*Poem of the day thread

[Brubricker]

Marriage
by Wendell Berry


How hard it is for me, who live
in the excitement of women
and have the desire for them
in my mouth like salt. Yet
you have taken me and quieted me.
You have been such light to me
that other women have been
your shadows. You come near me
with the nearness of sleep.
And yet I am not quiet.
It is to be broken. It is to be
torn open. It is not to be
reached and come to rest in
ever. I turn against you,
I break from you. I turn to you.
We hurt, and are hurt,
and have each other for healing.
It is healing. It is never whole.

 

[Brubricker]

All Things Conspire
by Judith Wright


All things conspire to hold me from you –
even my love,
since that would mask you and unname you
till merely woman and man we live.
All men wear arms against the rebel –
and they are wise,
since the sound world they know and stable
is eaten away by lovers’ eyes.
All things conspire to stand between us –
even you and I,
who still command us, still unjoin us,
and drive us forward till we die.
Not till those fiery ghosts are laid
shall we be one.
Till then, they whet our double blade
and use the turning world for stone.

 

[Dillinger4]

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

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.

 

[Greebo]

Up'ards by Marriott Edgar (1933)

'Twere getting dusk, one winter's night,
When up the clough there came in sight,
A lad who carried through the snow,
A banner with this 'ere motto...
'Uppards'

His face was glum as he did pass,
His eyes were shiny... just like glass,
And as he went upon his way,
He nobbut this 'ere word did say...
'Uppards'

And people sitting down to tea,
They heard him plain, as plain can be,
They thowt 'twere final football score,
As this 'ere word rang out once more...
'Uppards'

A policeman on his lonely beat,
He stopped the lad up t' end of t' street,
He said, "Where't going wi' that theer?"
The lad just whispered in his ear...
'Uppards'

"Don't go down t' clough." the policeman said,
"It's mucky road for thee to tread,
Canal's at bottom... deep and wide."
"That's not my road." the lad replied,
It's... 'Uppards'

A young lass stopped him further up,
She said "Come in wi' me, and sup."
He said, "I'm takin none o' yon,
Besides... I must be getting on...
'Uppards'"

Next day some lads had just begun,
To tak' their whippets for a run,
When dogs got scratching in the snow,
And found flag with this 'ere motto...
'Uppards'

That set them digging all around,
And 'twasn't long before they found,
A lad whose name they never learned,
Whose face was white, whose toes had turned...
'Uppards'

'Twas very plain for to behold,
The lad had ta'en his death o' cold,
He'd got his feet wet early on,
And from his feet the cold had gone...
'Uppards'

This story only goes to show,
That when the fields is white wi' snow,
It's inadvisable to go...
'Uppards'

 

[Pickman's model]

The man who marks or leaves with pages bent
The volume that some trusting friend has lent,
Or keeps it over long, or scruples not
To let its due returning be forgot;
The man who guards his books with miser's care,
And does not joy to lend them, and to share;
The man whose shelves are dust begrimed and few,
Who reads when he has nothing else to do;
The man who raves of classic writers, but
Is found to keep them with their leaves uncut;
The man who looks on literature as news,
And gets his culture from the book reviews;
Who loves not fair, clean type, and margins wide --
Or loves these better than the thought inside;
Who buys his books to decorate the shelf,
Or gives a book he has not read himself;
Who reads from priggish motives, or for looks,
Or any reason save the love of books.
Great Lord, who judgest sins of all degrees,
Is there no little private hell for these?

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/unknown/three_impostors.html

 

[Dillinger4]

Allen Ginsberg reads Wales Visitation to William F Buckley

 

[8115]

‘The door was open and the house was dark’ by Seamus Heaney (from Human Chain)
in memory of David Hammond

The door was open and the house was dark
Wherefore I called his name, although I knew
The answer this time would be silence

That kept me standing listening while it grew
Backwards and down and out into the street
Where as I’d entered (I remember now)

The streetlamps too were out.
I felt, for the first time there and then, a stranger,
Intruder almost, wanting to take flight

Yet well aware that here there was no danger,
Only withdrawal, a not unwelcoming
Emptiness, as in a midnight hanger

On an overgrown airfield in late summer.

