RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
You should hear it sung 
*Poem of the day thread
- Thread starter RubyToogood
- Start date
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
What, "everyone must die three times before finding peace"? That's grim even by my standards.Ace said:Dat's lovely
dirtysanta
Original Casual
Roses are red
Violets are blue
Ive got dyslexia
so shlum badr oooeescvv
Violets are blue
Ive got dyslexia
so shlum badr oooeescvv
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
There's always one.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
Can't find my Larousse or my Hachette at the moment, but it's very close to the German for Horse Guard.....RubyToogood said:
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
No, it's ok, I figured it out: it's just (je) garderai (I will keep) with a surplus "sen" on it for no apparent reason. Actually looking at it again it's a misprint for "je garderai en".
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
Gwenc’hlan’s Prophecy
Part Two
I see the wild boar come out of the wood.
He limps low, his foot wounded,
His jaws open, full of blood,
His hair blanched with age.
Around him his young squeal with hunger.
I see the sea horse coming to him -
The shore trembles with fear.
A horse as white as snow;
Two silver horns shine on its forehead.
The flood boils beneath its hooves,
From its nostrils lightning flashes.
Other sea horses surround it,
As thickly as grass on the banks of a pond.
Hold fast, sea horse, hold fast!
Strike the head, strike hard!
Bare feet slip in the blood.
Harder, strike harder still!
I see a river of blood flowing,
Strike with all your strength, strike now, strike harder still!
I see the blood rising knee high.
I see a pool of blood.
Harder, strike harder still!
Strike the head, sea horse,
Strike with all your might!
Part Two
I see the wild boar come out of the wood.
He limps low, his foot wounded,
His jaws open, full of blood,
His hair blanched with age.
Around him his young squeal with hunger.
I see the sea horse coming to him -
The shore trembles with fear.
A horse as white as snow;
Two silver horns shine on its forehead.
The flood boils beneath its hooves,
From its nostrils lightning flashes.
Other sea horses surround it,
As thickly as grass on the banks of a pond.
Hold fast, sea horse, hold fast!
Strike the head, strike hard!
Bare feet slip in the blood.
Harder, strike harder still!
I see a river of blood flowing,
Strike with all your strength, strike now, strike harder still!
I see the blood rising knee high.
I see a pool of blood.
Harder, strike harder still!
Strike the head, sea horse,
Strike with all your might!
RubyToogood
RubyTwobikes
Gwenc’hlan’s Prophecy
Part Three
As I found myself quietly sleeping in my cold tomb,
I heard the eagle cry in the middle of the night
Calling his eaglets and all the birds of the sky, telling them:
“Rise up! Fly quickly!
“It’s not the rotten flesh of dog or ewe,
It’s the flesh of a christian we must have!”
“Answer me, old crow of the sea,
What have you got there?”
“It’s the head of the chieftain!
I want to have his two red eyes
“I tear out his eyes
As he tore out yours.”
“And you, fox,
What have you taken?”
“I have taken his heart -
As cruel as mine -
“Which desired your death
And killed you long ago.”
“And you, toad, tell me:
What are you doing by the corner of his mouth?”
“I have stationed myself here
Because I am waiting for his soul on its passage.
“I will keep it inside me as long as I live,
In punishment of a crime he committed
“Against the bard who lived
Between the hill of Alarc’h and the red port.”
Part Three
As I found myself quietly sleeping in my cold tomb,
I heard the eagle cry in the middle of the night
Calling his eaglets and all the birds of the sky, telling them:
“Rise up! Fly quickly!
“It’s not the rotten flesh of dog or ewe,
It’s the flesh of a christian we must have!”
“Answer me, old crow of the sea,
What have you got there?”
“It’s the head of the chieftain!
I want to have his two red eyes
“I tear out his eyes
As he tore out yours.”
“And you, fox,
What have you taken?”
“I have taken his heart -
As cruel as mine -
“Which desired your death
And killed you long ago.”
