*Poem of the day thread

[ShiftyBagLady]

Love-Letter-Burning by Daniel Hall

The archivist in us shudders at such cold-
blooded destruction of the word, but since
we're only human, we commit our sins
to the flames. Sauve qui peut; fear makes us bold.

Tanka was bolder: when the weather turned
from fair to frigid, he saw his way clear
to build a sacrificial fire
in which a priceless temple Buddha burned.

(The pretext? Simple: what he sought
was legendary Essence in the ash.
But if it shows up only in the flesh—?
He grinned and said, Let's burn the lot!)

Believers in the afterlife perform
this purifying rite. At last
a match is struck: it's done. The past
will shed some light, but never keep us warm.

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

I swear to God I'm tired of these fake ass niggas


Smash off in the porsche like skurrr!
My nigga smoke kush no purp
If that puss got a bush I'm like NOPE
Hairy pussy bitch you the type that got herpes
I'm a 6 figure nigga you countin' no digits
Fuck a bitch and bust a nut in 4 minutes
Cause I ain't got time for pussy
Why you wish she on type and all kinds of pussy
You the type that hang with niggas you don't like
For the fame that's a shame you're like styleless all hype
I used to drive that all white bimmer
I had that the Porsche it was cleaner
Now I'm 'bout to throw 4's on that bitch
I'm in the party stumping checking 4's on that bitch
And if one fight then we all fight
Boom bap bing nigga on sight


Nigga I'm a real 1
You do whatever for the fame
You make me wanna click clack bang!
Nigga I'm a real 1
I can't stand you niggas
I be wanting to backhand you niggas
Nigga I'm a real 1
Yeah, all my niggas bangers
Watch how I twist my fingers
Nigga I'm a real 1
If one fight then we all fight
Pop a pill fuck all night


Rollie on the wrist, Louie on the belt
I'm 'bout call the IRS on myself
AMG benzes, porsches on 4's
Me and Mustard pull up, this a car show
Niggas getting mad but we just getting money
I can be your boothang not your hubby
All the bitches love me, all the bitches love me
If I had a hundred dicks I'd have all the bitches fuck me
New house, new whip, new year, new gold
Same nigga, same shit, same clique, same boss
Nigga I'm a real one
If I ain't got it then I'm steal one
Nigga, I never feel one
I eat the pussy on the first date
Then brush my teeth with colgate
I rather spend money before I spend time
Ask Drake he ain't tell you no lie


Nigga I'm a real 1
You do whatever for the fame
You make me wanna click clack bang!
Nigga I'm a real 1
I can't stand you niggas
I be wanting to backhand you niggas
Nigga I'm a real 1
Yeah, all my niggas bangers
Watch how I twist my fingers
Nigga I'm a real 1
If one fight then we all fight
Pop a pill fuck all night

Shit nigga I'm a real one
You ain't a real till you kill one
Well click clack bow I'm a real one
Nigga
Can't no nigga tell me nothing 'bout me
Nah nigga, not me


Nigga I'm a real 1
You do whatever for the fame
You make me wanna click clack bang!
Nigga I'm a real 1
I can't stand you niggas
I be wanting to backhand you niggas
Nigga I'm a real 1
Yeah, all my niggas bangers
Watch how I twist my fingers
Nigga I'm a real 1
If one fight then we all fight
Pop a pill fuck all night

 

[artyfarty]

Love Song: I And Thou
Nothing is plumb, level, or square:
the studs are bowed, the joists
are shaky by nature, no piece fits
any other piece without a gap
or pinch, and bent nails
dance all over the surfacing
like maggots. By Christ
I am no carpenter. I built
the roof for myself, the walls
for myself, the floors
for myself, and got
hung up in it myself. I
danced with a purple thumb
at this house-warming, drunk
with my prime whiskey: rage.
Oh I spat rage’s nails
into the frame-up of my work:
it held. It settled plumb,
level, solid, square and true
for that great moment. Then
it screamed and went on through,
skewing as wrong the other way.
God damned it. This is hell,
but I planned it, I sawed it,
I nailed it, and I
will live in it until it kills me.
I can nail my left palm
to the left-hand crosspiece but
I can’t do everything myself.
1 need a hand to nail the right,
a help, a love, a you, a wife.

Alan Dugan

 

[Pickman's model]

THE VICTORIA PARK SONG THRUSH



On a branch he sits and he warbles away
Bewitchingly sweet through the vernal day.
At dawn he opens his ravishing song,
And his melody rills in a stream along.