 

[seeformiles]

( I had to learn this for O-level English - I can still recite it! Quite topical as well)
Spring
by Gerard Manley Hopkins






Nothing is so beautiful as Spring –
When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush;
Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing;
The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
The descending blue; that blue is all in a rush
With richness; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.

What is all this juice and all this joy?
A strain of the earth’s sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden. – Have, get, before it cloy,
Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
Most, O maid’s child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

 

[Greebo]

In Praise Of Learning by Bertolt Brecht

Learn the elementary things!
For those whose time has come
It is never too late!
Learn the ABC. It won’t be enough,
But learn it! Don’t be dismayed by it?
Begin! You must know everything.
You must lake over the leadership.

Learn, man in the asylum!
Learn, man in the prison!
Learn, woman in the kitchen!
Learn sixty year olds!
You must take over the leadership.
Seek out the school, you who are homeless!
Acquire knowledge, you who shiver!
You who are hungry, reach for the book:
it is a weapon.
You must take over the leadership.

Don’t be afraid to ask, comrade!
Don’t be talked into anything.
Check for yourself!
What you do not know yourself
you don’t know.
Scrutinize the bill,
it is you who must pay it.
Put your finger on each item,
ask: how did this get there ?
You must take over the leadership.

 

[Dillinger4]

Morning in Tunis by Keorapetse Kgotsitsile

Of the paradise and glory
Of the never-ever time
Of a place none can point at
No matter how many preachers are born
There will be no celebration of life
Except where memory collected and collective
From then now and then guides us

Now even though
My children have never known peace
I would like the children of the world
To see with their ear
And sing the sunrise in Tunis

It is heart-of-watermelon red
Mellow like an amber slice of moon
As it emerges from high rock and low cloud
Suspended near the blueless sky
A spectre between nothing and nothing
Without a single ray of light
As if to simply say
Don't you know the world is remarkable

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

It's my birthday and I'm in a cheery mood...

Evidently Chickentown by John Cooper Clarke

The fucking cops are fucking keen
To fucking keep it fucking clean
The fucking chief's a fucking swine
Who fucking draws a fucking line
At fucking fun and fucking games
The fucking kids he fucking blames
Are nowehere to be fucking found
Anywhere in Chickentown

The fucking scene is fucking sad
The fucking news is fucking bad
The fucking weed is fucking turf
The fucking speed is fucking surf
The fucking folks are fucking daft
Don't make me fucking laugh
It fucking hurts to look around
Everywhere in Chickentown

The fucking train is fucking late
You fucking wait you fucking wait
You're fucking lost and fucking found
Stuck in fucking Chickentown

The fucking view is fucking vile
For fucking miles and fucking miles
The fucking babies fucking cry
The fucking flowers fucking die
The fucking food is fucking muck
The fucking drains are fucking fucked
The colour scheme is fucking brown
Everywhere in Chickentown

The fucking pubs are fucking dull
The fucking clubs are fucking full
Of fucking girls and fucking guys
With fucking murder in Their eyes
A fucking bloke is fucking stabbed
Waiting for a fucking cab
You fucking stay at fucking home
The fucking neighbors fucking moan
Keep The fucking racket down
This is fucking Chickentown

The fucking train is fucking late
You fucking wait you fucking wait
You're fucking lost and fucking found
Stuck in fucking Chickentown

The fucking pies are fucking old
The fucking chips are fucking cold
The fucking beer is fucking flat
The fucking flats have fucking rats
The fucking clocks are fucking wrong
The fucking days are fucking long
It fucking gets you fucking down
Evidently Chickentown

 

[Dillinger4]

 

[Dillinger4]

not actually a poem, I am rewriting bits by Ulrike Meinhof and others for a longer poem I am writing. Here is a bit:

“But that is who we are,
that is where we come from.
We are the offspring
of metropolitan annihilation
and destruction,
of the war of all against all,
of the conflict of each individual
with every other individual,
of a system governed by fear,
of the compulsion to produce,
of the profit of one to
the detriment of others,
of the division of people into men
and women, young and old,
sick and healthy,
foreigners and Germans,
and of the struggle for prestige.