“And you, toad, tell me:
What are you doing by the corner of his mouth?”
“I have stationed myself here
Because I am waiting for his soul on its passage.
“I will keep it inside me as long as I live,
In punishment of a crime he committed
“Against the bard who lived
Between the hill of Alarc’h and the red port.”
Of The Spirit
I SIT here you know I just sit here wondering what to do an my belly goes and my nerves are really on edge and I don't know what the fuck I'm to do it's something to about I try to think about it while my head is going an sometimes this brings it back but only for a spell then suddenly I'm aware again of the feeling like a knife in the pit of my guts it's a worry I get worried about it because I know I should be doing things there are things needing doing I know I know I know it well but just can't bring myself to do them it isnt even as though thre is that something that I can bring myself to do for it that was true it would be there I would be there and not having to worry about it at this stage my muscles go altogether and there's aches downt the sides of my body they are actual aches and also under my arms at the shoulder my armpits there are aches and I think what I know about early warning signs the early-warning signal of the dickey heart is that it feels like that it is the warning about impending strokes and death because also my chest is like that the pains at each side and stretching from there down the sides of my body as if I am hunched right over the workbench with a case of the snapped digestion the kind that has dissolved from the centre but still is there round the edges and I try to take myself out of it I think about a hundred and one things all different things different sorts of things the sort of things you can think about as an average adult human being with an ordinary job and family the countless things and doing this can ease the aches for a time it can make me feel calm a bit as though things are coming under control due to thinking it all through really I am in control and able to consider things objectively as if I'm going daft or something but this is what it's like as if just my head's packed it in and I'm stranded there with this head full of nothing and with all that sort of dithering it'd make you think about you've got it so that sometimes I wish my hands were clamps like the kind joiners use and I could fasten them onto the sides of my head and then apply the thumbscrews so everything starts squeezing and squeezing
I try not to think about it too much because that doesn't pay you don't have to tell me I know it far too well already then I wouldn't be bothering otherwise I wouldn't be bothering but just sitting here and not bothering but just with my head all screwed up and not a single idea or thought but just maybe the aches and pains, that physicality
James Kelman 1987
I SIT here you know I just sit here wondering what to do an my belly goes and my nerves are really on edge and I don't know what the fuck I'm to do it's something to about I try to think about it while my head is going an sometimes this brings it back but only for a spell then suddenly I'm aware again of the feeling like a knife in the pit of my guts it's a worry I get worried about it because I know I should be doing things there are things needing doing I know I know I know it well but just can't bring myself to do them it isnt even as though thre is that something that I can bring myself to do for it that was true it would be there I would be there and not having to worry about it at this stage my muscles go altogether and there's aches downt the sides of my body they are actual aches and also under my arms at the shoulder my armpits there are aches and I think what I know about early warning signs the early-warning signal of the dickey heart is that it feels like that it is the warning about impending strokes and death because also my chest is like that the pains at each side and stretching from there down the sides of my body as if I am hunched right over the workbench with a case of the snapped digestion the kind that has dissolved from the centre but still is there round the edges and I try to take myself out of it I think about a hundred and one things all different things different sorts of things the sort of things you can think about as an average adult human being with an ordinary job and family the countless things and doing this can ease the aches for a time it can make me feel calm a bit as though things are coming under control due to thinking it all through really I am in control and able to consider things objectively as if I'm going daft or something but this is what it's like as if just my head's packed it in and I'm stranded there with this head full of nothing and with all that sort of dithering it'd make you think about you've got it so that sometimes I wish my hands were clamps like the kind joiners use and I could fasten them onto the sides of my head and then apply the thumbscrews so everything starts squeezing and squeezing
I try not to think about it too much because that doesn't pay you don't have to tell me I know it far too well already then I wouldn't be bothering otherwise I wouldn't be bothering but just sitting here and not bothering but just with my head all screwed up and not a single idea or thought but just maybe the aches and pains, that physicality
James Kelman 1987
Hollis
bloody furious
ALWAYS EAT YOUR BOGIES by Andrew Collett
Always eat your bogies
don't wipe them on your clothes,
just gulp them down in one
as you pick them from your nose.