Ere the morning star has sunk to its rest
In the far-off mystical moonlit west,
He resumes his perch high up on a plane
And awakes the woodland echoes again.



In spite o' the wind, the rain, and the sleet,
This blithesome throstle clings still to his seat:
Still continues to sing his song of love
And to woo his mate from a bough above.



With music the morning air is fill'd,
And voices many are hush'd and still'd,
While listening ears with a zest devour
The enchanting lay of the twilight hour.



In the voice of a bird rare beauty abides,
In its magic tones a rare spirit resides,
A spirit whose force no man may define,
A spirit whose influence is divine.



'B'
from a copy of the Shoreditch Observer from 1882

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

THE YELLOW BITTERN

By Seamus Heaney

(Translated from An Bonnán Buí in the Irish
of Cathal Buí Mac Giolla Ghunna)

Yellow bittern, there you are now,
Skin and bone on the frozen shore.
It wasn’t hunger but thirst for a mouthful
That left you foundered and me heartsore.
What odds is it now about Troy’s destruction
With you on the flagstones upside down,
Who never injured or hurt a creature
And preferred bog water to any wine?



Bittern, bittern, your end was awful,
Your perished skull there on the road,
You that would call me every morning
With your gargler’s song as you guzzled mud.
And that’s what’s ahead of your brother Cathal
(You know what they say about me and the stuff)
But they’ve got it wrong and the truth is simple:
A drop would have saved that croaker’s life.

I am saddened, bittern, and broken hearted
To find you in scrags in the rushy tufts,
And the big rats scampering down the rat paths
To wake your carcass and have their fun.
If you could have got word to me in time, bird,
That you were in trouble and craved a sup,
I’d have struck the fetters of those lough waters
And wet your thrapple with the blow I struck.



Your common birds do not concern me,
The blackbird, say, or the thrush or crane,
But the yellow bittern, my heartsome namesake
With my looks and locks, he’s the one I mourn.
Constantly he was drinking, drinking,
And by all accounts I’ve a name for it too,
But every drop I get I’ll sink it
For fear I might get my end from drouth.

The woman I love says to give it up now
Or else I’ll go to an early grave,
But I say no and keep resisting
For taking drink’s what prolongs your days.
You saw for yourself a while ago
What happened to the bird when its throat went dry;
So my friends and neighbours, let it flow:
You’ll be stood no rounds in eternity.

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

I was unable to find an online version of the translation of that poem that I first read so I photographed it for your enjoyment

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

Done
by Chery Moskowitz

Tonight I want to be read aloud to in bed.
I'm done with eyes and deciphering lines.
Done with looking too close,
that seeing thing.
FInished with the grip of the pen
or even being the teller of stories.
Leave that to others now -
tonight I will savour only your voice;
paperless, weightless
without permanence.

 

[phildwyer]

"Terence, this is stupid stuff"
AE Houseman

‘Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can’t be much amiss, ’tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, ’tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship ’tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad.’

Why, if ’tis dancing you would be,
There’s brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God’s ways to man.
Ale, man, ale’s the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world’s not.
And faith, ’tis pleasant till ’tis past:
The mischief is that ’twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I’ve lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck’s a chance, but trouble’s sure,
I’d face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
’Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour,
The better for the embittered hour;
It should do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul’s stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that springs to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white’s their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
—I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

Everything is Waiting for You
By David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.

 

[Autochthonous1]

Are we allowed to post ones we've written ourselves? Well, since there hasn't been one today, I'll go ahead.

I recently wrote it for my ex, RaverDrew .



The Dubstep is Not the Same Without You

You took my bass away,
And it's wobble,
You arsehole.
Bass face deflated.
My waveform is flat.
Walls no longer shake.
Windows do not vibrate.
Since you departed,
My dub is broken hearted.


​

 

[Greebo]

My grandma by Panayotis Skordos

My grandma died a month ago,
I'd like to miss her but I can't.
Her life suddenly has ended
all she has seen and felt and learned.

Years ago, deep in the marble,
a different sky, a different sand,
she told me stories, she kept my secrets,
she gave me food, she held my hand.

We surfed the years, my nose got longer,
the world expanded, we grew apart.
But in the cave the beast remains
a little jewel, a little spark.

Her times were magic, forever secret,
her parents, her tears, her dreams, her heart.
She breathes the twenties and lives the wars,
she was a girl and is no more.

