Written in the spirit of Dr Seuss. And no I'm not drunk - just bored, better do some work now!


----------



## golfmos123 (20 April 2008)

As an Irishman some generations back, I love a good limerick.

This is a good one although it is a few years old now.....  To appreciate it fully, you need to know that Kaczynski is the Unabomber who sent a number of mail bombs to universities and airlines between 1978 and 1995.

Said Bill Clinton to a young Miss Lewinsky
We'd best not leave clues like Kaczynski
You look quite a mess
So take the hem of your dress
And wipe that stuff off of your chinsky....


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 April 2008)

golf   these are modified from rather rude originals. :-

There once was a fellow named Mike
who went for a ride on a bike
the bike hit some ruts
and knocked off his hat -
and what do you think of that?. 

There once was this brick-laying dude
who laid bricks with short pants, almost nude
a girl down the back 
shouted out "crack"!
just like that! right out loud!  bloody rude!.


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 April 2008)

In days of old when knights were bold
and girls wore metal britches, 
the knights all carried can openers
-   the tricky sons of bitches


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 April 2008)

TASMAN GLACIER, ARCTIC ICE, AND THE WAKE-UP CALL

They say the Tasman glacier has melted in its valley
receded up its sking face, and now a liquid alley,
what God would place the thing so low in altitude and latitude?!?
some idiot who wouldn’t know we’d fry it with ingratitude !

They say a thousand glaciers have turned into a lake
and not in your time (or your grandson’s) will you see it back
they say the arctic ice is melting – none left in 10 years !
the iceshelf fed to iron-smelters, dawn of doomsday nears.

"Not happening, what nonsense rules" say voices in the crowd
"how gullible these greenie fools, to prey to cleaner-powered”
"deny, refuse, I don’t accept the science or predictions" 
except – too late! – I overslept! – please ignore my contradictions. 

PS which one of us has overslept – and which has been feed on fictions. 

PS Of course it wasn’t oversight – cos noone knew for sure -
it happened sorta overnight – and none could have done more -
I always said – for ten years now “if it happens so be it”
cos there’s damn all I can do – besides - I couldn’t give a shinbone.


----------



## Garpal Gumnut (26 April 2008)

Now I'd never suggest that Keats would have put it better than you 2020, but this is his take on our impermenance and nature's onward march.


Bright star! would I were steadfast as thou art””
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night,
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature’s patient sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors””
No””yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever””or else swoon to death.


----------



## 2020hindsight (30 April 2008)

A DAY SPENT ON EARTH vs ETERNITY IN A STERILE HEAVEN. 

they don’t have any godly soul
these butterflies and birds,
no pearly gates to pay a toll 
sort haloed sheep from herds,
they don’t have any heavenly goal
nor clever human words,
their death is just a forward roll
from off their little perch.

these trees are not that over fussed
on heavens in the sky,
prefer to end as earthly dust
enjoying “now” not “why”,
it’s hard to get an anchor 
in some cloud up 10 miles high
they prefer to keep their bank account
in credit till they die.

I think that I’d prefer to spend 
a day with birds and trees,
than endless prayers where I pretend 
some god is there to please,
eternity would be so droll
without these other critters,
It’s 'now' -  it’s 'here' – it ain’t parole
and not just gold that glitters. 

and not just pearly-gate-border-control
it's life on Earth that glitters


----------



## Kauri (30 April 2008)

Life's hard....
......Then you die...
.............(a message from J Edwards)...
.......................I thunk.........
.................................Charred
................................................Kauri


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 May 2008)

sonnet 12

more shakespeare here :-    
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=86026&highlight=rot#post86026
AND SO FROM HOUR TO HOUR … 
From Billy Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” (Jacques):- 

And then he drew a dial from his poke…. 
And looking at it with lacklustre eye
Says very wisely “It is ten o’clock…… 
Thus may we see” quoth he “how the world wags..”

...

And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe
And then from hour to hour we rot and rot
And thereby hangs a tale and lots of tripe
And such words mean the least when there’s a lot.

The question is I guess which is the faster
Which, ripening or rotting, takes the lead
The thing determines which one is the master
Is whether we eat onions or birdseed.

And so we “let er rip” - if given rope,
And reap our wild oats where the wild oat grows,
And under grip of grape we probably grope,
But who-the-Hell remembers days like those.
etc


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 May 2008)

.....


> A BUSH CHRISTENING - A.B. "Banjo" Paterson
> 
> On the outer Barcoo where the churches are few,
> And men of religion are scanty,
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 May 2008)

WARMTH FROM AN UNKNOWN EMBER

We are all of us given a "Christian" name
whether Jack or Jill or Tarzan or Jane
whether Biblical Saint or Grecian God
whether named after “Granpa” or milkman’s dog
or as Banjo would say as we ran from some log
“you’re christened Maginnis's Whisky!!”

He might like “Frederick , - ok ok Fred”
She’s bound to retort with a “Jethro or Jed - 
Remember we made love once high in a tree?
what’s wrong with Tarzan?” – “It’s ok by me
except if he doesn’t like monkeys you see!
No, Tarzan is just far too risky!”

……
In my own case, I’m born in the post war boom
when the bedroom walls creaked making sons by the moon
and the registry records began to fill fast
where the ebbtide departing had turned at last
and the ones who had died before bullet and mast
could be laid to an honoured slumber.

They’d been published, the Names of the Fallen, you see
There’d been Tommys and Harrys ; -   and then Mum had me. 
and she figured she’d give me a name lost to war
who had fought but not lived to see Peace reign once more
and one day she would knock on some sad Mother’s door
and explain that her son was remembered.

Ahh, it never did happen, it was miles from our town
and both Mothers moved on as their plans were unwound
Praps she shied at the “linking of family trees”
Still it’s had an effect when I kneel to my knees
that I swear Anzac Day has a comradely breeze
and some warmth from an unknown ember.


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 May 2008)

THE PEARL THAT IS LIFE

I like the way an oyster learns to tolerate some grit,
and coats it in a little ball and makes a pearl of it,
and grit and oyster happily thereafter coexist,
I like the way that life adapts to beauty I’d have missed, 
and Nature is one beauty best not missed.

Perhaps a thought discomforting, with sharp and jagged edges,
I find a 30 minute walk (avoiding jumping ledges),
A walk along a seashore perhaps where swelling waveforms curl,
will somehow turn that jagged thought into a sort of pearl,
and life itself into a sort of pearl. 

Praps pearls are just an attitude, a smile from Jack to Jill,
a grain that highlights gratitude on the journey up the hill,
such memories are mental pearls to make the journey bright,
and hand to kids of future worlds, for their turn in the light,
when our oyster shell locks closed for the long night.


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 May 2008)

Maybe some of you have seen this poster before - 
It looks like a real (unfaked) photo - but sheesh   I reckon it's a classic.  

"And all I ask is a tall ship" - as Masefield would say 

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=87957&highlight=masefield#post87957

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=185386&highlight=pregnant#post185386


----------



## 2020hindsight (5 May 2008)

Found a proverb.. "The shoemaker's son will always go barefoot". 
Got me thinking...
hell next thing I've got this stupid poem going round in my head 

THE VERY BEST WAY TO KEEP WARM THIS WINTER ...

We’re heading into winter daughter, 
that dress will be your last
unless ten weeks you’ve scrubbed the floor 
or the current debts are past,
there’ll be no Cinderella gown 
just go to the ball with a smile 
there's no need for makeup - but just don't frown, 
go barefoot – and with style. 

And across the town in another shed
a father and son spoke that day
and we’ll eat every now and then my lad
and we’ll smile through the strife come what may,
for warmth we’ll restrict ourselves each night
to a single pinebox splinter
and although you’re a shoemaker’s son, things are tight-
there’ll be no shoes for you this winter. 

The dance night came, the couples spun
the pulses rose and fell
the prince and the pauper laughed in fun
with the poorest girl and the belle
- when midnight came, more in love there were none 
of all the embracing twos,
and they’re still locked in warmth since the next day’s sun
.... and they still refuse to wear shoes.  

and they’re still locked in warmth since the next day’s sun
.... and they find no need to wear shoes.


----------



## davedelaney (6 May 2008)

From my recently released book "Rhymes of Times". Even with all the rain we have had, this is still happening. 





Drought

_Dawn heralds a new day
Breezes blow the same way
Dust builds on the fence rail
Homestead’s dirty and pale._

Teasing clouds pass on by
Too dry even for a fly
Machinery caked in dust
Chains coated in rust.

Willy-willy’s continuous swirl
More dust they do hurl
Bleached skeletons dot the paddocks
Dead gardens hold rusty mattocks.

Old cockey gone to the city
Not looking for any pity
In his flat eyeing the sky
Alone the old man does cry.

_Dawn heralds a new day
Breezes blow the same way
Dust builds on the fence rail
Homestead’s dirty and pale._

For his home he grieves
Banks, calling them thieves
His plea’s they find boring
Forced out that terrible morning.

Finishing his last beer
Onto the bed that’s near
Dreaming of a lush pasture
Drifting to the hereafter.

Who’ll know he’s passed away
He will be found one day
They’ll think “another old man”
Knowing not his life was grand.

_Dawn heralds a new day
Breezes blow the same way
Dust builds on the fence rail
Homestead’s dirty and pale._


David J Delaney


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 May 2008)

thanks Dave, - ripper.
keep em comin


----------



## davedelaney (7 May 2008)

Voices

Electric activity in dark corridors
deep within my mind
knowing I shouldn’t do this
Haunting voices echo - Do it! Do it! Do it!

Sweat running from my forehead
Vessels pumping, pushing blood through veins
Brain feels like exploding
Voices saying - Do it! Do it! Do it!

Moving forward every muscle straining
can’t stop, what’s started must be finished
ending result could be disastrous
Voices again say - Do it! Do it! Do it!

Why do I do this, hurts so much
day in day out, why can’t I stop
Thinking of people who need me
Persistent voices say - Do it! Do it! Do it! 



Why, Why? - I ask 



Why do they need bloody pianos’     



UPSTAIRS !!!!



David J Delaney


Reliving one of my nightmares as a former removalist.:bad:


----------



## davedelaney (7 May 2008)

Storm

Moisture in the air
Humidity stifling
Animals’ skit in despair
Knowing and hiding

Light rain now falling
This heat so oppressive
Storm birds stop calling
Darkness so progressive

Wind blowing stronger
Rain heavy and swirling
Staying out no longer
Inside sounds of howling

Distant rumbling closer
Lightning lights the sky
Perfect time for a muser
Into the darkness I pry

Trees bending almost breaking
Leaves shredded by stinging rain
Weak branches start snapping
Living foliage feels pain

Flash of white blinding
Earth vibrates shudders
Natures show mesmerising
Recorded by Philosophers

Through gauze, eerie screaming
Wires touch, spark brilliant blue
Dog in the corner cowering
Is it over, has it passed through?

Rain eases, now a misty shower
Winds gone, trees standing firm
Lightning and thunder, its power
Over the sea, till another return

Moisture in the air
Humidity stifling
Animals’ skit here and there
Birds, chirping, flying

Light rain again falling
This heat so oppressive
Storm birds begin calling
Darkness, now regressive.

David J Delaney
  04/12/2007      


Winner for the month of December 2007, awarded by “The Creative pen” worldwide poetry web site.


----------



## davedelaney (7 May 2008)

When Autumn Comes Again

Breezes blowing, your free spirit is in the air
Today won’t be easy, as my thoughts turn to despair
This goodbye, how it will be such a mental strain
_When Autumn comes again._

Thousands of leaves gently falling to the ground
Trudging through dragging my feet, not making a sound
Why is this day so hard, so tough, such a drain
_When Autumn comes again._

Clouds overhead becoming so thick and so grey
Blue disappearing as darkness continues on its way
Trying to cover from the cold, seems only in vain
_When Autumn comes again._

That cancerous disease came and took you from our life
Always in our minds, Mother, Aunty, partner, wife
Our friends know of, but they can never feel our pain
_When Autumn comes again._

No more cuddling on the sofa by the fire warm
Snuggling in each others arms, till the early morn
Wondering about my life, is there anything to gain
_When Autumn comes again._

I come to you this day; I leave flowers and a card
Future seasons now without you, will it be hard?
The state I’m in now, wondering if I will stay sane
_When Autumn comes again._

Service will be nice; words spoken will be so sweet
Only place now I can hold you is deep in my sleep
In all the seasons your memories will vividly remain
Never more so, 
_When Autumn comes again._


David J Delaney




In memory of our cousin Vicki, 50 years young, passed away 11/10/2007 a victim of cancer. 
                                            RIP


If any of you are interested, both my books (1st vol. "My small book of poems" & 2nd vol."Rhymes of Times") are available from any Angus & Robertson store & depending where you are they might have to order from the Cairns store.


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 May 2008)

The Democrats can't seem to choose -
white woman or black man; 
Praps Michael Jackson couldn't lose ?
a bit of each 
 yes we *all* can


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 May 2008)

THE BURMESE MILITARY RESPONSE TO THE CYCLONE

The military junta - what a pompous pack of fools,
just lump the dumbest punters with the stubbornest of mules,
ensure their golden epaulets are sown in bludy spools,
their lanyards and their scrambled egg – but stuff the golden rules.

As useless to their citizens as t1ts on bludy rams,
and when they need a leader they expose their little shams,
they strut around their dais, and they crow and yell and gape,
but when their people need some help – they resort to blood red tape. 

No way are good Samaritans entitled to a visa,
No way has any foreigner the right of out-shine Caesar,
So what if paddy fields are full with corpses since refloated, 
the red tape must be signed off – and the referendum voted.


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 May 2008)

just found this song on youtube - pretty damned good (imo anyway) 
 It Gets Lonely (Caruso and Cooper)



> "It Gets Lonely"
> (Copyright 2008, Cooper & Caruso Music,
> Ltd.)
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 May 2008)

MEMORIES FROM WHEN I WAS KNEE-HIGH TO MY GRANDPA 

My dad he knows, well, lots of things
he says that “knowledge is power” (?)
when he talks like that (like a wound up spring)
my grandpa just nods on the hour; 
but I reckon my grandpa knows more- and all
about things of real value and worth, 
- when he DOES things – that make him seem ten feet tall, 
- when he DOES things exciting and things that enthral 
- when he DOES things – and problems, both big and small, 
just disappear from the earth.

He erases that problem without any trace
with a grin and his hobbling knee
when he gives me a hammer - and smiles in my face - 
and some nails and a lump of tree,
yeah my dad might say heaps and bits about lots
(and he makes half it up in the end)
- but my grandpa can DO things – and join ALL the dots
- and he knows about saddles and tying knots
- and he knows how to ride when the big horse trots
with that smile that he gives me for lend;

- and he knows how to plant tomatoes in pots
- and he reads from old books about Castles and Scots
- and he knows about toadstools and drawing yachts - 
he’s my oldest and smartest friend.


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 May 2008)

DAYDREAMING THOUGHTS WHILST TAKING THE DOG FOR A WALK 20080512

Suppose I had just one plastic
like the one that I use at work

and suppose I was robbed near a Cash machine
and told to withdraw by some jerk,...

Is it out of my pocket ? (like a parking fine docket)?
or come out of petty cash?...

So too speeding fine coppers?, or brown bomber robbers?
they're more subtle - less knife point - same slash.


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 May 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> MEMORIES FROM WHEN I WAS KNEE-HIGH TO MY GRANDPA




(continued)

See my dad keeps saying what not to do
but my grandpa says that’s just “old”,
cos my grandpa he shows me what knot to do
and he doesn’t know how to scold;
There are marvellous things that you’ve got to do
before you’re called “grandpa” it seems,
it’s more about positives – what to do
how to pamper a young child’s dreams.


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 May 2008)

Absolutely Doubtful. 

There's a word I used to like but now detest it I confess,
it's the use of "absolutely!" meaning "yes, emphatic yes!"
It's because I heard a policeman bear false witness 'bout my friend
and he used the word in court in ways one really can't defend. 
...
but the judge was absolutely right when he said that "I contend
that despite the 'absolutelys', he was lying in the end."


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 May 2008)

TRADING IN THE TRADE WINDS, or
DANCING IN A ROOM WHERE THE CLOCKS HAVE NO HANDS

Trade winds stable? set your sails,
go to sleep and nothing fails - 
trade winds flukey? stay alert,
gybes and booms can really hurt.

“Plan the trade, and trade the plan”,
hell, its all so easy man, 
Tried and true? – or stay alert?
halts and hits can really hurt.

“Sell in May, and walk away”,
wow, it’s like a child at play,
but who knows when mountain ranges
peak or trough – or trade wind changes?

Methinks Buffet said it best 
dancing as a ballroom guest, 
“Gowns turns rags at midnight friends
but the clocks have lost their hands”.


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 May 2008)

STATUS AT THE EXPENSE OF THE PEASANT’S CHILDREN

Hold the line against enlightenment
defend the status quo,
the bodies in the paddy fields
pretend that we don’t know,
the Burmese generals generate
the lowest form of praise,
with a status built on bodies 
and their genocidal ways.

Hold the borders ‘gainst World Vision 
and the vision of the world,
hold the mortars in the mountains
where a million bombs are hurled,
when its wet its all so useless
cos the damned things won’t explode,
and we need pretense of voters
we’re in referendum mode.

Quickly gather up the bodies
and/or push them out to sea,
where the Irrawaddy takes them 
they at least at last are free,
hey who cares about the delta
we have delta bombers here,
and as long as they are safe and well
us generals need not fear.

The bodies in the paddy fields
pretend that we don’t know,
they’re just the peasant’s children
and they’ll go where peasants go,
but the referendum locks us in 
we’ll always be in power,
so let’s toast ourselves and status
with another whisky sour. 

Hold the line against enlightenment
defend the status quo,
with our status built on bodies
watch our quid pro quota grow. 
So we’re hated by the people
who we therefore disempower,
and our status will live on and on 
let's toast this glorius hour. 



https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=207464&highlight=burma#post207464
AUNG SAN SUU KYI


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 May 2008)

THE ONE-CHILD CHINESE SCHOOLKIDS KILLED IN THE EARTHQUAKES.

There are children in the rubble and you wonder why we cry,
there’s an extra sad dimension , if you wish I’ll tell you why,
all those children have no siblings, just us parents here to mope,
they’re our one link to the future, and they’re gone, and so is hope.

There’s a generation stolen by the vengeance of some God
there’s a school that’s lost its children, like a devil’s lightning rod
there’s a village, where tomorrow, sombre people wander by
shell-shocked - unexplained exparents  - and exponents of a sigh.

shell-shocked - unexplained exparents  - and one sadness in their eye.


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 May 2008)

LIES OF COMMISSION AND OMISSION
THE BIG LIE, THE BIG STARE, AND THE BIG STAIRWAY.

There’s lies committed along the way – they’re lies of cold commission
where black is white and night is day, - dishonourable decision
there’s also lies (they’re used by spies) – the lies of bold omission
like “gee boss, I feel crook today” ( but I’m really going fishin’)

Intentional deception (staying silent) is a con
but you listen to a polly , they’re the rules they bank upon
like a blind date who just happens to forget to tell the tale 
how he’s not just Bob the banker’s son – he’s also just out of jail. 

The Nazis stared you in the face and told you “Poland’s mine!”
whilst pollies are the master race are leaving out a line
of fine print or of detail – that’s omission at its best
it’s spin it’s propaganda – and it’s truth that’s (half) caressed. 

When Clinton swears in court “I didn’t have sex with that woman”
but “hey I’m only flesh and bone”, (and my bone is only human)
Some shorthand and we smoked cigars, it was all so calm and couth  
“and hey it’s just lip service” – (he’s full- f**king with the truth)

They say it in the military that loose lips can sink ships
so I told her “Monica , mums the word” -  caw, you’ve got such cunning lips. 
you’re probably not that interested in quotes they say in the Navy
what’s that on your dress, a what the heck - let’s make up some more of that gravy.

When Mugabe says he loves his clan but the English give him colics
does he mean the English language praps ? cos what he says is bollocks
cruel lips that form his words are all distorted like a crim
and the English comes out  quite absurd when it emanates from him. 

When the pollies say they’ll give us heaps in tax reform and all
and meanwhile (minutes later) they rob Peter to pay Paul
and that’s not all they’re good at – when you pay the petrol meter
you’ll also find they’ll rob you blind – robbing Peter to pay Peter.

And so their world keeps spinning through its arc of space and time
their spin and propaganda and their hunt for power and dime
an angle here, a twisted quote, their statements and their stare…and
their words so carefully crafted that the truth’s no longer there. 

They make and leave out bits of fact, and stare you in the face, 
THEY even start believing that they have a valid case !
but with each step, and with each stare, they do or do not tell
they build themselves a stare-way – (it’s a stairway down to Hell).


----------



## noirua (18 May 2008)

People lay the blame at their door
and yes, right, but there is more,
There is more? Yes, others doors,
quite right, death and quite poor.

Do we blame those who do gain?
Gain! Would you prop up the Junta
and more, their pain. And they are?
China and India, continuing the pain.

Pain by Junta - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 May 2008)

SHAKING HANDS WITH DOGS 

I like to grab at every chance to shake my dog’s front leg,
it goes back to a prior dog who liked to smile and beg,
not beg for bones or food or things, just beg for interaction,
to shake my hand, to bark, to sing, to beg for my reaction. 

I loved that dog , his funny ways, and so did wife and kids,
and then that day of saddest days, we were told he was on the skids,
“six months the best you can hope for”, well it ended up just two,
and we called the vet to come around and “do what he must do”.

I carried him onto the living room floor, he had only just turned five
too young to miss the morrow’s glory, not to be alive,
part Great Dane and part mongrel – (he ain’t heavy, he’s my mate)
his eyes in pain - an inch from mine -  as we lay on that li-lo to wait. 

The vet explained injections are just “deeper forms of sleep”
I searched for absent courage, and I fought the will to weep,
We held his hand, wife, kids and all, I could have sworn he smiled
he offered us his second paw….  - then he slumbered reconciled. 

............

So now I make great routine and tradition in this cause
of holding hands with the beautiful dog, who stands where stood his paws,
when she dies - or when I die - I would like to hold her arm, 
then one of us ( me? / she?) moves on, with that hint of tactile charm. 

When she dies or when I die, I would like to hold her arm, 
there in bushland or wherever -  ( ain’t life just the greatest Psalm?  )
then move on to the next life, one will wimper, one will die,
and then move on to the next dog, and/or master in the sky.


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 May 2008)

The missus went out to hang some clothes on the line the other morning
and was confronted with this ...

needless to say she has little sympathy with the sentiments of a poem I wrote a year and a half (or so) ago about spiders, and their webs etc 

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=90707&highlight=spider#post90707


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 May 2008)

IF HENRY LAWSON POSTED POEMS ON THE INTERNET

I’m not into big noting this poetic passing phase,
words I've stuck into a stanza in a pisspoor passing phrase,
if you score these poems as parity with ones that make half sense,
then just flick a buck to charity – I’ll score when they dispense  

(The following already posted, but worthy of the repost imho)



> A PROUDER MAN THAN YOU, by Henry Lawson
> 
> If you fancy that your people came of better stock than mine,
> If you hint of higher breeding by a word or by a sign,
> ...


----------



## noirua (20 May 2008)

I sitteth here and standeth there
and findeth, I do stand and stare,
but where'th I go and do my bit
to stop me sitting, wanting to spit.

Somewhere in my life I'll find a way
to make myself popular and to sway,
about to lead and show my face
and stamp my authority in the race.

Once more I think about it long
and end up singing just a song,
Yes, a National Anthem, I do stare
Only in my bath, ruling, Australia fair.

Can't get off my backside - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 May 2008)

MUSINGS OF AN UNAMUSED GOD

I am the God Almighty and I watch as you evolve,
evolve into a problem that’s beyond my skills to solve ,
the misery of havenots and the miserly of haves,
of all the selfish planets, none come near to you by half.
A child born in the desert has a skindeep life - and bone-
by day to search for crumb-lets, and a sandstorm for a home,
by night a dream of paradise, and one day to be free,
and I join them in their prayers (to the greedy where they plea)
……..  but I’m babbling, and this isn’t about me.

