I thought I'd try something a bit different
from the normal run of topics this time...

"What's Your Favourite Poem - And, Why?"

I'll go first:

"Madame Butterfly at Nagasaki."

"Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton bought a house
On a hill above the Bay of Nagasaki
For Madam Butterfly to die in.
Before fifty years had gone
There were thousands of dead butterflies
All over a dead town,
and the marriage brokers were out of a job.
Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton still believes
That only American wives are real.

Madame Butterfly stood at the window all night long
Waiting for Lieutenant B.F. Pinkerton to climb the hill.
Like any plumber or electrician since his day
He failed to come,
Human beings, it is said,
Spend a third of their lives in bed.
Women must have spent another third
Waiting for men to turn up. If all those hours
Were laid end to end,
We could have another life
Of our own.

Even in 1900, Madame Butterfly was out of date.
Fidelity, acceptance, death or dishonour -
What quaint anachronisms!
Lieutenant Pinkerton showed the way
The world willingly followed,
Deaf to the final, questioning chord.
No penalties-only consequences,
Which Pinkertons cannot evade
Any more than butterflies."

Dorothy Auchterlonie (or Green), in this poem takes
Puccini's opera - "Madame Butterfly," and places the
characters at Nagasaki, the second site for the atomic
bomb drop by the US, on August 9, 1945, against Japan.
The first being - Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945.

The result is an extremely powerful expression of
living with the consequences of our actions, and the
moral choices we are faced with in life. That's the
reason this poem still resonates with me today.

Foxy,
I like this part:
"Human beings, it is said,
Spend a third of their lives in bed."
The rest of it is not a poem;
It doesn't rhyme.

Favourite short poem since childhood:

The man may last but never lives
who much receives but little gives.

I have accumulated a lot of favourite poetry in adulthood and it's hard to choose a single fave because it depends a bit on my mood,
but Dylan Thomas' famous villanelle remains most fascinating:

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I love the rhythm of it; the technical accomplishment (boy has anyone here ever tried to write a villanelle? The form is really tricky), the imagery and I really enjoy turning it over to extract different, possible interpretations. For example, is the father Dylan's father, can it work if I think of my father, how about if the poem refers to God the father ... and so on.

Do song lyrics count btw?

Özymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near to them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,
Which yet survive, stampt on these lifeless things,
The hand that mockt them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My names is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

I always thought this was a powerful testament to the folly of human vanity and the power of time and the elements.

Title and author unknown. Perhaps readers can help.

How near his sire’s careering fires
Must Mercury the planet run;
What wave of heat must lave and beat
That shining suburb of the sun

Whose burning flings supernal things
Like spindrift from his stormy crown;
He throws and shakes in rosy flakes
Intelligible virtues down,

And landing there, the candent air
A transformation on them brings,
Makes each a god of speech with rod
Enwreathed and sandals fledged with wings.

Due west (the Sun’s behest so runs)
They seek the wood where flames are trees;
In crimson shade their limbs are laid
Besides the pure quicksilver seas,

Where thick with notes of liquid throats
The forest melody leaps and runs
Till night lets robe the lightless globe
With darkness and with distant suns.

Awake they spring and shake the wing;
And on the trees whose trunk are flames
They find like fruit (with rind and root
And fronds of fire) their proper names.

They taste. They burn with haste. They churn
With upright plumes the sky’s abyss;
Far, far below, the arbours glow
Where once they felt mercurial bliss.

They ache and freeze through vacant seas
Of night. Their nimbleness and youth
Turns lean and frore; their meaning more,
Their being less. Fact shrinks to truth.

They reach this Earth. There each has birth
Miraculous, a word made breath,
Lucid and small for use in all,
Man’s daily needs; but dry like death.

So dim below these symbols show,
Bony and abstract every one.
Yet if true verse but lift the curse,
They feel in dreams their native Sun.

I studied the poems of Robert Frost at school, but did not really appreciate them then.
This one struck me as a very wise poem, and one that we can all learn from.
I would like to think I did take the road less traveled sometimes.

'The Road Not Taken' by Robert Frost.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Proxy I went looking for your poem.

First searches on "thick with notes of liquid throats" turned up a lot on nasal drip.

Rosy flakes etc didn't fair much better.

Eventually found an obscure blog reference to upright plumes.

http://adraughtofvintage.blogspot.com/2008/12/i-am-tennessee-pusher.html

... 'sky's abyss' eventually located a full reference:

It seems the poet is C.S. Lewis:
THE BIRTH OF LANGUAGE

http://blog.lib.umn.edu/wagne342/sq/2009/04/mercuriality_1.php

Correction:

Rosy flakes etc didn't fair much better.

should have been

Rosy flakes etc didn't fare much better.

This is my fishing poem, it's about how the misses gets snaky before I go on my annual fishing trip with the boys.

Well it's that time at last, the time we love most
But we dare not get excited as we'll only cop a roast

Our rods are all packed and not a thing missed
Then out comes the misses with this * great list

Well it's ok for you to go off and have fun
But what about the jobs that you haven’t yet done

And what about the kids with their schooling and sports
O-r tell me you're not wearing those crappy old shorts

And what about from your last trip where you left all your mess
And meanwhile I am still dodging this fishermen's nest


Now as we get nearer and the ‘s’ list gets bigger
At least we get closer to pulling that trigger

Now this trigger ain’t a gun we hold at our leisure
It's simply our switch between business and pleasure

So although we cop 's’ leading up to the dates
At least we can look forward to some fun with our mates

Now although Weipa's been great and tilly may too
I'm looking forward to our Hinchinbrook ronde view

Now although the fishing is great in Weipa and Prossie to name just a few
The trip would be nothing without such a crew

I found a treasure.
The combined works of Banjo Paterson.
I love bush poetry.
It stands unread on the shelf.
O I will treasure it when the time comes to read every word.
But other things come first.
I often ask did we really have more time to do such things once.
Or will I ever have the time to just sit and enjoy that book.

Pynchme,
Well spotted.

Foxy

A much needed respite from antagonism into the sublime.

I enjoy Haiku. For their restful immediacy, such as a prelude to and on meditation. Also for the stirring images either visual or philosophical.

The following are two examples from the work of Basho, translated by Peter Beilenson.

The first is based on nature, which is the foundation of Haiku:

<< Spring morning marvel
lovely nameless little hill
on a sea of mist >>

The following is more philosophical:

<< In my dark winter
lying ill, at last I ask
how fares my neighbour >>

Severin,

I agree - great thread, Foxy.

William Blake is a favourite poet of mine. Here are the first four lines of "Auguries Of Innocence"

To see a World in a grain of sand,
And Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour.

And this from "The Four Zoas" - Blake's prophesy of the changes the Industrial Revolution would bring.

And all the arts of life they changed into the arts of death.
The hour glass contemnd because its simple workmanship.
Was the workmanship of the plowman & the water wheel.
That raises water into Cisterns broken and burned in fire.
Because its workmanship was like the workmanship of the Shepherd.
And in their stead intricate wheels invented Wheel without wheel.
To perplex youth in their outgoings & bind to labours.
Of day & night the myriads of Eternity, that they might file
And polish brass & iron hour after hour laborious workmanship
Kept ignorant of the use that they might spend the days of wisdom.
In sorrowful drudgery to obtain a scanty pittance of bread
In ignorance to view a small portion & think that All
And call it Demonstration blind to all the simple rules of life.

Dear Proxy,

Rhyme is only one of several elements
of poetry.

Thanks for the poem you quoted -
I'm not sure of the title and
author, however its style reminds
me of - "Metamorphoses," by Ovid.

Dear Pynch,

Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gently
Into That Good Night," is one of
my mother's favourites. She actually
had us read it at my step-father's
funeral. It was very moving.

Dear Poirot,

"Look at my works, ye Mighty,
and despair..." Shelley puts it
so beautifully. Power is fleeting.
Every time I read this poem, visions
of the tearing down of Lenin/Stalin's
statues in Moscow spring to mind.

Dear Suze,

I love Robert Frost.

"The Road Not taken," reminds me
of an old Lithuanian saying:

"Along a straight road you will travel faster
but you will see less."

Dear Pynch,

Absolutely brilliantly done!

C.S. Lewis - who'd have thought...

Dear Rehctub,

Loved your fishing poem - it's made
me want to re-read some of my books
on Australian Verse - so Thanks!

Dear Belly,

I love bush poetry as well.
And of course Banjo Paterson is
on top of my list.
I hope that you'll find some time
to enjoy a few quiet reading moments.
You deserve it!

Dear Severin,

I've added your beautiful Haiku poems to my
collection. Thank You.

Dear Poirot,

"Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright..."

William Blake - another classic!

I'm really enjoying this thread.
Keep it coming - please!

Foxy

As today is Mothers' Day how about this from Rudyard Kipling

Mother o' Mine

If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

Foxy to pick just one mon ami, impossible. :)

Some of my favourites include T S Eliot's 'The Wasteland' too long to put here. Also love Yeats's 'Leda and the Swan' because of the language and the ability of Yeats to create a mood - in this case sadness.

I tend to like the imagist poems and this one by D H Lawrence really sets the scene. It is typical of Lawrence I guess in it's sexual focus.

"Gloire De Dijon"

"When she rises in the morning
I linger to watch her;
She spreads the bath-cloth underneath the window
Glistening white on her shoulders,
While down her sides the mellow
Golden shadow glows as
She stoops to the sponge, and her swung breasts
Sway like full-blown yellow
Gloire de Dijon roses.

She drips herself with water, and her shoulders
Glisten as silver, they crumple up
Like wet and felling roses, and I listen
For the sluicing of their rain-dishevelled petals,
In the window full of sunlight
Concentrates her golden shadow
Fold on fold, until it flows as
Mellow as the glory roses."

Dear Severin,

Thank You for that!

I'm having a lousy "Mother's Day,"
I took both my mum's out on Friday
for a Chinese Banquet - and had
flowers delivered to both of them
yesterday. (Their grandchildren are
visiting both today).

Whereas, I've spent the day drinking
medication, liquids, and having
multiple bowel movements - because
I'm booked in for a Colonoscopy
tomorrow arvo at the hospital.

So, my "Mother's Day," has virtually
gone down the crapper!

My apologies, for sharing this with you -
but as I said - it's been a lousy day.
And, then all that antagonism from
some male posters - on other threads -
which I needed like a hole in the head ...

So, Thank You dear heart, for this
lovely poem!

Dear Pelican,

I know what you mean, T.S. Eliot, Milton, and so many
others. The choice isn't easy.

D.H. Lawrence I love, he makes my toes curl
under (and I won't tell you about what
he does to other body parts - I suspect you already
know!).

Thank You for your choice - Luverly!

Oooh Foxy, under that librarian exterior lies a saucy devil. :D

Sorry to hear about your mother's day. Keep well and keep reading those poems - maybe some more uplifting ones to keep the spirit high.

Oh, Foxy

I have been through the, er, prep-work for a colonoscopy - the procedure itself is nothing compared to the pre-op cleansing.

However, you will feel great by Tuesday - it is the ultimate de-tox.

Pelican

Loved the D H Lawrence, luscious.

Dear Pelly,

Librarians are novel lovers after all! :-)

Dear Severin,

I'm looking forward to Tuesday with a passion!

Anyway, here's something I wrote a few years
ago. Being 'Mother's Day' I thought it might be
appropriate:

"I hold the pen firmly,
then pause briefly.
Words do not come easily
in the afternoon solitude.
There is a tree outside my window,
The wind is playing with its leaves,
nature fills my soul with peace,
and I continue.

Thoughts are very mixed,
yet I know,
somewhere between the morning's wash,
the planning of the evening meal,
lies a yearning,
a dream as yet unreachable.
One can only try,
taking one day at a time.