Crystalline waters and sugary waves
bathe her island under the sun.
Her life has ended, her spirit remains,
another light has joined the sun.

 

[yardbird]

Afterlife

I have found something for you to do, body, when you’ve stopped carrying me. Your loyal if short-lived service has moved me in so many ways. I didn’t want to leave

you with limited options; you’ve behaved so differently to others’ bodies. I honour that. I’ve written to the faculty and they’ve accepted you for a new role.

You will work with the students, opening out the secrets of how you and I lasted together as long as we did, in the circumstances. The lines you’ve rewritten with blood and bile,

the prose-purple of our shared organs. notches etched on the heart, will act as a text-book love-letter to the future. Body, know that I’m sad to leave.

Sara Nesbitt

This was read at The Hippocrates Prize awards 2013.
Written following the death of her mother who was the most important person in my life.

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

This made me smile very much

THE NAMING OF CATS by TS Eliot

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.
First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily,
Such as Peter, Augustus, Alonzo or James,
Such as Victor or Jonathan, George or Bill Bailey –
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen, some for the dames:
Such as Plato, Admetus, Electra, Demeter –
But all of them sensible everyday names.
But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?
Of names of this kind, I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quaxo, or Coricopat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellylorum-
Names that never belong to more than one cat.
But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover –
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.
When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in a rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought, of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

 

[butchersapron]

For Jan Palach, a Name Drawn by Lot, on the Anniversary of His Death the Third Day after Attempted Self-Immolation in Protest of Communist Occupation of Czechoslovakia, January 19, 1969

I taught in your building once,
the one renamed for you
by the professors of philosophy,
a beautiful four-square block
of a building built to last centuries,
facing west into the hills backing
the great Vltava.

Afternoons
in class, looking across the river
through the wall-high windows,
I could see the thousand-year-old
crown of the Castle glittering,
and at night, standing on the Charles,
celestial above the city.

From here,
in the old ghetto, at the new century,
it looked benign, like a blessing
on your house and the half-dozen
synagogues and dozen blocks
of dwellings brought back to life
after your cold war imitation

of the bonze priests in Vietnam,
who chose fighting fire with fire.
You almost died, then did, writing,
between life and death, that
I do not want anyone to imitate me.
The Soviets ignored you, though
they were mortal too in twenty years.

If I’d written your name with the poets
on the board, someone whose job it was
would’ve come along and erased it,
which is why pink marble and a plaque
were mounted at the entrance
of the building, whose former name
now no one can remember.

The námêsti,
the square that bears your name,
bore the names of soldiers
of the young Red Army—until nineteen
eighty-nine, the year no one had to die,
not God nor Kafka, for whom the fire
to warm the icy world was words.

Stanley Plumly

 

[Ceej]

Sans pretension by Henry Normal
We say 'cul de sac'
To make 'dead end' sound sunny.
We say 'nouveau riche'
Instead of working class with money.
We call art 'avant-garde'
When we don't understand it.
Jumble sales sell 'bric-a-brac'
Which must be French for shit.
Let's call a spud a spud,
No more lies or elaborate word contortions.
Chips are chips
Not pomme frites or french fries.
Why say 'haute cuisine' when you mean 'smaller portions'.
No more saying we had a 'tete a tete'
When you mean you've been nagging
Bragging or just chin wagging,
And no more calling it a 'menage a trois'
When you mean three people shagging.

 

[Autochthonous1]

I wrote another fucking poem, bitches. It's called:

PANSEXUAL

I kiss a grill and I liked it,
I licked a pan,
It was saucy,
Frying
Pan
Sexual.

 

[Autochthonous1]

*Sorry for calling you ''you bitches'' above, I was drunk when I wrote that.

The Beautiful Poem

I go to bed in Los Angeles thinking
about you.

Pissing a few moments ago
I looked down at my penis
affectionately.

Knowing it has been inside
you twice today makes me
feel beautiful.


3 A.M. January 15, 1967, Richard Brautigan.

 

[Dillinger4]

Smokey the Bear Sutra by Gary Snyder

Once in the Jurassic about 150 million years ago,
the Great Sun Buddha in this corner of the Infinite
Void gave a Discourse to all the assembled elements
and energies: to the standing beings, the walking beings,
the flying beings, and the sitting beings -- even grasses,
to the number of thirteen billion, each one born from a
seed, assembled there: a Discourse concerning
Enlightenment on the planet Earth.