It looks like it’s a cop-out saying “warming isn’t real”
“just theories there to scoff at”  with a double charge of zeal
the Earth has got a fever and ignoring it won’t heal
so I’d like to get inside your heads and make this little deal
I give you sun and earth and moon, and stars to stretch your mind
you do your best to find a tune neither heat nor hate inclined
your Heaven is that planet that you’re cooking with such glee
there ain’t no life hereafter -  onward booking – place to flee
…. Just a tip there , but this isn’t about me.

Whatever was I thinking when I planted Adam and Eve
they leave this Eden “buggared up and finish” – when they leave
they seem to think I gave them Earth so things could be abused
well, musing here, I’d like to say, I’m really not amused.
We need a generation who will fight the oil-fired lies
who’ll try to climb the knowledge tree , before it falls and dies
we need a generation where their grandkids would agree
“they were wiser than my great granddad – and/or God who made man free” – 
……..  now I’m crying, but this isn’t about me.


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 May 2008)

GOOD LUCK PHOENIX ON THE RED PLANET 

Earth to Phoenix:
Phoenix wanders, out there yonder, long since lost to human view,
buglike pecks and legs and flexing, sifting through the Martian stew,
read your data, pings prorata, till your little batteries dead,
Mars the mystery’s now old history, now the Red planet is read. 

Phoenix to Earth:-
Hey this Mars has brilliant bars, not just rocks I’m rock and rolling
just like Flintstone doesn’t dintstone, bludy great for ten pin bowling 
hell it sure beats earthly heat, and/or locked up in some shed
found a Martian-ess - got married - wish me luck, I'm a newly wed!!.

(ps groan - there I said it for you)


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 May 2008)

WHAT IS AN AIRTANK/HULL/WING

What is an airtank? adventure to share
in a world where king Neptune is god?
gravity absent where bubbles of air
reflect in the eyeballs of cod?
what are the depths of a coral reef
but a floating journey through time?
curves of the vivid and vibrant relief
in a living mass of lime? 

What is a hull but a hole in the water
that’s lovingly lined with planks?
a sail filling full in the windward quarter
twin bow-waves that boil at your flanks?
what is the wind but the call of the ocean
where the sailor can kneel with thanks?
what is the sea but the lover’s potion
where the best of your drugs are like blanks?

What is a wing but a curved gift of foil
that is wrapped in some loving equation?
airstreams that sing without turmoil or toil
for a heightened and lifting sensation?
gifts super-light and a fantasy flight
through the towering cascades of cloud?
gifts from the god of adrenalin’s might
and a blurring of jumpsuit and shroud?


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 May 2008)

> WHAT IS AN AIRTANK/HULL/WING



.....


----------



## 2020hindsight (29 May 2008)

PETROL GAUGES SPIN LIKE TOPS

watch the average petrol meter
volume, dollars, price per litre
suddenly the penny drops
all three gauges spin like tops

maybe there’s another penny 
has to drop in minds of many
maybe fuel’s a spent resource
maybe spending makes it worse

maybe earth has warming cancer
maybe there’s another answer
crazy cars - these ten years bigger 
when we should have fought with vigour.

fossils flora oily goo
fifteen dinosaurs for you
twenty dinosaurs for me mate
cause I like to drive a v8

back in 1978
cars went smaller, that was great
oh what idiots we are
let the genie out the jar
.......
oh what idiots we are
searching for egos with our car.


----------



## 2020hindsight (31 May 2008)

THE DEMOCRATIC PROBLEM

the Democrat’s projectiles  
lie a mess across the floor
the talons still erectile
and they’re full of skin and gore
they’ll now attempt smooth talking 
(like the middle east has tried)
no swearing or “tongue forking”
and pretend they enjoy the ride 

the ladies like the lady
and the husbands like the man
can anybody sort this out !!?
maybe marriage guidance can ?
they'll smoke the peace pipe solemnly
cross legged on a hide
till one says “hey you follow me”
and one “I’ll step aside”

the Clintophiles are rusted on
they fight like Spartan warriors
their politics has mustard on
you never have to say sorrys
but there’s a problem stalking
(this one cannot be denied)
objective? (think fire walking) 
....
Clintophiles to be Obamafied. 


PS 
let's hope when they are talking 
come November if they're fried
that with all this tight rope walking
that the whole thing Barackfired.


----------



## 2020hindsight (31 May 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> let's hope ...  that the whole thing Barackfired.



 PS (not) 
PS teach me to write poems on the run.


----------



## 2020hindsight (31 May 2008)

THE CASE FOR CIRCULAR BEDS – LIKE DOGS.

Out of bed – which side again?
Holy Smoke life’s great!
fetch your lead my four-leg friend,
meet me at the gate,
feel the sun upon our backs,
run to the point of resistance,
just another set of tracks
that add up to existence.

Next day? porridge, dog’s excited!
mouse behind the fridge!!
move the fridge out! – backpain! fight it!
(praps she’s ritchy ditch)?
spill the milk and crush the bread!
kitchen’s like a bombsite,
day’s like this go back to bed,
you must have risen “wrong side”.

Two sides to an argument
but three sides to a bed.
third way? darkness! Heaven sent!
that day you wake up dead!
guess I’ll search for the sunny side
of the kitchen and the mess,
death's darkness lacks a funny side
and the forecast’s a three-way test.

Little dog, don’t look so sad, 
we’ve been challenged and been bested,
there’ll be many of plan of dog/mouse/man
long after we are “rested”,
I know how to make your wagging tail smile
and how your “happy” is freed,
whether grey day,  Mayday!, sunny or vile
it’s the words “go fetch your lead”

There’s three ways my friend to get out of bed
though you only seem to know one,
you never have selfish thoughts in your head,
you pray that I’ll smile with the sun,
a true friend indeed at my beck and call,
like you, praps I’ll make my bed round
then I’ll get up to face a circular wall
on the right side (till I’m underground).

That pleading,wagging tail of yours
it never seems to tire,
I swear it’s exceeded fatigue-ing laws 
that would break were it made out of wire,
your tail keeps wagging – it will break and fall!!
let's avoid that unhappy sound!!
let’s just rise for a run at the Kooka’s call
on the high side, till we’re underground.


----------



## 2020hindsight (31 May 2008)

I'll throw this one in for a challenge...
Maybe if we set a "theme", (or two),  and invite poems on that topic / those topics.

eg this week's topic(s) could (theoretically) be....
say ..
School Reunions ?
Yoga?
Weight lifting?
Hats?
Reincarnation ?
etc 

almost anything I guess.  

Incidentally, that's what some poetry clubs do. 

PS I went to a poet's club meeting in Sydney once..
sheesh
deep deep deep stuff.  

A lady had a poem that went on for 15 minutes or so - about a recent orgasm she'd had.!   Poets can be pretty intents!  - but I can't remember if that organism happened in a tent or not.


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 June 2008)

Since this is the 1001th post on this thread, I'll dedicate this one to my daughter who just turned 20 - and just back from Mexico.   (- I gave her an orchid btw 
btw also - She's the one in the hangglider (albeit tandem) 

TO A DAUGHTER JUST TURNED TWENTY

a teenager no more kid
in four years twenty four kid
here’s to four times twenty more kid
life’s paths will come what may
hey mum, that’s mine and your kid
the one that we adore kid
the hangglide born to soar  kid
who met the Mex Jose. 

kept searching for that door kid
your future to explore kid
a bolder and more sure kid 
than the one that went away
keep sailing to that shore kid
adventures there galore kid
there’s treasures wait in store kid 
and some gems along the way

no longer raucus raw kid
no longer “noon let’s draw” kid
no longer “I implore” kid
like a soldier fights his frey
Hey now we can’t ignore kid
no longer teenage dawk kid
.... and here’s a little orchid 
to help recall today.


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 June 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> PS I went to a poet's club meeting in Sydney once..  sheesh  ....  deep deep deep stuff.
> 
> A lady had a poem that went on for 15 minutes or so - about a recent orgasm she'd had.!




THE LADY AT THE POET'S CLUB

the poets club was waiting 
in a room above some bar,
a few of them were mating,
blowing smoke-rings more the par,
a few had pink and Mohawk hair,
a few had none at all,
and a few had names like “Xavier”
even they could just recall.

they all took turns to say their poem 
that had grown from random thought,
some fellow gave a rambling tome 
‘bout “prawn bait I have bought”,
but then this lady took the stage
her poem was “my orgasm”,
we all sat back to join her “rage”
as she carved this mental chasm.

I’ll paint the scene , the assembled 
looked like casting for “The Bill”,
a few of them resembled 
Marlene Dietrich on the pill,
one Marlon Brando sitting there
in his tangoed-Paris coat,
and the room had heaps of love to share
and that smoke that makes you float.

for ten minute orgasmics
you need poet’s panting breast,
the mirrors on those antics
set to poetry is best,
but cripes, it went for eons !
while the old blokes popped Viagra,
one codger’s eyes turned neons 
then he yodelled like Niagara.

in truth she was a younger lass
and all the menfolk gaped,
by the time her poem was finished
all those men felt they’d been raped,
and she meanwhile kept panting
between words that came in threes,
- as she climaxed, chanting, ranting 
- as she buckled at the knees.

I’ve nor been back to the poet's club
nor yet to a stripclub bar,
but that night made a change from the local pub
and it shines like a mental star,
those details of her malling rucks
her art,  her insight prisms,
...  ain’t man and woman lucky ducks
they’re orgasmic organisms.


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 June 2008)

http://shinysquirrel.typepad.com/shiny_squirrel_/2006/12/bill_hensen.html

....................................................

ART AND THE BILL HENSEN PHOTO QUESTION..

Bill Hensen took a photo of a girl who’s underage,
his portfolio in toto? heck it’s one of many a page,
and old blokes in their sauna clubs ask “was it pornographic?”
praps post THEIR snap at the corner pub – call it “untowelled sauna traffic”


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 June 2008)

I think I heard a politician -  name of Wilson something  – saying that, in his opinion, the baby bonus should not be means tested – and his reasoning was that , (paraphrased) “in the racing industry, the thoroughbreds do the breeding”.  So this poem takes that thought to the nth degree – as a “what-if”.

ONLY THOROUGHBREDS BREED IN MY PLAN

"only thoroughbreds breed in my plan
you can castrate the rest of the crowd
while these (beergutted) babes boost my clan
you others just aren’t ..“breed-allowed”."

wouldn’t that be a hell of a state
if the rich pseudo-righteous could rig it!
but hey Wil, why should YOU procreate?
after all,  you’re both brumby AND bigot.


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 June 2008)

BIKES TO SOLVE THE ENERGY CRISIS

The bicycle’s the go you know
between gatepost you and me
those bikes you fit with dynamos 
that drive the damned TV
and specially those with plasma screens 
must “peddle for their dinner”
there'd be a lot less TV 
and we’d be a whole lot thinner.

and still more bikes to ride to work
and more to drive the lights
and more to send the lifts beserk
when we balk at walking flights
and bikes (with CLAMPS) at the petrol bowsers
so the drivers are hard pressed to peddle
so we’re FORCED to be energy conscious wowsers
so the petrol can barely piddle.


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 June 2008)

http://donlmartin.newsvine.com/_news/2008/06/04/1538081-obama-pass-over-hillary-clinton-for-vp



> I believe if Obama chooses Hillary Clinton as his V.P. He will get the majority of her "Eighteen Million Voters" that she is demanding be "Respected" I don't believe Obama has disrespected anyone democrat or republican. *Hillary Clinton is telling Barack Obama: "Give me the V.P. job or you will be disrespecting my Eighteen Million Voters" *




http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/05/2266568.htm?section=world



> Hillary Clinton says she will bow out of her marathon campaign for the White House on Saturday, and throw her full support behind Democratic rival Barack Obama.
> ....
> The New York Senator had so far refused to concede defeat, saying she would deliberate in the coming days.  "I will be speaking on Saturday about how together we can rally the party behind Senator Obama. The stakes are too high and the task before us too important to do otherwise," the letter said.
> .....
> ...




HILLARY’S UNCONCESSIONAL CONFESSIONAL

You’ll respect my 18 million who have placed their faith in me !
the foundations of my empire and my place in history
though I used to be quite rich folks, don’t you dare say I’m “has been” 
just remember I’m a bitch folks, and a has-been-bitch is mean
although I’m beat and broke , I’m still the queen.

Queen Hillary - the first and all -  my God I like that ring
it echoes from the white house walls and bathrooms where I’d sing
this 8 year absence only goes to make the heart grow fonder
whilst 50 million bucks have somehow disappeared out yonder
- I’m hanging out for a well paid job to squander.

It’s all about the party – it’s my party  - it ain’t yours 
these people voted Hillary, and voted that because
they are rusted on to me and Bill – there’s no way they’ll turn back
but I’ll bow out now I’m beaten – for my good friend here, Barack -
three cheers for me, now one more for the black.

I had a chance on Tuesday night to gracefully concede
but no I had to keep the fight up – based on grit and greed
so now I’ll spend two days or three to draft my “step down speech”
which is oh-so-from-the heart of me – well as deep as I can reach - 
ahh skin deep’s deep enough – just ask a leach!. 

The experts say Obama/Clinton would be the ideal team
they' be around for 16 years !! – (of nightmare or of dream)
….
I’m guessing what Barack is thinking – should he build a girder
to bridge the gap to Clintophiles so they both play "drover herder"
but 16 years! – you only get 10 for murder!.
(sheesh)


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 June 2008)

THE ROLE OF 5 CENTS PER LITRE IN THE SCHEME OF THINGS TO COME

when pollies clash it’s balderdash, plans rash and how to sell em,
past glories, whigs and tories, and tall stories, how to tell em, 
mad theories, wild and eerie, praps stay leerie of their realm,
and Brendon, he’ll transcend em, hence he’ll never take the helm. 

he says his desire is to put out the fire , with a discounted petrol price,
the exact amount of the said discount is that 5 cents would be nice,
if the price of a quart (call it litre) bought can go up 10 cents in a trice,
well heck with 5 cents, it’ll all be spent, on a two-week bag of ice.

will you please tune in for “a future win”, call it “statesmanlike” if you prefer,
that the world will improve when the good men move to positions where science concurs,
and a populist, shallow, and ignorant fellow from where facts-f*cked and fiction all blurrs,
he can offer 5 cents – it’ll sound good for Lent, but his science, well sadly it errs. 

now when Garnaut reports, he will cut through the rorts, he will tell the facts fair firm and fiery,
there’s a monster at large, it’s about to take charge of the world and your grandchild’s sad diary,
ahh the old folks could care less, they’re selfish, they share less, claiming rights as a “hard worked retiree”,
praps the next generations, will vent their frustrations, with a right-Royal Commission enquiry.
..........
praps the next generations, will disown us relations, as the cause of life’s early expiry.


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 June 2008)

> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/07/2268130.htm
> Murder charges to follow St Leonards fatal crash
> Posted 2 hours 50 minutes ago
> A Sydney woman has been charged with murder after allegedly ploughing her car into a group of people in the city's north.
> ...




TRYING TO COME TO TERMS WITH SOMETHING MAD AND UNEXPLAINABLE - 
SINCERE SYMPATHY FOR THE PARENTS

If a boy was murdered 3am, a tender manhood age
just 21, just talking with some friends
if a car was driven straight at them – a case of kerbside rage
an instant and insane way life should end. 

mad drivers - kerb those mad dislikes!, mad drivers, kerb that rage!
that parents of more lovely boys don’t weep,
can murder in mad driver’s psyches turn and burn that page
and may those deep-down-devils stay asleep. 

and were I to change places with the parents of that boy, 
(May I empathise and sympathise in sorrow)
I’d hug his pillow’s head-shaped hollow, where there once was joy
and I guess I’d pray we’d meet again …….. tomorrow.


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 June 2008)

wayneL said:
			
		

> http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4076339.ece
> "Bob Dylan says Barack Obama is 'changin' America"




 "Times are changing" - Bob Dylan

WHERE STATESMANLIKE WORDS ARE CONTAGION
AT LAST THE TIMES ARE A-CHANGIN'
the Gospels of JOHN McCAIN and BARACK OBAMA

McCAIN

Come Az-been-baijanis, wherever you roam
And admit that old Johnny’s, a has-been on loan
And accept it that soon you'll be called on the phone.
At some time on the loo - or you’re shaving'
You’ll be straw-polled and war-polled and bored into stone
For the times, uncle, aren’t changin'.

Come widows of MIA’s demonised with his Bren
he who sums up the world with a “make war amen”
Hey don’t expect truth cos he’s still stuck in spin
And there's no tellin' who that he's blamin'.
bomb the bad guys for oil,  and then move on again
and those domino crimes – they ain’t changin'.

OBAMA

Come new blooded countrymen, hear Barark’s call
He’s standing so White House can fight city hall
Even heathens who hear him will emerge ten feet tall; 
Cos his statesmanlike words, they’re contagion.
There’ll be shaking of windows and rattling of walls
Cos the times are finally a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what the youth understand
Your sons and your daughters will ignore your commands
”attention, quick march” - that so “agin'”.
Please get off the computer or youtube “the man”
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn, new rulers, new rules
not temporary cool tempered,  I’m talking true cool
and the president now will step down as the fool
and the lobbyists can go earn real wages
And the world enjoys lessons at a new type of school
For the times they are a-changin'

PREDICTIONS

When some-body asked Mccain “how long irarq”
“is one year or 50 more close to the mark?”
he answered “100 is all right by me"
let Iraq go for ages and ages
but McCain voted wrong and Barack voted right
- now old John wants Iran, nothing changes.

Election’s upon us – let’s fabricate war
it shuts up the doves so the war hawks can soar
old warhorses only know one kind of law
the old law that needs rearranging
Barark’s at 4/7, McCain’s 7/4
War’s the only way that will be changing. 

And Israel’s above playing bold puppeteer
believe if you wish, when they drum up your fear
they speak Jewish accents, but drink US beer
their bombers are really wide ranging
Barark has some time-honoured stormclouds to steer
wish him well, that times start a-changing. 

The reason McCain’s the Republican choice
he’s looks least like Bush, diplomatic (joke Joyce)
it’s rare that musicians can work with his voice
while Barark’s many youtubes are raging
McCain “don’t do carrots” – (watch the God-squad rejoice)
May the times finally start changing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFknKVjuyNk


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 June 2008)

> ...
> Barark’s at 4/7, McCain’s 7/4
> War’s the only way that will be changing



...


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 June 2008)

TEENAGE BINGE DRINKING

I love my teenage drinking where I go out on a binge
to go beyond the brink of sense, beyond the brink of cringe 
my mates all cheer when I throw up, or fall into a ditch
and the publican’s a real good mate, but where I’m poor he’s rich. 

I say that I’m an idealist, cos when I’m drunk I feel
the more I drink, the more I list , the more I feel ideal,
I’m sorta like a hedonist, whatever turns me on
I’m “head on” till I’m off my head, with half my brain cells gone. 

The motive? well it’s so that I’ll philosophise on me
on optimistic nights out , come home misty optically
I’ll keep it up till adult – or adulterated years 
when my crimson yawn meets crimson dawn, and ulcerated cheers.

Did you see me on 4 corners,  hey I’m such a bon viveur
I threw up on my tee shirt, then I threw up on the bar
I threw up in the ambulance, I barfed and barfed and barfed
but nurses don’t have sense of humours – no-one up there laughed.


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 June 2008)

A NOTE TO HIS KIDS AS A REINCARNATED JOHNATHAN LIVINGSTONE SEAGULL GOES TO WORK

I reckon in a past life I was seabird of the gull breed -
parental gullibility (since I gave up life at hull speed),
I spring off mornings, bring up kids, then bring up fish for dinner
…dear little gulls, dear gullets (?) – whilst you fatten I get thinner.


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 June 2008)

GRANPA AND HIS SAYINGS

There’s fish galore in the oceans lad, they’re the opiate of lost romance ,
there’s schools of em by the dozen glad to meet with and dine with and dance
you’ll see I’m right in good time lad - just make a romantic wish - 
(I‘ll pass if it’s ok by you graddad, cos it’s girls that I like not fish.)

Well grandpa says skip all this “feet on dry land”, he’s more inclined to say
that “A bird in the bush is worth two in the hand – and you’re both free to fly away”
so I’m taking a punt (call it bird watcher’s hunch) before I’m all weighed down with caring
and I’m heading out bush for a picnic lunch, with one blanket, two CD’s , and Karen.

Praps `grandpa, he wishes he’d met my gran, a year or two after he did
he says 17 is to early to plan, when you’re still just a teenage kid
he keeps talking bout fish in the ocean, he keeping talking bout birds in the bush
it seems that he’s grabbed by a notion, that he maybe go fishing – with a push. 

But these days he sits at his cushion, he keeps getting sayings confused
“there’s plenty of fish in the bush son”, (and I can’t help from being amused)
I wonder what memories he hides there, I wonder what scenes he is thinking
and his smiling old eyes – what resides there, as he stares at the fire unblinking.


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 June 2008)

PS ...a similar poem "Matters of the Heart"  (from the depths of the archives )

(but unlike the last poem this one took more than errr about 30 minutes to write - maybe 60 minutes - my short term memory's not as reliable as it used to be.... 


https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=84769


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 June 2008)

WHY DID THEY EVER PRIVATISE THE COMMONWEALTH BANK?

I don’t have much respect for banks 
they charge like wounded rhinos
pretending they’re foundation planks
when they’re parasitic winos,
if they bill me (and they bill in spades) 
on some alleged transgression
that triggers endless fee cascades 
for their next wine tasting session.

If only the people still possessed
a bank they could call their own
the COMMONWEALTH which was all messed up
when they sold it and braved the unknown
so that, just for “second opinion’s sake”,
to the greedy banks out there,
the interest rates would now have a brake
and the people would own a share.


----------



## Wysiwyg (15 June 2008)

2020 matey , do you enter poetry comps.?
There is one going at the moment that finishes on Friday 1 August 2008.There is prize money for winning and various categories but most of all, poets get to showcase their art.Online entries too.

Here are the competition details. 

Let me know if you have a go. 
	

		
			
		

		
	









.


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 June 2008)

Wysiwyg said:


> 2020 matey , do you enter poetry comps.?



wys - howdy man, 
maybe, see what happens... 
lol, I know  a lady who entered a comp in the States once  (as in USA).
She won a cash prize - only problem was she had to fly over there in person to pick it up - and needless to say she'd have ended up well and truly in the red.    (I think in the fine print they had the copyright)..  

Here's my entry ..

The poets tripped to Ipswich 
for a round of cut and thrust
the men babbled on in the blue room, 
(where the XXXX was discussed)
the girls Porphery Pearled in the pale pink lounge 
then the judging fair and just 
then the winners were crowned to 4-way sound, 
- then they all knocked off for lust.

lemme know if I win lol.  
cheers m8.


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 June 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> The poets tripped to Ipswich
> for a round of cut and thrust
> the men babbled on in the blue room,
> (where the XXXX was discussed)
> ...




continued... 


> this year there'll be four categories..
> there's poems in greek or latin
> there’s poems on husbanding animals
> from the boys from out at Gatton
> ...




As for asking someone to read it on my behalf m8 - I'm probably thinking along the lines of Ted Kooser (US Poet Laureate from 2005?) 
... not that I'm comparing myself with him lol...  
(I just write this stuff for fun  )

  "Selecting a Reader" by Ted Kooser


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 June 2008)

KING CANUTE AND THE TIDE

Canute roared “I’m King!” to the tide -
“you will stay where you are damn your hide!”
as he sank in deep trouble
his last vocal bubble
had a “**** I goofed” hidden inside.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canute_the_Great


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 June 2008)

METH AND THE ROAD TO HELL

It’s elementary Watson, skip the myth and do the math
for every person tries it there’s a steeply downhill path
it’s all about a bending of the mind around what’s real
and it spirals in its trending, in a tyre screeching squeal.

these crystals of amphetamine, hot devils they call ice
these pistols trigger mental spinning sets of Satan’s dice. 
these one-way road signs that they sell, this omni-fatal death
you like exploring roads to hell ? – here kid – just try this meth. 

this mind exploding road to hell – here kid – just try this meth. 