For they're full of crunchy goodness
they're best when green and long,
so always eat your bogies
and you'll grow up big and strong.
Always eat your bogies
don't wipe them on your clothes,
just gulp them down in one
as you pick them from your nose.
For they're full of crunchy goodness
they're best when green and long,
so always eat your bogies
and you'll grow up big and strong.
bmd
Island in the stream.
James Kelman. Love his short stories.
I've searched the thread and haven't found this one so here it is.
John Donne: For Whom The Bell Tolls.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
I've searched the thread and haven't found this one so here it is.
John Donne: For Whom The Bell Tolls.
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
articul8
Dishonest sociopath
Try this one, "Refuse Collection" by the legendary J.H. Prynne, written in response to Abu Ghraib:
http://www.geocities.com/barque_press/quid13.html
Enjoy
http://www.geocities.com/barque_press/quid13.html
Enjoy
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
Two poems that belong together by Philip Larkin
TOADS
Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?
Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
That's out of proportion.
Lots of folk live on their wits:
Lecturers, lispers,
Losers, loblolly-men, louts-
They don't end as paupers;
Lots of folk live up lanes
With fires in a bucket,
Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-
They seem to like it.
Their nippers have got bare feet,
Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets - and yet
No one actually starves.
Ah, were I courageous enough
To shout, Stuff your pension!
But I know, all too well, that's the stuff
That dreams are made on:
For something sufficiently toad-like
Squats in me, too;
Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
And cold as snow,
And will never allow me to blarney
My way of getting
The fame and the girl and the money
All at one sitting.
I don't say, one bodies the other
One's spiritual truth;
But I do say it's hard to lose either,
When you have both.
TOADS REVISITED
Walking around in the park
Should feel better than work:
The lake, the sunshine,
The grass to lie on,
Blurred playground noises
Beyond black-stockinged nurses -
Not a bad place to be.
Yet it doesn't suit me.
Being one of the men
You meet of an afternoon:
Palsied old step-takers,
Hare-eyed clerks with the jitters,
Waxed-fleshed out-patients
Still vague from accidents,
And characters in long coats
Deep in the litter-baskets -
All dodging the toad work
By being stupid or weak.
Think of being them!
Hearing the hours chime,
Watching the bread delivered,
The sun by clouds covered,
The children going home;
Think of being them,
Turning over their failures
By some bed of lobelias,
Nowhere to go but indoors,
Nor friends but empty chairs -
No, give me my in-tray,
My loaf-haired secretary,
My shall-I-keep-the-call-in-Sir:
What else can I answer,
When the lights come on at four
At the end of another year?
Give me your arm, old toad;
Help me down Cemetery Road.
TOADS
Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can't I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?
Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison -
Just for paying a few bills!
That's out of proportion.
Lots of folk live on their wits:
Lecturers, lispers,
Losers, loblolly-men, louts-
They don't end as paupers;
Lots of folk live up lanes
With fires in a bucket,
Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-
They seem to like it.
Their nippers have got bare feet,
Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets - and yet
No one actually starves.
Ah, were I courageous enough
To shout, Stuff your pension!
But I know, all too well, that's the stuff
That dreams are made on:
For something sufficiently toad-like
Squats in me, too;
Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
And cold as snow,
And will never allow me to blarney
My way of getting
The fame and the girl and the money
All at one sitting.
I don't say, one bodies the other
One's spiritual truth;
But I do say it's hard to lose either,
When you have both.
TOADS REVISITED
Walking around in the park
Should feel better than work:
The lake, the sunshine,
The grass to lie on,
Blurred playground noises
Beyond black-stockinged nurses -
Not a bad place to be.
Yet it doesn't suit me.