The private moments, the few hours alone,
are so precious,
husband, children, all have their needs,
I have mine.
To write, to unconfuse my thoughts,
to live at least on paper,
in the reality of words.

I reach for the pen again,
And as I do, I look up.
Two big brown eyes are staring at me,
A small blonde head hides behind the chair,
A crooked smile appears around the corner
and then, another voice calls out
from the bedroom,
"Mama!"

I hear the words echoing in my ears,
"Mama, Mama, Mama!"
I know my time is up,
there is a greater need then mine,
For now."

I wrote this poem years ago for a writer friend of mine in Ireland. She was successful and passionate and tragic - and her bestselling biography was really a voyage around her mother.

Thinking of you, I think of your land,
Though neither has known the touch of my hand.
In you the essence of Ireland is there,
The warm flow of life, the ebb - the despair.

You're the river of life flowing out to the sea,
The nourishing rain on the shimmering green.
You're the scattered and lost that fled Erin's shores,
The rent in the fabric, the holes that were torn.
You're the triumph of time, the crumbling of stone,
The longing of those who meant to come home.
You're a banquet for those who devoured you whole,
The British, your body - the Romans, your soul.
You're the vanquished who cried from the crypt to be heard,
Took the tongue of your master and spoke your own words.
You're the deafening silence, the suffering child
The passion distilled from one crowded mile.
You're the mother of genius - the feminine one,
Bloom is your father - Dedalus, your son.
You're churches and pubs and pagans and priests,
The flickering embers of ancestors grief.
You're style and shambles all rolled into one
Grimness and beauty, shadow and sun.

I long to inhale just one breath of Eire,
To trace with my pen your worries and cares.
Though I think of you, friend, as sometimes alone,
You're enfolded in richness, encircled by home.

I know that some will protest “it just ain't poesy”
But I think that such persons are just too choesy
A good riff & pitch is worth a page of rhyme

The Immigrant Song
A-ah-ahh-ah, ah-ah-ahh-ah
We come from the land of the ice and snow
from the midnight sun where the hot springs blow

The hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde and sing and cry, Valhalla, I am coming

On we sweep with, with threshing oar
Our only goal will be the western shore

Ah-ah-ahh-ah, ah-ah-ahh-ah
We come from the land of the ice and snow
from the midnight sun where the hot springs FLOW
How soft your fields, so green
can whisper tales of gore, of how we calmed the tides of war
We are your overlords

On we sweep with, with threshing oar
Our only goal will be the western shore

S-so now you better stop and rebuild all your ruins
for peace and trust can winthe day despite of all you're losin'
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ahh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svR3iXKTJvc

Ahhhhh! (he sculls a cow horn full of ale , wiping the overflow off his chin with the back of his hand) Those were the days, when men were men, and women …weeell …bring on the next pillage.

Foxy,
Sorry you're having such a lousy Mother's Day.
Roll on Tuesday.

Poirot

Although I have Irish ancestors, I have yet to set foot upon Eire's shores. Your poem has been the closest to fulfilling such dreams.

Thank you.

All lovely poems so far everyone. Nice thread for a change!
Dear Foxy, I hope all goes well with the big up periscope day for you tomorrow!
I had that procedure done on myself last year and I must say I did enjoy the 'happy, forgetting' drugs I was given! Enjoy!
Cheers, Suze.

Dear Poirot,

Beautiful poem!

It brought tears to my eyes and a lump
to my throat. Thank You.

And, I must admit I can't wait for Tuesday!

Dear Horus,

Those were the days indeed!

Thanks for reminding us.

You may enjoy this one:

"I blow my pipes, the glad birds sing,
The fat young numphs about me spring,
The sweaty centaur leaps the trees
And bites his dryad's splendid knees:
The sky, the water, and the earth
Repeat aloud our noisy mirth...
Anon, tight-bellied bacchanals,
With ivy from the vineyard walls,
Lead out and crown with shining glass
The wine's red baby on the grass.

I blow my pipes, the glad birds sing,
The fat young nymphs about me spring,
I am the Lord,
I am the Lord,
I am the Lord of everything!"

Dear Suze,

I'm looking forward to the actual procedure,
it can't be as bad as the prep I've done today!
Thanks for your good wishes. I'll need them.
The problem is
the procedure is in the afternoon - so it may
be a long wait - with no food or drink allowed
after 7am tomorrow (and only liquids today).

cont'd ...

Before I go I'd like to leave another
poem. It's written by a poet, who
'happens' to be an Aboriginal. A poet
who is passionate in his concern for
humanity. Kevin Gilbert, in this poem
shows us not only his poetic intensity,
but also that he has an ear for different
rhythms and registers of language.
Especially effective is his use of
old-poeticisms such as, 'gay ribands,'
'nought,' 'epaulets, 'carnage,' and so on,
giving the poem greater vividness and
adding to the atmosphere of the 'old world'
theme of plumes, pens, and swords, as given in
the title.

"The Pen is Mightier Than the Sword."

"The pen is mightier than the sword
but only when
it sows the seed of thought
in minds of men
to kindle love and grow
through the burnt page
destroyed by huns and vandals in their rage

The sword in russet hues lies mouldering
its sharp and shiny edge now dulled by peace
and blood-lust sated between customers
like some old time worn harried whore
well past her prime
awaiting some brute hand to wield her hate

The bugler sounds, the drummer sounds his beat
bright swords refurbished tilt to marching feet
gay ribands, uniforms and epaulets
entrap the eye, the soul till madness sway
them to the dance of death the piper plays

The pen in great tragedienne lines extol
the meritorius lie, the grand excuse
justification for this carnivore
called man who can't evolve in his estate
clothed and fed, his universities
and halls of learning yet avail him nought
the jungle beasts enact the same stage plays
one kind, one king, one death the same
in duty and in worship all the same
differing nought for death wears the same cloak
regardless of technology or sport."

Dear Foxy,

Thank you for the topic.

There are many poems I thoroughly enjoy however there are a few that really grab me and shake the back teeth.

At the top of that list is from a young poet who died at the age of 19. It is called High Flight.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....

Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Blows me away every time I read it and I find myself doing so aloud. The words just tumble out and I get noticeably breathless by the end of the poem.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was and Anglo-american who flew spitfires in the Battle of Britain but was killed in a training mishap over Lincolnshire during the war.

Although I have para-glided and parachuted I am not a pilot yet this piece will always have a tight hold on me. Apparently the “touched the face of God” line was borrowed from another pilot but it finishes this poem so beautifully.

Dear Foxy,

Sorry to hear about your rotten MD and all. Hope the
investigations go well with minimal discomfort and no
notable results.

I thought while you're on a miserable restricted diet
and all that a little bit of humour or music or something
around the topic might alleviate any anxiety. So, here
we go:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uPu1dRRfTY&feature=related

Not quite the same thing but in the same general direction. (Suzie might get a giggle out of this one)-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBPSSQFwNJ0

How about some butt jokes? Like ask your doc to check for an echo or uhm ... something.

Hope this isn't too off colour for you. I'll be thinking of you and
yes - race on to Tuesday.

All the best,

pynch

Quick procedure, best of wishes for Tuesday Foxy [just dont make the Specialist laugh with your beautiful humour or the camera may not travel along its specified path]!

Foxy,
Not quite a poem as it doesn't rhyme.
Nevertheless:

So you must not be frightened
if a sadness rises up before you
larger than any you have ever seen;
if an anxiety, like light and cloud-shadows,
passes over your hands and over all you do.
You must remember that something is happening to you,
that life has not forgotten you
that it holds you in its hands,
and will not let you fall.
- Rainer Maria Rilke

Foxy,
Like Belly I love Australiana,as my namesake implies, but many authors of balleds and stories.

This is a favourite that some here may not have read.

GROUNDS FOR DIVORCE? Sandy Thorne

Took the plunge'n clapped the hobbles on a sheila from inside
Her head was kind, her pedigree was good
Shes coped with dust, flies'n heatwaves, taken bad times in her stride
But I just can't stand to watch her chopping wood!

She can whack a feed together out of salt beef, spuds'n rice
In an old campoven out on the droving tracks
And neatly roll a swag--set a camp up in a trice
But strike me roan, shes hopeless with an axe!

She'll run and block bad cattle, when I really need a hand
Only measures five foot two, but she's got guts
Scruffing year old mickeys, while I put on the brand
But that woman can't chop wood for bloody nuts!

I've tried every way to teach her, that vital female chore
Even splashed out on a brand-new five pound Plumb
Now I ask you, fair dinkum--could a bloke do anymore?
But she'll never learn to chop wood like me mum

Foxy,
My experience with the colonoscopy was the same, the cleaning out part was the worst. The nurses were good and joked with us all waiting to get done. I said after, Doc would you sign a statement to my wife saying that my brains are not there.

I have never been so hungry in all my life. How long does it take to die from stavation?

Next visit to Doc he said all was clear and I would not need another for 12 months. I said, news for you Doc, thats the first and last.

Good luck

Yea Foxy, topic's neat:

"... The bugler sounds, the drummer sounds his beat
bright swords refurbished tilt to marching feet...."

see here: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=3130#73906
and read-slash-view the links.
It all might give one cause to think.

But then a tragic error, not effete:

"The pen[s] in great tragedienne lines extol
the meritorius lie, the grand excuse ..."

Foxy, the pens were plural! Can just one pen
have done such harm?
Quelle domage! Defeat.

I now retire, poetically, evocatively, replete.



But now to answer your double-barrelled question, Foxy: How about:

"Kanzo Makame. The Diver.
Sturdy and small Japanee.
Seeker of pearl, and of pearl shell,
down in the depths of the sea. ..."

One of Banjo's. Written in 1902.

Because it shows how far-sighted Banjo was, and what an observer.


Foxy,
You wouldn't chance to have more Gilbert, too?
You know, that other one.
'Kiackatoo'

Good Morning Everyone,

Thanks for all your good wishes and
lovely poems. I'm sitting at my computer,
and fighting nausea. My colonoscopy is
scheduled for 1.30pm not this morning as
I originally thought, so it's going to be
a long day. I drank some cranberry juice
this morning at 7am - now nothing to eat and
drink until after the procedure. All I hope is that
I won't be the last on the list to be done -
last time they didn't take me in until after
4pm.

Anyway, Thanks again for your concern.
I must admit that I'm scared - as most of
you know I was diagnosed with colon cancer
3 years ago - they removed the tumour,
then again, I had to have minor surgery,
now the rectal bleeding's come back - that's why
I'm going in again.

Foxy:"it's been a lousy day.
And, then all that antagonism from
some male posters - on other threads -
which I needed like a hole in the head ..."

Or, in other words "come and back me up against the awful men"

Dear me, foxy, you may be unwell, but that's just weak. I am sometimes unwell too, but I usually simply avoid posting if I'm not up to it. I don't try to play on my "weakness" to get others to help me out of a hole I've dug for myself. I bet you're a dab hand at waiting for a man to open doors for you 'n' all.

As for poems, I'm rather partial to a bit of Henry Lawson. Unlike the bucolic vision splendid of Patterson, Lawson embraced the squalid and the down and out. He wrote about real people who had to face real problems, albeit often in strangely surreal situations. He was a genuine working-class man who was an early supporter of Unionism and he lived what he wrote about. Most of all he was humorous and wrote of people who faced their travails with good humour. Belly would do well to place a copy of Lawson's Collected Works beside his copy of the squatter Banjo's writings.

I didn't much go for poetry as a boy or young man. I suspect that is pretty common. Allegory and metaphor were appreciated more as part of a good piece of prose than the oft-strained poetic examples. The first poem that really struck a chord with me as I recall was "Horatius" by Macauley, which tells Livy's tale of the defence of Rome by 3 brave men.

Then out spake brave Horatius,
The Captain of the Gate:
"To every man upon this earth
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can man die better
Than facing fearful odds,
For the ashes of his fathers,
And the temples of his gods,

"And for the tender mother
Who dandled him to rest,
And for the wife who nurses
His baby at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,
To save them from false Sextus
That wrought the deed of shame?