PS this story from 18 months ago - but a similar bust of a pusher of home-made meth in this morning's news 


> Police arrest two after crystal meth raid in Adelaide
> Posted Sat Jan 20, 2007 2:00pm AEDT
> Adelaide police have arrested two people after seizing a quantity of crystal methamphetamine, also known as ice, during a raid in the north-western suburbs.
> Drug squad detectives arrested a 37-year-old man and a 36-year-old woman after allegedly finding nearly 400 grams of methamphetamine paste at their Rosewater home late yesterday.
> ...






> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/11/2271409.htm
> Cheese ball fight death driver in drug rage: police
> Posted Wed Jun 11, 2008 2:06pm AEST
> Updated Wed Jun 11, 2008 2:18pm AEST
> ...



PS I know a boy who had a beer with Elai earlier that night


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 June 2008)

METH AND THE ROAD TO HELL

It’s elementary Watson, skip the myth and do the math
for every person tries it there’s a steeply downhill path
it’s all about a bending of the mind around what’s real
and it spirals in its trending, in a tyre screeching squeal.
... the devils at the table, do you deal? 

these crystals of amphetamine, hot devils they call ice
these pistols trigger mental spinning sets of Satan’s dice. 
these one-way road signs that they sell, this omni-fatal death
you like exploring roads to hell ? – here kid – just try this meth. 
......for mind exploding roads to hell, try meth 

the meth will crosswire all your wires, and double cross your “wise”
it stokes your skill for telling lies, and paranoia’s fires
It strokes a monkey Hell devised, to fuse upon your face
your pock-marked cheeks can’t be disguised,  like love-bite ridden lace. 
...... his love bites eating you - he rides your face.

the Ruskies like to play roulette, with piston and a bullet
less risky and less foolish, that a crystal in your gullet
the chance of 1 in 6 to have an air-conditioned head
and the major difference being - you’re conditionally dead
...... the other? Ruskies know when they are dead. 

......for mind exploding roads to hell, try meth 
(and you thought mad was something like Macbeth)


http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=crystal+meth&search_type=&aq=1
 Crystal Meth


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 June 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> (and you thought mad was something like Macbeth)



Maybe this one might lighten the mood a bit ... (weekend after all) 

Shakespeare revisited ....

Macbeth Act V scene I


> Doctor: You see, her eyes are open.
> 
> Gentlewoman: Ay, but their sense is shut.
> 
> Doctor: What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.




21 century translation:-

You see, you see, her eyes are open wide!
yet rubs her hands – there’s something there to hide ..

in answer sir, she’s all screwed up inside
her eyebrows twitching like her mind is fried.. 



> LADY MACBETH: Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,
> then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my
> lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
> fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
> ...



21 century translation:-

Out Out damned spot, this useless fool machine
this 5 star rating - whatfore does it mean?
these Russian settings, "wash-ski, rinse-ski, spin-ski"?
and what’s this special cycle? "M Lewinski?"  

Out Out damned spot, I’ve washed this dress for hours
and hands all dotted red with spots of Duncan
my head, it spins with paranoiac powers
it must be something micky-finned I’ve drunken.

and will these hands of mine be clean again?
they look like I’m a worker on some tramway!
ahh – now I think of it - not if , but when - 
I’m sure there’s something out there sold by Amway. 



> LADY MACBETH: To bed, to bed! there's knocking at the gate:
> come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What's done
> cannot be undone.--To bed, to bed, to bed!



..... I’ll raincheck dear, - I’ve an aching in my head. 



> Macbeth:- If done, when ‘t is done, then ‘t were well, done quickly



Participants contributing as one,
Now “up and doing” for the well done quickie
And alternating “down and being done”. 



> Macb:- Is this a dagger which I see before me?
> The handle toward my hand



– come let me clutch!
Ahhh no , it’s just that dead-cheap Scotch you pour me
And some dead Scotsman had me by the crutch.



> Macb:- I’ve Done the deed – did You not hear a noise?
> Lady Macb:- I Heard the owl scream and the cricket’s cry!



Macb:- Reminds me, I should Be out with the boys
and What’s the score?
Lady Macb:- – bout 2 for 25.


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 June 2008)

Based on something I saw a couple of days ago at a red light.  
PS If smokers want to retaliate - maybe write a defensive poem, or a poem about people who indulge in booze (where I am marginally vulnerable, although not to excess - imo lol - though I do have more that 4 some days ) - then feel free to do so.    PS I just fail to see any difference between cigarette companies and common drug pushers  -  and/or giant international drug syndicates, thatssall. 

THE MASERATI AT THE LIGHTS

"*He drove a Maserati*" – that is what he hoped you’d say
his golden goddess stalking at the lights,
both man and beast looked hearty, - at a price where salesmen prey, 
it’s way beyond most mortal human’s rights.
…… But then he wound his window down, and in an arching curve
a glowing cig butt hit the tar below,
and any thoughts of envy took a sudden downhill swerve
that ashed that flashy image in one blow.

My friend, if it’s a race you have each time the red light changes,
that red light just thrown out there leaves us cold,
have you not common sense or savvy there to face the dangers?
those smoking guns can strike before you’re old.? 
……. The car you’re in is not a sin, though tickets come and often
but honour please your “turn of toil and strife”
and what’s a cigarette my friend but nails around your coffin
that turn your lights out finally – for life. 

We all had “Maserati days”, the “speed” we found in cars 
the distant kin of other hard-core junkies
but craving for some Craven As, or “speed” in sleazy bars 
it’s just a stupid pandering to monkeys.
……Can someone tell me maybe please, the differences in motives
twixt pushers of these varied drugs addictive
(ignoring petrol heads who tease - I mean the automotives)
but how the hell they sell these cigs vindictive!

And as for all the bits of butts – like roadside shearer’s dags
I wonder if you’d do us all a favour - 
before you die go back and pick em up in paper bags, 
we’ll put em in your coffin – that’s your flavour.
……  And on your tombstone, paid for by some Craven A or other
we’ll add that “Stirling Moss here was a raver”
plus an out o court apology – one corporate to another
his heart just failed – you see , "*Stirling was a craver*”.


----------



## 2020hindsight (23 June 2008)

HOW MY GREAT GREAT GRANDDAD DISCOVERED MATESHIP DURING DUCK DINNER 

Young Jim O'Shea. And Pat O'Neill and Mick O'Rourke and me
We'd been a-drinking half the day - not once did we agree
But then our bellies told it was time to think of tea - 
And that’s when Jimmy's  duck hypothesy…	
Was first laid down for all of us to see.

"The Baron's got a lake up in the hills about six mile"
And then he grinned - we all closed in to share this bit of guile
"And I think that roast duck's the best - especially cooked in style
	a hint of peppercorns will light your dial",….	
And we all joined in one collective smile.

"Now Paddy you just paddle round and be the decoy duck,
And Michael you can catch the thing and drag it from the muck, 
And Shamus boy (that’s me you know) well you can clean and pluck,
	And me ", said Jim - "well I will stuff and tuck….  
And cook just how I like  - and best of luck.”

"Now hang on " said the rest of us "that doesn’t sound quite fair
While you are sitting warm as toast the rest of us are bare"
"Don’t worry now",  said Jimmy boy, while putting on an aire
	"The planning of it all has been my share…..	
I’ll have the fire goin,  see you there."

So off we went with hopes so high and smelling duck for dinner 
Young Pat and Mick and me makes three, and not one man a sinner
Well not in our eyes for we knew that we were so much thinner
	Than any Baron with his triple chinner……	
And once per lifetime everyman's a winner.

The next morn's light found three of us all huddled in a group
The cold was barely bearable, the duckpond like iced soup
The first rays of the sun shone through, and then this 3 duck troop
	Came paddling up and circled in a loop…….	
And "boom bang crash" - we had em in the hoop.

We ran as fast as legs would go towards where Jim was parked
We'd run about a quarter mile when some damned bloodhound barked
And hot on heels were five great danes with teeth all bloody marked
	I really didn’t feel like being sharked…….. 	
I climbed a tree and waited till it darked.

.................
The Baron made a point of rounding up the likes of me,
At dusk he found me hiding is my weeping willow tree,
I wept when the night watchman came, and when they turned the key,
	And when they said "ten years in Botany"…….   
- At least I had 2 friends as company.

So Pat and Mick and I in chains were locked in some ship's Hold,
The convict's cell is kinda cramped and something to behold. 
And blow me down if that's not Jimmy wearing all that gold
	As corporal in the infantry so bold……	
No wonder we were feeling we'd been rolled.

The fleet arrived in Sydney Town and furled its set of sails,
We finally got to stretch our legs amid the whines and wails,
And days were spent a-breaking rocks, and nights were spent in jails,
And then I got a break by telling tales …….	
- I told em I was chief chef - back in Wales .!?! 

They took me to the Officer's mess to serve their daily muck
And there was Jimmy boasting that he'd had a stroke of luck,
He'd been promoted Captain and to celebrate his pluck,
	The Mess decided he should dine on duck…….   
And - guess who got to cook (don't life just suck).

I took three bags of peppercorns, some powder and some flint,
And loaded up ole Betsy and threw in a touch of mint,
And gave the bird both barrelloads which gave the duck a dint
	With peppercorn throughout (and way past "hint")……..
it looked a bit like silk screen that you print.

Well Jimmy took a bite of duck, "Caw what the heck!!" he said
He choked and flailed his arms and punched a Major in the head
So then they threw him in the clink and chained him to his bed,
	And then,  just when he hollered to be fed…….	
I got to serve the bugger milk and bread. 
(And Mick and Jim, the second duck  - instead)


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 June 2008)

should be 
"And Mick and Pat, the second duck - instead."
oops.


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 June 2008)

BACK TO BACCHUS PARTIES
An imagined reunion of a group who in their youth used to sit around a fire singing PP&M in the bush. 

A 60’s group of young and free, the warmest coolest dudes
communal karaoke by some fire,
with PPM, a song or three, and back-to-basic moods,
youth’s cellars stocked with all young hearts’ desire.
Some talk about the stars above and other mental foods,
some joker playing idiot town cryer,
some belching toasts to Bacchus to which youthful prayer alludes,
the cellars stocked, and us the only buyers. 

I’m planning a reunion with old voices singing flat,
to retrace time-lost footprints like black trackers,
some old songs and some crooning just to give the past a pat,
and toasts “to youthful mirthful days with Bacchus”.
An age-old conversation about this and then and that
the whys and wheres and wherefores we have cast,
a fireside celebration of some old folks' turn at bat,
and back to Bacchus parties of our past.

A fire for the toasting where the soul and heart are at,
toast days of yore and toast those few tomorrows,
the spirit of young memories and a spirit laden chat,
and spirits raised and downed to age-old sorrows.
We always knew that rhymes of peace were vulnerable to aging,
when Peter Paul and Mary lost their steaming,
and nonetheless we prayed they’d cease cos cruel wars stopped raging - 
were times a-changing ? – maybe we were dreaming?


----------



## 2020hindsight (29 June 2008)

PS as one of my mates used to say, "when I'm too old for wine, women and song,  - I'll give up singing"


----------



## 2020hindsight (29 June 2008)

THE TEENAGER-LEAD SOLUTION TO THE OIL SHORTAGE; 
SECOND, THIRD, FOURTH, ETC HAND OIL CHANGES. 

You buy a car for fifty bucks inclined to buck and boil
for services go round to Chucks when he throws out his oil
his oil  in turn (what hasn’t burned) he gets from a bloke in some bar 
and he’s a mechanic – he’s got the good oil - cos he serviced some rich bloke’s car. 

Black gold you say?, that’s understated ! - doesn’t get no blacker!
the stuff that I pass on to Fred, it pours out much like lacquer
but by the time he throws it out, it’s cost us each a quarter
we call it "friend-enriched indeed", and six cars keep going..... – sorta. 

PS believe it or not, that's what is happening with some kids I know


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 July 2008)

THE CANDIDATE’S RACE 

There’s the coloured and whites, then the cosmopolites
they’re the ones who treat all races equal
there’s that patriot game where the madmen take aim
but the world prays there won’t be a sequel
so it’s shouldn’t be colour nor lobbyists dollar
not his suit, nor his skin, but the wearer
it’s the man and his plan, his ‘united we can’
and praps this poll – at last - will be fairer. 

On the war in Iraq whether John or Barark 
will be best on the war against terror; 
on the question of standards, the US flag’s lanyards
are gold if I’ve not made an error; 
on the candidate’s race, when your man's losing pace, 
they can’t say things like “black man I hate you”; 
it’s more sneaky and snide, to make racial asides
while you threaten to blow up his HQ.


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 July 2008)

POLITICAL JOKES WITH A MOTIVE AND A MOTIF

Those elections in November, only weeks to turn the tide
maybe jokes might fire an ember? maybe tan Obama’s hide?
was it KKK where the joke was first spoke? – talk of shooting? what could that mean?
so I won’t be passing on those jokes till I know where they have been. 



> Motif (narrative), any recurring element in a story that has symbolic significance; a recurrent theme or pattern


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 July 2008)

THE NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES – 
THE ELECTORAL TERM THAT ONLY ENDS WITH A TYRANT”S DEATH – GEORGE ORWELL’S ANIMAL HOUSE TIMES THREE. 

Zimbabwe, the name is short, the terror lingers on, 
elections called so that opposition's killed,
and courts approving land grabs that are nothing more than con,
and courts that dine on blood that’s constant spilled. 

Zimbabwe, inferno fires praps only time will douse, 
(pray soon Mugabe’s death might free their shackles),
Napoleon Mugabe in the maddest Animal House
with the pigs today played by packs of murderous jackals. 

This “mind” of this Mugabe! mad !!   Pol Pot looks almost saint !
“I'm mightier than thou - and might is right! 
these killing fields, they’re MINE I say – ALL MINE without restraint”  
... 
Zimbabwe, it will be one long long night. 
… but one day God MUST see – 
………. and set it right.


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 July 2008)

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow The Village Blacksmith - a faked animation, and read by a modern actor. 

"Heres a virtual movie of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow reading his poem "The Village Blacksmith".  The poem is read excellently by Rik Kistner."



> Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (February 27, 1807 -- March 24, 1882) was an American educator and poet whose works include "Paul Revere's Ride", The Song of Hiawatha, and "Evangeline". He was also the first American to translate Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy and was one of the five members of the group known as the Fireside Poets.
> 
> Longfellow was born in Portland, Maine and studied at Bowdoin College. After spending time in Europe he became a professor at Bowdoin and, later, at Harvard College. His first major poetry collections were Voices of the Night (1839) and Ballads and Other Poems (1841). Longfellow retired from teaching in 1854 to focus on his writing, though he lived the remainder of his life in Cambridge, Massachusetts in a former headquarters of George Washington.






> The Village Blacksmith.....
> 
> UNDER a spreading chestnut-tree
> The village smithy stands;
> ...




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-luUle4f1B8&feature=related
blacksmith firewelding scrolls on the anvil

sheesh , how much work went into those scrolls on old fences, gates etc..?


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 July 2008)

A PSALM OF LIFE' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)



> A PSALM OF LIFE' by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
> 
> 'TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
> life is but an empty dream !
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 July 2008)

continued ..


> Let us, then, be up and doing,
> With a heart for any fate ;
> Still achieving, still pursuing,
> Learn to labor and to wait.




What the old Longfellow’s saying, spose you're getting pasted daily 
stead of being sad and baying, just be patient for the rally
every (other) time in history that the ASX went down
UP IT CAME – to end the mystery ! - some tomorrow’s glorious dawn !!

Just pray we live long  - and sane  - and here's "to rebirth" – not "to mourn". :bier:


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 July 2008)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/08/2298183.htm?section=justin


SEXUAL ASSAULTS IN CHURCH 

There’s a gardening smell from the Hyde Park trees to the tall cathedral’s spires,
Is it Cardinal Pell and his legalise, on what constitutes true liars?
Is it pardon or Hell if the TRUE God sees, while some coverup feeds the fires?
or will churches just sell some "inferior Jesus” whilst they “foist” on young kids like pariahs ?

When will churches dispel their pretence of appeasement – fighting voices of kids in church choirs ? 



> Church sex assault complaint 'wasn't isolated'
> Posted 8 minutes ago
> 
> Tonight ABC's Lateline can reveal Catholic Church documents, that show the church was aware of yet another child victim of sexual assault by a priest who was reported last night to have assaulted a Sydney man.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 July 2008)

.....

When I was a kid I was font-baptised, and at my age it looked like a well,
I was tilted and slid like a boat capsized, and into the water I fell,
“they drown me I’ll sue em!” I said to my mother, “and as for that preacher called Pell
if he’s off to Heaven then I want the other, cos it’s probably safer in Hell”.


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 July 2008)

FAITH IN THE BIG BANG 

with the universe expanding -(that’s not faith, mind, that’s a fact)
and the radiating straight lines from a centre when backtracked
hence I’m gonna join with Hawking – and/or Sagan – in alliance
when it come’s to faith-based talking, I’ve got all my faith in science


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 July 2008)

TELLING A JOKE TO YOUR SICK MUM
versus TREATING HER SICKNESS AS A JOKE

Some say it’s ok to make gestures in fun
though the evidence just keeps accruing
give the one-finger jest to your dying mum 
as long as you know what you’re doing
and joking’s ok on pollution and pox
or the flatulence charcoal you’re taking
and you hope carbon footprints don’t stain your new jocks
(just remember the oven is baking). 

Hey I’m "cutting down carbon" said the man with the axe 
you chop on these forests they fall  
hey I’m passionate about it – “you can go f*** the facts”  
“carbon trading”? I say “timber’s “ the call 
Hey this cutting down trees can be fun (for a while)
And why should I make gestures to regrow it
Hey I’ve moved up to “redwood-tree-carbon” – more style !
(and the end of the world as we know it).

Hey I’m telling my God that his planet’s a joke
Hey that’s yet one more joke of a sort
Hey this raping is ok for fine western folk
we’re just reaping our legitimate rort
Hey this selling your soul to the Devil is swell
except that old Nick don’t exist
Hey I’m showing my grandkids there really is Hell 
(and I’m Hell-bent their names to enlist. )  :evilburn:

I guess barbq jokes about cooking steak rare 
to save on the global emissions
is all quite ok folk , as long as you care 
and you vote making “Earth-first” decisions
I guess it’s ok to make gestures in fun, 
while our Mother, this dome, fights for air
but denial ? - as a gesture to your dying mum ?- 
(it's as funny as bi-polar dispair.) 

David Suzuki’s bicycle’s demountable 
personally shaped to his bum
David Suzuki wants pollies accountable 
who finger salute our sick mum...
Telling a joke – or treat as a joke
there’s a suble difference there
As David says, "sure, but she’s down, out, - near broke
(And how much can a polar bear.)


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 July 2008)

.......
probably should have used this one..


----------



## noirua (12 July 2008)

One day I believed the king,
One day I killed the king,
One day I killed all his kin,
Yes, my friends, i'm the king.

I'm King - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 July 2008)

noi...
already posted prior to the last election...
but he didn't listen to my advice to walk, lol. 
Reference to the "Prince", needless to say - was Costello.

KING JOHNNY DISCUSSING REGICIDE WITH HIS TROOPS

I’ve called this meeting this morning
cos the polls have us out on a ledge
and this talk of a “Regicide” (??) dawning
well not while I’m bludy REG.

I’m Robin of Loxley whatever
I’m the Rex of my seat Benalong
and don't question if I’m the most clever
cos I’ve “ben a long” time as REG KONG.

If you give me that damned “King-is-dead” word
I’d say that that doesn’t make sense!!
I'm the King-like-the-soothsayer-said word 
*what the heck? “Long live the Prince??”.* 

and nobody mention this coup word
(I just heard whilst out on that ledge)
this "Bring-on-a-Reg-who-is-new" word 
cos my name - do you HEAR - is still REG!!

.........
as to whether (King John) this is personal
or this power thing's arguably tidal
*10 years wed for better-or-worse-an-all 
if you "walk" then it's not "regicidal"!!* 

I hope you don’t mind this, your highness
when recalling this all later on
with Robin of Benalong behind us
can we then call you... just ... Little John?. 

.........
PS
It looks like you're no longer Big John
It looks like you're no longer Reg
It's back to old "trimming the fig" John
with your trimming shear's razor sharp edge

You've still got your super-annuation
(if the Caymans go broke, you can hedge)
You can call the tree "retirement probation" 
in the shape of a bludy great wedge

You can trim the tree "retirement probation" 
yet another "political wedge"


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 July 2008)

http://www.mcb.wa.gov.au/publicVMemorial/memorial.php?cmd=show1&v=23

Some prose and some poetry written by Sir Paul Hasluck, as read by his son Nicholas at his funeral in 1993...



> In a passage towards the end of his fine war history, "The Government and the People 1939 - 1945" (1970), my father also reveals an understanding of what it took for Australia to become a nation:
> 
> “To the people the war had brought sorrow. It had also brought pride. The consolation of those who mourned lies in the privacy of their minds. When it was expressed in public it would seem to have been the consolation of knowing that a husband, son or brother had acted worthily.
> 
> ...






> It occurs to me that only a poet with a deep love of the land and an understanding of 'the sweet simplicities of life' could have written such passages. So let me now refer to a poem from Dark Cottage (1984), a book my father wrote in retirement. The poem is called 'Space Probe':
> 
> “You went away loudly and have come back
> To the small hushed ripples of the sea.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 July 2008)

> What Paul Hasluck said
> 
> The following quotations are taken by Paul Hasluck’s book, Light That Time Has Made, a collection of essays and reviews written in his later years.



....


> “Thrift”
> 
> “Moving into the last quarter of the century one sees that thrift and the underlying idea that it was dishonest to spend more than you have are being discarded. The whole pattern of social life is an inducement to incur debts “ an encouragement to want more and more. There are merit and material benefits in spending and none in saving. Profligacy has lost its meaning. Thrift has no benison.”






> “Goggling”
> 
> "Television in its nature is more than a new means of communication. It is not simply an improvement of the cinema or an additional medium for giving news and information. It has imposed itself on the pattern of living and has had an influence on human behaviour much more extensive than the cinema or the wireless. Television is part of a vast social transformation. The effect of the change will be even more remarkable *as goggling becomes a substitute for thinking*.”




PS 
whereas "Googling" ASSISTS thinking lol


----------



## noirua (12 July 2008)

Hi 2020 et al, "Bring back Costello!". The Aussie economy is set to become the most complicated in the World.  Booming rich sectors with new multi millionaires combined with bombed out companies. Some companies have risen up to 60 fold and others have plunged - all over the shop.

I prefer a steady experienced hand and not an economy with some at the top of the hill and others in a hole.

I'm laughing as i've always been a miner and oiler type investor and hold about 75% cash. Some I know are heading for the hole and get angry if I try to give that annoying advice. Annoying, because I was once in a deep cavine myself, and they know it and perhaps there is some resentment when the financial pecking order reverses.

Not a poem - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 July 2008)

THE LUCKY COUNTRY - WE JUST MINE THE STUFF. 

On behalf of the share holding owners round here 
of BHP, FMG, and RIO
of the miners, their kids and their mortgage fear,
when they R&R back in Freo,
I’ll apologise for the carbon footprints of yore 
that my dump truck made yesterday 
at least when we mine for uranium ore,
our footprints are pointing “right way.” 