Being one of the men
You meet of an afternoon:
Palsied old step-takers,
Hare-eyed clerks with the jitters,
Waxed-fleshed out-patients
Still vague from accidents,
And characters in long coats
Deep in the litter-baskets -
All dodging the toad work
By being stupid or weak.
Think of being them!
Hearing the hours chime,
Watching the bread delivered,
The sun by clouds covered,
The children going home;
Think of being them,
Turning over their failures
By some bed of lobelias,
Nowhere to go but indoors,
Nor friends but empty chairs -
No, give me my in-tray,
My loaf-haired secretary,
My shall-I-keep-the-call-in-Sir:
What else can I answer,
When the lights come on at four
At the end of another year?
Give me your arm, old toad;
Help me down Cemetery Road.
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
I posted the two poems above for Missus Scott as we were discussing this theme in the loos at the editors birthday bash.
I know it's one poem a day, but I think it's important to read the two together....the first sees work as a curse, but the second (written much later) sees work in a mellower perspective.
I know it's one poem a day, but I think it's important to read the two together....the first sees work as a curse, but the second (written much later) sees work in a mellower perspective.
Donna Ferentes
jubliado
Manet and Monet and Marx and Freud
In which all outstanding problems of art history are settled to everyone’s satisfaction.
What mattered more for Manet and Monet,
That Manet had money or Monet had manners?
Mattered to what, pray? Mattered to whom?
To Monet’s manner, or just Manet’s mother?
And what do you mean by that bad-mannered ‘just’?
What matters more to a man than his mother?
What matters more to a manner than money?
We know Monet’s manner was dependent on Manet,
Maybe even his manners; and his manners meant marriage,
And money for Manets and many things more.
So did Manet matter more to Monet than mother?
(I mean Monet’s mother, though Manet’s might do.)
It depends, does it not, on the meaning of ‘matter’,
And what money meant to a man without means.
We know Madame Monet was once painted by Manet
(The Madame I mean was the first Monet married,
The one without money, the one that died young);
She was shown with her son on the grass in the garden,
The proud mother of Monets, as Monet looked on;
And the picture was done in a manner like Monet’s,
Or a manner his mother would not have thought Manet’s,
A manner, indeed, she might have thought mad
(I mean Manet’s mother, though Monet’s might do).
Maybe maternity always is manifold,
And manners are matters that mothers decree,
In which case this painting’s not Manet’s or Monet’s,
But Madame’s or mother’s. (And what matters more
Than putting an end to that mad either/or?)
Better say simply he did it for Monet
(Though the market that moment had moved Monet’s way).
Marx would have said these are all money matters,
Freud would have said it depends what that means.
There is never an end to the meanings of money,
The madness of matter, the meanness of mothers,
Otherwise why would man ‘A’ be a Manet,
And man ‘B’ be a Monet, manner and all?
Manet and Monet may be nothing but manners,
But what manners! What Monets! What need there be more?
What’s money? What’s Manet? It’s Manets that matter:
The way that their matter is made to have meaning,
Manually, maddeningly, matter-of-factly.
What matters is manner. It’s manner that means.
TJ Clark
In which all outstanding problems of art history are settled to everyone’s satisfaction.
What mattered more for Manet and Monet,
That Manet had money or Monet had manners?
Mattered to what, pray? Mattered to whom?
To Monet’s manner, or just Manet’s mother?
And what do you mean by that bad-mannered ‘just’?
What matters more to a man than his mother?
What matters more to a manner than money?
We know Monet’s manner was dependent on Manet,
Maybe even his manners; and his manners meant marriage,
And money for Manets and many things more.
So did Manet matter more to Monet than mother?
(I mean Monet’s mother, though Manet’s might do.)
It depends, does it not, on the meaning of ‘matter’,
And what money meant to a man without means.