"Haul down the bridge, Sir Consul,
With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me,
Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand
May well be stopped by three.
Now who will stand on either hand,
And keep the bridge with me?"

Just as in Livy's time, most people do not have the courage of their convictions. They want the benefits of their society but they do not want their society to demand anything from them. It falls upon the brave or silly few to do the dirty work while the rest watch.

Dear Foxy

My thoughts are with you today. Please post on OLO ASAP.

"Hope" is the thing with feathers"

"Hope" is the thing with feathers—
That perches in the soul—
And sings the tune without the words—
And never stops—at all—

And sweetest—in the Gale—is heard—
And sore must be the storm—
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm—

I've heard it in the chillest land—
And on the strangest Sea—
Yet, never, in Extremity,
It asked a crumb—of Me.

Emily Dickinson

Foxy,
Best wishes regarding the results of you examination today.

I was hopefull that Sandy Thorne's poem might cheer you a bit.

Perhaps you can read it again tomorrow.

You and I have had some interesting debates at times and you have always been a lady. It would be my pleasure to open any door for you.

Foxy, I neglected in my last to also offer you my best wishes. While I enjoy "tweaking the dragon's tail", I don't wish you or anyone else here any ill. I wasn't aware that you'd had a tumour already removed, so that's a sobering piece of news indeed.

I hope all goes well and that the bleeding turns out to be nothing more serious than a nasty dose of campylobacter or something similar.

Ogden Nash on babies...

"A little talcum
Is always walcum."?

I have so many poems I love it's hard to choose a favourite.
But "The Frivolous Cake" is up there: http://ww2.cs.mu.oz.au/~rafe/the_frivolous_cake.html

Why? Because I read the I had to read the Gormanghast Trilogy to find it.

Dear Foxy,

This is a great thread. I have had a colonoscopy and am a firm anticolonialist as a result. However, we never really know what the other person is going through. Even though we have the same procedure we don't approach it with the same history or the same feeling. We can't know what goes on in the other person's head as the following expresses:

Richard Cory by E. A. Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
'Good-morning,' and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich — yes, richer than a king —
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Poirot:

Your poem is beautiful.

Dear Foxy,
I to wish you a speedy recovery.
This is a poem I wrote an essay on once. I was born in London and lived there, and in Nottingham until I was ten; enough for a lingering accent and the torture of nostalgia to haunt me; I still haven't been back. And my generation was perhaps one of the last when childhood meant something unscripted. I was riding the buses of Chelsea with my brother, unsupervised, from about the age of five. Anyway, this poem puts you there; I can even smell the smells. Larkins was a tortured cynic-laureate, but this is a slice of life.

I'm blushing again! It's called "The Whitsun Weddings" and here's the link: http://www.poetryarchive.org/poetryarchive/singlePoem.do?poemId=7108

Has anyone mentioned Gerard Manley Hopkins. His "Binsey Poplars" is apposite, since we are on the brink of strangling the life out of mother Earth: http://www.bartleby.com/122/19.html

My wife wrote and illustrated an abecedary for children - a poem for each letter. Here are a couple:

N

Naughty Nancy blew her nose
In Mr Clancy's finest rose
Said Clancy, "What a cheek you've got!"
Said Nancy, "What's a bit of snot?"

P

Prudence Price is oh, so nice.
"Be like her," is Mum's advice.

She never farts and never swears
She never burps and never stares

She never sniffs and never sneezes
She never pinches, never teases

She never steals and never lies
She never screams and never cries

She always does as she is told
She's never cheeky, never bold

She's never nasty, never mean
Her fingernails are always clean

"Just be like her," is Mum's advice.
Oh, how I hate that Prudence Price.

Poirot you have a real talent, the poem was beautiful. I'm sure your friend will treasure it's warmth always.

Who can forget Keats' To Autumn, a much studied but beautiful poem. I remember my English teacher making the class recite this one from memory. Can't do it now so I will just copy and paste.

To Autumn

"Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,
Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies."

I am a grandma now, but about 15 years ago, I was very concerned when my son came home from school disgusted because a poem he had written had been severely criticised becaue he mentioned 'beer'. Neither of us remember the poem he wrote, bur we do remember the poem that he chose to take back to school as an appropriate example of poetry. Mind you it took me half the evening to discourage him from purposely FAILING English after the experience, however this is what we found - author unknown:

ODE TO A GOLDFISH
O, my wet, wet, wet friend!

Son never looked back - I never heard from the teacher

Hi Everyone,

Well I'm back, and absolutely glad it's
all over.

Dear Antiseptic,

Thank You for your input into this thread.

Dear Severin,

Thanks for the "Hope" that you sent me.
You always know just the right thing
to say, especially when someone needs
hope badly. But then you've been there
yourself, so you understand only too well.

Dear Banjo,

Thank You for your kind words.

You are, and always have been a tender-hearted
man. A Gentleman.
Tenderness is a quality that I love
in a person, but it's such a rare quality
to find.

Dear Peter H.

I love Ogden Nash and his sense of humour.
Especially his reflections on ice-breaking:

"Candy is dandy
But liquor is quicker!"

Dear Mitchell,

Loved your serve of - "Frivolous Cake."

Dear David F.,

Thank You for your sobering poem.
Appearances can certainly be deceiving.
I would love to also read - one of your
wife's delightful ditties.
Perhaps next time?

Dear Squeers,

Thanks for the poems and the links.

Train journeys bring back so many memories.
Did you know that Larkin was a librarian?
My in-laws are from Yorkshire. And, your second
poem reminds me of one of Ogden Nash's:

"I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all."

Dear David F.,

Our posts have just crossed.

Thank You so much for your wife's
delightful ditties. I'll keep
them for my first grand-child!

Dear Pelly,

Thanks for Keats 'Autumn' poem.
I love his 'Ode on a Grecian Urn.'

"Thou still ravished bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of Silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fringed legend haunts about thy shape
of Deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?..."

I simply love the old poeticisms.

Dear bridgejenny,

Your son certainly showed the teacher - and
what a pity she didn't rise to the occasion.
What a clever child was he! He said it all!
A most appropriate Ode To A Goldfish!
Loved it!

Thank you all for your kind words about my poem. I'll let you in on something, though. I never did send it to my friend, although it was definitely written for her.
It wasn't sent simply because I didn't have the confidence - I mean, I'm not a poet - and she was Oxford educated and knew all about literature, etc. I placed it in a drawer along with my other bits and pieces.
And then she died. I always regretted not sending it, but perhaps just posting it on the forum has in some way set it free.

Poirot,
you most certainly are a poet, if that means inspiration comes from within, as Percy Shelley argued in "in Defence of Poetry" (I'm teaching a course in Romanticism at the moment). "The well that springs not from the heart is vain" (Goethe).

TS Elliot is the best.Now for a Change of pace by myself, written decades ago when I was young.Pamplona long ago.Running of the bulls.

\" Foolish Runner"
Sun fashes through the leaves,
The forboding arrows piece my veined pupils,
And my mind flashes" This can't be so!"
Repentingly ,my consciousness seeks the security,
Of jovial chatter,
Echoes of last nights spirited quest for bravery,
Quicken the pace,
And I yearn to end this unsavoury matter.

Committed,I weight the odds of maim against fame.
With so many bods,I'm certain of favour.
Nervously,I try not to waver.

Fame spells blanket shadows,
Of lumbering meat and slashing skewers,
I may well not be distinguished from scattered manure.

The momentum of time and chatter,
Drag me on through,
The barrier passed my feet are like glue.
A wooden clatter,echoes a resounding note,
I'm all alone and they're here to gloat.

A piercing thought,strikes me aghast,
Alone and surrounded,I may not last.

Adrenalin surges,
And my body merges,
Into a channelled race,
I entered to save face.

A shuffling motion,
Quickens to commotion,
The accelerated pace,
Quelled by undertones of " Tranquilo tranquilo"
What's in a few kilos?

It's not what's in,
That burdens my lot.
It's where to begin,
That hastens my trot.

A slight pause at this at the arbitary start,
A shuddering blast,
Jumps the crowd to task,
A second sends illusions fleeting.
Feet begin a purposeful beating.

Into the ring,
But not quite first,
To a whistled greeting,
Just short of a curse.
Though better than that fatal meeting.

Over the fence,
No time for blushing.
Ah,what good sense.

Then the accelerated rushing,
A gyser of red and white,
Spews into the light.
Then black and mean,
A spectular,frightening crazy scene.

Bodies,falling,sprawling,fleeing,
To the magnetic nook of fence and friends.
Red flashing capes,
Sea saw mortal intent,
Between game and gate.

Electric skewers turn and charge,
The expectants roar a subdued barrage.
Capes flash in earnst,
To save the cursed,

The roar subsides to a relieved moan,
As shadows blend,
Leaving all unknown.

By Arjay a long time ago.

Foxy

So happy to hear from you - I hope everything is 'lookin' good'.

Poirot

That poem is the most beautiful poem I have read recently. What a shame you did not send it to your friend. It is utterly evocative of Ireland. I don't write poetry now, but did so when much younger - even won a few prizes in school competitions. While I can hardly describe myself as a poet, I can recognise - as many others here did as well, that you are indeed a poet. One perfect piece is worth more than an abundance of mediocre work.

Is it to late to send that poem to your friend? Or even her relatives?

Again to Foxy - looking forward to more fantastic topics, such as this.

Dear Poirot,

What a shame your friend never got to
read your beautiful poem. But, perhaps
she's aware of its existence - you never
know? At least you've shared it with us
on OLO and for that we're very grateful.

You should keep writing though, as you do
have a gift that should be shared. Look
at the joy you've brought to so many here,
myself included. As A.D. Hope in his book,
"The New Cratylus: Notes on the Craft of
Poetry," says:

"There is nothing mysterious about poetry.
The whole endeavour of this book is to show
that it is composed of ordinary materials
familiar to us in other contexts and that
it works by similarly familiar processes.
Poets are not magicians, but a rather odd
kind of craftsmen, working in a living
material which is part of themselves."

Dear Arjay,

Thank You for your poem - it says so
much about human beings, which adds to our
sense of what living is all about. Great stuff!

Dear Severin,

Thanks for your concern.
It's an on-going process for me - health wise.
I'm looking forward to
sharing new topics with you on OLO as well.
It's your turn to start one next though.

Hi Foxy,

I wont give you any further attention or sympathy.

Sorry, as I've said before, it's not my thing.

I will however write you a poem... well not a poem. It's a song.

Drink up, baby, stay up all night
The things you could do, you won't but you might
The potential you'll be that you'll never see
The promises you'll only make

Drink up with me now and forget all about
The pressure of days, do what I say
And I'll make you okay and drive them away
The images stuck in your head
People you've been before that you don't want around anymore
That push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still

Drink up, baby, look at the stars
I'll kiss you again between the bars
Where I'm seeing you there with your hands in the air
Waiting to finally be caught

Drink up one more time and I'll make you mine
Keep you apart, deep in my heart
Separate from the rest, where I like you the best
And keep the things you forgot
The people you've been before that you don't want around anymore
That push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still

Dear Foxy

Just a thought:

I was listening to the Philospher's Zone on Radio National on Saturday, where author Havi Carel was interviewed about her book on living with chronic illness. I found her strategies very compelling and have ordered a copy to assist with myself and caring for my mother.

If you are interested you may listen to the program yourself:

http://www.abc.net.au/rn/philosopherszone/stories/2010/2889678.htm

:)

Severin:"caring for my mother."

Gee, she must be a selfish old cow, expecting her children to take care of her...

Dear Houellebecq,

Sympathy is not what I'm after at all,
however your poem will do just fine
and Thank You so much.