You can't blame the drink machine bloke (incidentally 
who brings us our Dick Smith’s Geo)
and (ignoring the US – they’re off the planet mentally)
nor my sunspotting friend Galilio,
up here in the Pilbara, there’s dust by the wheelbarra, 
and most of it bright red with iron
and the ore trains and ships, sure they add carbon bits 
but we’re better than coal-fired  -  and we’re trying.

On behalf of the future Australian economy 
that depends in large part on us trio
and (ignoring those people who burn round in hummers) 
on behalf of the bikers and their BO
Hey if people think mining is worse than steel-making, 
that’s wrong, but no matter, so be it
Though I personally live in a small fibro house, 
and I drive – like – a small bubble Fiat. 

The planet is clearly in the direst condition
since the days of Anthony and Cleo
even soothsayers say “sooth! no grandkids!, no fishing!”
according to some star sign near Leo. 
Sure the Nile keeps flowing, and better than the Murray
(where the puddles link once in a while)
Yet the argument keeps going, “hey what’s the damned hurry !
we can all go and live in de-Nial!”.

And ignoring Al Gore’s computer mouse, 
as he youtubes “O Solo Mio”
on behalf of those folk in a steel-studded house 
that you don’t have to treat with creo (editor’s note creosote)
and ignoring those people who think carbon restraint
is just so much “oh mumma mio”
I hope that world govts can spread some green paint,
from far left to Nazi-neo.

PS.  With that off my chest, the sun sinks in the west
it’s a common sense matter, half deadly half jest
I’m off to hug me a tree-o.


----------



## drillinto (13 July 2008)

Nights

Kevin Hart

There’s nothing that I really want:
The stars tonight are rich and cold
Above my house that vaguely broods
Upon a path soon lost in dark.

My dinner plate is chipped all round
(It tells me that I’ve changed a lot);
My glass is cracked all down one side
(It shows there is a path for me).

My hands””I rest my head on them.
My eyes””I rest my mind on them.
There’s nothing that I really need
Before I set out on that path.



from Gettysburg Review
Volume 19, Number 3, Autumn 2006, page 470


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 July 2008)

LIABILITY FOR INACTION ON GLOBAL WARMING

the planet is in traction, a truly global war,
man fights the critter faction, rich fights against the poor
it’s a fossil fuel attraction, that attacks the icesheet shore
(why not cut back just a fraction – admit we’re a bit unsure ?)

it's the lack of a reaction that aggrevates the sore.
as we watch the liquefaction. as the cracked off icebergs roar 
do we listen to our scientists – or to arguments obscure?
do we follow a certain road to hell or take that last detour?

there’s one way to resolve it that cuts right to the core
make the ones that spruke for weird inaction – liable in law. 
… yes there’s one way to resolve it – to snap out of this mental snore 
an immediate retraction – or they’re liable in law.


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 July 2008)

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2301648.htm


> Ms Pike says she's planning to, among other things, dress up as a condom and hand out leaflets at Sydney's Central Station.
> 
> And Ms Evans will be walking with pilgrims on their pilgrimage across the city, handing out condoms and leaflets and talking to them about issues like homosexuality, abortion and contraception.




WYD - KIDS WILL BE KIDS 

A condom! Satan! get thee hence !
A roulette game makes far more sense !
But will out lust for life turn fact?
Well Fannie Mae if Freddie Macked.


----------



## noirua (16 July 2008)

I don't believe it,
I can't believe it,
I won't believe it,
It just ain't true.

I do believe it,
I must believe it,
I will believe it,
It is the just truth.

I couldn't care less,
I'm very careless,
I just don't care,
Bang, bang, bang.

All dead - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 July 2008)

...


> Spring in the Bronx  (by anonymous)
> 
> Spring is sprung,
> Duh grass is riz;
> ...


----------



## noirua (18 July 2008)

She is there so very obvious, in largest,
can't move much, bad leg, 'nd that,
rushest out though, a puff is needed,
chocolate in bedside..., is much needed.

Diabetic and uncaring, leg bandaged, 'nd that,
watchest TV 'till midnight, and chocolate missing,
g'meit back at once,  you cockroach in largest,
but not bought, changed, and time ran out,

leaves, signs out, has gone and merry in chocolate,
limping and struggling, yes, she screams, 308lbs
take that and that and that, bash bash, now left,
hit bollard, fishing in my dream, offices on Monday.

Frustrating - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 July 2008)

THE POPE'S RANDWICK SPEECH SUMMARY

I really like this backdrop 
and there’s something else I’ll tell 
beyond the good-cop-bad-cop 
twixt myself and Cardinal Pell. - 
1. I would have got here earlier 
2. if we won the war (Heaven forbid) 
3. It's the greatest youth day ever
4. now to meet next in Madrid


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 July 2008)

Here's a poem that's kinda special to me.  It was carried by my father through the war.  Obviously he was thinking more of my brother than of me (I wasn't born lol) - still, he died a few years after the war, and I have very little else in his hand writing. 

The poet? - a soldier, thinking of home, and his small son. 

PS I plagiarised this a bit in this poem "If the War Hadn't Got in the Way"
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=83551&highlight=mustard#post83551



> Here’s a gift to keep you amused my boy, Till I RUN back one bright sunny day,
> But.... in case I don’t then remember this toy, Each night when you kneel to pray,
> How we planned to do all those things so keen, When fathers and children play,
> And the miriad things that might have been, Had the war not got in the way.






> SON: To a Photograph from Home
> by J. Alex Allan 2nd AIF
> 
> 1.  Little friend of all the world,
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (21 July 2008)

oops
sometimes in life you have to do things twice .  lol
I leave it to the mods if they feel like tidying this up.. but I omitted a line ..



> 3.  Little friend of all the earth
> (plain to read that in your smiling)
> In your world is naught but worth,
> maids and truemen for beguiling,
> ...


----------



## wayneL (21 July 2008)

The climate’s a-changin’
Or so the klaxons say
We’re burning too much fuel
We must find another way

They say we must put in gaol
Those crim’s who have a doubt
But why not look at facts?
That should sort things out

Yep, the north is getting warm
The ice is getting thin
But it’s dif’rent down the other end
Things are not so grim.

To get an accurate picture
One we cannot doubt
We must look here AND there
We must really look about

The folks with open eyes
See vastly different things
To those who are on the gravy train
And to those whose song they sing

As for me my friends and foes
I have a brand new lease on life
I’m only here for the shortest time
Too short for constant strife

So have a drink on me 
Go have some blinkin' fun
Eat, drink, and be merry
And let others beat the drum 

-WL


----------



## wayneL (21 July 2008)

There is a man on the net, whose name says he looks to the rear
Who is adamant that we should all be living in fear
To those who fail to venerate
The IPCC, we should incarcerate
But adds to the problem with his career


----------



## wayneL (21 July 2008)

There was a young scientist, just new to the art
Who claimed that cows should not be allowed to fart
But we all know that methane 
Isn’t really as profane
As scientists who prove they’re not smart


----------



## wayneL (22 July 2008)

There’s this bloke, it is bridges he builds
On the topic of climate, the lily he gilds
He bows down to Al Gore
That most incredible bore
Meanwhile, with huge green taxes we’re billed


----------



## wayneL (22 July 2008)

There is a land, surrounded by sea
An island more populous than most
It’s bigger than some and its borders are free
But its economy is most assuredly toast

The problem we have, or rather acquired
Is a PM unelected, a man named Brown
By not saving a quid the gu’mint is mired
Prudence was ignored, by neglect she did drown

We wanted it now, became slaves to the card
Must have those shoes, that car, that ring
We must have it now, or life will be hard
Ignore the cost, who knows what tomorrow will bring

It was bad enough, our personal sins of the PIN
But our man in the chair, a Scot
Whose pockets are as deep as their shin
Bled the treasury dry, never thinking to stop

For the hard times that would surely come
And those extra pennies we’d need
Were spent on convincing the some
That it is Labour that your pennies should feed

You should have looked after Prudence, and not left her to choke
Because now the banks are all broke, they’ll give us no fiat to burn
We look forward to a winter of discontent, to stoke
For we no longer have shares for our broker to churn

But worst of all Gordo, old ****
Is though we made some hay in the sun
Is that not every season yields a bumper crop
And you should’ve put some in the shed, you bum.

-WL

*****************

It's all crap, but I didn't even know I could do this.


----------



## wayneL (22 July 2008)

Sorry, more crap. I have no idea where this is coming from. 

Catholic Girls

The Catholic girls start much too late,
Or so said the man on the piano
And I’ve done my best to change this fact
By speaking a bunch of guano

I’ve even tried the blood of the Christ
Stolen from the front of the nave
It tasted great and we drank the lot
But she steadfastly refused in to cave

Soon was I to learn, not me did she covet
It was a ring and the obligatory dance
It was the day she wanted in a white wedding dress
And not what was lurking in my pants

So off I did go, I threw in the towel
To find me a more accommodating chick
But one thing I learned from all this travail 
Is next time to not to be so exceedingly thick


----------



## doctorj (22 July 2008)

Getting in touch with your softer side Wayne?  Surely the cricket isn't that bad?


----------



## wayneL (22 July 2008)

doctorj said:


> Getting in touch with your softer side Wayne?  Surely the cricket isn't that bad?




Some spirit has taken over my body, I've never written a poem in my life! 

Couldn't it have been Yeats instead of some two bit ditty writer LOL


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 July 2008)

A judgmental judge-dude who chaired
well his maths were a little - impaired
no way could it be 
E that equals M(x)C(x)C  
could be written instead MC^2

Hey wayne, I've had a good day - exported a third container of manufactured product yesterday....  keep a few Aussies in a job.  No-one's proposing a Luddite mentality btw.  
Even made close to $10K on the market - it will go some of the way towards a vet's bill I've got coming up


----------



## wayneL (22 July 2008)

The was this bloke from the New Wales of the South
Who from a vet bill was a bit down in the mouth
I should hasten to add
That his mathematics are as bad
As a farmer who seeds his paddock in a drought


----------



## wayneL (22 July 2008)

There was a bridge builder who lived not like a Lud
Who’s portfolio had crashed with a thud
When the cat hit the ground
The bounce did astound
Oh to realize, those shares were a dud.


----------



## wayneL (22 July 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> A judgmental judge-dude who chaired
> well his maths were a little - impaired
> no way could it be
> E that equals M(x)C(x)C
> could be written instead MC^2



The bloke whose vet’s cash register did chime
Was obviously a bit short of time
The limerical jive
Who’s lines add up to five
He should realize the last line should rhyme


----------



## rub92me (22 July 2008)

Haiku 

I think I like
the old acerbic Wayne better.
But only just


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 July 2008)

The Turtle, by Ogden Nash 1902 - 1971 

The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks
Which practically conceal its sex.
I think it clever of the turtle
In such a fix to be so fertile.


----------



## noirua (25 July 2008)

I drive always very, very fast
as it's my great dread, to be last,
foot down, keep it down, so fast
no chance of ever being, the last.

Today again so fast, the die is cast
the bend goes on and on, wont pass,
twisting and turning, faster so fast
and then, last bend, but not the last.

... - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 July 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> Here's a poem ...was carried by my father through the war.
> 
> ... The poet? - a soldier, thinking of home, and his small son.



Just playing around with the lines - rejigging that poem - more regular rhythm and rhyming -  apologies probably due to J.Alex Allan - but what the heck.  

(PS I would claim it is not an insult to the original poet to rewrite his words.  I sometimes do this with Shakespeare as well - forces you to really study what is being said - and to some minor extent (in this case) re-express it is in your own words.)  



> SON: To a Photograph from Home (with juggled lines)
> (apologies to J. Alex Allan 2nd AIF)
> 
> 1. Little friend of all the world, do you care or does it matter
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 July 2008)

Having some fun with Shakespeare eg Richard II 
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=180195&highlight=shakespeare#post180195



			
				W. Shakespeare's Richard II said:
			
		

> I have been studying how I may compare
> This prison where I live unto the world:
> And for because the world is populous
> And here is not a creature but myself,
> I cannot do it; yet I'll hammer it out.




so What to make of this my lot in life?
it’s Difficult but here’s a crack – let’s see ….
I’m One of earthly millions here in strife
but In my mind - this prison - only me. 



			
				W. Shakespeare's Richard II said:
			
		

> My brain I'll prove the female to my soul,
> My soul the father; and these two beget
> A generation of still-breeding thoughts,
> And these same thoughts people this little world,
> ...




my Soul with chase my brain around my head
and When it catches up breeds naught but thoughts (naughty thoughts?)
lie, Screwed up drafts of things I almost said
lie, Discontented half endorsed reports.


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 July 2008)

I'M GUESSING "CONSTRUCTIVE" MUST PLAY A PART.

Most people would say that they plan to construct what the reckon they’d most like to be
that there’s more in life than money and luck, that’s less mortal than you and me,
It’s ok to play with alluvial gold, and to buy some gilt edged dream
but there’s deeper gems to find I’ve been told, that you mine from a deeper seam.

there’s the golden rule that you learn at school, when a youthful five or six,
and on this you can build, as your diary is filled, with more moral mortar and bricks
there’s meaning and mission and maingame and more, and the health of the soul and the heart
and I’m guessing it’s mystical, unwritten law ...... but “constructive” must play a part.


----------



## noirua (29 July 2008)

I don't know my left from my right
and my sight requires it be so bright,
the words in the book mean nothing
and if only I could, yes, just to write.

My fingers on my left hand are missing
and my foot is just skewed to the right,
if only my brain had something missing
I would know nothing and then I'd be alright.

I pray to not know - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 August 2008)

One for the dads out there to contemplate 
(skip to the last line if you "get the ghist" with the rest) 

(PS apparently - as taught at tertiary psychology courses - babies smile as a self-defence mechanism - to "give us no option" but to love them 

 reason to smile

http://www.ladylyric.info/lady2.html



> Reason I smile - Reason I Shine
> by LadyLyric
> 
> My king, my provider, my everything
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 August 2008)

> apparently - as taught at tertiary psychology courses - babies smile as a self-defence mechanism - to "give us no option" but to love them



PS which begs the question ... 
I wonder why God invented cholic? lol

PS I'm sure mums also feature in a baby's world lol - I'll try to find a suitable poem - unless someone beats me to it .


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 August 2008)

POLLIES, PLEASE EXPLAIN WHY YOU SMILE. 

"Why do you smile?, please explain,
is it cholic or some other pain?
is it meant to alarm?
or maybe to calm?
or confidence you’re trying to feign?"

"You ask we what can be gained
well the party might get me ordained
and my dental work’s there
for the world to share
as long as my face don’t get sprained." 

The reason is anyone’s guess
why they make their face such a mess,
if they’re looking for more
in the confidence score
I’m guessing their gestures score less.


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 August 2008)

THE SCHOOL REUNION

A reunion of schoolmates last year
was the best damned excuse for a beer
“my, you haven’t changed
but your head’s … rearranged ?
you’re bald, and I’m broke, and he’s queer.” 

And the note said “let’s all get together
it's been years since we all met together
30 years since we schooled
Jack-assed  and Tom-fooled
so let’s get our throats all wet together.” 

The wealthiest ones stayed away
‘twas beneath them to come say g’day
but the rest of the tribe
laughed all night with the vibe - 
which I reckon proves crime just don’t pay.

But sadly there also were some
whose life had turned downward and glum
I said “wish I could help
but my prop’s stuck in kelp”
and he laughed like a schoolmate chum.

Wherever our pathways have lead
whether castle bound comfort or shed
it was fun to discern 
and to listen and learn
and to toast “better lively than dead”. :bier:


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 August 2008)

(Based on a true story   - only the name of the Browns has been changed to protect the innocent.  They were really the Smiths.  I believe Perkins was a Highland Terrier - they lived in Yorkshire UK - you have to imagine Yorkshire as you read this ) 

THE PECKING ORDER OF PERKIN'S HIP

A couple, the Browns, whom I knew
had a dog with bad hips, knees, and flue
the pet’s name was Perkins
and most of its workin’s 
were tied up with tungsten and glue

Old Perkins was quite a disaster
a turtle on dope could run faster
you would have to say
at the end of the day
he preferred the mistress to the master.

They lived like three blood-tied relations
with all of life’s little frustrations
To Perkin’s perception
the pecking order direction
meant the man had the lowliest station

The old man said "Let’s put him down
though its sad and it’s said with a frown" 
but  ... all the dog’s problems
its slipped hips and wobblin’s
were shared by his wife Mrs Brown

“It’s only his hipjoint!” she snapped
“it’s just like my hip I had capped!”
“you’d put me down too!?
is that what you’d do?
no, you’ll jollywell have to adapt!”

She glared at him on those occasions
so Perkins had ten operations 
and so did his wife
the love of his life
now he lives with all of his patients.

That’s the yarn of the couple who quabbled
about vet bills and why the dog wobbled
under threat he agreed
that the pet was indeed
too much like the wife to be nobbled.


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 August 2008)

Some explanation / discussion of limericks.. (if'n you're interested). 

http://www.speedysnail.com/limericks/metre.html


> Duke William decided—for kicks—
> That he’d give Harold’s army some licks
> (Dunno why—maybe bored)
> In the year of our Lord
> Anno Domini 1066.




I still like the one...

There once was a fellow named Mike
who went for a ride on a bike
the bike hit some ruts
and knocked off his hat -
and what do you think of that.


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 August 2008)

DOPPLER AND REDSHIFT

As the racecar came over over the hill
it's motor was screaming quite shrill
but as it went past 
the sound of its blast 
was toned down to practically nil.

So too the jet fighter that sped
at "half c" or more overhead
a more subtle contrast 
as it's flame flew by fast
but its colour would change blue to red.


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 August 2008)

(cont)  

if you go to the n-th degree
so the racecar is doing mack 3
as the sonic boom hits,
the race flag’s torn to strips
wet with flagman’s involuntary pee.

if you go to speed c – (quite immense)
so the shuttle appears (but from whence)
all the light hits at once
though it flew here from France
with an Xrated blueness intense.

(lol, probably done that one to death ... moving on)

PS the moon is 1.28 light seconds away = 1.28 x 300,000km
Paris (if it were a straight line  ) - is only 17,000km = 0.057 light seconds away
speed of sound 340 m/sec (sea level etc) 
speed of light 300,000km/sec = roughly "Mack one million", or one million times the speed of sound

 Sonic Boom
  Carl Sagan Cosmos - The speed of light


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 August 2008)

RATS, FOYLE IS FINISHED

This 40's style fella named Foyle
had a manner most markedly royal
this wartime McGiver
said "I need a driver
a redhead, who's lovely and loyal".

he said "I can't drive", well he could
and she didn't dob , well she should
he'd be caught out and charged
and probably discharged
on bad behaviour for good.


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 August 2008)

Hamlet Act I, scene III
Advice to a son going overseas.

Perhaps it should end,  ......



> and this above all, If you go into politics,
> resist the call, and sniff you not on seats.






> http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/04/2323421.htm
> Buswell announces resignation




http://www.rhymezone.com/r/gwic.cgi...rd=thou+canst+not+then+be+false+to+any+man.#w



> LORD POLONIUS: Yet here, Laertes! aboard, aboard, for shame!
> The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,
> And you are stay'd for. There; my blessing with thee!
> And these few precepts in thy memory
> ...


----------



## noirua (5 August 2008)

This isn't poetry, it's a ballad, but maybe the beginning and poetry came after:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KnbyrUSjU8

The life as it was of Captain Patrick Logan, 1791 - 10/1830, the monster of Moreton Bay Penal Colony: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Logan


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 August 2008)

THERES A NOTE ON THE WALL NEAR THE PEARLY GATES

This trivial three score ten year dash
allotted us each in turn
and after that it’s ash to ash 
recycled and/or burned
what agenda do we set ourselves?
what goals? what meaningful menu?
those thousands of thoughts in our mental shelves
don’t let them die within you.

Just scratch em on a piece of parchment, 
flick em to “the fouls”
fired furnaced thoughts with flame enlarged
(let the embers warm our souls)
Don’t let that painting? maybe book?
untold feelings ? die within you,
Cos when our eyes close on that final look
there’s no “to be continued”

There’s a note on the wall near the Pearly Gate
“Did you tell those behind that you loved em
or your contemplations – well it’s just too late
to pull them out now whence you shoved em
How much you enjoyed your time in the band
and the tunes you sang together
and rejoice together in the hourglass sand
that survived the testing-est weather.”

“Don’t go till you’ve penned some innermost scrawl
where your heart and your soul like to play
so that when you see this note on this wall
you aren’t thinking “One day I’ll say
It was fun, it was fine, forever sublime
with a magical family and wife” - 
when you get to the top of this final climb
may you say “what a view!, what a life!”


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 August 2008)

POSTSCRIPT : DONATING ORGANS 

There is a way at the end of the day
that "you-in-part" can continue,
pin a note to your vest or your dying chest
that they're welcome to "recycle bin you"
no indian givers, your lungs and your livers
they'll take all your stuffing and skin you,
and some squaw or some brave, will serenade your grave
with guitar strings made from your sinew.


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 August 2008)

whenever I wake up before the flaming alarm, I end up with another contribution to the world's trivia in my head ...

THE RECYCLED ORGAN RECITAL

I’d happily pass on my kidney and heart, 
but ideally I’d add a condition,
that the person who scored the replacement part 
continued this crazy tradition,
so, in time, I might see, man act sensibly,
on the value of entitled “vitals” 
and man finally twigs, and sings to new gigs, 
like “recycled organ recitals”  

PS "vitals" as in ...
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?r=2&q=Vitals


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 August 2008)

ODE TO THE WHITE LINE "Scrolling" DOWN THE CENTRE OF THE STREET BETWEEN THE CITY AND BONDI

70,000 couldn't be wrong
despite all the tears that were shed
despite all the calves and knees that went "sprong"
and the great bulbous blisters that bled.

...  There's a cemetery half way along
that removed any doubt in my head
and it's not about times, either short or long
but in short, you're a long time dead.  

That's the challenge I still have to meet
to seize this day and this sky,!! 
after bitter the mundane looks sweet
to my half philosophic eye, 

.... *White line on the scrolling street
this war's between you and I
over whether you're still rolling under my feet
when I roll over to die*.  

Note Apologies to the Beijing opening for copying the concept of a scrolling street. 
viz "White line on the scrolling street"


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 August 2008)

PS Apologies for any accidental offence to the family of the young man (26yo) who died from heart attack 200m from the finish line today. Very sad.


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 August 2008)

ON GAMBLING ACCORDING TO THE MATHS

The maths said go for the motsa
but the dice came down the wrong way
now I've got this bill - in fact lotsa
and no money to bludiwell pay .


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 August 2008)

Shakespears Verse of the Day :-

JULIET: Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
	It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
	That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
	Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree:
	Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

ROMEO: It was the lark, the herald of the morn,
	No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
	Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
	Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
	Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops.
	I must be gone and live, or stay and die.

JULIET: Yon light is not day-light, I know it, I:
	It is some meteor that the sun exhales..

ROMEO: Chrissake Juliet - Blind Freddy can see that's the sun
and here come your mad brothers  - I'll give you a call ok?

http://www.rhymezone.com/r/gwic.cgi?Word=tide&Path=shakespeare/tragedies/romeoandjuliet/iii_v//


repost :-


> TYPICAL OLD FASHIONED LOVE AFFAIR - 16th CENTRURY.
> 
> they Met in their teens when the world was green, and their Heads were impetuous yet,
> and the Sad forebodings to them unseen, of Montague and Capulet,
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 August 2008)

Can't think of a Bible verse or a Koran/Quran quote, 
so maybe this Pope's quote will suffice.  



> An Essay on Criticism (1711), line 225
> Alexander Pope
> 
> So pleas'd at first, the towring Alps we try,
> ...




http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Mountains
http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/essay.html


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 August 2008)

DID THE UNHEARD MAKE A NOISE - and DID THE UNWITNESSED HAPPEN?

