ASF Poetry Thread

[2020hindsight]

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
But to make bad matters worse
I found God wasn't there.”
-- Robert Frost, A Further Range (1936)

"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;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
Please yourselves, say I, and they
Need only look the other way.
But no, they will not; they must still
Wrest their neighbour to their will,
And make me dance as they desire
With jail and gallows and hell-fire.
And how am I to face the odds
Of man's bedevilment and God's?
I, a stranger and afraid
In a world I never made.
They will be master, right or wrong;
Though both are foolish, both are strong.
And since, my soul, we cannot fly
To Saturn nor to Mercury,
Keep we must, if keep we can,
These foreign laws of God and man.”
-- A.E. Housman, No. 12, Last Poems, 1922

 

[2020hindsight]

https://www.aussiestockforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=157373&highlight=sagan#post157373

Carl Sagan - Carl Sagan Speaks

Carl Sagan - Pale Blue Dot

 

[2020hindsight]

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]

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.

 

[2020hindsight]

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€.

 

[2020hindsight]

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.

 

[2020hindsight]

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]

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.

 

[2020hindsight]

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
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

 

[2020hindsight]

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.

 

[2020hindsight]

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]

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. ?

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 –...
"MAN SHOOTS PIG!" .......... now ? – which was feral ?

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.

 

[noirua]

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

 

[2020hindsight]

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

...

 

[2020hindsight]

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.

 

[2020hindsight]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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)