We know Madame Monet was once painted by Manet
(The Madame I mean was the first Monet married,
The one without money, the one that died young);
She was shown with her son on the grass in the garden,
The proud mother of Monets, as Monet looked on;
And the picture was done in a manner like Monet’s,
Or a manner his mother would not have thought Manet’s,
A manner, indeed, she might have thought mad
(I mean Manet’s mother, though Monet’s might do).
Maybe maternity always is manifold,
And manners are matters that mothers decree,
In which case this painting’s not Manet’s or Monet’s,
But Madame’s or mother’s. (And what matters more
Than putting an end to that mad either/or?)
Better say simply he did it for Monet
(Though the market that moment had moved Monet’s way).
Marx would have said these are all money matters,
Freud would have said it depends what that means.
There is never an end to the meanings of money,
The madness of matter, the meanness of mothers,
Otherwise why would man ‘A’ be a Manet,
And man ‘B’ be a Monet, manner and all?
Manet and Monet may be nothing but manners,
But what manners! What Monets! What need there be more?
What’s money? What’s Manet? It’s Manets that matter:
The way that their matter is made to have meaning,
Manually, maddeningly, matter-of-factly.
What matters is manner. It’s manner that means.
TJ Clark
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
On the Suicide of the Refugee W.B.
I am told that you raised your hand against yourself
Anticipating the butcher.
After eight years of exile, observing the rise of the enemy
Then at last, brought up against an impassable frontier
You passed, they say, a passable one.
Empires collapse. Gang leaders
are strutting about like statesmen. The peoples
Can no longer be seen under all those armaments.
So the future lies in darkness and the forces of right
Are weak. All this was plain to you
When you destroyed a torturable body.
Brecht
(W.B of course being the Jewish Walter Benjamin who killed himself on the France-Spain border in 1940 when refused admittance to Spain and facing the Nazis).
I am told that you raised your hand against yourself
Anticipating the butcher.
After eight years of exile, observing the rise of the enemy
Then at last, brought up against an impassable frontier
You passed, they say, a passable one.
Empires collapse. Gang leaders
are strutting about like statesmen. The peoples
Can no longer be seen under all those armaments.
So the future lies in darkness and the forces of right
Are weak. All this was plain to you
When you destroyed a torturable body.
Brecht
(W.B of course being the Jewish Walter Benjamin who killed himself on the France-Spain border in 1940 when refused admittance to Spain and facing the Nazis).
bluestreak
HomosexualityIsStalin’sAtomBombtoDestroyAmerica
RubyToogood said:
but its quite interesting. if you can get it to scan better and deal with the rhythmical flow so it kind of builds to the end point then you've got an interesting and entertaining bit of work there.
Derek Raymond
New Member
They Are All Gone into the World of Light!
They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit lingering here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.
It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
Or those faint beams in which this hill is dressed
After the sun's remove.
I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days;
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.
O holy hope! and high humility,
High as the heavens above!
These are your walks, and you have shown them me
To kindle my cold love.
Dear, beauteous death! the jewel of the just,
Shining nowhere but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know
At first sight if the bird be flown;
But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.
If a star were confined into a tomb,
Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that locked her up gives room,
She'll shine through all the sphere.
O Father of eternal life, and all
Created glories under Thee!
Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall
Into true liberty!
Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still as they pass;
Or else remove me hence unto that hill
Where I shall need no glass.
This poem is by Henry Vaughan (1622 - 1695)
I am not at all religious and do not believe in the afterlife but still find these words intensely moving. The yearning to understand what cannot be understood, the sense of life passing without being aware of its meaning, the silence of the dead - I could go on...
They are all gone into the world of light!
And I alone sit lingering here;
Their very memory is fair and bright,
And my sad thoughts doth clear.
It glows and glitters in my cloudy breast
Like stars upon some gloomy grove,
Or those faint beams in which this hill is dressed
After the sun's remove.
I see them walking in an air of glory,
Whose light doth trample on my days;
My days, which are at best but dull and hoary,
Mere glimmering and decays.
O holy hope! and high humility,
High as the heavens above!