When succubi creep into windows at night
and cavort with middle aged boys
who wake up unknowing – all evidence out of sight 
hey! … does a falling tree make any noise.? :eek3:



> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Succubus
> In Western medieval legend, a succubus (plural succubi) is a demon, who takes the form of a beautiful woman to seduce men, especially monks[1], in dreams to have sexual intercourse. They draw energy from the men to sustain themselves, often until the point of exhaustion .... of the victim.


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 September 2008)

VICE PRESIDENTIAL HOPEFULS AND THEIR VICES 

It seems electability is partly policy based 
how long you’ve been under scrutiny , and how many questions you’ve faced
and how good your brain and your logic, and where your heartbeat fits
but if that doesn’t work
there’s the last minute lurk
of a cake-jumping broad from the back of Bourke 
who shoots polar bears from the spire in the Kirk
…………………..   and get her to flash her t1ts.


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 September 2008)

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=293794&highlight=hagee#post293794

HAGEE AND HIS TYPHOONS

McCain’s mate Hagee claims (it seems) 
that typhoons are all God’s will
There was going to be a gay pride march
so he sent Katrina to kill  
Next, there’s going to be a GOP convention, 
so he sends Gustav again,
Does that prove (or praps not) God hates both gays and GOPS
or make bozos of book bashing men.


----------



## 2020hindsight (2 September 2008)

TIMING HAS A LOT TO DO WITH OUTCOME OF RAIN DANCE. (Chief Sitting Bull)

I prayed to my God may he give his big nod
to send some rain our way
and I prayed through those years where we only had tears 
to grow a small crop of hay, 
.........
but thank God I believed  - cos the Heavens then heaved
and the rain gauge filled to the brim
but the poor damned frogs, in the tanks and the bogs
all drowned – they’d forgot how to swim.


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 September 2008)

For you shooters so hale and so hearty
there is now a trans global shooter’s party
vote Palin and Putin !!
up with rootin and shootin !!
(please bring back the goons moriarty )


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 September 2008)

THE MAN-MADE CONTRIBUTION TO THE UNIVERSE

you dont need any watchmaker to engineer these rocks
that swirl around the galaxies to ever changing clocks
should one explode, do up in smoke, collapse to a black hole
the whole thing just adjusts a bit, in some expanding role. (roll?)

you dont need any puppetteer to tell men how to act
it's obvious that chimps do just as well with praps more tact
but if you want to say some "God" designed it more or less, 
..then please agree the man-made part is a God-almighty mess.


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2008)

speaking of gallups..

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=195670&highlight=galloped#post195670



> HOW I BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM AIX TO GHENT (OR VICE VERSA) = Parady
> RJ Yeatman & W C Sellar
> 
> I sprang to the rollocks and Jorrocks and me
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 September 2008)

I'll post this, mainly for the information of ZZDad, 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQvDmz4MQB4&NR=1

"Lindsay Radford narrates a classic Australian poem"



> CLANCY OF THE OVERFLOW - A.B. "Banjo" Paterson
> 
> I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better
> Knowledge, sent to where I met him down the Lachlan, years ago,
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 September 2008)

Sarah Palin probably owes a debt to this lady (Louisa Lawson - mother to Henry) 

http://www.nla.gov.au/guides/federation/people/lawsonl.html



> In 1887-8 she edited the Republican with son Henry, printed on an old press set up in Louisa's cottage. The Republican called for all Australians to unite under 'the flag of a Federated Australia, the Great Republic of the Southern Seas'.
> 
> Republican was replaced by the Nationalist which lasted two issues.
> 
> ...






> A WOMAN'S LOVE
> by Louisa Lawson (1848-1920)
> 
> I cared not what they failings were
> ...






> A CHILD'S QUESTION
> 
> O, why do you weep mother, why do you weep
> For baby that fell in the summer to sleep?
> ...






> THE CITY BIRD
> 
> A city bird once in a desperate rage
> Threw over the bars of his screen
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 September 2008)

RELIGION AND GW/CC

They say that its some weird religion
that its all about fiction and fad
that’s despite the fact that the forests win bigtime
making millions of critters so glad
that ‘s despite the fact that reluctantly slowly
they’ve had to admit melting poles
but now they want to argue it’s holy 
to laugh when science sets  goals. 

If we change our mind and argue we oughtta
be tempting the devil and fate,
and we subsequent find we’re in hell and high water
can we change back or is it too late?
no God for confessions, no virgins for slaughter,
yet caution we throw to the wind,
in our ignorant guessing, will our grandson or daughter
forgive this dumb sin that we’ve sinned.

who cares if it's religion or not
the fact will be that we've sinned.


----------



## noirua (11 September 2008)

Some serve up a penance having sinned
and gratitude itself we have truly binned,
a moment we stop and think, a bell rings
we wonder, what now, to do, but to sing.

We visit quite often from work, one ring
gratitude a few clicks away, we only sing,
but now we will do it, just reward, a few clicks
yes, I'll vote now, clickety click click click:

Vote for ASF at:  http://www.thebull.com.au/the_stockies/forums.html


----------



## 2020hindsight (14 September 2008)

THE SHOW ISN”T OVER TILL THE CHANDELIERS SHATTER
(apologies to lady opera singers - I'm just trying to string out the process of ending the show - or declaring the show "over" - trying to convince myself to use some patience - with my bank balance for instance  ) 

It isn’t really over till the lady makes those sounds 
that she’s searching for a hammer and a hammer has been found,
and she finds some nails and tacks and things - checks horns are set just right
then she hammers on the horny helmet, tried and true and tight!

Then she grabs her spear and armour and her chastitizing belt
and she finishes her fitting them, half sitting down, half knelt,
next she hobbles down the backstage halls and finds the right stage door
and she takes a breath, a smoke perhaps, or two or three or four.

Till the sounds within come floating “wherefore art thou, Joan of Arc?”
and she boldly makes her entrance, and she winks just for a lark
then she takes up her position at the bowspit with her spears
and she let’s loose with her tonsils, to the shattering of chandeliers.!


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 September 2008)

CRACKING THE CODE OF DREAMS

I had a nasty dream the other night
my dog fell down a thousand metre cliff
I woke abruptly furrow-browed with fright
just prior to some underlining biff.

I lay there thinking “wow man that’s not nice!
Hey Mr Sandman – What you do that for !!”
He said “so you might pause for some advice…
Hold vicelike to your heart each offered paw.”

“That you might wake up wealthier and wise
before your journey to some final shore.”
….
He added smiling solemn and precise, 
“That you my friend will love life all the more.”


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 September 2008)

THERE'S SOMETHING BIGGER THAN LUCK OR THE LACK THEREOF

B... Buga the wind, it’s caught me, and it’s twisted my face in a frown,
I... (eye) of the storm it’s taught me, that I should've been battoned down, 
G... Gee,  but I wish that I had sold,
G... Golly, I wish I didn’t still hold,
E... Echh, but my boat has gone and shoaled
R... Rats, but I almost drowned. 

But there’s something BIGGER to remind myself of
than a day or two’s luck or the lack thereof...
And there’s something BIGGER than the goals above .....
like freedom 
and limb 
and life 
and love.


----------



## noirua (24 September 2008)

The Walrus and The Carpenter
Lewis Carroll
(from Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There, 1872)

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,
Because she thought the sun
Had got no business to be there
After the day was done--
"It's very rude of him," she said,
"To come and spoil the fun!"

The sea was wet as wet could be,
The sands were dry as dry.
You could not see a cloud, because
No cloud was in the sky:
No birds were flying overhead--
There were no birds to fly.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Were walking close at hand;
They wept like anything to see
Such quantities of sand:
"If this were only cleared away,"
They said, "it would be grand!"

"If seven maids with seven mops
Swept it for half a year.
Do you suppose," the Walrus said,
"That they could get it clear?"
"I doubt it," said the Carpenter,
And shed a bitter tear.

"O Oysters, come and walk with us!"
The Walrus did beseech.
"A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,
Along the briny beach:
We cannot do with more than four,
To give a hand to each."

The eldest Oyster looked at him,
But never a word he said:
The eldest Oyster winked his eye,
And shook his heavy head--
Meaning to say he did not choose
To leave the oyster-bed.

But four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat--
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

Four other Oysters followed them,
And yet another four;
And thick and fast they came at last,
And more, and more, and more--
All hopping through the frothy waves,
And scrambling to the shore.

The Walrus and the Carpenter
Walked on a mile or so,
And then they rested on a rock
Conveniently low:
And all the little Oysters stood
And waited in a row.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

"But wait a bit," the Oysters cried,
"Before we have our chat;
For some of us are out of breath,
And all of us are fat!"
"No hurry!" said the Carpenter.
They thanked him much for that.

"A loaf of bread," the Walrus said,
"Is what we chiefly need:
Pepper and vinegar besides
Are very good indeed--
Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed."

"But not on us!" the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
"After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!"
"The night is fine," the Walrus said.
"Do you admire the view?

"It was so kind of you to come!
And you are very nice!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"Cut us another slice:
I wish you were not quite so deaf--
I've had to ask you twice!"

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"

"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

dshaw@jabberwocky.com
Return to Lewis Carroll
Return to Jabberwocky


----------



## drillinto (28 September 2008)

“Do You Have Any Advice For Those of Us Just Starting Out?"
Ron Koertge

Give up sitting dutifully at your desk. Leave
your house or apartment. Go out into the world.

It's all right to carry a notebook but a cheap
one is best, with pages the color of weak tea
and on the front a kitten or a space ship.

Avoid any enclosed space where more than
three people are wearing turtlenecks. Beware
any snow-covered chalet with deer tracks
across the muffled tennis courts.

Not surprisingly, libraries are a good place to write.
And the perfect place in a library is near an aisle
where a child a year or two old is playing as his
mother browses the ranks of the dead.

Often he will pull books from the bottom shelf.
The title, the author's name, the brooding photo
on the flap mean nothing. Red book on black, gray
book on brown, he builds a tower. And the higher
it gets, the wider he grins.

You who asked for advice, listen: When the tower
falls, be like that child. Laugh so loud everybody
in the world frowns and says, "Shhhh."

Then start again.



from Fever, 2006
Red Hen Press (USA)


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 September 2008)

thanks drill .

This one is based on the true-life exploits of a friend's daughter (not my own lol) - left him with two wrecked cars.  lol

TEENAGE ROMANCE AND CAR INSURANCE 

We live in a little cul-de-sac, with our two cars parked at the kerb
I really should park one out the back, so it’s harder to err – “disturb”
the reason is (I’m getting there), my daughter and her romances
and with two cars here that we all have to share, it’s too taxing on my finances.

My daughter’s ex-boyfriend’s a right royal  nerd, he was just a proper drone,
a mixture of “ringlets:” all quite absurd, who went out of his way to moan,
he came around on some pretext phoney, and they had a verbal tiff,
And he left the house on his “shank’s pony”, saying “I’m off to jump off a cliff”

I said to my daughter “good riddance”, as she ran around in a flap,
like a chicken with its head half off, saying “what if he jumps off the gap”!!
I said that’s gotta be 40 k’s, trust me he won’t pass the pub,
but she suddenly jumped up – her eyes ablaze!!, “I’ve gotta go save him (sob sob)”

She jumped in the first of our two parked cars, and shoved it into reverse,
she screamed back, tyres squealing on asphalt tars, to “catch up with him” like a nurse,
the rear of the first smashed the front of the other, and both were left half stacked,
so lik I say, when she gets “another”, I’ll be parking one car round the back


----------



## noirua (29 September 2008)

noirua said:


> Some serve up a penance having sinned
> and gratitude itself we have truly binned,
> a moment we stop and think, a bell rings
> we wonder, what now, to do, but to sing.
> ...



Oh yes, if you have the will to drag yourself away from business and vote for ASF, great, thank you kindly.

Now for some proper poetry from Warrick Wynne, a Melbourne poet and teacher, courtesy of the Jim Low (Aussie country singer) blog.

"Waking in the blue":  http://walleahpress.com.au/FR38Wynne.html


----------



## 2020hindsight (3 October 2008)

THE VICE-PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE - WILL A PASSMARK  DO FOR A POTENTIAL PRESIDENT?

Having just watched the televised VP debate
which "heart-beat-away" would you pick?
as they answered in his case,  evaded in hers,
as they tried to out-trump and out-trick,
The lingering doubt never was if "she's nice"
or whether or not she's thick,
It's more if it's sandstone or igloo ice, - 
and the thickness of said brick.


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 October 2008)

WE DON'T KNOW HOW PROPITIOUS ARE THE CIRCUMSTANCES FREDERICK. 

I’m guessing I outta be giving thanks for rolls that have landed my way,
when dicefalls have sorta  been kinder than banks, and landed with “six” to display - 
give thanks that I’m healthy, and thanks that I’m fit, and thanks that’s I’m free,  unafraid,
Where others are wealthy, I’m deep in the ****, but there’s billions with whom I’d not trade. 

How courageous the third world – though they won't admit it, - there’s billions that lifehas “betrayed”.


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 October 2008)

WITH APOLOGIES TO TENNYSON, BUT DID THE MARKET CARRY ON LIKE THIS FOR HIM?

sunset and evening star and after that the dark,
and may there be no moaners at the bar when I depart,
for such a crowd that movement seems asleep, too full for sound (burp) or foam,
when that which grew from out the boundless deep (burp), turns again home. 

broke, broke, broke, - and after that who knows,
(do ebbs return as bigger tidal flows?)
a toast to life ! – Earth’s million dollar busk !
then ...  man segues to ash, ....  and day to dusk.



> "Break, Break, Break"
> 
> Break, break, break,
> On thy cold gray stones, O Sea!
> ...




 Sunset and Evening Star (Crossing the Bar)



> CROSSING THE BAR
> 
> Sunset and evening star,
> And one clear call for me!
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 October 2008)

I just twigged that Ossetia (Georgia) and Sevestopol (Ukraine) are just a few hundred kms (maybe 800) apart -  
one the scene of the the recent Russian/ Georgian conflict,
the other the Charge of the Light Brigade  . 
(what the poms were doing there , Lord only knows) 

-  and for that matter Gallipoli / Gelibolu is just SW of Istanbul    all pretty difficult to understand. 

 The Charge of The Light Brigade

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4gTt6rptTU Charge Of The Light Brigade - Battle of Balaclava 2/2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBiUWQ5YLQ4


----------



## noirua (7 October 2008)

Hi 2020, yes, and due to the cold weather they invented the balaclava. It was made of thick wool and covered the whole head and face, with small holes for the eyes. That's what one of my Grandfathers told me, so it must be right.

There is a town in South Australia named after the battle of Balaclava. I believe a lot of Australians fought there?


----------



## 2020hindsight (8 October 2008)

makes sense noi.  

The missus has got me planting pumpkins (and other vegies) - sign of the times lol.  My Filippino friend says they have a saying "just planting potatoes" - meaning you're down and temporarily out - even worse than rice (which they prefer).

PLANTING A PUMPKIN VINE FOR XMAS

I'm fattening a pumpkin for Xmas dinner
the family will formally dine,
some left-over gravox, with water for thinners
to take off that overnight shine,
and I'm stewing up all those old spud peelings
for an accompanying potato wine - 
it tastes a lot like bathwater but 
... at least the bath was mine.


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 October 2008)

> PLANTING A PUMPKIN VINE FOR XMAS
> 
> I'm fattening a pumpkin for Xmas dinner
> the family will formally dine,
> ...




This beanstalk was sposed to be jet turbo-powered - 
it's only about 3 foot high  
by now I expected it spearing the clouds
and branching all over the sky,
I pictured myself on a gathering mission
with golden eggs in vast supply,
but first things first - beanstalks must get some nutrition
thus gold eggs on bullsh1t rely.


----------



## noirua (10 October 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> makes sense noi.
> 
> The missus has got me planting pumpkins (and other vegies) - sign of the times lol.  My Filippino friend says they have a saying "just planting potatoes" - meaning you're down and temporarily out - even worse than rice (which they prefer).
> 
> ...



Haven't grown pumpkins for ages. Keep feeding them every week, and you'll have giants. A neighbour did better than me once, so I bought two and tied them on to the failing plants.


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 October 2008)

A SPIN-DOCTOR’S TAKE ON BEING ONE OF THE FOOLISH XXX  BRAVE FEW TO BE STILL HOLDING SHARES  

Editor's Note ..  This is a pisstake, ok? -  DYOR on when to get out or into the market lol (wish I had - got out that is). 

Horatio came forward – I’ll defend this bridge alone
and a hundred more Horatios stood together made of stone 
and they stood there unaffected by the panic in the ranks
and the stock market was sliding, but they turned it – AND the banks.

The days grew fierce and frightening, the Horatios held their ground
They watched the market (like Queen Mary) slowly turn around 
And in time the rich came crawling back, the crisis had dispersed
The Horatios had won the day, and steered clear of the worst. .

Us few who held should maybe feel like Horatio in this game
while the capitalists among us, ran like rabbits (to their shame).
Cos, tell me how a man responds when panic fills his frame
watch this Horatio-lead-recovery ... then I’ll tell you that man’s name.


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 October 2008)

THE G7 ETC MEETINGS. 

G7, G10, G20 and so on,
a string of G meetings of deep furrowed men,
no parties at Scorer’s, and G strings and so on,
no bets on the GG’s they’re past tense amen.

these gatherings of G-men, these gobfuls of globals, 
please find gimbol-mountings, some compass, some aim,
these storms that are whipping both peasants and nobles,
G-settle-the-ship, we’re C-sick-of-this-game!


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 October 2008)

2020hindsight said:


> A SPIN-DOCTOR’S TAKE ON BEING ONE OF THE FOOLISH XXX  BRAVE FEW TO BE STILL HOLDING SHARES
> 
> Editor's Note ..  This is a pisstake, ok? -  DYOR on when to get out or into the market lol (wish I had - got out that is).
> 
> ...




these first-to-fear are first-to-flight, such cowards and such conmen
yet sadly they are well paid dudes, and also "hinge upon men"
these masters of the capitalists , these leaders of our time
proponents of this moral abyss, these subtle kings of crime.


----------



## derty (13 October 2008)

Ode to Sean Hannity

by John Cleese

Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity


----------



## drillinto (15 October 2008)

A New Poet

Linda Pastan

Finding a new poet
is like finding a new wildflower
out in the woods. You don't see

its name in the flower books, and
nobody you tell believes
in its odd color or the way

its leaves grow in splayed rows
down the whole length of the page. In fact
the very page smells of spilled

red wine and the mustiness of the sea
on a foggy day - the odor of truth
and of lying.

And the words are so familiar,
so strangely new, words
you almost wrote yourself, if only

in your dreams there had been a pencil
or a pen or even a paintbrush,
if only there had been a flower.



from Heroes In Disguise, 1991
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York, NY


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 October 2008)

great stuff drill.
sorry - back to amateur hour lol...

THE SUN AND MOON WORSHIPPERS

whatever makes the seasons dance, and paints the summer hills
whatever makes the tide advance, and roll back as it wills
whatever tempts the boomerang to gracefully return
yet gentle as a moonbeam as it luminates a fern.

whatever "eggs" the albatross to break forth into strife
and growing up to learn to fly and meet and mate for life
and spend long months in ocean winds and hemispheres of sky
returning to that special friend, and so on till they die.

whatever chose the rainbow colours arcing oer the earth
whatever chose the forests as the place of bio-birth
whatever chose five petals for the buttercup’s broad smile
That’s where the heavens settle, and that’s where I’ll kneel a while. 

http://library.thinkquest.org/27890/applications5.html
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4884152789466423754

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=90703&highlight=gurgling#post90703


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 October 2008)

two more in similar vein ... not that there's any literary merit there, just that it makes a change from reading about the end of capitalism and our lifestyle as we know it 

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=88166

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=86893


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 October 2008)

CARPUS TOMORROW

I don’t know how to say, Swahili, “wow the market’s bad”
or shout in Bantu “cmon – really! Dow, you must be mad!”
it’s getting to where the world must beg so that banks will let us borrow,
but every language has that word, that beautiful word “tomorrow”.

Tomorrows are like a row of blocks between unconscious commas,
or maybe like some shipping locks - that you fill with hope and promise,
endorphins if you free em that can raise you from this sorrow
if you can’t manage “carpus diem” – maybe settle for - “carpus tomorrow” ?. 

Tomorrows are out there slumbering hiding over the sunrising hills,
and nature wakes to a humming and a painting there that thrills,
the curtain call at the music hall, - the kookas laughing drums,
full of poems and prayers, promise and all – believe !  - tomorrow comes !.

PS hard to concentrate here - these flaming birds making a racket outside !


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 October 2008)

THE ARMCHAIR CRITIC SYMPHONY -  IN FOUR MOVEMENTS

From my armchair it's so easy, and they’re all a pack of fools,
give this farmer boy a chisel, let me carve MY ten top rules,
I can carve this mess in front of me into Simpson and his mule, 
bring the wounded world economy, to this armchair – by this pool. 

So the man who’s in the hot seat wants to play it supercool
I can tell him why and what he needs to drop the price of fuel
I can tell him stuff I learnt at tech, when I went to business school
- when you count the beans it’s important that you oil that old slide rule! 

……………

All this talk of global warming, I can take on all these nuts,
Here’s my final bold brainstorming ... “Live in airconditioned huts!”
I’ve dared the world – “Do nothing!” - but they haven’t got the guts
what they need to do? – stick to cussing!  just stay sitting on their butts! 

…………..

From my armchair it’s a shoe-in, like the wargames in Irarq
send the napalm-bombing crew in, make a furnace from the spark,
I can solve all worldly problems with one walk around the park,
ending back here in my armchair, with a summing up (burp) remark.

From my armchair I can orchestrate, and rant and cheer and rave
I can (paraphrasing) parachute with the next offensive wave
Hey I’m only there in spirit, and I don’t have to be brave
And if they are hurt or “wear it”, I can crawl back in my cave. 

………….

These high school kids – I’m armchair told - are perfect nowadays
and teachers’ pay should be on hold till kids all get straight A’s
the fact they’re truant and/or high - it’s clearly not the kid’s fault 
neither attitude nor altitude - its clearly how they’re taught!

Some kids aren’t into English, they prefer life in “gin-sling-land”
“Hey why should we learn English, when we don’t plan trips to England!” 
…..
[hey armchair man, it’s relative dude,  - let’s call the least wise “fool”
I don’t mean to be glib or rude, maybe both of us go back to school ?]


----------



## Wysiwyg (19 October 2008)

The next page ... 


I see the printed story, of what is in the lens
I see the faces twisted, a son in holden wreck
What business is it anyway, not yours nor mine nor theirs
Why for do we interest, in Brad or Ange or Beck   

Its `cause our lives are empty, the void from life to death 
The printed story fills it, a whisper and a breath 
Each day the story differs, sometimes an earthly jolt
A talking piece I hear you say, oh yeah...for sure... alright

The pictures and the words I ask, do we-all have to know
Do you feel the paining mate, of those in them photo
Of course its not our business, the next page but a flick
Why for do we interest, in Brad and Ange and wreck.


----------



## 2020hindsight (20 October 2008)

I met this poet tonight 
she's brilliant - the concept?  recycled paper somehow hanging onto the soul of "old words incarcerated between the fibres" 



> Poems on Recycled Paper
> 
> you're so prolific.
> sometimes i worry
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 October 2008)

A poem to consider for a funeral or a wake, assuming the deceased was religious 

http://www.bereavement-poems-articles.com/poems/general/poems.php
http://www.bereavement-poems-articles.com/poems/faith/108-rose-beyond-wall.php



> Rose Beyond the Wall
> by A.L. Frink
> 
> A rose once grew
> ...




and again ... 



> I Did Not Die
> Mary E Faye
> 
> Do not stand at my grave and forever weep.
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (29 October 2008)

THE PILOT AND THE POET 

As the presidential politician’s gallup polling shows
it’s the pilot and the poet – but the poet by a nose, 
and I’m kinda looking forward to when ballot boxes close
and the new man starts the healing – post election stoops to prose. …

"Now let's take up where Abe Lincoln left off – hundred year old woes"


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 November 2008)

Since I saw the Red Bull Race on the weekend, I found myself comparing life to smoketrails - hence the extra verse or two. 