Where do we come from?
From isolation in individual row-houses,
from the suburban concrete cities,
from prison cells,
from the asylums and special units,
from media brainwashing,
from consumerism,
from corporal punishment,
from the ideology of nonviolence,
from depression,
from illness,
from degradation,
from humiliation,
from the debasement
of human beings,
from all the people
exploited
by imperialism.”

 

[Dillinger4]

Sumer is Icumen in,
Loudly sing, cuckoo!
Grows the seed and blows the mead,
And springs the wood anew;
Sing, cuckoo!
Ewe bleats harshly after lamb,
Cows after calves make moo;
Bullock stamps and deer champs,
Now shrilly sing, cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo
Wild bird are you;
Be never still, cuckoo!

 

[Dillinger4]

Like You by Roque Dalton

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-
blue landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.
I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

 

[Dillinger4]

All this new stuff goes on top
turn it over, turn it over
wait and water down
from the dark bottom
turn it inside out
let it spread through
Sift down even.
Watch it sprout.

A mind like compost.

 

[butchersapron]

A letter to John Donne

(NOTE: On 27 July 1617, Donne preached at the parish church at Sevenoaks, of which he was rector, and was entertained at Knole, then the country residence of Richard Sackville, third earl of Dorset)

I understand you well enough, John Donne
First, that you were a man of ability
Eaten by lust and by the love of God
Then, that you crossed the Sevenoaks High Street
As rector of Saint Nicholas:
I am of that parish.

To be a man of ability is not much
You may see them on the Sevenoaks platform any day
Eager men with despatch cases
Whom Ambition drives as they drive the machine
Whom the certainty of meticulous operation
Pleasures as a morbid sex a heart of stone.

That you could have spent your time in the corruption of courts
As these in that of cities,
gives you no place among us:
Ability is not even the game of a fool
But the click of a computer operating in a waste
Your cleveness is dismissed from this suit
Bring out your genitals and your theology.

What makes you familiar is this dual obsession;
Lust is not what the rutting stag knows
It is to take Eve's apple and to lose
The stag's paradisal look:
The love of God comes readily
To those who have most need.

You brought body and soul to this church
Walking there through the park alive with deer
But now what animal has climbed into your pulpit?
One whose pretension is that the fear of God has heated him into a spirit
An evaporated man no physical ill can hurt.

Well might you hesitate at the Latin gate
Seeing such apes denying the church of God:
I am grateful particularly that you were not a saint
But extravagant whether in bed or in your shroud.
You would understand that in the presence of folly
I am not sanctified by angry.

Come down and speak to the men of ability
On the Sevenoaks platform and tell them
That at your Saint Nicholas the faith
Is not exclusive in the fools it chooses
That the vain, the ambitious and the highly sexed
Are the natural prey of the incarnate Christ.

C.H Sisson.

 

[butchersapron]

The Suicide

And this, ladies and gentlemen, whom I am not in fact
Conducting, was his office all those minutes ago,
This man you never heard of. These are the bills
In the intray, the ash in the ashtray, the grey memoranda stacked
Against him, the serried ranks of the box-files, the packed
Jury of his unanswered correspondence
Nodding under the paperweight in the breeze
From the window by which he left; and here is the cracked
Receiver that never got mended and here is the jotter
With his last doodle which might be his own digestive tract
Ulcer and all or might be the flowery maze
Through which he had wandered deliciously till he stumbled
Suddenly finally conscious of all he lacked
On a manhole under the hollyhocks. The pencil
Point had obviously broken, yet, when he left this room
By catdrop sleight-of-foot or simple vanishing act,
To those who knew him for all that mess in the street
This man with the shy smile has left behind
Something that was intact.

Louis Macneice

 

[Greebo]

(in the style of Pam Ayres but written by John Summers)
FIFTY SHADES OF GREY

The missus bought a Paperback
Down Shepton Mallet way.
I had a look inside her bag
'Twas Fifty Shades Of Grey
Well I just left her to it,
And at 10 I went to bed.
An hour later she appeared;
The sight filled me with dread...