"In some future time, there will be a continent called
America. It will have great centers of power called
such as Pyramid Lake, Walden Pond, Mt. Rainier, Big Sur,
Everglades, and so forth; and powerful nerves and channels
such as Columbia River, Mississippi River, and Grand Canyon
The human race in that era will get into troubles all over
its head, and practically wreck everything in spite of
its own strong intelligent Buddha-nature."

"The twisting strata of the great mountains and the pulsings
of volcanoes are my love burning deep in the earth.
My obstinate compassion is schist and basalt and
granite, to be mountains, to bring down the rain. In that
future American Era I shall enter a new form; to cure
the world of loveless knowledge that seeks with blind hunger:
and mindless rage eating food that will not fill it."

And he showed himself in his true form of
SMOKEY THE BEAR

• A handsome smokey-colored brown bear standing on his hind legs, showing that he is aroused and
  watchful.
• Bearing in his right paw the Shovel that digs to the truth beneath appearances; cuts the roots of useless
  attachments, and flings damp sand on the fires of greed and war;
• His left paw in the Mudra of Comradely Display -- indicating that all creatures have the full right to live to their limits and that deer, rabbits, chipmunks, snakes, dandelions, and lizards all grow in the realm of the Dharma;
• Wearing the blue work overalls symbolic of slaves and laborers, the countless men oppressed by a
  civilization that claims to save but often destroys;
• Wearing the broad-brimmed hat of the West, symbolic of the forces that guard the Wilderness, which is the Natural State of the Dharma and the True Path of man on earth: all true paths lead through mountains --
• With a halo of smoke and flame behind, the forest fires of the kali-yuga, fires caused by the stupidity of
  those who think things can be gained and lost whereas in truth all is contained vast and free in the Blue Sky and Green Earth of One Mind;
• Round-bellied to show his kind nature and that the great earth has food enough for everyone who loves her and trusts her;
• Trampling underfoot wasteful freeways and needless suburbs; smashing the worms of capitalism and
  totalitarianism;
• Indicating the Task: his followers, becoming free of cars, houses, canned foods, universities, and shoes;
  master the Three Mysteries of their own Body, Speech, and Mind; and fearlessly chop down the rotten
  trees and prune out the sick limbs of this country America and then burn the leftover trash.

Wrathful but Calm. Austere but Comic. Smokey the Bear will
Illuminate those who would help him; but for those who would hinder or
slander him,
HE WILL PUT THEM OUT.
Thus his great Mantra:
Namah samanta vajranam chanda maharoshana
Sphataya hum traka ham nam

"I DEDICATE MYSELF TO THE UNIVERSAL DIAMOND
BE THIS RAGING FURY DESTROYED"
And he will protect those who love woods and rivers,
Gods and animals, hobos and madmen, prisoners and sick
people, musicians, playful women, and hopeful children:

And if anyone is threatened by advertising, air pollution, television,
or the police, they should chant SMOKEY THE BEAR'S WAR SPELL:

DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
DROWN THEIR BUTTS
CRUSH THEIR BUTTS
And SMOKEY THE BEAR will surely appear to put the enemy out
with his vajra-shovel.

• Now those who recite this Sutra and then try to put it in practice will accumulate merit as countless as the sands of Arizona and Nevada.
• Will help save the planet Earth from total oil slick.
• Will enter the age of harmony of man and nature.
• Will win the tender love and caresses of men, women, and beasts.
• Will always have ripe blackberries to eat and a sunny spot under a pine tree to sit at.
• AND IN THE END WILL WIN HIGHEST PERFECT ENLIGHTENMENT.
  
  thus have we heard.
  
  (may be reproduced free forever)

 

[Dillinger4]

Tonight is Burns Night. I hope you have all prepared your Haggis.

I don't know much about Robert Burns. I have his complete poetical works, and I have read quite a few of them. The poems that I like the most are the ones I have heard as songs.