TO WALK THE PATHS AGAIN - AGAIN

To walk the paths again my friend, to walk the paths again,
To take the uphill path my friend, instead of through the glen,
Or maybe find some truth my friend, on why the paths of men
Gang aft’ a'glay, as oft' they do, it's all beyond our ken.
	And would we choose the self-same path again?
If "here and now" was somehow "there and then"? 

Sometimes when I am half in trance I retrace steps of old,
When I was young and liked to dance, and brasher praps and bold,
When there were risky things I chanced which I let Fate unfold,
And some delivered cactus plants, where they had promised gold.
	Ahh, paths can get so complex, even cold,  
And much is lost to moss,  and much to mould. 

To walk some different pathways chaps, or follow different yearns,
To set a different campfire praps, without so many burns,
To make a better damper with the skills of one who learns,
To sidestep indigestion traps and other like concerns.
	Ideally - using "hindsight maps" - return
And make the right decision at each turn. 

Life's like a dodgem car careering, foot flat to the floor,
And little time to "twig" the steering, taking hits galore,
And doors have opened left and right, and options by the score,
……But …I have used THIS path my friends, 
THIS set of doors around THESE bends
And there's NO way doors come again, 
-	And I'm THIS path, - And I'm THESE doors.
-	And I'm THESE strengths and I'm THESE flaws 
-	And I'm THESE footprints through the moors
-	And I'm effect; and I am cause.

.........................................
Praps life’s a smoke trail going back to early childhood hills
which criss cross campfires on the track as criss-crossed timing wills
these loci of a million yarns and twenty thousand quills
these barrel rolls and laughs and mental thrills
these fires and embers toasting mental krills
-           And I’m these embers and this blaze
-           And I’m this fire in this haze
-           And I’m these blacks and whites and greys
-           And I’m this trail of yesterdays

And we are where our smoke trails blend
like colours at some rainbow’s end
let’s share this gold adventure friend …
until … our  smoke trails bend again.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 November 2008)

BALI BOMBERS, DRUG MULES, and CIGARETTE COMPANIES

The vengeance sanctioned by the state is now a bygone fact,
The signup book for “bomber’s mate” is filling if not packed,
You schoolies who have tickets booked to let off steam afar,
If those tickets are to Bali, just avoid a beach or bar. 

The Bali Nine were running drugs, wow! that’s about as bad
as Rothmans or those other mugs - "tobacconist’s jihad” 
Praps Scott Rush should be jailed in Aus ? – after all that’s why his Dad
advised the AFP ten hours before he flew there    ......  … sad 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Rush


> During February 2006, Rush's parents gave an interview to Australian Broadcasting Corporation television program, Australian Story, speaking out against Australian Federal Police actions.
> 
> "*I was informed at 1.30 in the morning that Scott would be spoken to and asked not to board the flight to Bali.* It wasn't until about mid-morning that I received a call from Bob and a distressed tone in his voice he said, 'Mate, we could not stop him, they have let him go through and he's on his way to Bali'. Under no circumstances do I condone the trafficking of drugs - I particularly dislike drugs of any nature, always have. *When I received a call from the Australian Government authorities that Scott had been detained in Indonesia for attempting to export heroin, I was speechless, sickened to the gut*."
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (15 November 2008)

ABEL TASMAN DISCOVERS THE ANTIPODAL CORNER OF THE WORLD 

Abel Tasman, poop-decked,  said
“As the far horizons hinted
We’ve found Argentina - which is really NZ
but the name NZ’s not "invinted" - 

“And Greymouth might be about as far 
as this Dutchman can possibly roam,
and I’ve been to cities that never close down ... 
but I still call the Old Holland home." 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abel_Tasman


> On 13 December [1642] they sighted land on the north-west coast of the South Island, New Zealand, becoming the first Europeans to do so. Tasman named it Staten Landt on the assumption that it was connected to an island (Staten Island, Argentina) at the south of the tip of South America.






> From the point of view of the Dutch East India Company Tasman's explorations were a disappointment: he had neither found a promising area for trade nor a useful new shipping route. For over a century, until the era of James Cook, Tasmania and New Zealand were not visited by Europeans - *mainland Australia was visited, but usually only by accident*.


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 November 2008)

CURES FOR BUSH's LEGACY 

Bush is raving like the captain on a steeply sloping deck
"Blame the iceberg, blame the map, or blame the milkman" (what the heck) 
“This is not a crisis failure of free marketing as such”
But (?)  - it’s worst where market’s free-est !!  – so George – thank you very much  

So the Xmas Party’s looming, New Year’s hangover’s ahead
That’s with half a headache booming here on Xmas Eve already
When you search the New Year’s lockers – Whence the New Year’s ships embark
For a headache try Baroccas, for a head’s up, try Barack.


----------



## 2020hindsight (18 November 2008)

Some Force Majeure! God's passion! He hath teeth - and there's substantial! 
The glacier's recession - might be saved by the financial.


----------



## 2020hindsight (22 November 2008)

http://www.rangerjohn.com/bootand.html

Australia's first poet :-

"In my ear the wind that whispers, Seems to make reply--  ....

'Question not, but live and labour , Till yon goal be won,
Helping every feeble neighbour, Seeking help from none;
Life is mostly froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone,
KINDNESS in another's trouble, COURAGE in your own.' "



> Ye Wearie Wayfarer - Fytte VIII
> Finis Exoptatus  [A Metaphysical Song}
> Adam Lindsay Gordon
> 
> ...


----------



## noirua (22 November 2008)

Can't really follow all this fine poetry presented by 2020.
Anyway, this is one by my own fair hand:

"Suddenly", by noirua

Oh suddenly, oh suddenly,
it happened the end came
then nothing was important,
seriousness has come to an end.

Looking back seemed brighter,
and friendlier, remembrance suddenly,
then reality, a feeling lighter
adjusting appearances strained.

Then it's onwards adrenaline rushing,
the funeral ahead speech adjusting,
what to say, doubt, feelings pushing,
the day, the dreading, gone now.

Suddenly, must go on again,
happiness, gone, no mind,
time caresses, time adjusts,
again, not in time, but suddenly.


----------



## drillinto (23 November 2008)

Ladies and Gentlemen in Outer Space
Ron Padgett

Here is my philosophy:
Everything changes (the word "everything"
has just changed as the
word "change" has: it now
means "no change") so
quickly that it literally surpasses my belief,
charges right past it
like some of the giant
ideas in this area.
I had no beginning and I shall have
no end: the beam of light
stretches out before and behind
and I cook the vegetables
for a few minutes only,
the fewer the better. Butter
and serve. Here is my
philosophy: butter and serve.



from New & Selected Poems, 1963 ”” 1992, 1995
David R. Godine, Publisher, Inc.


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## 2020hindsight (27 November 2008)

The First and Worst Accident at Tarthra Wharf in 150 Years

The night was dark and slippery, and no rails for the old wharf,
so easy to gain access, and so easy to fall off,
and bad luck piled on bad luck, and they fell with fatal speed,
and .. their God decided sadly that he wouldn’t intercede.

The dad was such a brave man , of his ilk so too the kids,
at their funeral, one large coffin, bosom bonded, closed eyelids,
just their photos now to fondle, and the ones behind will weep,
Thus their dreamlike lives are bounded by an honoured hero’s sleep.
...
Though the children's dreams were shorter, so too, bounded by pure sleep. 




> http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24709837-661,00.html
> 
> Funeral for Tathra wharf victims Shane, Riley and Travis O'Neill
> November 26, 2008 12:16pm
> ...






> http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24683109-661,00.html
> Boys' pram slipped out of rescuer's fingers
> November 21, 2008 12:00am
> 
> ...







> Prospero:The Tempest Act 4, scene 1, 148–158
> 
> We are such stuff
> As dreams are made on; and our little life
> Is rounded with a sleep.


----------



## 2020hindsight (27 November 2008)

http://www.enotes.com/shakespeare-quotes/we-such-stuff-dreams-made


> Prospero:
> Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
> As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
> Are melted into air, into thin air:
> ...





> Anticipating his daughter's wedding to the Prince of Naples, Prospero has staged a short entertainment, with spirits taking the parts of Roman gods. But he abruptly cuts the fun short when he remembers some pressing business. He tries to calm the startled couple by explaining, somewhat off the point, that the "revels" (performance) they've witnessed were simply an illusion, bound sooner or later to melt into "thin air"—a phrase he coins.
> 
> Prospero's metaphor applies not just to the pageant he's created on his fictional island, but also to the pageant Shakespeare presents in his Globe Theater—the "great globe itself." Dramatic illusion in turn becomes a metaphor for the "real" world outside the Globe, which is equally fleeting. Towers, palaces, temples, the Globe theater, the Earth—all will crumble and dissolve, leaving not even a wisp of cloud (a "rack") behind. Prospero's "pageant" is the innermost Chinese box: a play within a play (The Tempest) within a play (the so-called "real" world).
> 
> Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, *life is but a dream, and people are the "stuff" dreams are "made on" (built of)—just as characters might be called the "stuff' plays are "built on." "Our little life" is like a brief dream in some divine mind, "rounded with a sleep*"—that is, either *"surrounded" by sleep *or "rounded off" (completed) by sleep ...




I personally like the former concept, i.e. of our lives being a dream surrounded by pure sleep both before and after.


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## noirua (28 November 2008)

Why do they rant and rave over Shakespeare?
the man who could not write English I hear,
soldiers they speak as though not understanding
is it not drivel hidden by the facts, not standing.

Blow Shakespeare, his facts, story and fantasies
that belay the story as true, and it be best by sea,
floating away and be it lost, out of sight indeed,
no more Shakespeare, a place for rich to poster, to read.

Shakespeare - by noirua


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## noirua (28 November 2008)

Why do they rant and rave over Shakespeare?
the man who could not write English I hear,
soldiers they speak as though not understanding
is it not drivel hidden by the facts, not standing.

Blow Shakespeare, his facts, story and fantasies
that belay the story as true, and it be best by sea,
floating away and be it lost, out of sight indeed,
no more Shakespeare, a place for rich to posture, to read.

Shakespeare - by noirua


----------



## wayneL (28 November 2008)

noirua said:


> Why do they rant and rave over Shakespeare?
> the man who could not write English I hear,
> soldiers they speak as though not understanding
> is it not drivel hidden by the facts, not standing.
> ...




'Tis a blasphemy uttered, from that Aussie in Kent
For it's true that William was a talented gent
Great gangs of actors, bemused
Will wish you exceedingly bruised
Such an insult you will surely lament

Have you not seen the Merchant of Venice?
It's only a Jew who could possibly grimace
Shakespeare was so bold
With the story he told
That the manuscript was save from the furnace

It was Shakespeare who Tamed the Shrew
And many others from which his fame did accrue
You really should be quelling 
Criticisms of his spelling
He is famous from here to Timbuktu

Do you remember the playwrites of the day?
It's only Shakespeare we remember to play
In Stratford Upon Avon
Pay homage to the legend
To his likeness, which is made up of clay.


----------



## johenmo (28 November 2008)

Hilaire Belloc and Ogden Nash

"I call you bad, my little child.
upon the title page.
Because a manner rude and wild
is common at your age."

"I shoot the hippopotamus
with bullets made of platinum.
Because if I use leaden ones, 
his hide is sure to flatten 'em."

"The one-l lama, he's a beast.
The two-l llama, he's a priest.
But I will bet a silk pyjama,
you've never seen a three-l lllama."


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 November 2008)

johenmo said:


> "The one-l lama, he's a beast.
> The two-l llama, he's a priest.
> But I will bet a silk pyjama,
> you've never seen a three-l lllama."




lol - good one.. maybe :-

He went to bed one honest farmer
having watched some two bit drama
went to bed three beers the calmer
- set the clock for four a -llllama.


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## wayneL (28 November 2008)

To the bloke whose hindsight is clear
And a propensity for Obama to cheer
Will you hang your head in shame
When the sea level is the same
In the future, when you look to the rear

:batman:


----------



## 2020hindsight (28 November 2008)

will the ones who wish lesser pollutin's
of all kinds – not just raping and lootin’s
and trees in expanse !
give the planet a chance !
dont enjoy putting planetary bootins

off to work


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## noirua (29 November 2008)

At times, Australia the so far away land
whilst sitting and watching grey skies,
no wind today, but rain, I see no sand,
dark at three, lights on, not homeward bound.

Forecast of rain, wind, damp, dark, horrible,
not just today but many, rain, sleet and snow,
honour I must this debacle, right to the end
and now the Australian summer forecast is sad.

Now I have a winter cough, that stays and stays
and still struggling on, dark now and still rain,
one thought remains, yes, they do, pay me well
suitcase at the ready, soon to retire finally at home.

Deep thoughts - by noirua


----------



## 2020hindsight (29 November 2008)

wayneL said:


> To the bloke whose hindsight is clear
> And a propensity for Obama to cheer
> Will you hang your head in shame
> When the sea level is the same
> In the future, when you look to the rear




EVEN IF THERE’S NO "A" (ANTHROPOGENIC) IN AGW, (AGAINST ALL THE PEER-REVIEWED EVIDENCE) -
...  LET’S VOTE FOR ACTION IRRESPECTIVE

King Canute couldn’t turn back the tide
Nor Can ‘oo? – or can I,  I’ll confide
as his ankles got wet
it’s a pretty safe bet 
the canary was carked on it’s side.  

So the planet is warming? true / false?
EVEN IF there’s no “A” in this waltz  
Is there GW or not?
(Leave out talk of mad plot 
and without allocating whose faults.) 

So when ice melts on land or falls seaward
due to warmth whether solar or treewood
throw some ice in a cup
does the level go up ?
(What IQ pisses upwind not leeward?) 

Hey as if the sea level’s alone 
in effects that we shouldn’t condone
there are millions of things
which a warmer clime brings
that we know 'bout a warmer unknown.

There are reefs that are dying – a fact
fewer polars and fat that is lacked
whether drier or wetter 
it’s no time to feel better
blaming “God”, - treating science as whacked. 

There are vertical trees that we’re felling
(while the breeze-carried carbon is swelling
but ignoring that point)
Let’s just CLEAN UP the joint!
IRRESPECTIVE of what IPCC's telling. 

There are critters in dire distress
as mankind just keeps fuelling this mess
Heres a chance for PROACTION !
that can HELP ! (if a fraction)
we should vote for MORE action not less. 

Cardinal Pell, he who never has sinned 
he who preaches more carbon in the wind
yet he talks of the pill
as an agent from Hell
(or who bans anti-HIV condoms prey tell) 
or bans "third world birthrates should be thinned." 

When Bolt grinning sings to his throng 
he who preaches an incautious song
I just wish he would add
that he’d pick up the tab
if the IPCC’s right, and he’s wrong. 

Irrespective he has or not kids,
Irrespective the world’s on its skids,
he prefers his grandstanding
watch the planet’s hard landing
while he exits the side door with quids. 

Even if stumbling man’s not to blame
(you believe that, you’re mentally lame)
Let’s accept risk-averse
Here’s a cliff !  try reverse !
and let critters and forests and corals immersed
and refugee numbers get better not worse
and let’s sign – and not play silly games.

http://www.wunderground.com/climate/


----------



## 2020hindsight (29 November 2008)

PS
For those who thinks warming’s "just theory"
it’s "unproven"; it’s "making you weary",
for a bit of quick levity
test the theory of gravity
(just try jumping off cliffs without making a cavity)...
praps you’ll float down to earth feeling cheery.


----------



## Stan 101 (29 November 2008)

If the life you have created
Has buried you with luxuries out-dated
And you ask what is the purpose
Too weak to claw your way up to the surface

You resent all of your trophies
They belittle human spirit like a timepiece
That is ticking in your breast pocket
And so you long to reach in and stop it

Then your heart it will be broken
And every sour word that you have spoken
About everybody else
Will return to act upon yourself

If the life you have created
Is founded on jealousy and hatred
Its too late to ask questions
For youre much too old to take any suggestions

Its the life you have created


Grant Lee Phillips



This one is an old friend of mine.. All played in D with arpegio


----------



## 2020hindsight (4 December 2008)

http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/rn/podcast/archive/enhanced/lawson_in_bourke.mp4

BOURKE by Henry Lawson  (podcast) - takes a while to download.


----------



## 2020hindsight (6 December 2008)

THOUGHTS WHILST LEADING THE DOG THROUGH THE BUSH

When some weekends in the bushland I go walking with the dog
I insist on walking first in line in case of snakes and logs
It’s because the bludy vet bills have gone skyward like a joke
and if one of us gets bitten – well it’s better it’s the bloke.


----------



## 2020hindsight (7 December 2008)

THE PROBLEM AHEAD FOR CCS CARBON CAPTURE AND STORAGE

How much CO2 was made today ?
65 million tonnes to the devil ?
at 2 grammes per litre that works out at nearly
33 billion cubic metres at sea level.

There's 33 cubic metres of internal space 
in one of those 20 foot containers
so we've made a billion containers today
and no God - just our greed to restrain us.

Suppose just for fun you compress to dry ice
that's a 400 times lesser number
you can only half-fill 2.5 million containers
and you take to the arctic to slumber

That's 400 Emma Maersks container ships
that daily are loaded and depart
when the arctic was used up - what then would we do?
maybe think of our grandkids? - and get a heart?

Of course if you leave it CO2gas
that's 15000 containers per passage
so you'd need 66,666 Emma Maersks!  
now doesn't that send a clear message.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emma_Mærsk
Emma Maersk is the biggest container ship in the world 
I make it 
11000 containers at 14T each, 
or 6000 containers at 26T each
or 15000 containers at 10T each.

PS E&OE


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 December 2008)

NOVEMBER JACARANDAS - TO KIDS AT EXAM TIME

You cannot count the flowering jacarandas
whose Buddhist petals resonate to mantras
and purple drift down to the ground
make mattressed patches all around
you lie there without hint of sound
like a fantasy.

You wonder for these kids what fate will reason
who studied for this jacaranda season
as heralded by nature
what is out there to await ya
will they win or will life “mate ya”
like a chesspiece.

One can only pray that with this splash of colour
they will all do well in life as well as dollar
no more purple patches hide
in a future lived with pride
may they take it in their stride 
-  may joy follow.


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 December 2008)

...


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## 2020hindsight (16 December 2008)

HELL HATH NO FURY LIKE A SPURNED PLANET

It won’t be a gentle lapping , "let me in at this door, I’m the tide"
with the bulk of the people still napping, or enjoying a surfboard ride, 
no lullabys of some gambler-pseudo-scientist, who just gives the sick world a brief pat,
more … the claws of a changing tidal FIST – with the teeth of a cornered cat. 

add the rising storms to the rising mean - THEN we'll know where the sea level is at. !


----------



## 2020hindsight (19 December 2008)

... this one by a beautiful neice of mine 


> A POSY FOR A GRANDMOTHER WHO LOVED FLOWERS - AT HER FUNERAL SERVICE
> 
> If I were to arrange the perfect posy, to remember my Gran, it would comprise of :-
> 
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 December 2008)

This one written on some old letterhead stationery I used when I was importing solar cells in the 80's.  (too much too early as they say)


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 December 2008)

http://www.fullbooks.com/Poems-by-Adam-Lindsay-Gordon1.html
http://www.fullbooks.com/Poems-by-Adam-Lindsay-Gordon2.html
http://www.fullbooks.com/Poems-by-Adam-Lindsay-Gordon3.html
http://www.fullbooks.com/Poems-by-Adam-Lindsay-Gordon4.html
http://www.fullbooks.com/Poems-by-Adam-Lindsay-Gordon5.html
http://www.fullbooks.com/Poems-by-Adam-Lindsay-Gordon6.html

This one is one of myfavourite Adam Lindsay Gordon poems ..
pages 2 and  3 (above) :-
excerpts from …
The Roll of the Kettledrum; or, The Lay of the Last Charger

One line of swart profiles and bearded lips dressing,
One ridge of bright helmets, one crest of fair plumes,
One streak of blue sword-blades all bared for the fleshing,
One row of red nostrils that scent battle-fumes.

Forward! the trumpets were sounding the charge,
The roll of the kettledrum rapidly ran,
That music, like wild-fire spreading at large,
Madden'd the war-horse as well as the man.

Forward! still forward! we thunder'd along,
Steadily yet, for our strength we were nursing;
Tall Ewart, our sergeant, was humming a song,
Lance-corporal Black Will was blaspheming and cursing.

Open'd their volley of guns on our right,
Puffs of grey smoke, veiling gleams of red flame,
Curling to leeward, were seen on the height,
Where the batteries were posted, as onward we came.

Spreading before us their cavalry lay,
Squadron on squadron, troop upon troop;
We were so few, and so many were they --
Eagles wait calmly the sparrow-hawk's stoop.

Forward! still forward! steed answering steed
Cheerily neigh'd, while the foam flakes were toss'd
From bridle to bridle -- the top of our speed
Was gain'd, but the pride of our order was lost.

One was there leading by nearly a rood,
Though we were racing he kept to the fore,
Still as a rock in his stirrups he stood,
High in the sunlight his sabre he bore.

Suddenly tottering, backwards he crash'd,
Loudly his helm right in front of us rung;
Iron hoofs thunder'd, and naked steel flash'd
Over him -- youngest, where many were young.

Now we were close to them, every horse striding
Madly; -- St. Luce pass'd with never a groan; --
Sadly my master look'd round -- he was riding
On the boy's right, with a line of his own.

Thrusting his hand in his breast or breast-pocket,
While from his wrist the sword swung by a chain,
Swiftly he drew out some trinket or locket,
Kiss'd it (I think) and replaced it again.

Burst, while his fingers reclosed on the haft,
Jarring concussion and earth shaking din,
Horse 'counter'd horse, and I reel'd, but he laugh'd,
Down went his man, cloven clean to the chin!

Wedged in the midst of that struggling mass,
After the first shock, where each his foe singled,
Little was seen, save a dazzle, like glass
In the sun, with grey smoke and black dust intermingled.

Here and there redden'd a pistol shot, flashing
Through the red sparkle of steel upon steel!
Redder the spark seem'd, and louder the clashing,
Struck from the helm by the iron-shod heel!

Over fallen riders, like wither'd leaves strewing
Uplands in autumn, we sunder'd their ranks;
Steeds rearing and plunging, men hacking and hewing,
Fierce grinding of sword-blades, sharp goading of flanks.

Short was the crisis of conflict soon over,
Being too good (I suppose) to last long;
Through them we cut, as the scythe cuts the clover,
Batter'd and stain'd we emerg'd from their throng.

Some of our saddles were emptied, of course;
To heaven (or elsewhere) Black Will had been carried!
Ned Sullivan mounted Will's riderless horse,
His mare being hurt, while ten seconds we tarried.

And then we re-formed, and went at them once more,
And ere they had rightly closed up the old track,
We broke through the lane we had open'd before,
And as we went forward e'en so we came back.

Our numbers were few, and our loss far from small,
They could fight, and, besides, they were twenty to one;
We were clear of them all when we heard the recall,
And thus we returned, but my tale is not done.

For the hand of my rider felt strange on my bit,
He breathed once or twice like one partially choked,
And sway'd in his seat, then I knew he was hit; --
He must have bled fast, for my withers were soak'd,

And scarcely an inch of my housing was dry;
I slacken'd my speed, yet I never quite stopp'd,
Ere he patted my neck, said, "Old fellow, good-bye!"
And dropp'd off me gently, and lay where he dropp'd!

Ah, me! after all, they may call us dumb creatures --
I tried hard to neigh, but the sobs took my breath,
Yet I guess'd gazing down at those still, quiet features,
He was never more happy in life than in death.
….

Our gallant old colonel came limping and halting,
The day before yesterday, into my stall;
Oh! light to the saddle I've once seen him vaulting,
In full marching order, steel broadsword and all.