As everyone can guess by now, I love
poetry. It's a private and public phenomenon,
and always has been from the classical
poets to the heroes of the modern electronic
media. It's found in high and low culture, in the
short run of books from exclusive publishing
houses, on gravestones, on the walls of public
toilets and in children's games. Response to its
magic is spread across humanity: in the mind of
the intellectual, in the heart of the lover and
in the rhythmical movements of dancers who respond
to the lyrics of the songs which pound out in
crowded rooms. From this point of view,
"Sticky beak, treacle nose/Lolly legs and ice cream
toes," is as much poetry as "Shall I compare thee
to a summer's day?" Comic verse is as much poetry as
the ode; the limerick as worthwhile s the sonnet.
Funny rhymes can help you keep your reason, just
as serious poetry can probe your soul...

Dear Severin,

Thank You for the link.
It is much appreciated.

Dear Antiseptic,

"A Lion is fierce:
His teeth can pierce
The skin of a postman's knee.
It serves him right,
That, because of his bite,
He gets no letters you see."

It isn't easy to stop doing what you're
doing, but do try for the sake of
civility.

Dear Foxy,

I identify with the following:

ALL MEN ARE PIONEERS

All men are pioneers inside their hearts.
They are forever seeking wilderness.
Behind strong teams they ride in hooded carts,
Avid for life, and masterless.

They would take their women west or north,
They would invade a country terrible with peril,
They would eternally be riding forth
Out of the cities they have found so sterile.

In their hearts they are forever cutting clover,
They are forever drawing water from a well.
In their dreams they are observing, over and over,
The ground they would clear, the forests they would fell.

They are dreaming of lands uncivilized that sprawl
Unfound, or unimagined, or forgot. . .
Knowing they will not leave the town at all,
As like as not.

Lionel Wiggam

I don't think my wife was familiar with the above when she wrote for D:

Daredevil Dotty
Sat on her potty
Thinking of brave things to do

Like training a bear
To jump in the air
But all she could do was a poo.

Dear David F.,

Thanks for your poems and for
reminding us that human nature is
what it is and that life, no matter how
we live it, is very short. You always
give an extra dimension, and add to our
sense of what life means. I love reading
your posts on OLO.

'ALL MEN ARE PIONEERS'

pft. What about all the women pioneers who throughout the ages have worked under the patriarchy with zero appreciation. It's offensive to women; the downtrodden martyrs of society, to hear constantly from these abusive brutes patting themselves on the back. History written about men for men!

It doesn't take much to 'pioneer' the systematic degradation and oppression of 50% of the human race!

Foxy:"the sake of
civility."

Aah, of course, "civility". Is that where the "right" posters get "letters" and the "wrong" ones get you telling everyone to ignore them?

Nice work. It's good to see your spleen hasn't been damaged...

As for my comment above, I refer you to your own comment to me on another thread with respect to children looking after their parents in their dotage:

"As for who's going to look after us in
our old age? Are you seriously expecting
to burden your children with that
responsibility? That's extremely selfish
of you, and it's not something that would
have even occurred to many of us."

Presumably you also then think that Severin's mum is being "extremely selfish", especially considering that I actually never expressed any intent to make a burden of myself or is being honest too "uncivil" for you?

Take your time dear, I know this requires thinking, not just going to the catalogue to find a book of quotations. Remember, you also said on that other thread:

""we admit when
we're wrong, and we apologise for
our mistakes. You never do."

So what's it to be, Foxy? Honesty or hypocrisy?

Anti

Your attacks are becoming far too personal. The comments regarding my mother are beyond reprehensible - do you not see how your words reflect on you?

This thread is about poetry.

Foxy has and is still undergoing a great deal of stress, which is probably why she started this wonderful topic. All of us have gained such a lot from many of the poems presented here.

You can spray your vitriol like poison over these pages, but you cannot alter the humanity in the hearts of people.

He's cracking.

Dear Houellebecq,

Read the poem instead of just the title. It's a putdown of all men. They imagine themselves being pioneers but in reality don't leave the town. Women are more realistic. Instead you choose to regard it as a putdown of women. Life has what meanings to us we give to it. To my mother it was meaningless, and we're punching at nothingness. She used to recite:

When there's bats in your belfry that flut,
And your comprenez vous rope is cut.
And there's nobody home
In the top of your dome.
Then your head's not a head. It's a nut.

We all eventually wind up in the same place. As Swinburne wrote in "The Garden of Proserpine"

There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.

We are not sure of sorrow;
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.

Severin:"The comments regarding my mother are beyond reprehensible"

I see. Whereas the comments about my children that you make are all in just good clean fun? Oh, I forgot, all that "civility" stuff must apply.

Hypocrisy is never a good look, hon and you've been draping yourself with it.

Never mind, at least your mum's got a child to look after her. Some might call that selfish, but I don't.

Davidf, part of what your Pioneers poem expresses is the drive of men to be away from where they are, even if circumstances dictate that they are unable to do so, which I think is very real. Women are more naturally inclined to stay near home, I suspect.

To take what is solemn and revered and satirise the mickey out of it is my cup of tea. Here is what a Victorian poet did with the Ten Commandments.

ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH (1819-61)

'The Latest Decalogue'

Thou shalt have one God only: who
Would be at the expense of two?
No graven images may be
Worshipped, except the currency:
Swear not at all; for, for thy curse
Thine enemy is none the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will serve to keep the world thy friend:
Honour thy parents; that is, all
From whom advancement may befall:
Thou shalt not kill; but need'st not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
Do not adultery commit;
Advantage rarely comes of it:
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When it's so lucrative to cheat:
Bear not false witness; let the lie
Have time on its own wings to fly:
Thou shalt not covet, but tradition
Approves all forms of competition.

david f.

I like that very much.
Reading your wife's verses, which are very clever, reminded me of Roald Dahl's hilarious send up of some popular fairytales in his book, "Revolting Rhymes".

Dear Antiseptic,

A few clarifications:

I was politely asking you for civility
because as Severin has told us, her mother
is terminally ill and very frail,
and Severin is selling
her home and moving to the country to look
after her mother. It's Severin's choice.

For you to call Severin's mother a "selfish
old cow," is as Severin stated -
"beyond reprehensible."
Severin did not insult you or your children on the
other thread - yet you chose to do so without
any provocation on this one.

Your comment has nothing to do with the topic of
this thread, which is "What's Your Favourite
Poem - And Why?" And to use the excuse that
"You started it," is just so weak and lame.
Then you've got the nerve to talk about honesty.
That's really chutzpah!
(chutzpah - is what the Americans call gall.
And example is when you murder your parents then
try to throw yourself on the mercy of the court
because you're an orphan).

My comment to which you refer was made to you on
another thread and it was tied in with the
recommendation that parents should plan for
their old age. It has nothing to do with
Severin's mother - which is a different case
altogether and in this case - it is Severin's
choice to be with her terminally ill mother.

Also, just for the record. I don't go to catalogues
to find books of quotations. I don't need to.
I actually have a vast
library collection at home, which includes poetry,
(as well as a Master's in Literature) so my knowledge
in the subject is quite broad.

Anyway, please in future do try to stick to the subject
of the thread and if you can't then I would appreciate
your not posting at all, rather than your continued
troll like behaviour of consistently trying to derail
threads. You've been told in the past - start your
own threads on whatever topic you want - I'm sure
you'll find plenty of like-minded people responding
to your charms.

Dear David F.,

Once again - Thanks for your input.
As I've said previously - you have
the gift of widening our mind's eye
and taking us beyond the ordinary.

Dear Poirot,

David's wife is, like him, very talented.
And I too can see a connection with the
riotous and inventive writing of Roald
Dahl. Especially his description of the
"awesome snozzcumber" in the "BFG." (1982):

"It's disgusterous!" the BFG gurgled.
"It's sickable! It's rotsome! It's maggotwise!
Try it yourself, this foulsome snozzcumber!"

cont'd ...

Dear Poirot,

Children love the gritty, earthy flavour
of Mother Goose; they savour the emotions
of lyrical poetry; they gulp down the
comic and the witty; they chew slowly
a narrative well told. Watch children
enjoy the image of the little cat in
Carl Sandburg's, "Fog." :

"The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sets looking
over harbour and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on."

Or Eleanor Farjeon's personification of
the tide in "The Tide in the River." :

"The tide in the river,
The tide in the river,
The tide in the river runs deep.
I saw a shiver
Pass over the river
As the tide turned in its sleep."

What a choice morsel! The tide runs and runs
and then it sleeps - and then it stirs and
shivers, as a sleeper does just before waking ...

And of course there's Roald Dahl's, "Jack
and the Beanstalk." :

"Jack's mother said, "We're stony broke!
Go out and find some wealthy bloke
Who'll buy our cow. Just say she's sound
And worth at least a hundred pound.
But don't you dare to let him know
That she's as old as billy-o."

Foxy,

When Jack produced one lousy bean,
His startled mother, turning green,
Leaped high up in the air and cried,
"I'm absolutely stupefied!",
"You crazy boy! D'you really mean
"You sold our Daisy for a bean?
She snatched the bean. She yelled, "You chump!"
And flung it on the rubbish dump.

I'm still using Roald Dahl's books. They were my daughter's, although she's all grown up now, my eight year-old son is now reading them. That's the good thing about books they don't wear out that easily.

Dear Poirot,

Books can be used again and again -
that's the beauty of them. My children
loved June Factor's, "Far Out, Brussel
Sprout." Especially her "off colour"
rhymes:

"The night was dark and stormy,
the dunny light was dim,
I heard a crash and then a splash -
By gosh! He's fallen in!"

Maybe this is very much a part of
growing up.

Dear Foxy,

My son was a big fan of Lynley Dodd's rhyming books - Hairy Maclary and Slinky Malinki are just two of a host of characters from her books. She is a very descriptive writer and manages to insert all sorts of delicious words into her stories.

Both sides now...Joni Mitchell

Its the words , it's the words...and its Joni

Rows and floes of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons ev'rywhere
I've looked at clouds that way
But now they only block the sun
They rain and snow on ev'ryone
So many things I would have done
But clouds got in my way

Moons and Junes and Ferris wheels
The dizzy dancing way you feel
As ev'ry fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way

But now it's just another show
You leave 'em laughing when you go
And if you care, don't let them know
Don't give yourself away

Tears and fears and feeling proud
To say 'I love you' right out loud
Dreams and schemes and circus crowds
I've looked at life that way

But now old friends are acting strange
They shake their heads, they say I've changed
Well something's lost, but something's gained
In living ev'ry day

I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all

Posted by Poirot, Saturday, 8 May 2010 9:15:49 PM
Özymandias" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1817)

Oh yea, now we are talking top shelf...great choice.

Foxy:"I was politely asking you for civility
because as Severin has told us, her mother
is terminally ill and very frail,"

She may have told you that, but it doesn't alter my case, nor does it alter your hypocrisy in the matter. If my mother was dying (which she did about 25 years ago) would that mean I would be on the "good" side?

Let's look at the issue another way. If Severin's mum had chosen, as Severin has, not to have children, who would now be looking after her? You got it, someone else's children, thus making my point. You claimed that I was "extremely selfish" for expressing this, while you say that Severin's Mum is not. Nice double standard based entirely on what you perceive as your relationship with us both.

Civility is a pretence designed to lubricate social interactions and stop a bloke's hanf heading for the sword-handle every couple of minutes. It is an overlay on what we say at best and the fact that some of you are unable to get past the overlay in your response is more telling of you than me. Some of the most "civil" people I've ever met have been car salesmen and lawyers so I don't see it as a hobby worth pursuing.

Foxy:"you've got the nerve to talk about honesty."

Yes, I do. In fact, I have the nerve to actually BE honest, both with myself and others, which seems to be beyond you. That may be "chutzpah" to you, but I don't rely on the faux-civility of others to define my own values.

foxy:"I would appreciate
your not posting at all"

So you've said several times, as well as your usual "civil" dog-whistling. I suggest a good lie down.