In her left she held a rope;
And in her right a whip!
She threw them down upon the floor,
And then began to strip.

Well fifty years or so ago;
I might have had a peek;
But Mabel hasn't weathered well;
She's eighty four next week!!

Watching Mabel bump and grind;
Could not have been much grimmer.
And things then went from bad to worse;
She toppled off her Zimmer!

She struggled back upon her feet;
A couple minutes later;
She put her teeth back in and said
I am a dominater !!

Now if you knew our Mabel,
You'd see just why I spluttered,
I'd spent two months in traction
for the last complaint I'd uttered.

She stood there nude and naked
Bent forward just a bit
I went to hold her, sensual like
and stood on her left tit!

Mabel screamed, her teeth shot out;
My god what had I done!?
She moaned and groaned then shouted out:
"Step on the other one"!!

Well readers, I
can't tell no more;
About what occurred that day.
Suffice to say my jet black hair,
Turned fifty shades of grey.

 

[butchersapron]

The Wealthy Dolt

The wealthy dolt for wit and sense
Though college’d and begrammared
Just as a nail that never stirs
No further than it’s hammered
And when he’s made complete to act
Of wisdom’s face a farce on
In making nothing else the fact
Is that he’ll make a parson

John Clare.

 

[butchersapron]

Marsh-Bloom

Requiem, requiem, requiem,
Blood-red blossom of poison stem
Broken for Man,
Swamp-sunk leafage and dungeon-bloom,
Seeded bearer of royal doom,
What now is the ban?

What to thee is the island grave?
With desert wind and desolate wave
Will they silence Death?
Can they weight thee now with the heaviest stone?
Can they lay aught on thee with "Be alone,"
That hast conquered breath?

Lo, "it is finished"--a man for a king!
Mark you well who have done this thing:
The flower has roots;
Bitter and rank grow the things of the sea;
Ye shall know what sap ran thick in the tree
When ye pluck its fruits.

Requiem, requiem, requiem,
Sleep on, sleep on, accused of them
Who work our pain;
A wild Marsh-blossom shall blow again
From a buried root in the slime of men,
On the day of the Great Red Rain.

Dedicated to Gaetano Bresci

Voltairine de Cleyre

 

[Pickman's model]

Come Gather Round Me, Parnellites
WB YEATS

Come gather round me, Parnellites,
And praise our chosen man,
Stand upright on your legs awhile,
Stand upright while you can,
For soon we lie where he is laid
And he is underground;
Come fill up all those glasses
And pass the bottle round.

And here's a cogent reason
And I have many more,
He fought the might of Ireland
And saved the Irish poor,
Whatever good a farmer's got
He brought it all to pass;
And here's another reason,
That Parnell loved a lass.

And here's a final reason,
He was of such a kind
Every man that sings a song
Keeps Parnell in his mind
For Parnell was a proud man,
No prouder trod the ground,
And a proud man's a lovely man
So pass the bottle round.

The Bishops and the Party
That tragic story made,
A husband that had sold his wife
And after that betrayed;
But stories that live longest
Are sung above the glass,
And Parnell loved his country
And Parnell loved his lass.

 

[maya]

​

Me ​

​

We ​

​

​

-Muhammad Ali​

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

Allen Ginsberg reads Wales Visitation to William F Buckley

That's beautiful. I think you should listen to it with your eyes closed once and then tach him read it. Watching him reading it at first was distracting, a charming distraction but a distraction nonetheless

 

[Pickman's model]

W B YEATS, THE WILD SWANS AT COOLE

THE trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodland paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty Swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.

I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.
All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore,
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.

Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;
Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.

But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool
Delight men's eyes when I awake some day
To find they have flown away?

 

[cyprusclean]

Mind, Beware!

by Bibhu Padhi (August 2013)

For Kunmun and Milmun

Mind, watch yourself
carefully. Memories

are a crisscross of shame,
guilt, and disappointments,

of all those sins in default.
Mind: Mind your steps.