And now his left leg than his right is made shorter
Three inches, he stoops, and his chest is unsound;
He spoke to me gently, and patted my quarter,
I laid my ears back, and look'd playfully round.

For that word kindly meant, that caress kindly given,
I thank'd him, though dumb, but my cheerfulness fled;
More sadness I drew from the face of the living
Than years back I did from the face of the dead.

For the dead face, upturn'd, tranquil, joyous, and fearless,
Look'd straight from green sod to blue fathomless sky
With a smile; but the living face, gloomy and tearless,
And haggard and harass'd, look'd down with a sigh.

…
Scoff, man! egotistical, proud, unobservant,
Since I with man's grief dare to sympathise thus;
Why scoff? -- fellow-creature I am, fellow-servant
Of God, can man fathom God's dealings with us?

The wide gulf that parts us may yet be no wider
Than that which parts you from some being more blest;
And there may be more links 'twixt the horse and his rider
Than ever your shallow philosophy guess'd.

You are proud of your power, and vain of your courage,
And your blood, Anglo-Saxon, or Norman, or Celt;
Though your gifts you extol, and our gifts you disparage,
Your perils, your pleasures, your sorrows we've felt.

We, too, sprung from mares of the prophet of Mecca,
And nursed on the pride that was born with the milk,
And filtered through "Crucifix", "Beeswing", "Rebecca",
We love sheen of scarlet and shimmer of silk.

We, too, sprung from loins of the Ishmaelite stallions,
We glory in daring that dies or prevails;
From 'counter of squadrons, and crash of battalions,
To rending of blackthorns, and rattle of rails.

In all strife where courage is tested, and power,
From the meet on the hill-side, the horn-blast, the find,
The burst, the long gallop that seems to devour
The Champaign, all obstacles flinging behind,

To the cheer and the clarion, the war-music blended
With war-cry, the furious dash at the foe,
The terrible shock, the recoil, and the splendid
Bare sword, flashing blue, rising red from the blow.

I've borne ONE through perils where many have seen us,
No tyrant, a kind friend, a patient instructor,
And I've felt some strange element flashing between us,
Till the saddle seem'd turn'd to a lightning conductor.

Did he see? could he feel through the faintness, the numbness,
While linger'd the spirit half-loosed from the clay,
Dumb eyes seeking his in their piteous dumbness,
Dumb quivering nostrils, too stricken to neigh?

And what then? the colours reversed, the drums muffled,
The black nodding plumes, the dead march and the pall,
The stern faces, soldier-like, silent, unruffled,
The slow sacred music that floats over all!

Cross carbine and boar-spear, hang bugle and banner,
Spur, sabre, and snaffle, and helm -- Is it well?
Vain 'scutcheon, false trophies of Mars and Diana, --
Can the dead laurel sprout with the live immortelle?

It may be, -- we follow, and though we inherit
Our strength for a season, our pride for a span,
Say! vanity are they? vexation of spirit?
Not so, since they serve for a time horse and man.

They serve for a time, and they make life worth living,
In spite of life's troubles -- 'tis vain to despond;
Oh, man! WE at least, WE enjoy, with thanksgiving,
God's gifts on this earth, though we look not beyond.

YOU sin, and YOU suffer, and we, too, find sorrow,
Perchance through YOUR sin -- yet it soon will be o'er;
We labour to-day, and we slumber to-morrow,
Strong horse and bold rider! -- and WHO KNOWETH MORE?

* * * * *

In our barrack-square shouted Drill-sergeant M'Cluskie,
The roll of the kettledrum rapidly ran,
The colonel wheel'd short, speaking once, dry and husky,
"Would to God I had died with your master, old man!"


----------



## 2020hindsight (24 December 2008)

FIVE HUNDRED ODD POEMS. 

five Hundred odd poems about this and that,
Well certainly odder than most,
Nothing to really write home about, 
And certainly nothing to boast,
Grab at your heartstrings, or drag at your lead,
But most of ‘em breezy and light,
And those that are heavy or hard to read, 
It’s because they were easy to write.   

Five hundred poems when you add ‘em all up, (+)
The product of what I think, (x)
The critics divided twixt “maybe” and “nup”, ( / )
Or whether they bloodywell stink, 
Or whether you somehow could rescue the page,
If you’d just take away the ink, ( - ) 
Or the sum of decreasing mental age, (- - -)
And increasing time to think. ( + + +)
 - But in truth it’s a square on an empty stage,  ( ^2)
and a cubic TV on the blink.  (   ^3)

Five hundred poems about this and that,
And a few through the eyes of my dog, 
What we see in a bird or a fleeting cat, 
Or a rare and so-kissable frog,
And a few poems thrown in, well, just for a chat, 
Like the chimps in the family log, 
And a few more poems there, where my heart is at,      ,
Or my head after nights on the grog.

Some about Rugby World Cups and the like,
And sportsmen, their madness, their colours,
And some are a mixture of Shakespeare and Spike,
And Hamlet and all those great fellas;
Of dogs ever faithful, of war and of dove,
And photos of memories old,
The quandary of trees, and the quantum of love,
Rabid yarns that grow rapid with mould.

Five hundred poems about climate and warming,
And trying to live on the land,
Moonbeams and lightning, droughts and/or storming - 
Prayers in the hour glass sand;
Some there of bushfires and bites of a snake,
Of poet’s clubs, pathways and pollies,
Some there of gambling or taking a break,
Or a beer with a bunch of wallies.

Five hundred poems about love and lust, 
And the market that peaks and then crashes,
Five hundred poems about just and unjust, 
And big bangs and solar flashes;  
Cattle and satellites, kettles and rust,
And toasts with old mates and/or clashes,
That’s life my friend till our bones become dust,
And our writings are literally ashes.

Five hundred poems as I walked the odd mile,
And things that have caught my eye,
And things that have prompted a laugh or a smile,
And some that damned near made me cry,
Or just observing life’s o’er-flowing cup,
Or to quell the quill in the kid,
Merry Xmas, - till next year the quill is hung up,
And in parting, I dips me’ lid.​


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 December 2008)

> That’s life my friend till our bones become dust,
> And our writings are literally ashes.




or praps that should be ...

And our writings are literary ashes.? 

or maybe ...

And our writings are littery ashes.?


----------



## 2020hindsight (1 January 2009)

HOW TO DOUBLE YOUR MONEY 

To double your nickels or double your dimes
this is all (they say) you need do -
in these days of turbid and troubled times
try the rule of 72.

Just bet 6 bets at 12 per cent each, 
or otherwise 12 bets at 6
presto - double is where your account should reach
and get you out of a fix.

But don’t forget not to have any minuses
and a trade is a bet is a gamble 
they mess up the maths  - and your tears glands and sinuses
(they leave that bit out in the preamble). 



https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=275590


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## 2020hindsight (2 January 2009)

OPTIMISM ABOUT THE TREND FOR THE WORLD

why sure I’m optimistic 'bout the future of the planet
the kids will take the helm soon and it’s high time that they ran it
instead of dumb grandparents who will argue till they’re granite
they'll act on fossil burning, unlike fossils who just fan it.


----------



## 2020hindsight (9 January 2009)

LAST WORDS

The wording of a letter, from a parent to his kids
whether rich or poor or debtor,  at that moment when the skids
hit some hump upon the highway, that then bumps them ‘somewhere west’
- words sky-written in some ‘skyway’,  it’s that last and final test.


----------



## 2020hindsight (10 January 2009)

There's a quote by Mark Twain ...


> "We have not the reverent feeling for the rainbow that a savage has, because we know how it is made. We have lost as much as we gained by prying into that matter."
> - Mark Twain




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow


> My Heart Leaps Up When I Behold The Rainbow
> W. Wordsworth
> 
> My heart leaps up when I behold
> ...




"The Newtonian deconstruction of the rainbow is said to have provoked John Keats to lament in his 1820 poem "Lamia":"



> Do not all charms fly
> At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
> There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
> We know her woof, her texture; she is given
> ...




"In contrast to this is Richard Dawkins; talking about his book Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder:"



> "My title is from Keats, who believed that Newton had destroyed all the poetry of the rainbow by reducing it to the prismatic colours. Keats could hardly have been more wrong, and my aim is to guide all who are tempted by a similar view, towards the opposite conclusion. Science is, or ought to be, the inspiration for great poetry."



  Some top photos out there ..
http://www.jal.cc.il.us/~mikolajsawicki/rainbows.htm


> The primary rainbow results from a single internal reflection of refracted light inside a raindrop, and the secondary rainbow results from a double internal reflection. But the additional rainbows are not explainable by geometric optics, and hence had been termed "supernumerary".




As Descartes might have said (not) 
"Without geometry , life is pointless"


----------



## drillinto (10 January 2009)

The Poetry of Bad Weather
Debora Greger

Someone had propped a skateboard
by the door of the classroom,
to make quick his escape, come the bell.

For it was February in Florida,
the air of instruction thick with tanning butter.
Why, my students wondered,

did the great dead poets all live north of us?
Was there nothing to do all winter there
but pine for better weather?

Had we a window, the class could keep an eye
on the clock and yet watch the wild plum
nod with the absent grace of the young.

We could study the showy scatter of petals.
We could, for want of a better word, call it “snowy.”
The room filled with stillness, flake by flake.

Only the dull roar of air forced to spend its life indoors
could be heard. Not even the songbird
of a cell phone chirped.  Go home,

I wanted to tell the horse on the page.
You know the way, even in snow
gone blue with cold. 



from Southwest Review(USA), 2006 
Volume 91, Number 1, Page 90


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## 2020hindsight (11 January 2009)

A CENTURY OF CO2 CATCHING UP WITH US

Imagine a hundred room hostel 
and each door with a year embossed
we all live in each room
set the heaters to “doom”
then move on and monitor the cost.

Rooms we’ve lived in are left half ajar
so the warmth builds first near and then far; 
so how long does it take 
for a difference to make
and the 'hostel' starts to feel like a star?. 

The heat due to CO2 gases 
caused by man, in his myriad masses
takes a while to hit peak
just a fraction a week
but still builds slow and sure as time passes.

How long does it take for full warming?
how much in a year of gas forming?
- a fifth says the graph;   (** see note)
… in a hundred a half, 
and the rest whilst the locusts are swarming.
(and 'full' , long after man’s “reforming”).

As we look round to how the world’s shaping
we are reaping the effects of our raping
and there’s naught we can do 
for an increase of 2 (degC)
but at least leave a route for escaping. 
… 
give the critters their due
we have f***ed up times two
we must find a way somehow to plot a path through
or leave this world to the “lesser ape” we are aping.

(** Note. Some poetic licence taken here ...  Flannery, in the Introduction to The Weather Makers, says that the warming effects of CO2 (and other GHG's) is 

a) possibly twice as bad as allowed for to date, and
b) develops over the approx time frame as follows :-
"one third in the first few years
three quarters of the full warming will be felt within 250 years
and all within a millenium."

I've interpolated, very approx and not critical to the point, to get the 1 year and 100 year values -  20% and 50% resp)


----------



## drillinto (17 January 2009)

The Bat
Theodore Roethke

By day the bat is cousin to the mouse.
He likes the attic of an aging house.

His fingers make a hat about his head.
His pulse beat is so slow we think him dead.

He loops in crazy figures half the night
Among the trees that face the corner light.

But when he brushes up against a screen,
We are afraid of what our eyes have seen:

For something is amiss or out of place
When mice with wings can wear a human face. 



from Collected poems of Theodore Roethke
My Doubleday, 1938 (USA)


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## drillinto (8 June 2009)

For My Daughter
by David Ignatow

When I die choose a star
and name it after me
that you may know
I have not abandoned
or forgotten you.
You were such a star to me,
following you through birth
and childhood, my hand
in your hand.

When I die
choose a star and name it
after me so that I may shine
down on you, until you join
me in darkness and silence
together.


from Against the Evidence: Selected Poems 1934-1994
Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Conn., USA


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 July 2009)

following on from this one ..
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=174382

the same story set to verse ... (a loose definition of verse conceded)...

PETROLEUM JELLY JARS on the CITY2SURF

there are ambos at the 4K mark, and 8K and the 12
with a giant jar of jelly into which the world can delve
it's the cure for knee to navel, and the cure for tortured crutch 
and the runners queue for handfuls sighing "wow that helps so much" 

here's a handful for this dero with a super juicy loin
closely followed by applying it where legs and body join
here's another curried nether region - rub it round and fan it 
and a double dip by this girl cos her crutch is off the planet - 

then we all go bandy-legged to the next jar up the road
where we queue up like some beggers - one more "dobbed" three-finger load
yes it's marvellous this fun-run, with its sun and gorgeous weather ...
and we'll all get herpes, pregnant piles, and galloping thrush together.

only four weeks to go


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 July 2009)

Recently watched a great show about the latter days of the war - including USA ignoring Winston Churchill's advice to advance in the Balkans - and indeed, Churchill being on the outer of the Allied discussions about postwar Europe.  

TELL THE POLES THEY WERE FREED IF YOU DARE

Strange bedfellows war makes of strangers
where the mean justify any end
- shortsighted Yanks blind to dangers
and a Satanist Stalin for friend;
Whilst Winnie knew better than trust him
and pleaded more freedom for more flags 
the Yanks continued to filabust him
with gobbleygook garbage and gags.

There was only one "Ally" had been there
since the day that the war was declared
There was only one party had seen the injustice
of Poland in chains – or who cared;
One party alone saw the Nazi greed 
and foretold of the brutal red Bear.
Check with Balkans or Czechs, did the war see them freed?
Tell the Poles they were freed – if you dare!

You’d have to agree that when Russia changed sides
- or when “Barbarossa” changed their minds for them - 
that they subsequent pushed back the Nazi tides
albeit with minimal decorum; 
And you’d have to agree that the Yanks had the numbers
once the sleep was removed from their eyes
once “Tora” awoke hidden “truth” from its slumbers
after which they were knee deep! – surprise!

Hey, Winnie alone did not win the war 
but he could have done better if cloned,
If the Yanks had foreseen what would happen in Warsaw
when the war saw them Soviet-owned; 
If Winnie'd been wrong about post war Russia
or the Yanks has listened to his advice,
we'd have been the first to enter Vienna
and halved the cold war price. 

vodka bedfellow's breath, (much like trusting Macbeth),
such a bridal-price - vampire - not nice .


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 July 2009)

.................................
Continuing in the same vein...

WORLD WAR II,  1941 to 1945 (According to the Yanks and the Russians). 
IF IT WEREN’T FOR REDBEARD AND THE TIGER



> “Barbarossa” = code name for the Nazi attack on Russia, 22 Jun 1941 = named after Emperor Frederick Barbarossa,  King of Germany, thence of (northern) Italy, and of Burgundy,  Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, 1122-1190, died by drowning leading the Third Crusade.  … The name Barbarossa came from the northern Italian cities he attempted to rule, and means "red beard".
> 
> “Tora” =  Japanese code name for attack on Pearl Harbour, 7 Dec 1941 = Tiger.
> “Tora Tora Tora” = successful strike



If it weren’t for “Red Beard” and the “Tiger”, 
they would never have joined Winnie’s cause 
did that stop them excluding old Winnie
from their plans for the USSR?
Preferring that soldiers lay idly by (1943-4) 
instead of a Balkan advance
Yanks ignored old Winnie’s empassioned cry
for a stronger negotiating stance. 

If it weren’t for the British codebreakers
who did all the basic deducting
From Kharkov to Kursk they’d have met their makers 
(helped by Hitler’s compulsive conducting);
From Normandy and over the River Seine 
they’d have lost many more who battled
yet they left Winnie out of the postwar game 
and the world with incompetence saddled.

If it weren’t for “Red Beard” and the “Tiger”, 
full twenty months into the war 
they’d have stayed on the side with no virtue or pride
neither backbone not guts and no core; 
Strange bedfellows indeed, Yanks, Poms and Russians,
and full strange how their history unfolds
but for virtuous ways, I’d take poms any day 
and the commonwealth of Britain holds. 

If it weren’t for “Red Beard” and the “Tiger”,
there’d be Britain alone in the fight
plus some lost Grecian souls and some Croats and Poles 
and some whisky-filled bulldogs to bite;
and some Commonwealth hacks, Aussies, Kiws, Canaks
against Hitler and all of his might !
had they lost to the hun, there’d be buga all fun
and the world would have turned sharp right. 



> Dates on which independent states joined the Allies:-
> 
> After the invasion of Poland·
> Poland: 1 September 1939
> ...


----------



## 2020hindsight (11 July 2009)

THE SENATE ESTIMATES ON UTEGATE

how tortuous and fractured, and/or back-room-manufactured
were the puffy-cheeked disclosures of the gulping Godwin Grech
memories far-fetched, half etched, half-lapsed, with that clever rider "praps...
and praps again I may be wrong, it's just the vaguest sketch".

maybe half truthed? - maybe tutored? spoken half aloud but muted?
but it all became so neutered when the email turned out fake. 
now i'm guessing he is hopin' that the floor will somehow open 
and the words that he had spoken, would dissolve
 ... for pity's sake. 

and it's interesting that Howard , was the arguable coward
cos he changed the public service to his lackies when he won
whereas Rudd just trusted each - that includes one Godwin Grech
and it's interesting which hunter/hunted finally came undone.


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 July 2009)

wayneL said:


> To the bloke whose hindsight is clear
> And a propensity for Obama to cheer
> Will you hang your head in shame
> When the sea level is the same
> ...




You ask sir will I apologise
If my forecast doesn’t come true?
...
Hell yes I will ! – if the sea doesn’t rise
But if it does – then the sorry's on you?


----------



## 2020hindsight (16 July 2009)

Sitting in an almost forgotten Restaurant with Die Lorelei in the distance. 

The city sprawls like Die Lorelei
on the far side of the lake
like a girl I recall from days gone by
and a conquest I'll never make,
It's one of those things you long learnt to accept
we were close in a bygone era
and we parted just friends (how Jesus wept)
yet I wonder if lovers were nearer.

A memory of a previously forgotten page
and some price long settled and paid
from those times when the red blood stormed and raged
now those ravenous bloodcells fade;
though I tried my best to swing her around
she remained rather sadly unswayed,
she was once the unmade Die Lorelie maid
lovely "lady-of-old-never-laid"


----------



## Garpal Gumnut (16 July 2009)

Rain Dogs by Tom Waits.



Inside a broken clock
Splashing the wine with all the rain dogs
Taxi, we'd rather walk
Huddle a doorway with the rain dogs
For I am a rain dog too

Oh, how we danced and we swallowed the night
For it was all ripe for dreaming
Oh, how we danced away all of the lights
We've always been out of our minds

The rum pours strong and thin
Beat out the dustman with the rain dogs
Aboard a shipwreck train
Give my umbrella to the rain dogs
For I am a rain dog too

Oh, how we danced with the Rose of Tralee
Her long hair black as a raven
Oh, how we danced and you whispered to me
You'll never be going back home

Oh, how we danced with the Rose of Tralee
Her long hair black as a raven
Oh, how we danced and you whispered to me
You'll never be going back home

Written by: Tom Waits

gg


----------



## ivant (17 July 2009)

Garpal Gumnut said:


> Rain Dogs by Tom Waits.
> 
> 
> 
> ...




Oooh I love Tom Waits. Especially his earlier stuff. The 1972 gig "Nighthawks at the Diner" is amazing . Here is from his newer stuff: Alice

It's dreamy weather we're on
You waved your crooked wand
Along an icy pond with a frozen moon
A murder of silhouette crows I saw
And the tears on my face
And the skates on the pond
They spell Alice

I disappear in your name
But you must wait for me
Somewhere across the sea
There's a wreck of a ship
Your hair is like meadow grass on the tide
And the raindrops on my window
And the ice in my drink
Baby all I can think of is Alice

Arithmetic arithmetock
Turn the hands back on the clock
How does the ocean rock the boat?
How did the razor find my throat?
The only strings that hold me here
Are tangled up around the pier

And so a secret kiss
Brings madness with the bliss
And I will think of this
When I'm dead in my grave
Set me adrift and I'm lost over there
And I must be insane
To go skating on your name
And by tracing it twice
I fell through the ice
Of Alice

And so a secret kiss
Brings madness with the bliss
And I will think of this
When I'm dead in my grave
Set me adrift and I'm lost over there
And I must be insane
To go skating on your name
And by tracing it twice
I fell through the ice
Of Alice
There's only Alice


----------



## Garpal Gumnut (17 July 2009)

ivant said:


> Oooh I love Tom Waits. Especially his earlier stuff. The 1972 gig "Nighthawks at the Diner" is amazing . Here is from his newer stuff: Alice
> 
> It's dreamy weather we're on
> You waved your crooked wand
> ...




Thanks ivant mate, Tom Waits crosses poetry, rock, country and just being different , poor and ****ed up.

So I thought I'd start a thread just on Tom Waits and I'd appreciate your input in to that thread.

We'll probably get lots of utubes and mp3s but the words particularly , and the music are equally important.

All one armed dwarfs and one legged puerto ricans are particularly invited to the thread, as are you and me and everyman and everywoman. 

What a genius Tom Waits.

gg


----------



## 2020hindsight (17 July 2009)

(This is actually a true story - well , as told to me by a bloke in a pub - allegedly back in the early days of settling the NW of WA, there was a bloke and his dog lost in the desert for a while - and they survived by him cutting off the dog's tail, eating the flesh, and feeding the dog the bones )

BUTCH THE STUB TAILED CATTLEDOG.

It was an ancient stockman Tom, who was stopped by one in three,
A tourist bus from the land of Pom, that was parked by a desert pea,
He climbed down from his dust covered horse,  let him graze in a roadside ditch,
And there he gave this wild discourse, of the tale of his old dog Butch.

“You ask why Butch has a supershort tail?, it’s a story long but true,
If you’d care to pass me a nut-brown ale, I’ll share that tale with you”,
The dog sat near as he drank his beer, he’d heard this yarn before,
T’was a yarn he kinda liked to hear, and he rested his head on his paw.

“We were out in the bush old Butch and I, it was super hot that summer,
And the horse dropped dead and the well was dry, and I said to Butch ‘what a bummer’”
Long since out of grog, and a week had past, since food has passed their lips,
And he feared that the dog had panted his last, in the shadow of his boney hips. 

“So wadda we do, old mate so true, old Butch old faithful hound?
Then I saw that tail- THAT’s what I must do! -  and I chopped !!! – what a horrible sound. -
YELP – 
Butch scampered this way, that way and back, and circled himself till he’s dizzy,
… and I chewed on the fleshy parts for a snack, and the bones kept old Butch’s jaws busy.

“I said to Butch ‘Sorry mate for the fright, but the feed has helped to fill ya’
Even Butch had enjoyed that interesting bite – like ‘Y’know , this tastes familiar(?)’
And as luck would have it, that very night the rain came down, we were saved, 
And we found this box of Turkish Delight, and the chopper came past, and we waved.

“So that’s why old Butch has a shortened rump, and he never leaves my side
And it’s why he wags what’s left of the stump, when I jump on the horse for a ride, 
Though I have to admit, when my hunter’s knife blade is unsheathed he’s a bit downbeat, 
Then he sits down firm  on the scar I made, when  we shared that tail for a treat.


----------



## 2020hindsight (25 July 2009)

THE PRODIGAL QUARTER-ADOPTED SON

I once drank only chalice wine
If I didn't then I copped it
I then drank beer from a heathen's stein
if I saw a quart then I popped it.
Now ? - if JC's the son then I'm in between 
like I'm sorta - "quarter adopted"
but,
I remember ONE message my eyes have seen
from the many helicoptered.

I can still detect truth in my step-brother's eyes
(though I don't bang the drum in his choir)
when he said to forgive brings the greatest highs
and will raise life on earth even higher,
I compare other lessons that I may have learnt
to the healing of forgiveness's fire
It's a great fire that, cos you don't get burnt
Well - unless you're calling Jesus a liar.