These are your walks, and you have shown them me
To kindle my cold love.
Dear, beauteous death! the jewel of the just,
Shining nowhere but in the dark;
What mysteries do lie beyond thy dust,
Could man outlook that mark!
He that hath found some fledged bird's nest may know
At first sight if the bird be flown;
But what fair well or grove he sings in now,
That is to him unknown.
And yet, as angels in some brighter dreams
Call to the soul when man doth sleep,
So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes,
And into glory peep.
If a star were confined into a tomb,
Her captive flames must needs burn there;
But when the hand that locked her up gives room,
She'll shine through all the sphere.
O Father of eternal life, and all
Created glories under Thee!
Resume Thy spirit from this world of thrall
Into true liberty!
Either disperse these mists, which blot and fill
My perspective still as they pass;
Or else remove me hence unto that hill
Where I shall need no glass.
This poem is by Henry Vaughan (1622 - 1695)
I am not at all religious and do not believe in the afterlife but still find these words intensely moving. The yearning to understand what cannot be understood, the sense of life passing without being aware of its meaning, the silence of the dead - I could go on...
circumspect
bangin me drum..
this poem by UA Fanthopre is written in response to a painting by Uccello of a knight on horseback rescuing a damsel from a dragon. its from the p.o.v. of the 3 subjects in the painting.
NOT MY BEST SIDE
I
Not my best side, I'm afraid.
The artist didn't give me a chance to
Pose properly, and as you can see,
Poor chap, he had this obsession with
Triangles, so he left off two of my
Feet. I didn't comment at the time
(What, after all, are two feet
To a monster?) but afterwards
I was sorry for the bad publicity.
Why, I said to myself, should my conqueror
Be so ostentatiously beardless, and ride
A horse with a deformed neck and square hoofs?
Why should my victim be so
Unattractive as to be inedible,
And why should she have me literally
On a string? I don't mind dying
Ritually, since I always rise again,
But I should have liked a little more blood
To show they were taking me seriously.
II
It's hard for a girl to be sure if
She wants to be rescued. I mean, I quite
Took to the dragon. It's nice to be
Liked, if you know what I mean. He was
So nicely physical, with his claws
And lovely green skin, and that sexy tail,
And the way he looked at me,
He made me feel he was all ready to
Eat me. And any girl enjoys that.
So when this boy turned up, wearing machinery,
On a really dangerous horse, to be honest
I didn't much fancy him. I mean,
What was he like underneath the hardware?
He might have acne, blackheads or even
Bad breath for all I could tell, but the dragon —
Well, you could see all his equipment
At a glance. Still, what could I do?
The dragon got himself beaten by the boy,
And a girl's got to think of her future.
III
I have diplomas in Dragon
Management and Virgin Reclamation.
My horse is the latest model, with
Automatic transmission and built-in
Obsolescence. My spear is custom-built,
And my prototype armour
Still on the secret list. You can't
Do better than me at the moment.
I'm qualified and equipped to the
Eyebrow. So why be difficult?
Don't you want to be killed and/or rescued
In the most contemporary way? Don't
You want to carry out the roles
That sociology and myth have designed for you?
Don't you realize that, by being choosy,
You are endangering job prospects
In the spear- and horse-building industries?
What, in any case, does it matter what
You want? You're in my way.
U.A. Fanthorpe.
the link to the painting is below - i hope it works, im rubbish at this!
javascript:ViewImage('http://www.saltana.com.ar/1/docar/uccello_large.jpg',491,382,'Sant%20Jordi%20i%20el%20dragÛ,%20Uccello')
NOT MY BEST SIDE
I
Not my best side, I'm afraid.
The artist didn't give me a chance to
Pose properly, and as you can see,
Poor chap, he had this obsession with
Triangles, so he left off two of my
Feet. I didn't comment at the time
(What, after all, are two feet
To a monster?) but afterwards
I was sorry for the bad publicity.