Now Westlin Winds

Now westlin winds and slaughtering guns
Bring autumn's pleasant weather
The moorcock springs on whirring wings
Among the blooming heather
Now waving grain, wild o'er the plain
Delights the weary farmer
And the moon shines bright as I rove at night
To muse upon my charmer

The partridge loves the fruitful fells
The plover loves the mountain
The woodcock haunts the lonely dells
The soaring hern the fountain
Through lofty groves the cushat roves
The path of man to shun it
The hazel bush o'erhangs the thrush
The spreading thorn the linnet

Thus every kind their pleasure find
The savage and the tender
Some social join and leagues combine
Some solitary wander
Avaunt! Away! the cruel sway,
Tyrannic man's dominion
The sportsman's joy, the murdering cry
The fluttering, gory pinion

But Peggy dear the evening's clear
Thick flies the skimming swallow
The sky is blue, the fields in view
All fading green and yellow
Come let us stray our gladsome way
And view the charms of nature
The rustling corn, the fruited thorn
And every happy creature

We'll gently walk and sweetly talk
Till the silent moon shines clearly
I'll grasp thy waist and, fondly pressed,
Swear how I love thee dearly
Not vernal showers to budding flowers
Not autumn to the farmer
So dear can be as thou to me
My fair, my lovely charmer

Highland Widows Lament

Oh I am come to the low Countrie,
Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!
Without a penny in my purse,
To buy a meal to me.

It was na sae in the Highland hills,
Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!
Nae woman in the Country wide,
Sae happy was as me.

For then I had a score o'kye,
Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!
Feeding on you hill sae high,
And giving milk to me.

And there I had three score o'yowes,
Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!
Skipping on yon bonie knowes,
And casting woo' to me.

I was the happiest of a' the Clan,
Sair, sair, may I repine;
For Donald was the brawest man,
And Donald he was mine.

Till Charlie Stewart cam at last,
Sae far to set us free;
My Donald's arm was wanted then,
For Scotland and for me.

Their waefu' fate what need I tell,
Right to the wrang did yield;
My Donald and his Country fell,
Upon Culloden field.

Oh I am come to the low Countrie,
Ochon, Ochon, Ochrie!
Nae woman in the warld wide,
Sae wretched now as me.

 

[butchersapron]

He's great - i fnd him hard going on paper, and like you, seem to catch on more to the ones i have heard out loud or done as songs. Heard a brilliant night of his stuff read out/peformed in Bath a few years back. Cliched i know, but brought then to life. Some of them really angrily.

 

[Santino]

Five Hundred Mile

When I awauken from my rest
I ken ye’ll be there at my breast
When I fare abroad, I ken that thee
Will fare abroad along wi’ me.
When rairin fou and in my cups
I ken ye’ll match me, sup for sup
And if I haver, and speak no matter,
It’s to ye, I’ll gab and yatter.

For anely to proclaim my luve,
Five hundred mile I’d gae.
And to foonder at your door,
I’d walk five hundred mae.

When I’m sweitin wi’ ma trauchle,
It’s for thee that I strauchle.
And when I ha’ my penny-fee,
Near every penny goes to thee.
When hame-throu my journey tak me
If ye be there, then hame’ll dae me.
And if I come an eildit man,
I ken we’ll grow auld, hand in hand.

For anely to proclaim my luve,
Five hundred mile I’d gae.
And to foonder at your door,
I’d walk five hundred mae.

When I’m on ma lane and lanesome,
It’s for want of ye I’m waesome.
When in ma bed I lie a-sleeping,
It’s days with ye that fill ma dreaming.

For anely to proclaim my luve,
Five hundred mile I’d gae.
And to foonder at your door,
I’d walk five hundred mae.

 

[Superdupastupor]

wee sleekit cowerin timorous beastie

 

[Superdupastupor]

Dillinger4 Might speel out 'such a parcel of rogues in a nation' to a confused crowd of euros tonight
'the diel awa wi the exscise man' -

t

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

It's not Burns but it's tangentally related because I heard this the other day

And was quite taken with the lyric '..has a heart warm as a cup of tea'. so I looked it up and found the full thing which is a much less satisfying read. I was quite surprised by teh language as I had heard it sung by a plummy, well-to-do choir but it made me investigate the author a little bit and the American minstrel song writing.


Nelly Bly
By Stephen Collins Foster (1826–1864)

NELLY BLY! Nelly Bly! bring de broom along,—
We’ll sweep de kitchen clean, my dear, and hab a little song.
Poke de wood, my lady lub, and make de fire burn,
And while I take de banjo down, just gib de mush a turn.

Heigh! Nelly, Ho! Nelly, 5
Listen, lub, to me;
I’ll sing for you, I’ll play for you,
A dulcem melody.
Nelly Bly hab a voice like de turtle dove,—
I hears it in de meadow and I hears it in de grove; 10
Nelly Bly hab a heart warm as a cup ob tea,
And bigger dan de sweet potato down in Tennessee.