----------



## 2020hindsight (26 July 2009)

http://www.marsupialsociety.org/marsupial_poetry_new.htm



> An amusing poem about the wombat which, as we know, has the unfortunate trait of creating square droppings (scats)





> THE WOMBAT, B. Tate, 1982
> 
> As you splash along the track
> Eyes alert and ears pinned back
> ...


----------



## Gordon Gekko (26 August 2009)

Snif Snif!!

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 feet 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*

Robert Frost


----------



## nulla nulla (27 August 2009)

Ah Flo I love you so,
especially in your nightie.
When the moonlight flits,
across your t1ts, 
Jesus Christ almighty.


Spike Milligan.."Small Dreams of a Scorpion".


----------



## Anastasia (21 September 2009)

Thought I would share with you  a poem my little 11 year old niece wrote recently. She often just takes a pen to paper and within minutes turns out a beautiful, sometimes very moving poem...not sure where she gets it from...another mystery in life.


Storms
Emotional storms
Churning
Erupting
Confusing
Your stomach lurches
Your head spins
Starting to sweat
You faint.

Sandstorms
Twisting
Flicking and flinging
Spiralling into the sun
Breaking the forever silence
That looms over the unbroken golden landscape
Slowing down
All that is left in the sand once again.

Thunderstorms
Rain crashes
On my window
Thunder roars
Rumbles across the sea of clouds
Blanketing the earth in its mist
Lightning flashes
Lighting the darkness of the endless night.​


----------



## white_crane (27 September 2009)

Your niece seems to be a very intelligent and creative little girl.   Good luck to her


----------



## Gordon Gekko (29 October 2009)

“The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”

JK


----------



## 2020hindsight (12 November 2009)

worthy of consideration when inducting newbies to a construction site or factory etc...


> I CHOSE TO LOOK THE OTHER WAY.
> (Anonymous)
> 
> It wasn’t that I didn’t care, I had the time and I was there,
> ...


----------



## Garpal Gumnut (12 November 2009)

2020hindsight said:


> worthy of consideration when inducting newbies to a construction site or factory etc...




Good one 2020.

Welcome back mate.

gg


----------



## noirua (12 November 2009)

2020hindsight said:


> worthy of consideration when inducting newbies to a construction site or factory etc...




Fits into a lot more things in life 2020.  I've walked away a lot of times and regret it now, as there's no going back - good luck noi


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 November 2009)

noirua said:


> Fits into a lot more things in life 2020.  I've walked away a lot of times and regret it now, as there's no going back - good luck noi



thanx noi (and gg)
you're right - I suppose it would also be appropriate to stick a copy (small font) on the wall beside the breathtester machine in the local pub


----------



## Wysiwyg (13 November 2009)

Garpal Gumnut said:


> Good one 2020.
> 
> Welcome back mate.
> 
> gg




From me too. You do remember me, don't you?


----------



## 2020hindsight (13 November 2009)

Wysiwyg said:


> From me too. You do remember me, don't you?




wys, howdy lol.
"he who talks of a few hundred million light years as if it was just yesterday" - err make that just around the corner ; = cheers , here's cosmic mud in your eye :bier:
https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=155715


----------



## Wysiwyg (13 November 2009)

2020hindsight said:


> wys, howdy lol.
> "he who talks of a few hundred million light years as if it was just yesterday" - err make that just around the corner ; = cheers , here's cosmic mud in your eye :bier:
> https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=155715



Dust to mud? 

You should see the additions to "Big Bang Theory and Matters Astronomical"

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/f...ighlight=Big+Bang+Theory+Matters+Astronomical


----------



## noirua (21 November 2009)

I :walker: along a very rough road
and thought it's :cuckoo: to vote,
Then I spied a very bad  :samurai:
sat down, held ear, found a :bowser:
http://www.thebull.com.au/the_stockies_list.php?c=Forums


----------



## bunyip (21 May 2010)

We've all received emails from our friends, warning of us life's hazards. 
I thought back to all the warnings I've been sent over the years, and thought I'd have a go at incorporating them in a light-hearted poem. 


*Paranoia (by Bunyip)*

Greetings to my cyber friends
I wish you all good cheer
And thank you for the messages
You’ve sent to me this year
But all your well-meant warnings 
Of risks I should avoid
Have well and truly screwed me up
And left me paranoid

I now wear gloves to open doors
A caution I think wise
In case I catch a deadly germ
That causes my demise

The little snacks I once enjoyed
No longer can I savour
They're full of cancer-causing fats
That give them all their flavour

A slice of lemon peel in drinks
Is risky now I feel
I'm worried that bacteria
Pollute the lemon peel 

I’m terrified of carcinogens
I won’t use body sprays
My odour rivals any skunk
On hot and humid days

To touch a woman's purse I feel
Could lead me to my doom
She may have placed it on the floor
In some unwashed bathroom

I’ve warned my wife she cannot talk
To friendly car park strangers
They'll drug her with some perfume
And put her life in danger

My mobile I don't answer
In case the call's a con
That slugs me with a massive bill
For phone calls to Saigon

I hear that drivers pick their nose
Forgive me if I feel
I cannot shake your hand if you
Have been behind the wheel

The cockroach poo in envelope glue
I find most unappealing
Now I use a dampened sponge
When envelopes need sealing

Remote controls in hotel rooms
They cause me consternation
I don’t know who was doing what
While scanning adult stations

And hotel bedspreads fill me too
With thoughts of dread and gloom
To think what happened on them
Before I booked the room

My once abundant savings
Have suffered steep decline
I gave them to that dying girl
Whose died a thousand times

But never mind - I’ll soon receive
The sum of 15 grand
From William Gates of Microsoft
A truly generous man
It’s just his way of saying thanks
As only Billy can
For my participation in
His special email program

You've told me Coke lifts stubborn stains
From in the toilet bowl
I used to drink it every day
I liked it icy cold
Now I never touch  it
I fear that it may cause
My stomach lining to decay
And break out into sores

I shun all public toilets
They chill me to my feet
Since learning of the spiders
That lurk beneath their seats
They’re waiting to attack me from
The dank and dark interior
And sink their deadly fangs into
My delicate posterior

I won’t fuel up my car alone
I take a friend along
To watch my vehicle closely
I know I could be wrong
And yet I feel there’s every chance
A psychopath or two
Could quietly sneak into my car 
And hide himself from view

My garden is neglected now
Because of your advice
That deadly Queensland Funnelwebs
Could easily end my life
They’re lurking under every bush
And fern and flower and tree
Waiting for their chance to strike
And make an end of me

The coin returns on public phones 
Can harbour bad surprises 
A needle prick could be the start
Of some unpleasant crisis
I never put my hand in them
I treat them like the plague
Better to be careful
Than risk contracting AIDS

I used to be a hardy chap
Of iron constitution
Now I fear I’m headed for
A mental institution 

You’ve told me not to worry
To calm my grave concerns
You’ve pointed out that scores of angels
Guide my every turn
But still I’m fearful every day
That I may yet succumb
To some insidious bug or germ
Or needle, knife or gun

My friends – I ask a favour
If ever you should hear
Of dreadful risks to people who
Partake of sex or beer 
Keep the info to yourselves
I ask that you don’t tell 
I’d hate to see my last two pleasures
Disappear as well !


----------



## nunthewiser (21 May 2010)

Thankyou Bunyip.


----------



## Gringotts Bank (26 July 2011)

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

-- William Shakespeare


----------



## pixel (26 July 2011)

Beautiful poem, Bunyip 

So beautiful, I had to email it to scores of friends - and received one Greeting back, which runs along similar lines, just not as neatly ripper-rhymed as yours.



> My heartfelt appreciation goes out to all of you who have taken the time and trouble to send me “forwards” over the past 12 months.
> 
> 
> Thank you for making me feel safe, secure, blessed, and wealthy.
> ...


----------



## Sdajii (26 July 2011)

Haikus are stupid
Commonly they make no sense
Refrigerator


----------



## Logique (27 July 2011)

Anastasia said:


> Thought I would share with you  a poem my little 11 year old niece...
> Storms
> Emotional storms
> Churning
> ...



ASF has a poetry thread? Well anyway, Anastasia that's something from an 11 yro. Your niece has talent, encourage her.


----------



## Gringotts Bank (30 September 2011)

Been reading some Mark Twain.  

Not poetry, but where else to post this magnificent piece of writing, the final chapter from_ The Mysterious Stranger?_ Perhaps the religion thread.  This is chapter 11.   Enjoy!


Chapter 11


For as much as a year Satan continued these visits, but at last he came less often, and then for a long time he did not come at all. This always made me lonely and melancholy. I felt that he was losing interest in our tiny world and might at any time abandon his visits entirely. When one day he finally came to me I was overjoyed, but only for a little while. He had come to say good-by, he told me, and for the last time. He had investigations and undertakings in other corners of the universe, he said, that would keep him busy for a longer period than I could wait for his return.

"And you are going away, and will not come back any more?"

"Yes," he said. "We have comraded long together, and it has been pleasant--pleasant for both; but I must go now, and we shall not see each other any more."

"In this life, Satan, but in another? We shall meet in another, surely?"

Then, all tranquilly and soberly, he made the strange answer, "There is no other."

A subtle influence blew upon my spirit from his, bringing with it a vague, dim, but blessed and hopeful feeling that the incredible words might be true--even must be true.

"Have you never suspected this, Theodor?"

"No. How could I? But if it can only be true--"

"It is true."

A gust of thankfulness rose in my breast, but a doubt checked it before it could issue in words, and I said, "But--but--we have seen that future life--seen it in its actuality, and so--"

"It was a vision--it had no existence."

I could hardly breathe for the great hope that was struggling in me. "A vision? --a vi--"

"Life itself is only a vision, a dream."

It was electrical. By God! I had had that very thought a thousand times in my musings!

"Nothing exists; all is a dream. God--man--the world--the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars--a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space--and you!"

"I!"

"And you are not you--you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. I myself have no existence; I am but a dream--your dream, creature of your imagination. In a moment you will have realized this, then you will banish me from your visions and I shall dissolve into the nothingness out of which you made me....

"I am perishing already--I am failing--I am passing away. In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever--for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!

"Strange! that you should not have suspected years ago--centuries, ages, eons, ago! --for you have existed, companionless, through all the eternities. Strange, indeed, that you should not have suspected that your universe and its contents were only dreams, visions, fiction! Strange, because they are so frankly and hysterically insane--like all dreams: a God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice and invented hell--mouths mercy and invented hell--mouths Golden Rules, and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man's acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites this poor, abused slave to worship him!...

"You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks--in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier.

"It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream--a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought--a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities!"

He vanished, and left me appalled; for I knew, and realized, that all he had said was true.


----------



## wayneL (24 December 2011)

Christchurch had yet another serious earthquake yesterday (two actually) which prompted this from yours truly:


A Peculiarly Cantabrian Christmas

(Written vicariously from the North Island (with some inspiration from CC Moore and AJ Patterson))

'Twas two days before Christmas,when all through the house 
Not a thing was stirring, not even a mouse 
The stockings were hung though chimney not there(1)
In the hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there 

Then all of the sudden just out to sea(2)
There was a rumbling noise, what could it be? 
We all knew at once, just what is was 
Another bloody 'quake, let's head for the doors! 

The ground under our feet started to heave 
And everyone was thinking now, this town we must leave 
The Earth spewed up from under the sand 
And spread it's foulness all over the land(3)

It was all over as soon as it started 
and the cracks in our houses increasingly parted 
Then a little bit later about a quarter to four 
Mother nature dished up just a little bit more 

Our nerves are frazzled, our spirit down the sink 
It's quite enough to drive a person to drink 
Yet our pluck is still undaunted, our courage strong and sure 
This will not break us, never yet was a Cantabrian a cur. 

So we will carry on with Christmas, whatever Earth sends 
We'll celebrate as usual, with family and friends 
And as we think of the people from across Cook Straits(4)
We will feel special wishes from three million good mates(5)


(1)After the first two major quakes, many people's brick chimneys collapsed.

(2)The epicenter of the quakes was just offshore fro Christcurch

(3)Liquifaction (silt and water rising from underground) has been a major feature of each major quake

(4)Cook Strait is the body of water separating the North Island from the South Island

(5)The approximate population of the North Island


----------



## Julia (24 December 2011)

That's a nice thought, Wayne.  Poor Christchurch.  They were just starting to hope it was all falling into the past.


----------



## pixel (25 January 2012)

Sometimes, in some post or opinion blog, some of us may come across as a "Crabby old Man;" or Woman, for that matter; or even a "Crabby old Tomcat" like me.
For all those occasions, here is a fitting poem that an old mate sent me today. Please also read the story surrounding it: even though I can't vouch for its veracity, it does add to the poem's impact.

*When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in North Platte, Nebraska, it was believed that he had nothing  left of any value. Later, when the nurses were going through his meager  possessions, they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the  staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital. One  nurse took her copy to Missouri.*
*
The old man's  sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the  News Magazine of the St.  Louis Association for Mental Health. A slide  presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent,  poem.

And this little old man, with nothing left to give to the  world, is now the author of this 'anonymous' poem winging across the  Internet.**

Crabby Old  Man*
_
What do you  see nurses? . . .. .. . What do you see?
What are you thinking . . . . . when  you're looking at me?
A crabby old man . . . . . not very wise,
Uncertain  of habit . . . . . with faraway eyes?

Who dribbles his food . . . .. .  and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . . . . . 'I do wish you'd  try!'
Who seems not to notice . . . . . the things that you do.
And  forever is losing . . . . . A sock or shoe?

Who, resisting or not . . . .  . lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . . . The long day to  fill?
Is that what you're thinking? .. . . . . Is that what you see?
Then  open your eyes, nurse . . . . . you're not looking at me.

I'll tell you  who I am. . . . . . As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, . . . .  . as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten . . .. . . with a father  and mother,
Brothers and sisters . . . . . who love one another.

A  young boy of Sixteen . . . . with wings on his feet.
Dreaming that soon now .  . . . . a lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . . .. my heart gives  a leap.
Remembering, the vows . . . . . that I promised to keep.

At  Twenty-Five, now . . . . . I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . .  . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . . . . . My young now grown  fast,
Bound to each other .. . . .. . With ties that should last.

At  Forty, my young sons . .. . . . have grown and are gone,
But my woman's  beside me . . . .. . to see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, babies play  'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . . My loved one and  me.

Dark days are upon me . . . . . my wife is now dead.
I look at the  future . . . . . shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing . . . . .  young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . .. . and the love that  I've known.

I'm now an old man . . . . . and nature is cruel.
Tis jest  to make old age . . . . . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles . . . . .  grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone . . . . where I once had a  heart.

But inside this old carcass . . . . . a young guy still  dwells,
And now and again . . . . . my battered heart swells.
I remember  the joys . . . . . I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . . .  life over again.

I think of the years, all too few . . . . . gone too  fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . . that nothing can last.
So open  your eyes, people . . . . . open and see.
Not a crabby old man . . . Look  closer . . . see ME!!_

*Remember this  poem when you next meet**
an older person,  whom you might brush aside
without looking at the young soul within.
We  will all, one day, be there, too!*


----------



## Joules MM1 (23 May 2012)

prose 2011/12

http://www.readability.com/read?url..._forum.php?action=show_thread&threadid=676328


----------



## burglar (24 May 2012)

Joules MM1 said:


> prose 2011/12
> 
> http://www.readability.com/read?url..._forum.php?action=show_thread&threadid=676328




Suite


----------



## MrBurns (24 May 2012)

pixel said:


> Sometimes, in some post or opinion blog, some of us may come across as a "Crabby old Man;" or Woman, for that matter; or even a "Crabby old Tomcat" like me.
> For all those occasions, here is a fitting poem that an old mate sent me today. Please also read the story surrounding it: even though I can't vouch for its veracity, it does add to the poem's impact.




Excellent


----------



## burglar (24 May 2012)

The F Word

Fervid Frazzled Fertilized Female
 Frenzied Frenetic & Ferocious
  Full of fight Fermenting Fractious
	   Fearing Fatally Flawed Foetus 

	     Feebleminded Financial Fat-Cats &
	      Futilitarian Forelock-Tugging Foremen
	       Felicitously Force-feed Foul Furnace Fumes &
	        Fetid Foundry Fallout over Forest Fell & Fen

          Fatalistic Freeholder Feels Foreboding
           Foretells of Fallacious Fact-finding Fakirs
            Fathomless Foolhardiness Fuelled & Fanned
             Forecasts Flaring Flaming Full-frontal Fray


----------



## burglar (25 May 2012)

burglar said:


> The F Word ...




Probably needs explaining !?

In the winter of 1999, a pregnant woman pitched a tent outside the council office to protest over the foundry fumes falling on the primary school and her residence.

After 3 weeks, she ended her protest due to extreme weather.


----------



## Joules MM1 (11 August 2012)

you know, sometimes, just sometimes
that thing
out the corner of the eye
walking past the kitchen window
there....again....in the periphery
a blue-on-blue purple bloom

a wash, like a handful of flour hitting the bench-top
that whisper
never paid attention to before
like odd socks in the drawer, you say
serenading the blackness with a quiet inside, you say
and that's true, we say

eventide arrives slowly
evenfall ends quickly
even now, in the silhouette of laughter, you'll smile.......

(c) joules 11/08/12

for noirua


----------



## Julia (11 August 2012)

Joules MM1 said:


> you know, sometimes, just sometimes
> that thing
> out the corner of the eye
> walking past the kitchen window
> ...



ASF people keep surprising me.  Touching and lovely, joules.


----------



## Joules MM1 (15 September 2012)

Ruble of the North

jingled in his pocket
a kopec of a hundred moments
sabres  a Northern Song
sherper Shenjah sits
roasting a skinned rodent
a hiss of fat, a felt of snow on flame

a solemn squint

that peak, you see it?
over there
that peak
you sit on that peak
look
see that peak?
the cold here is warmer still....

sharp! the wind ran a copper whiff
Shenja whipped his head toward
......nothing.....
nothing and that peak
over there

and they sang
a rebellious Ruble facing north

(c) joules 15/09/12


----------



## MrBurns (10 October 2012)

When the shearing sheds are silent and the stock camps fallen quiet 
  When the gidgee coals no longer glow across the outback night 
  And the bush is forced to hang a sign, 'gone broke and won't be back' 
  And spirits fear to find a way beyond the beaten track 
  When harvesters stand derelict upon the wind swept plains 
  And brave hearts pin their hopes no more on chance of loving rains 
  When a hundred outback settlements are ghost towns overnight 
  When we've lost the drive and heart we had to once more see us right 
  When 'Pioneer' means a stereo and 'Digger' some backhoe 
  And the 'Outback' is behind the house, there's nowhere else to go 
  And 'Anzac' is a biscuit brand and probably foreign owned 
  And education really means brainwashed and neatly cloned 
  When you have to bake a loaf of bread to make a decent crust 
  And our heritage once enshrined in gold is crumbling to dust 
  And old folk pay their camping fees on land for which they fought 
  And fishing is a great escape; this is until you're caught 
  When you see our kids with yankee caps and resentment in their eyes 
  And the soaring crime and hopeless hearts is no longer a surprise 
  When the name of RM Williams is a yuppie clothing brand 
  Not a product of our heritage that grew off the land 
  When offering a hand makes people think you'll amputate 
  And two dogs meeting in the street is what you call a 'Mate' 
  When 'Political Correctness' has replaced all common sense 
  When you're forced to see it their way, there's no sitting on the fence 
  Yes one day you might find yourself an outcast in this land 
  Perhaps your heart will tell you then, '. I should have made a stand' 
  Just go and ask the farmers that should remove all doubt 
  Then join the swelling ranks who say, 'don't sell Australia out' 

  Author unknown


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## Gringotts Bank (10 October 2012)

Joules MM1 said:


> you know, sometimes, just sometimes
> that thing
> out the corner of the eye
> walking past the kitchen window
> ...




Hmm, very nice.  Any others?


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## burglar (1 September 2014)

Spring is here.
The grass is riz.
Wonder where
the birdies is?

Anon.


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## bellenuit (17 September 2014)

A beautiful poem recently written by Clive James as he faces his imminent death.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/15/japanese-maple


*Japanese Maple*


_Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:

Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?

Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there,
Beyond my time, but now I take my share.

My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that. That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:

Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone._


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## Joules MM1 (16 August 2015)

eden-green


what is it like to look at these paintings ?

"oh, nourishing"

sunflower laughs, crying for a cupla seasons...

when does the eden-green splendour?

"as the Aoud players are listened-to again"

there's a turn coming in the narrow trickle,
ripples, apples the horses chew
there's a turn coming where the sand stewed

there's yearns leaving in gushing gruel
shy eye-brows smile to that youth
there's a return touching 

"with you?"
....returning with you​
(c) Julian C-T 16/08/15


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## McLovin (17 August 2015)

Very nice, Joules.


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## Tisme (17 August 2015)

I wrote a long poem for my wife's eulogy and later wrote a little poem after having commissioned an oil painting to remember her by. I have scrubbed her name .... here's my little one ...  I hope there is a reunion after death coz I miss my best friend.






> _There’s a picture in the hall
> It’s a portrait of you
> Such a beautiful face
> Staring lovingly back at me
> ...


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## Joules MM1 (22 August 2015)

as august


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## pixel (17 September 2015)

I received this reminder from a friend today:

Mulga Bill's Bicycle

'TWAS Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"
"See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
I'm good all round at everything, as everybody knows,
Although I'm not the one to talk - I hate a man that blows.

"But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wild cat can it fight.
There's nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There's nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof or wheel,
But what I'll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight;
I'll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight."

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
That perched above the Dead Man's Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But ere he'd gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver streak,
It whistled down the awful slope towards the Dead Man's Creek.

It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
But Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, clung tight to every bound.
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then, as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek,
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dead Man's Creek.

'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore:
He said, "I've had some nearer shaves and lively rides before;
I've rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five-pound bet,
But that was sure the darndest ride that I've encountered yet.
I'll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; it's shaken all my nerve
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
It's safe at rest in Dead Man's Creek - we'll leave it lying still;
A horse's back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill."

_Andrew Barton Paterson_


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## noirua (29 July 2018)

*Current Status:*
ASF share competition: https://www.aussiestockforums.com/t...g-competition-entry-thread.34114/#post-989958

Maybe this should be poetry:


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## noirua (27 March 2021)

> For traitors on the block should die;
> I am no traitor, no, not I!
> My faithfulness stands fast and so,
> Towards the block I shall not go!
> ...



Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury - 1473 - 1541

Born14 August 1473
Farleigh Hungerford Castle, Somerset, EnglandDied27 May 1541 (aged 67)
Tower of London, London, England
Her son, Reginald Pole, said that he would "never fear to call himself the son of a martyr". She was later regarded by Catholics as such and was beatified on 29 December 1886 by Pope Leo XIII. She is commemorated in the dedication of the Church of Our Lady Queen of Peace & Blessed Margaret Pole in Southbourne, Bournemouth, England.
Margaret was buried in the chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula within the Tower of London. Her remains were uncovered when the chapel was renovated in 1876.








						Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury - Wikipedia
					






					en.wikipedia.org


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## noirua (21 April 2021)

DON’T MISS ME MORE THAN ONCE A DAY
Don’t miss me more than once a day,
For life is moving fast.
Don’t wish all of your time away,
Dreaming of the past.

Don’t waste the moment looking at,
The things I left behind me.
I’m not there anymore my love,
Your heart is where you’ll find me.

Don’t dread to say my name, sweet one,
Don’t fear the wrath of sadness.
Just take the love you had for me,
And turn it into gladness.

Some days your anger will rush out,
Your tears will find their way.
To me, wherever I am then,
I’ll soothe them all away.

When I am gone don’t miss me more,
Than once, or twice a day.
There’s so much life to live, my love.
I’m with you, all the way.
Donna Ashworth (p63 ‘History Will Remember )


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