Why, I said to myself, should my conqueror
Be so ostentatiously beardless, and ride
A horse with a deformed neck and square hoofs?
Why should my victim be so
Unattractive as to be inedible,
And why should she have me literally
On a string? I don't mind dying
Ritually, since I always rise again,
But I should have liked a little more blood
To show they were taking me seriously.
II
It's hard for a girl to be sure if
She wants to be rescued. I mean, I quite
Took to the dragon. It's nice to be
Liked, if you know what I mean. He was
So nicely physical, with his claws
And lovely green skin, and that sexy tail,
And the way he looked at me,
He made me feel he was all ready to
Eat me. And any girl enjoys that.
So when this boy turned up, wearing machinery,
On a really dangerous horse, to be honest
I didn't much fancy him. I mean,
What was he like underneath the hardware?
He might have acne, blackheads or even
Bad breath for all I could tell, but the dragon —
Well, you could see all his equipment
At a glance. Still, what could I do?
The dragon got himself beaten by the boy,
And a girl's got to think of her future.
III
I have diplomas in Dragon
Management and Virgin Reclamation.
My horse is the latest model, with
Automatic transmission and built-in
Obsolescence. My spear is custom-built,
And my prototype armour
Still on the secret list. You can't
Do better than me at the moment.
I'm qualified and equipped to the
Eyebrow. So why be difficult?
Don't you want to be killed and/or rescued
In the most contemporary way? Don't
You want to carry out the roles
That sociology and myth have designed for you?
Don't you realize that, by being choosy,
You are endangering job prospects
In the spear- and horse-building industries?
What, in any case, does it matter what
You want? You're in my way.
U.A. Fanthorpe.
the link to the painting is below - i hope it works, im rubbish at this!
javascript:ViewImage('http://www.saltana.com.ar/1/docar/uccello_large.jpg',491,382,'Sant%20Jordi%20i%20el%20dragÛ,%20Uccello')
Mrs Magpie
On a bit of break...
Couldn't get that to work....but here's another link to that pic...
http://www.doudou.org/images/uccello-georges1.jpg
http://www.doudou.org/images/uccello-georges1.jpg
circumspect
bangin me drum..
Mrs Magpie said:
Thank you Mrs M!!
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
If We Must Die
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accurséd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O, kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Claude McKay
If we must die, let it not be like hogs
Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot,
While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs,
Making their mock at our accurséd lot.
If we must die, O let us nobly die,
So that our precious blood may not be shed
In vain; then even the monsters we defy
Shall be constrained to honor us though dead!
O, kinsmen! we must meet the common foe!
Though far outnumbered let us show us brave,
And for their thousand blows deal one death-blow!
What though before us lies the open grave?
Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack,
Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!
Claude McKay
Nice one butchers.
Our Negro newspapers were morbid, full of details of clashes between colored and white, murderous shootings and hangings. Traveling from city to city and unable to gauge the attitude and temper of each one, we Negro railroad men were nervous. We were less light-hearted. We did not separate from one another gaily to spend ourselves in speakeasies and gambling joints. We stuck together, some of us armed, going from the railroad station to our quarters. We stayed in our quarters all through the dreary ominous nights, for we never knew what was going to happen. It was during those days that the sonnet, "If We Must Die," exploded out of me...
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mckay/mustdie.htm
Our Negro newspapers were morbid, full of details of clashes between colored and white, murderous shootings and hangings. Traveling from city to city and unable to gauge the attitude and temper of each one, we Negro railroad men were nervous. We were less light-hearted. We did not separate from one another gaily to spend ourselves in speakeasies and gambling joints. We stuck together, some of us armed, going from the railroad station to our quarters. We stayed in our quarters all through the dreary ominous nights, for we never knew what was going to happen. It was during those days that the sonnet, "If We Must Die," exploded out of me...
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/mckay/mustdie.htm
onemonkey
winmonkey
The Destruction of Sennacherib - Byron
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