Sympathy for the Devil, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards

"Just as every cop is a criminal
And all the sinners saints
As heads is tails
Just call me Lucifer
'Cause I'm in need of some restraint

So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy, and some taste
USE ALL YOUR WELL-LEARNED POLITESSE
Or I'll lay your soul to waste"

Apparently Jagger claims to have been inspired by Baudelaire, but he always was a pretentious bugger. The point, of course, is that politesse, courtesy, taste are no guarantee of good, but often mask much nastier characteristics

Foxy, Poirot

Those words:

"The fog comes
on little cat feet.
It sets looking
over harbour and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on."

Took me back to my childhood. I have bought Roald Dahl books for my niece and nephew, however, thanks for reminding me of the delicious and visceral words to be unearthed in the Mother Goose rhymes. I was not exposed to these when young, having only discovered them when older and now appreciate that I can pass on these and other works to my little cousins - the joys of email. I don't necessarily have to buy entire books but can work in some poetry into my emails to them.

Poetry touches us all - even though we may interpret the words in ways that are unique. Even translations from other languages can reach us, which is extraordinary considering how the placement of particular words can be intrinsic to the meaning.

Dear Poirot,

I'm also a big fan of Lynley Dodd's
books and I often use them in my
Storytime sessions at the library.
Kids love them.

As a librarian I've always felt it
important to develop a private
collection of poems and books of poems.
I did this over a period of time so that
old and new favourites could be shared.
Of course my 'private poetry library'
was augmented by the local library and
school library holdings, but it was my
own collection that was more near and dear.

Dear sonofgloin,

Thanks for Joni Mitchell. For me the imagery
builds on the sense of my own thinking and
feeling - so in a way there's a three-way
interchange between writer, poem, and
reader/listener. Great stuff!

Dear Antiseptic,

You've certainly given me some food for thought with
your recent postings. I usually take people at face
value - but perhaps you're right there could be
"something nastier lurking underneath." I had
always assumed that you, for example, were not an
ignorant, heavy-handed creep, but merely chose to
play one on the internet.

As Severin said, it's what's in your heart that matters.
And if yours is flawed - Ah well, I'll try to be more
understanding of you in the future.

"It is a crime to write in slime,
All of us say it's true.
But blessed with the curse of reprehensible verse,
That's all a septic mind can do."

Dear Severin,

I've always believed that a rich array of poetry for
the young comes first through the oral tradition.
I've recited Nursery or Mother Goose rhymes and
sung to children who delighted in the range of
experience the rhymes provided. Lullabies, jingles,
riddles, jokes, robust and life-like characters and
good stories abound in Mother Goose: Humpty Dumpty;
Georgie Porgie; Tom, Tom, the piper's son, and so on.

Poirot posted the magnificent 'Ozymandias' building up to that wondrous last line: "The lone and level sands stretch far away." Desolation in one and two syllable words. Did Shelley just write it down or did he work it over and over for months to get it right?

In the old vaudeville days I remember Ted Lewis on stage in an old battered hat and a whiskey reddened face singing "Me and My Shadow". At the lines:

And when it`s twelve o`clock,
We climb the stair,
We never knock,
For nobody`s there

He would be the image of desolation.

However, the meaning of words change. We read current meanings into a poem written at another time. eg. "The hand that mockt them and the heart that fed:" Shelley probably meant by mockt 'to have depicted accurately.'

One line I love is "He missed the mediæval grace of iron clothing." It's from another poem of one who felt he was mislocated in time and place. maybe we all are.

Miniver Cheevy
by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn,
Grew lean while he assailed the seasons;
He wept that he was ever born,
And he had reasons.

Miniver loved the days of old
When swords were bright and steeds were prancing;
The vision of a warrior bold
Would set him dancing.

Miniver sighed for what was not,
And dreamed, and rested from his labors;
He dreamed of Thebes and Camelot,
And Priam's neighbors.

Miniver mourned the ripe renown
That made so many a name so fragrant;
He mourned Romance, now on the town,
And Art, a vagrant.

Miniver loved the Medici,
Albeit he had never seen one;
He would have sinned incessantly
Could he have been one.

Miniver cursed the commonplace
And eyed a khaki suit with loathing;
He missed the mediæval grace
Of iron clothing.

Miniver scorned the gold he sought
But sore annoyed was he without it;
Miniver thought, and thought, and thought,
And thought about it.

Miniver Cheevy, born too late,
Scratched his head and kept on thinking;
Miniver coughed, and called it fate,
And kept on drinking.

Dear David F.,

You make my spirit soar.
Thank You!

Dear Foxy,

Touched you on a soar spot?

Dear Foxy and David,
perhaps you two should get a motel room? There's a certain poetic licence about monogamy you know! :-)

Foxy
Here is a poem just posted on Jessica Watson's blog. Considering you have commented abou her and your love of poetry, it may be of interest.

Arriving Here from Here

So there it is that shining dome, atop yon white light tower
I saw it only months before, a lighthouse stemlike flower
It beckoned me to stay behind, not take to distant ocean
My destiny was written then, that siren’s power broken

I sailed off with cliffs astern, set course way out for here
So many months have disappeared, so many showed they care
For young as I such tender years, portrayed to one and all
An Inner longing deep within, answering primordial call

As rocky portal flanks both sides, flotilla widely spread
I think of miles beneath my feet, across pink deck I’ve tread
From rattlings hold I wave to all, no one particularly
For port and starb’d, stern to bow, the crowds another sea

The tears are joy and sadness too, emotions on the flow
This trip is done, the miles complete, I’m back and I’m on show
I will not say it wasn’t hard, a task sometimes so great
Success was something meant for me, by sailing to my fate

If dreams are made to let us live, with hope and wondrous thought
Each of us can only try, to honour those dream we’ve caught
For me I’m home a new girl born, through happiness and fear
Most of all, my dream came true, “by setting out for here”

Brumbyy

Foxy,
To give the poster full credit, I must show (I think) her other comments. Sadly I do not know who the person is. I particularly like the last two sentences.

Quote Brumbyy:-
No poem for the last Jessica, just a wish God blesses your future, for all the joy you’ve given thousands with your brave exploits and the closeness you’ve delivered to the globe through your followers. Other have done it before you, others are doing it as you finish, and still others will do it long after, but there is only one Jessica Watson who has done it in such style.

I thank you for the opportunity to not just write poetry as you travelled, but to see your adventure through so many eyes and minds. If we could just harness one dram of your tenacity, one dram of your sense of purpose, one dram of your spirit, pride and determination, and infuse this into our leaders, this country, this world would, be even a better place than that which you by your presence and daring exploit, has left it.

In too short of time, you may move from within the light, but to so many lives, young and old alike, your light, will bathe so many long into the future.

Jessica, may only fortune smile your way.

Brumbyy

Foxy

This thread, more than any other, has shone a light of truth into the hearts of many here.

Thank you for the illumination.

Dear David F.,

You asked if you touched me on a soar spot?
David, you always do. Not only me, but I'm
sure many others on OLO. You're an excellent
teacher because you encourage an expansion
of the mind and nourish and keep alive a
sense of wonder, all essential ingredients in
any worthwhile education.

Lloyd Alexander's words:

"Fantasy presents the world as it should be...
sometimes heart breaking but never hopeless ...
if we listen carefully it may tell us what
someday we may be capable of achieving."

Dear Squeers,

Your suggestion is not quite appropriate.
You see, David agreed quite some time ago to be
my adopted Grandfather.

Dear Banjo,

Thank You so much for the beautiful tribute to Jessica
Watson. She truly deserves it.

As Langston Hughes wrote:

"Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly."

Dearest Severin,

Thank You, but
I can't claim all the credit for this
thread, you and so many others have
brought it to life by your inputs and
contributions. I'm so grateful to all the
wonderful poems that have appeared. As
Elaine Moss wrote when describing children's
books:

"For a book by itself is nothing - a film
shown in an empty cinema: one can only assess
its value by the light it brings to a child's
eye."

The same goes for any thread - if any of mine
provide enjoyment and satisfaction, then I'm
happy.

I'd like this thread to go on for a while - feels good.

I think I'm gonna puke!

Whose been handing out the disco biscuits?

No You're wonderful!

Oh thank you dearest. But... no you're wonderful!

My spirit is soaring!

Oh look, my book of poems now has a big wet patch on it.

Dear foxy,

I know what you mean by assembling a library at home. I have done my best over the years to do just that - mainly books from secondhand bookshops and new ones as well. In fact there is nothing quite like keeping your eye out for a secondhand book - no matter how long it takes to come to you - and then one day there it is, as if it's been waiting for you to come and find it. That has happened to me with some memorable books like "Walden" by Thoreau and Proust's "Remembrance Of Things Past" and many others as well. I like to have my shelves stuffed full of books, no matter how obscure - you never know when you're going to need one.

Here is some poetic prose from Proust's Combray - Swann's Way - (Remembrance Of Things Past - In Search Of Lost Time)

......no more than a church epitomizing the town, representing it, speaking of it and for it to the horizon, and as one drew near, gathering close about its long, dark cloak, sheltering from the wind, on the open plain, as a shepherdess gathers her sheep, the woolly grey backs of its huddled houses...

Foxy: <Dear Squeers,

Your suggestion is not quite appropriate.
You see, David agreed quite some time ago to be
my adopted Grandfather.>

Just a bit of saucy humour, dear lady, you know how I feel about monogamy :-)
It's been a very enjoyable thread with some great poetry.

Dear Poirot,

Thanks.

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin."
(Shakespeare).

Dear Houellebecq,

All you have to do is sit back and
imagine...

A valuable point to make is that poetry's
various features are there for a reason and
it's often important to highlight them.
For example the arresting visual image of
Tennyson's "The Eagle," or the swinging
rhythm and rhymes of Belloc's, "Tarantella,"
or the sheer enchantment of the sound of the words
in Turner's "Romance." :

"When I was but thirteen or so
I went into a golden land,
Chimborazo, Cotopaxi,
Took me by the hand.

My father died, my brother too,
They passed like fleeting dreams,
I stood where Popocatapetyl
In the sunlight gleams."

There has to be at least one dissenting voice on every thread, and I'm prepared to let that be mine.

As far as I'm concerned, poetry is the performing seal of literature.

Clever, perhaps, and certainly difficult to do well. But ultimately a pointless act.

That goes equally for sonnets, alexandrines, limericks, haiku, dactylic quadrameters, terza rima, doggerel and all the rest.

And while I'm on a roll to make the tip-top of the "not welcome here" list, Foxy, I thought I'd mention something that bugged me in your opening post of the thread.

>>Dorothy Auchterlonie (or Green), in this poem takes Puccini's opera - "Madame Butterfly," and places the characters at Nagasaki, the second site for the atomic bomb drop by the US, on August 9, 1945, against Japan. The first being - Hiroshima, on August 6, 1945.<<

The characters of Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly weren't "placed" by Dorothy Auchterlone (or Green) in Nagasaki.

They were always there.

The port of Nagasaki itself is central to the action - it is where Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton's ship, the "Abraham Lincoln" leaves from, and comes back to. It is the port over which Butterfly gazes longingly for the three years that Pinkerton is away - "un bel di vedremo", and all that. Sharpless is the American Consul at... Nagasaki. It's there in the libretto: "Sharpless, Console degli Stati Uniti a Nagasaki - baritono"

The libretto states categorically, "A Nagasaki, epoca presente"

The very first stage instructions on the original score read "Collina presso Nagasaki. Casa giapponese, terrazza e giardino. In fondo, al basso, la rada, il porto, la città di Nagasaki."

"Placed" at Nagasaki by a poet, indeed.

Humph.