Nelly Bly shuts her eye when she goes to sleep;
When she wakens up again her eyeballs gin to peep;
De way she walks, she lifts her foot, and den she brings it down, 15
And when it lights der’s music dah in dat part ob de town.

Nelly Bly! Nelly Bly! nebber, nebber sigh,—
Nebber bring de tear-drop to de corner ob your eye;
For de pie is made ob punkins, and de mush is made ob corn,
And der’s corn and punkins plenty, lub, lying in de barn. 20

Heigh! Nelly, Ho! Nelly,
Listen, lub, to me;
I’ll sing for you, I’ll play for you,
A dulcem melody.

 

[ShiftyBagLady]

I couldn't find it on t'internet but I liked this. I read it to ShiftyJunior and he said "He means love'

 

[Autochthonous1]

More by Brautigan.

 

[Greebo]

A Man's A Man For A' That
by Robert Burns

Is there for honest Poverty
That hings his head, an' a' that;
The coward slave-we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a' that!
For a' that, an' a' that.
Our toils obscure an' a' that,
The rank is but the guinea's stamp,
The Man's the gowd for a' that.

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hoddin grey, an' a that;
Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine;
A Man's a Man for a' that:
For a' that, and a' that,
Their tinsel show, an' a' that;
The honest man, tho' e'er sae poor,
Is king o' men for a' that.

Ye see yon birkie, ca'd a lord,
Wha struts, an' stares, an' a' that;
Tho' hundreds worship at his word,
He's but a coof for a' that:
For a' that, an' a' that,
His ribband, star, an' a' that:
The man o' independent mind
He looks an' laughs at a' that.

A prince can mak a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that;
But an honest man's abon his might,
Gude faith, he maunna fa' that!
For a' that, an' a' that,
Their dignities an' a' that;
The pith o' sense, an' pride o' worth,
Are higher rank than a' that.

Then let us pray that come it may,
(As come it will for a' that,)
That Sense and Worth, o'er a' the earth,
Shall bear the gree, an' a' that.
For a' that, an' a' that,
It's coming yet for a' that,
That Man to Man, the world o'er,
Shall brothers be for a' that.

 

[phildwyer]

"Who's Who"

A shilling life will give you all the facts:
How Father beat him, how he ran away,
What were the struggles of his youth, what acts
Made him the greatest figure of his day;
Of how he fought, fished, hunted, worked all night,
Though giddy, climbed new mountains; named a sea;
Some of the last researchers even write
Love made him weep his pints like you and me.

With all his honours on, he sighed for one
Who, say astonished critics, lived at home;
Did little jobs about the house with skill
And nothing else; could whistle; would sit still
Or potter round the garden; answered some
Of his long marvellous letters but kept none.

-- W.H. Auden

 

[Autochthonous1]

ADRENALIN MOTHER

Adrenalin Mother,
with your dress of comets
and shoes of swift bird wings
and shadow of jumping fish,
thank you for touching,
understanding and loving my life.
Without you, I am dead.

Brautigan.

 

[Greebo]

The Giveaway by Phyllis McGinley

Saint Brigid was
A problem child.
Although a lass
Demure and mild,
And one who strove
To please her dad,
Saint Brigid drove
The family mad.
For here's the fault in Brigid lay:
She WOULD give everything away.

To any soul
Whose luck was out
She'd give her bowl
Of stirabout;
She'd give her shawl,
Divide her purse
With one or all.
And what was worse,
When she ran out of things to give
She'd borrow from a relative.

Her father's gold,
Her grandsire's dinner,
She'd hand to cold
and hungry sinner;
Give wine, give meat,
No matter whose;
Take from her feet
The very shoes,
And when her shoes had gone to others,
Fetch forth her sister's and her mother's.

She could not quit.
She had to share;
Gave bit by bit
The silverware,
The barnyard geese,
The parlor rug,
Her little
niece's christening mug,
Even her bed to those in want,
And then the mattress of her aunt.

An easy touch
For poor and lowly,
She gave so much
And grew so holy
That when she died
Of years and fame,
The countryside
Put on her name,
And still the Isles of Erin fidget
With generous girls named Bride or Brigid.

Well, one must love her.
Nonetheless,
In thinking of her
Givingness,
There's no denial
She must have been
A sort of trial
Unto her kin.
The moral, too, seems rather quaint.
WHO had the patience of a saint,
From evidence presented here?
Saint Brigid? Or her near and dear?