ASF Poetry Thread

[BIG BWACULL]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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."

To understand "The Tyger" fully, you need to know Blake's symbols. One of the central themes in his major works is that of the Creator as a blacksmith. This is both God the Creator (personified in Blake's myth as Los) and Blake himself (again with Los as his alter-ego.) Blake identified God's creative process with the work of an artist. And it is art that brings creation to its fulfillment -- by showing the world as it is, by sharpening perception, by giving form to ideas.

Blake's story of creation differs from the Genesis account. The familiar world was created only after a cosmic catastrophe. When the life of the spirit was reduced to a sea of atoms, the Creator set a limit below which it could not deteriorate farther, and began creating the world of nature. The longer books that Blake wrote describe Los's creation of animals and people within the world of nature. One particularly powerful passage in "Milton" describes Los's family weaving the bodies of each unborn child.

In believing that creation followed a cosmic catastrophe and a fall of spiritual beings into matter, Blake recalls Gnosticism, a multi-faceted religious movement which has run parallel to mainstream Christianity. Unlike most other Gnosticizers, Blake considered our own world to be a fine and wonderful place, but one which would ultimately give way to a restored universe. Blake believed that his own visions, which included end-of-the- world images and sometimes a sense of cosmic oneness, prefigured this, and that his art would help raise others "to the perception of the infinite." For Blake (and for many, if not most, mainstream Christians), the purpose of creation is as a place for our own growth, in preparation for the beginning of our real lives. Although the natural world contains much that is gentle and innocent ("Songs of Innocence"), those who are experienced with life ("Songs of Experience") know that there is also much that is terrible and frightening. (The "fearful symmetry" might be that of the lamb and the tyger, innocence and experience.)

A casual reader or student does not have to understand Blake's mystical-visionary beliefs to appreciate "The Tyger". For the casual reader, the poem is about the question that most of us asked when we first heard about God as the benevolent creator of nature. "Why is there bloodshed and pain and horror?" If you're like me, you've heard various answers that are obviously not true. "The Tyger", which actually finishes without an answer, is (on this level) about your own experience of not getting a completely satisfactory answer to this essential question of faith.

There is more. "The Tyger" is about having your reason overwhelmed at once by the beauty and the horror of the natural world. "When the stars threw down their spears / And watered heaven with their tears" is the most difficult section of "The Tyger". In the creation story in "Job", the stars sing for joy at creation, a scene which Blake illustrated. In Blake's later books, the stars throw down their cups at the collapse of a previous clockwork universe founded on pure reason. For Blake, the stars represent cold reason and objective science. (They are weaker than the Sun of inspiration or the moon of love. Their mechanical procession has reminded others, including the author of "Lucifer in Starlight", of "the army of unalterable law"; in this case the law of science.) Although Blake was hostile (as I am, and as most real scientists are) to attempts to reduce all phenomena to chemistry and physics, Blake greatly appreciated the explosion of scientific knowledge during his era. But there is something about seeing a Tyger which you can't learn from a zoology class. The sense of awe and fear defy reason. And Blake's contemporary "rationalists" who had hoped for a tame, gentle world guided by kindness and understanding must face the reality of the Tyger.

.....

If you found that you really enjoyed "The Tyger", then I hope you'll have a chance to explore more of Blake's writings -- even the difficult "Prophetic Books" -- as well as his own influences (especially the Bible and "Paradise Lost"). You may also enjoy learning about his times, and the social injustices of which he was so deeply aware. .

 

[2020hindsight]

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]

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]

Drillinto calling all ASF market poets:

http://www.marketpoetry.com/

 

[drillinto]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Another way to look at it
Was the path never there and it was placed in between the camillia flowers
Cheers martin

 

[2020hindsight]

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]

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]

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
Against my life: the minute of their plot
Is almost come.—

To the Spirits
Well done!—avoid;—no more!

FERDINAND
This is strange: your father’s in some passion
That works him strongly.

MIRANDA
Never till this day
Saw I him touch’d with anger so distemper’d.

PROSPERO
You do look, my son, in a moved sort,
As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir.
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,
Ye 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.—Sir, I am vex’d;
Bear with my weakness; my, brain is troubled:
Be not disturb’d with my infirmity:
If you be pleased, retire into my cell
And there repose: a turn or two I’ll walk,
To still my beating mind.

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.

They sing:
JUNO
Honour, riches, marriage-blessing,
Long continuance, and increasing,
Hourly joys be still upon you!
Juno sings her blessings upon you.
CERES
Earth’s increase, foison plenty,
Barns and garners never empty,
Vines and clustering bunches growing,
Plants with goodly burthen bowing;
Spring come to you at the farthest
In the very end of harvest!
Scarcity and want shall shun you;
Ceres’ blessing so is on you.

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]

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]

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]

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?"