Pericles
At least you did it with a sense of humour in there with the 'humph'!
Poetry is not for everyone, it is not a dissenting voice merely a differing one.

I write this for you:

The Performing Seal of Literature

Pericles does not like poetry
Poetry is high falutin', not for all
It is not algebra or geometry
It does not tell a tale, even tall

But paints a picture, some imagery
A scene, a moment, an emotion
No plot, no aim, or chronology
No order, random blind devotion

A poem is not a Hardy or an Austen
But a wisp of an idea
Seeking to invoke the senses
But hopefully not diarrohea

Oh it's invoked a hell of a lot of diarrhoea on this thread!

High falutin', Pelican?

>>Pericles does not like poetry
Poetry is high falutin', not for all<<

You class performing seals as high falutin'?

That does explain rather a lot.

Although it doesn't explain your poem.

T'was a bit of harmless fun. I think diarrhoea was spelt incorrectly as well just to top it off.

No intention to offend - high falutin' was because I could not think of anything else and as for the ends..well they had to rhyme.

Yes, as is plain, poetry is not my forte'.

Pericles,
<As far as I'm concerned, poetry is the performing seal of literature.

Clever, perhaps, and certainly difficult to do well. But ultimately a pointless act.>

Just for the sake of argument, Pericles, can you please advise what is not 'ultimately a pointless act"?
Poetry is surely that much less pointless, since it makes some momentary sense of a pointless universe (well at least the human sphere). Science and reason are every bit as pointless, apart from the hubris.

Here's a performing seal of the terminally jaded variety:

There was a young man who said, "Damn!
I have recently learned that I am
But a creature who moves
In predestinate grooves.
I'm not even a bus. I'm a tram."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,761257-2,00.html

What does have a point? Macbeth spoke of the pointlessness of life after he heard his lady was dead:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last Syllable of Recorded time:
And all our yesterdays, have lighted Fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief Candle,
Life's but a walking Shadow, a poor Player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the Stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a Tale
Told by an Idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

Shakespeare entered many lives. Macbeth did not speak for him.

Sometimes a poem can help one to question the point of what one is doing. Recently there was much talk of the Anzac spirit, and politicians took it upon themselves to speak for the dead. I wish one of the speakers could have recalled the following:

The Man He Killed
by Thomas Hardy
(1840-1928)

"Had he and I but met
By some old ancient inn,
We should have sat us down to wet
Right many a nipperkin!

"But ranged as infantry,
And staring face to face,
I shot at him and he at me,
And killed him in his place.

"I shot him dead because –
Because he was my foe,
Just so – my foe of course he was;
That's clear enough; although

"He thought he'd 'list perhaps,
Off-hand like – just as I –
Was out of work – had sold his traps –
No other reason why.

"Yes; quaint and curious war is!
You shoot a fellow down
You'd treat if met where any bar is,
Or help to half-a-crown."

Ah Thomas Hardy, one of the great geniuses of the age, who wrote on pointlessness far more eloquently than Dostoyevsky, for mine, and yet he saw the poignancy of random events:
In a solitude of the sea
Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she.

Steel chambers, late the pyres
Of her salamandrine fires,
Cold currents thrid, and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.

Over the mirrors meant
To glass the opulent
The sea-worm crawls -- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent.

Jewels in joy designed
To ravish the sensuous mind
Lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind.

Dim moon-eyed fishes near
Gaze at the gilded gear
And query: "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" ...

Well: while was fashioning
This creature of cleaving wing,
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

Prepared a sinister mate
For her -- so gaily great --
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.

And as the smart ship grew
In stature, grace, and hue,
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

Alien they seemed to be;
No mortal eye could see
The intimate welding of their later history,

Or sign that they were bent
By paths coincident
On being anon twin halves of one august event,

Till the Spinner of the Years
Said "Now!" And each one hears,
And consummation comes, and jars two hemispheres.

Dear Poirot,

I'm glad that we share a love of books.
Who can read J.R.R. Tolkien's, "The Lord
of the Rings," without having one's mind
painted with the people of Middle Earth
on a mighty imagined canvas?

Dear Squeers,

You have a tendency to cast a most becoming
light on others - it's called charm!

Dear Pericles,

Perhaps you'd better re-read my opening post.
Dorothy Auchterlonie (or Green), in THIS poem
takes Puccini's opera "Madame Butterfly," and
places the characters at Nagasaki, the second
site for the atomic bomb drop ....

She places them in HER poem at Nagasaki AFTER
the bomb drop - I would have thought that it
was obvious from the poem. In no way is there
any suggestion that they weren't always there.

The result is as I wrote, an extremely powerful
expression of living with the consequences
of our actions, and the moral choices we are faced with
in life,

"Benjamin Franklin Pinkerton still believes
That only American wives are real."

A statement that proved only too true throughout
Asia, where American servicemen were stationed. And:

"...No penalities-only consequences,
Which Pinkertons cannot evade
Any more than butterflies."

Poor Butterfly! The devastation of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki is beyond human comprehension. As Dorothy Green
wryly points out,

"Even in 1900, Madame Butterfly was out of date.
Fidelity, acceptance, death or dishonour -
What quaint anachronisms!
Lieutenant Pinkerton showed the way
The world willingly followed,
Deaf to the final, questioning chord."

I hope this clear things up for you - and what the
poem is actually about. As for your feelings about
poetry - just like art - its subjective. To me
poetry is a perfection when done well.
And response to its magic is spread
across humanity. As Dorothy Butler tell us:

" Poetry and children go together.
Babies are born loving rhythm and the sound of the
human voice. Parents instinctively rock and croon
to them from birth; surely, the first song in the
world must have been a lullaby."

Perhaps no one ever sang to you Pericles?

Dear Pelly,

Loved your poem.
More please?

I came across this ditty on the web:

"I'm Glad I'm A Woman."
(Denim Sue).

"I won't grab your hooters,
I won't pinch your butt,
My belt buckle's not hidden
beneath my beer gut.

I don't go around readjusting
my crotch,
Or yell like Tarzan as I
mark down each notch.

I don't belch in public,
I don't scratch my behind,
I'm a woman you see,
I'm just not that kind!"

Dear Woulfe,

Thanks for your poem and the link.

"There once was a man from Nantucket
Who kept all his cash in a bucket
But his daughter, named Nan
Ran away with a man
And as for the bucket, Nantucket."

Dear David F., and Squeers,

Thanks to you both for saying it so
beautifully.

I fear that our world can become so
obsessed with the problems of hatred
and aggression, that it will allow peace
and love to be regarded as soft and weak.
Yet our survival depends on their dominance.
Otherwise, Stephen Vincent Benet's
prophecy will come true:

"Oh where are you coming from soldier,
gaunt soldier
with weapons beyond any reach of my mind
with weapons so deadly
the world must grow older
and die in its tracks if it does not turn kind."

And Christopher Marlowe had this to say:

"... Accursed be he that first invented war,
They knew not, ah, they knew not
simple men,
How those were hit by pelting cannon shot,
Stand staggering like a quivering aspen leaf."
(Tamburlaine the Great. Act 2, Sc.iv.)

John Dryden said it equally well when in,
"Alexander's Feast," he wrote:

"War, he sung, is toil and trouble;
Honour but an empty bubble.
Never ending, still beginning,
Fighting still, and still destroying,
If all the world be worth the winning,
Think, oh think, it worth enjoying."

Pericles' namesake, just as poets do, compressed vast ideas and wisdom into few words. Like this:

"What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.”

"Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you."

However, criticism is fine. I like what Alexander Pope said about it in An Essay On Criticism:

'Tis with our Judgments as our Watches, none
Go just alike, yet each believes his own.
In Poets as true Genius is but rare,
True Taste as seldom is the Critick's Share;
Both must alike from Heav'n derive their Light,
These born to Judge, as well as those to Write.
Let such teach others who themselves excell,
And censure freely who have written well.
Authors are partial to their Wit, 'tis true,
But are not Criticks to their Judgment too?

I feel compelled to insert some humour; I hope you all don't mind:

Poetry Contest


The National Poetry Contest had come down to two, a Yale graduate and a redneck from Texas. They were given a word, then allowed two minutes to study the word and come up with a poem that contained the word. The word they were given was *Timbuktu*.

First to recite his poem was the Yale graduate. He stepped to the microphone and said:

Slowly across the desert sand
Trekked a lonely caravan;
Men on camels, two by two
Destination Timbuktu.

The crowd went crazy! No way could the redneck top that, they thought. The redneck calmly made his way to the microphone and recited:

Me and Tim a huntin' went.
Met three whores in a pop up tent.
They was three, and we was two,
So I bucked one and Timbuktu.

(I admit to preferring the Yale effort :D)

Dear Pynch,

I've had the best laugh this morning,
Thanks to your redneck poem!
(My husband, appreciated it as well).
I'm going to pass it on to friends.

As for Pericles not liking poetry, well
that's fair enough. It could be due to the
teachers he had as a child. This view often
comes from teachers who don't enjoy poetry
themselves or from disillusioned children
who have been subjected to poor selection of
verse which has been terribly taught.

The "poetry-yuk" syndrome would not appear if
poems and collections of them were well
selected. The "poetry-wow!" syndrome would
take its place.

Anyway, as you pointed out - it's healthy to have
dissenting points of view.

As the old saying goes: " to avoid criticism,
do nothing, say nothing, be nothing!"

Once again - Pynch, Thanks for making me laugh
out loud! Best medicine!

I guess that I had missed that point, Foxy, fair cop.

>>She places them in HER poem at Nagasaki AFTER the bomb drop - I would have thought that it was obvious from the poem.<<

But I think "blame the teacher" is a little simplistic.

>>As for Pericles not liking poetry, well that's fair enough. It could be due to the teachers he had as a child. This view often comes from teachers who don't enjoy poetry themselves or from disillusioned children who have been subjected to poor selection of verse which has been terribly taught.<<

On the contrary, I was pretty much a lone voice in the classroom back then as well.

It just seems to me to be a highly unsatisfactory art form.

>>The result is an extremely powerful expression of living with the consequences of our actions, and the moral choices we are faced with in life<<

All of which is admirably covered, in full and poignant detail, in the opera. What made the poet believe that she could improve upon it?

Yes, the poem is shorter. But is brevity really a virtue?

Which I think gets to the heart of my attitude towards poetry: why?

As in "why poetry?"

>>Just for the sake of argument, Pericles, can you please advise what is not 'ultimately a pointless act"?<<

Rather than get into a discourse on the redeeming virtues of nihilism and the emotional comfort of anomie, I'd suggest that it should be read as "compared to the layered complexity of the original work from which it was derived, writing a poem that condenses deep emotions into a handful of lines is a pointless act"

On reflection, it is probably also the poem's strict one-dimensionalism that irritates me. She uses Cio-cio-san as the focal point of a moral tale that excoriates men...

"If all those hours Were laid end to end, We could have another life Of our own."

...but totally ignores what she went through, emotionally.

It's like using a picture of Einstein's haircut as an object lesson on the need to pay attention to personal grooming.

I like to draw as well as write. sometimes one happens to make exactly the right stroke in the right place and the whole picture seems to pull together on the strength of that one stroke - especially in in a portrait. (Pericles, I can't tell you the "why" as to my need to draw a picture, either.) I liken the "line in the right place" to the feeling you get when you read a poem and it instantly plugs into your emotion.

Pynchme,

Alexander Pope says it very well.

Dear Pericles,

Thank You for explaining your position.

Now, allow me to explain mine.

Dorothy Auchterlonie (or Green) was one of the
poets I chose for an anthology of Australian
poetry as part of my degree. Chooseing a theme
for an anthology of Australian poetry was not an
easy task. Colleagues at work suggested a variety
of themes, amd just as I was starting to make up
my mind, a crisis in the Persian Gulf made it up for me.

An anthology based on an anti-nuclear theme of Australian
poetry suddenly became for me, the assignment I had to do.