Anytime, you might be
tricked by memories.

Mind: Watch yourself
carefully, with the heart’s

nightly, ancient intensities.
Remember? Memories

 

[maya]

 

[butchersapron]

I'll Die from a Cancer of the Spine


I'll die of a cancer of the spinal column
It will happen on an awful evening
Clear, hot, perfumed and sensual
I'll die of the putrefaction
Of some little known cells
I'll die of a leg torn out
By a huge rat burst out from a huge hole
I'll die of a hundred of cuts
The sky will have fallen on me
That breaks like a heavy window
I'll die of a shriek
Running through my ears
I'll die of muffled wounds
Inflicted late in the night
By bald and wavering killers
I'll die without even knowing
That I'm dying, I'll die
Buried in the dry ruins
Of one thousand meters of collapsing cotton
I'll die drowned in dirty motor oil
Overridden by indifferent insects
And just after, by different ones
I'll die naked, or wrapped in a red cloth
Or sewed into a bag with razor blades
Maybe I'll die without worrying
And with nail polish on my toes
And my hands filled with tears
And my hands filled with tears
I'll die my eyelids torn off
Under a furious sun
When I am told, slowly
Cruel things in my ear
I'll die of seeing kids tortured
And men surprised and deathly pale
I'll die eaten alive by worms
I'll die my hands bound to a waterfall
I will die burnt into a sad fire
I'll die a bit, I'll die a lot,
I'll die without passion, but I'll die interested
And then, when everything's over
I'll die.

Boris Vian

(He actually died of a heart attack after trying to disrupt the first french showing of the Hollywood adaptation of his book I'll Spit on Your Graves. I was going to post The Deserter but i don't like the start or ending of it).

 

[Ceej]

Having re-read Evidently Chickentown, and spent the day at work in school grappling with the lunacies of Gove's latest notions (I wouldn't grace them by calling them policies), JCC really does spring to mind.....


TWAT by John Cooper Clark

Like a Night Club in the morning, you're the bitter end
Like a recently disinfected shit-house, you're clean round the bend.
You give me the horrors
too bad to be true
All of my tomorrow's
are lousy coz of you.

You put the Shat in Shatter
Put the Pain in Spain
Your germs are splattered about
Your face is just a stain

You're certainly no raver, commonly known as a drag.
Do us all a favour, here... wear this polythene bag.

You're like a dose of scabies,
I’ve got you under my skin.
You make life a fairy tale... Grimm!
People mention murder, the moment you arrive.
I’d consider killing you if I thought you were alive.
You've got this slippery quality,
it makes me think of phlegm,
and a dual personality
I hate both of them.

Your bad breath, vamps disease, destruction, and decay.
Please, please, please, please, take yourself away.
Like a death in a birthday party,
you ruin all the fun.
Like a sucked and spat our Smartie,
you're no use to anyone.
like the shadow of the guillotine
on a dead consumptive's face.
Speaking as an outsider,
what do you think of the human race

You went to a progressive psychiatrist.
He recommended suicide...
before scratching your bad name off his list,
and pointing the way outside.

You hear laughter breaking through, it makes you want to fart.
You’re heading for a breakdown,
better pull yourself apart.
Your dirty name gets passed about when something goes amiss.
Your attitudes are platitudes,
just make me wanna piss.

What kind of creature bore you
Was is some kind of bat
They can’t find a good word for you,but I can...
TWAT

 

[maya]

SEA SONG

You look different every time you come
From the foam-crested brine
Your skin shining softly in the moonlight
Partly fish, partly porpoise, partly baby sperm whale

Am I yours? Are you mine to play with?
Joking apart, when you're drunk, you're terrific when you're drunk
I like you mostly late at night, you're quite alright
But I can't understand the different you in the morning

When it's time to play at being human for a while please smile
You'll be different in the spring, I know
You're a seasonal beast like the starfish that drift in with the tide
So until your your blood runs to meet the next full moon

Your madness fits in nicely with my own
Your lunacy fits neatly with my own, my very own
We're not alone

- Robert Wyatt