I felt that we needed new ways of thinking to cope with the
nuclear age. It is here that writers with their concern
for the human condition and their special skills with language,
can enable us to imagine the horrific reality of nuclear
arms and nerve us to build an alternative future.

As for your criticism of Dorothy Green - remember the context
and time about which she writes. "Even in 1900,
Madame Butterfly was out of date, Fidelity, acceptance, death
or dishonour - what quaint anachronisms!..." And:
"...No penalties-only consequences, Which Pinkertons cannot evade,
Any more than Butterflies..." (if the shoe fits ...).

Anyway, the technology since 1945 has changed! Yet the moral
position is still the same as in this poem of Dorothy
Green's ... One can rid the world of atrocities only by
refusing to take part in them!

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn tells us in the Preface, to his book,
"The Gulag Archipelago<" about an old Russian proverb that says:

"No, don't! Dig up the past!
Dwell on the past and you'll lose
an eye!"

But the proverb goes on to say: "Forget the past and you'll
lose both eyes."

Decades have gone by, and the scars and sores of the past
are healing over for good. However, unless we learn
from the mistakes of the past, the tragedies (such as
those mentioned in this poem) it is unlikely that we will
have a future to contemplate. The moral choice is ours
to make.

Dear Foxy,

I'm glad you got a laugh. Especially after your horrible days this week past.

I recognize what you're saying about the poetry-yuk syndrome. It took me about 20 years to pick up on Shakespeare again after spending a year with a teacher who didn't have the knack for it (nice woman though she was). I'd been enjoying Shakespeare by just reading The Merchant of Venice on my own. I zoomed over language I didn't grasp - but got the feel of the story and characters and was getting enthusiastic about it. Nasty Shylock! Clever Portia! Then the formal teaching began and the teacher had us all go through and dissect each line and word meticulously. Snore fest. Ruined it for me completely. Mind you I didn't think as well of Portia when I reread it 20 years later either. Our perspective sure changes over time. It pays to read an item more than once I think.

Poirot; Hey g'day. I thought so too :)

Dear Pynch,

Teachers have a tremenduous influence on a
child. I remember my Mathematics teacher
who convinced me that I was a total idiot
when it came to Maths. To this day - I
still have problems with the subject.
Even though I have no trouble doing the
money at the end of the day at the library
branch. It's the mental attitude. I guess
the same goes for any subject - once we
get fixated on it. I remember a line out of
the film "Annie Hall," that might make you
laugh.

"I heard that commentary and dissent have
merged and formed - dysentery."

Dear Foxy,

Teachers can get a student to hate a subject, but I hope you will have an aftermath where you will learn to love the beauty of numbers and mathematical reasoning. I remember Olive C. McGavern, my junior high school English teacher, who wore a black ribbon with a jeweled clip around her neck - presumably to hide the wrinkles. She taught me to love Shakespeare and to hate George Eliot. When we would read aloud from Shakespeare Olive C. would say, "Sally, read from line 97 to line 120." When Sally would finish, OCM would say, "John, continue from line 137 to 160." I would hurriedly look to see what was between 120 and 137. Invariably there would be a sexual reference. In figuring out what it meant (I would have been unaware if OCM hadn't pointedly ignored it) I got engrossed in the language and loved the flow and the wit. "Shakespeare's Bawdy" by Partridge contains many of Will's sexual references.

We went through Silas Marner and her attention to the minutiae made it hate it. About 45 years later I picked "Middlemarch", and it was great. Since then I have read all of Eliot's novels including Silas Marner again.

Dear davidf,

I thought you might find the following 5 lined poem as powerful as I did.

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner by Randall Jarrell published in 1945. It is about a gunner on a World War II American bomber aircraft, who was killed and whose remains were unceremoniously hosed out of the turret.

My English Lit teacher in a Victorian State School Fred L. was my favourite. A Sri Lankan he only stood a bit over 5 foot in the old scale with a very small stature and a pageboy haircut. But he could hold a double class of unruly state school kids spell bound. He was able to speak old English fluently as well as Latin and numerous other languages, and oh what a voice.

He had a form of leukemia acquired, he suspected, from taking hundreds of xrays of himself with a silver strip down his tongue in order to examine how it was involved in speech.

If my memory serves me right he only had 2 students fail his HSC class in nearly ten years of teaching.

Speaking of Shakespeare and bawdy lines one of the kids is studying Richard 111 at the moment and in Act 1, scene 1 I found the lines;
“He capers nimbly in a lady's chamber
To the lascivious pleasing of a lute.”

Would this be the Shakespearian equivalent of intimating oral sex or am I reading far too much into it?

Dear csteele,

That is a most powerful poem. There was a very handsome young man I knew in the army who survived the war but had his face below his eyes shot off. I have often wondered what the rest of his life was like. At my age I find most of those I knew are dead or around the bend. I appreciate Foxy, you and a lot of other people on this list.

A couple of days his sons emailed me that a dear cousin of mine had died. He was on dialysis but hoped he had many years left. He had requested that there be no funeral to mourn his death but a big party to celebrate his life.

I am sure that Shakespeare often had the origin of the world (see Courbet) on the tip of his most fluent tongue.

Olive C. had us skip the following lines from the Taming of the Shrew:

KATHERINA. If I be waspish, best beware my sting.
PETRUCHIO. My remedy is then to pluck it out.
KATHERINA. Ay, if the fool could find it where it lies.
PETRUCHIO. Who knows not where a wasp does wear his sting? In his tail.
KATHERINA. In his tongue.
PETRUCHIO. Whose tongue?
KATHERINA. Yours, if you talk of tales; and so farewell.
PETRUCHIO. What, with my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again, Good Kate; I am a gentleman.

Lechery and gluttony can keep one preoccupied so one can abstain from being cruel or inconsiderate which are real sins.

A nude newt,
The brewed brute
Strummed a lewd lute
On a skewed scute.

Dear David F.,

Thank You for your wisdom.
I so enjoy reading your posts.
You write with grace and humour.
Your posts are always rich with
anecdotes, stories, dialogue, and
short but interesting scenarios.
Reading them is an intellectual pleasure
and an emotional delight!

Dear csteele,

Thank You for your input into this thread.
It's much appreciated.

"Come my love and we shall wander
All of life to see and know
In the season's lostward rambling
All things come and all things go.

We shall climb the snowy mountains
Sail across the rolling sea
We shall live for one another
I for you and you for me.

We'll go down to green grass meadows
Where the cold winds never blow
If we taste the wine of loving
Only you and I shall know.

Come my love and we shall wander
Just to see what we can find
If we only find each other
Still the journey's worth the time."

(Mason Williams).

Bush poetry, as seen on a sign

I've never been charged with trespass
I've never been charged with rape
But I will be charged with murder
If you don't shut this bloody gate

This is a passage from Charles Darwin's autobiography.

"Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, 'poetry of all kinds...gave me great pleasure, and even as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shakespeare, especially in his historical plays. I have also said that formerly pictures gave me considerable, and music very great delight. But now for many years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry: I have tried lately to read Shakespeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also lost almost any taste for pictures and music...My mind seems to have become a kind of machine for grinding general laws out of large collections of fact, but why this should have caused the atrophy of that part of the brain alone, on which the highest tastes depend, I cannot conceive...The loss of these tastes is a loss of happiness, and may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by enfeebling the emotional part of our nature."

Dear Banjo,

Loved it!

Smiles all round!

Dear Poirot,

Thanks for the Darwin reference.
I'm learning so much from this thread,
and loving it. Samuel Taylor Coleridge
wrote something very similar to Darwin:

"No man was ever a great poet, without
being at the same time a profound philosopher.
For poetry is the blossom and the fragrance of
all human knowledge, human thoughts, human passions,
emotions, language."

And Goethe agreed:

"A man should hear a little music, read a little
poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his
life, in order that wordly cares may not obliterate
the sense of the beautiful... in the human soul."

(Sigh!)

Dear Foxy,
much as I hate to be the spoiler in all this fun (and I don't want to be the superego either), there's something so complacently middle-classed, so culturally-capitalistic about this thread (I expect the men will be retiring for port and sensible conversation shortly) that's imperialistic and shallow; as though we wrote the poetry and shared the pain, and so can comment authoritatively over tea and cucumber sandwiches. As Walter Benjamin observed, "There is no document of culture that is not at the same time a document of barbarism".

But on a lighter note, since a little bracing indecency seems passe; the premoderns were much more liberated than we. Chaucer translated:

This Absalom plumped down upon his knees,
And said: "I am a lord in all degrees;
For after this there may be better still
Darling, my sweetest bird, I wait your will."
The window she unbarred, and that in haste.
"Have done," said she, "come on, and do it fast,
Before we're seen by any neighbour's eye."
This Absalom did wipe his mouth all dry;
Dark was the night as pitch, aye dark as coal,
And through the window she put out her hole.
And Absalom no better felt nor worse,
But with his mouth he kissed her naked arse
Right greedily, before he knew of this.
Aback he leapt- it seemed somehow amiss,
For well he knew a woman has no beard;
He'd felt a thing all rough and longish haired,
And said, "Oh fie, alas! What did I do?"
"Teehee!" she laughed, and clapped the, window to;
And Absalom went forth a sorry pace.
"A beard! A beard!" cried clever Nicholas,
"Now by God's corpus, this goes fair and well...."

Dear Squeers,

You might enjoy some examples of modern
erotic Australian poetry. The first is -
J.J. Bray's poem,
"Lust and Love," - a clever, not entirely
facetious, discussion between two facets of human
experience - frequently contrary, occasionally
complimentary.

"Lust's an honest robber,
Bludgeoning for sex.
Love's a whining con-man,
Passing phony cheques.

Lust is intermittent,
Sups his fill and sleeps.
Love from dawn to sunrise
Castigates or creeps.

Lust is standard issue -
Men or pigs or geese.
Love's a visitation
From some god's caprice.

Lust can be diverted
Towards another goal.
Love is monomanic,
Compass to the pole.

Yet some say the prize piece
Life's mint ever coined
Comes when by some chance freak
Lust and love are joined."

The second is Elaine Golding's
"Genesis/take 2."

"lying beneath the tree
she's heady with the perfection
of moist ripe flesh
caught between exploring fingers
marvels at shape and texture
takes quiet pleasure
in sticky sweet juices
creeping beneath unpolished fingernails
decides to 'keep a secret' -
but he approaches
envious of the new found playmate
afraid of any contest
between it
and his own voluptuous substance
thus, reluctantly she reveals the fruit
lying softly between her legs
presses it to his mouth -

and knows there'll be trouble in Paradise tonight."

Cucumber sandwiches anyone?

Dear davidf,

The line I find most chilling in Randall Jarrell's poem is the first; “From my mother's sleep I fell into the State”. It describes so well the youth of so many who were lost or maimed terribly in the conflict but also the very Orwellian sense of the State being responsible for setting the trap. A trap we so often fall into with little resistance. Then there is the frozen wet fur of the young pup pulled into an alien environment.

The hosing of the turret spoke to me of the maw of the State being rinsed after feasting.

All in all a ripper.

Dear squeers,

For my 40th birthday I had a “Pomp, Port and Poetry” night complete with black tie and a piano player in the corner. It started as a little wink about my age with me being the first in my circle of friends to tick over that milestone, but everyone got into the spirit and it was a top night. All guests had to write a piece of verse before hand and read it out. I had expected some pretty rough and ribald stuff but I was floored how seriously almost everyone took the task and the quality was really quite high, although the port might have had a bit to do with that assessment.

This was a far cry from my 39th when the police were called twice.

Some of the best poetry came from tradie mates and I still have the copies. So from my experience I can't agree with your premise. Indeed it might be said that “complacently middle-classed”, “culturally-capitalistic” and “imperialistic and shallow” are great adjectives for someone who thinks poetry is reserved, enjoyed and appreciated only by the middle and upper classes.

It just ain't necessarily so guvnor'.

Dear csteele,

It ain't necessarily so indeed!

Here's another poem from Australian poet -
J.J. Bray:

"Non Event."

"Let's agree to sever,
Saving grief and gloom.
You want a freehold property.
I want a motel room.

Better abort the friendship,
Before it's too old to kill.
You want Joan and Darby,
I want Fanny Hill.

We would never have been concordant,
Either in heart or head.
You want a lifelong union.
I want an hour in bed.

You can't say I deceived you.
I never promised rings.
You want Tristan and Isolde,
I want a twang on the strings."

Poetry is an ancient and universal verbal art form
which has stood the test of time in multiple
manifestations. And it's found everywhere. Comic verse
is as much poetry as the ode; the limerick as
worthwhile as the sonnet. The world of poetry
(like the Kingdom of Heaven, has many mansions...).
Funny rhymes can help you keep your reason, just as
serious poetry can probe your soul!

Dear Foxy,

I have discovered through your thread that I seem to appreciate poems that have a back story so it appears I am probably not assessing the merits of each poem strictly on its worth as poetry.

An example is Magee's 'High Flight' posted earlier.

Another I have mentioned in different thread was the Last Farewell by Jose Rizal written the night before he was executed by the Spanish in the Philippines for insurrection.

I die as I see tints on the sky b'gin to show
And at last announce the day, after a gloomy night;
If you need a hue to dye your matutinal glow,
Pour my blood and at the right moment spread it so,
And gild it with a reflection of your nascent light! 

http://www.carayanpress.com/ultimo.html

Yet another favourite of mine is The Pearl Diver by Banjo Patterson

Down in the ooze and the coral, down where earth's wonders are spread,
Helmeted, ghastly, and swollen, Kanzo Makame lies dead.
Joe Nagasaki, his "tender", is owner and diver instead.

Wearer of pearls in your necklace, comfort yourself if you can.
These are the risks of the pearling -- these are the ways of Japan;
"Plenty more Japanee diver plenty more little brown man!"

But then my father was a deep sea diver until he died so it has obvious resonances for me. Visiting the Japanese pearl diver's cemetery in Broome was quite moving.

So I have given it some thought, what piece of poetry can I judge purely on its merits and the best I can come up with is the 23rd Psalm.

'Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.'

Which brings me to another discovery, the common theme running through most of my favourites – death!

Emily pass the Mortein please!

I was interested in Squeers' point about the middle-classes claiming the poetry - and it reminded me of an instance I came upon recently where they claimed the poet as well.

I've lately been doing some research on my ancestors. I traced my great great great grandfather to Edinburgh, where he was a solicitor before the Supreme Court - then to his father and uncle who were solicitors and notaries in Dumfries in the late 1700's. I lucked out because they lived in the town at the same time as Robert Burns.
The fascinating thing here is that Burns was not like them at all, he was more of a working-class hero type, yet he was included amongst their ranks because by the time he landed in Dumfries he was famous. However, he became an exciseman (as fame hadn't translated into riches), He joined the Masonic Lodge and the Royal Dumfries Volunteers with a load of middle-class inhabitants including my forebears.
Burns wrote many poems about his middle-class associates during his final years in Dumfries. When I look at his poems I recognise the names of ordinary citizens who inhabited Dumfries at the time.
Unfortunately, he didn't write a poem about my ancestors (who probably weren't that interesting), however, I did find a quote where he referred to my great great great great uncle as "not having as many brains as a midge could rest its elbow on."

Dear Foxy,
I wasn't accusing you of prudery, dear, I just 'happened' to append some choice Chaucer; I was more invoking the spectre of Marx, channelled through Benjamin. The quote was originally intended as a criticism of bourgeois culture's aesthetic heritage; the fact that it's the accumulation of a history of injustice, indeed that modern canonicity is an artefact of early social engineering kicked off by Matthew Arnold. Fretting over his apostasy, and secularism generally, Arnold invoked the literary tradition to cultivate the benighted masses. He designated the English upper class barbarous, the middle philistine, and the lower beneath contempt. The same experiment was taken to India, with equal success--indeed it's interesting that Kipling is omitted, or only tacitly included in the canon during these postcolonial days. Thus, while our atomised postmodern culture might be designated apolitical pastiche, it's regulated by political correctness--the modern equivalent of prudishness--the disingenuous dictates of conscience. These days we are of course all philistines in that we enjoy poetry (culture) for its own sake. Just as the emerging bourgeoisie turned a blind eye to the horrors they perpetuated, so today the souffle (bourgeoisie), fully risen, is indifferent both to its barbarous past and its own devastating present (think of Nero and his fiddle). Whether we like it or not, there is a degree of complacency (dressed up as complaisance) in our literary comportment.
And I sound like a dreadful moralist!

Dear Csteele, unlettered I worked in factories for 25 years from the age of fourteen, reading lustily from the canon to compensate for my my deep insecurity, only to learn at university that my hard-earned cultural capital was counterfeit! Of course it's not; I'd be poorer without it--but it's laundered money!
I didn't met too many tradies who rose above composing dirt ditties btw :-)

Squeers

One doesn't have to be 'middle-class' to appreciate any art.

Know when you have been thoroughly trumped. Foxy's recent ditty's and Csteele's reference to Robert Burns put the lie to your claims of elitism.

Midsummer's Night Dream was the play that invited me (as a child) into the works of Shakespeare, just as it was intended, in its day, for the poorer folk of both education and income.

You may well wish to provoke the apparent veneer of complacency - however, just because you have a pigeon does not mean you have to shove it in a hole.

"the river
leans upon the snag
a moment"

Severin,
I wasn't aware I'd been trumped. Indeed I'm complacent I hold all the cards.
"Our society distributes itself into Barbarians,
Philistines, and the populace; and America is just
Ourselves, with the Barbarians quite left out,
and the populace nearly" (Arnold)
We're all philistines now. I don't accuse us of elitism, just indifference and superficiality.

"Indifference and superficiality"

Is that what you think of us all?

Thank you for the edification - I will keep your attitude in mind when next I read a contribution from you.

NO! Dammit!

You have contributed much thought of far more value than the Houellebecqs of OLO.

If you believe that a thread about poetry is, from the ribald to the sublime as epitomised here; mere self-indulgent middle-class play - well you are entitled to your opinion.

However, you can keep it with your pigeon.

:(

As I wrote earlier, poetry like so many
things is subjective. That's not to say
that all poetry is good poetry, but it
is a question of taste, and what moves
us I guess (or not). This is not to say
that poetry should contain only lofty,
so called 'high poetry,' as distinct
from popular or light verse. One doesn't
expect the insight and transformation of
lyric poetry in a light-hearted jingle,
which has its own, quite different, value
in humour, drama, and musical fun.

Several important things have emerged from
this discussion so far. The first is that
poetry is a universal art form and spreads its
appeal across the whole spectrum of humanity.
Secondly, it comes in many forms, each having
prominence in its own right. Thirdly, to most
of us, poetry has an important place in our
lives. It recreates the world and gives us a
new vision of reality which in turn enriches
and guides us in our living.

"...I had a dream, which was not all a dream.
The bright sun was extinguish'd and the stars
Did wander darkling in the eternal space.
Rayless, and pathless, and the icy earth
Swung blind and blackening in the moonless air:
Moon came and went - and came, and brough no day,
And men forgot their passions in the dread of
this their desolation..."
(Lord Byron, 1816).

Although this is only a small part of Byron's poem,
it gives us a very vivid visual picture of what a
nuclear winter could be like. I guess this vision is
part of what art can sustain.

Even the simple art of poetry cannot be protected from ideology and class politics.

Hang on I have to go "that will be Nigel with the Brie".

(acknowledgement: (Movie) Ten Things I Hate About You')

I've been off watching my boys play the 'beautiful' game, and thus dragged from the field rather than vanquished.

Severin,
apologies for offending you, clearly you dislike having your complacency shaken.
Anyway take heart, I don't say our superficiality isn't sophisticated; I doubt we've begun to plumb the depth of our shallowness.

Foxy.
<Several important things have emerged from
this discussion so far.>

Yes, but you neglect to mention politics, which 'I' invoked; clearly not an 'important thing'?
Severin's never heard of it, but there's such a 'thing' as Culturalism, which long since trumped elitist aesthetics. We live in the age of the anti-aesthetic, wherein poetry is just discourse distilled--a powerful 'anaesthetic' for all that! After several decades of formalism and 'New Criticism', the mysterious aesthetic was found to be will-o-the-wisp, its effects little more than naive affectation. Poetry, like any cultural artefact, is edifying for what it tells us about ourselves; it offers a critical self-reflexive perspective that, given humanity's monumental hubris, is naturally invisible to us. And then, what 'texts' reveal about us is seldom flattering, and difficult to embrace. The Modern era has amounted to one 'Copernican revolution' after another.
Of course the bourgeoisie (consumer society), with all the substance of a souffle, is utterly oblivious (ignorant or dismissive) of such 'fashionable nonsense', continuing on with all the swagger of new money and homespun provincial pieties in verse.
Thus, people like Severin lash out when anyone threatens to puncture that supercilious pillow of air they laboured so long to prepare.
I really do apologise for opening the oven, but I contend that such considerations as I've raised are far more salubrious than suffle.

Dear Squeers,

I didn't mention a lot of things.
I didn't feel that it was necessary
to do that.
I was certain that we're all aware
of the variety of themes that are covered
by poets from traditional love poems, to
race, religion, politics, sex and sexuality,
death, family affections, friends and lovers,
private fates, reflections, images, elegies,
callings, dreams and questions, the list goes on.
It's a vast menu to choose from. I did say however -
or rather Samuel Taylor Coleridge did,
in the quote I gave, "...Poetry is the
blossom and the fragrance of all human
knowledge, human thoughts, human passions,
emotions, language ..."

You seem to want an argument of some sort.
I don't. To me, the importance of a rich
poetic experience is vital to effective language
development, particularly at the early stages
when the rate of language growth is at its highest
in children. If we see reading and learning to
read as fused with other aspects of using language,
poetry with its rich concentration of the right words
in the right order can be effectively used to make
the important link with listening, speaking and
writing.

I shan't give you a dissertation on the subject.
Instead, I'll Thank You for your input into this
one - and hopefully I will see you soon on another
thread.

I'd like to take this opportunity to Thank everyone
who contributed to my thread. It has exceeded my
expectations.

Foxy: <You seem to want an argument of some sort.>

I do not.
Apologies for the intrusion.

Dear Squeers,

Oh no. Now I've offended you.
I'm so sorry.

Your input has been of great value
to this thread. It wasn't an "intrusion,"
at all. And please continue.

Please, please, please...

Dear Poirot,

Here's one of my fave comedians referring to Burn's poetry:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCQP5zuou0Q&feature=related

Distorted Burns:

There was a man,
His name was Lang
and he owned a neon sign
but he was old; so very old
That they called it Old Lang's Sign.

I used to love reading My Love is Like a Red, Red Rose but none of his poetry about women and love appeal as much for me now as I've learned more and more about his relationship with Jean and other women.

I do though continue to appreciate much of his writing about politics, poverty and working class struggle. A long time ago I read a profound piece - something to do with workers in an iron foundry I think, or a very hot factory or something. I tried to recall and find it but couldn't. If that rings any bells someone might point me in the right direction.

Dear Pynchme,

Great clip.

Once I discovered the Dumfries connection with Burns, I became a little more familiar with his history in that regard.
That quote about my gggguncle was by Jessy Lewars to Burns' biographer, Robert Chambers. She nursed Burns during his final illness and he, being a hopeless romantic, fell in love with her. Apparently, he used to joke with her about which of her swains she should (or shouldn't) marry.
People like Robert Burns, for all their failings, can't help but stand out wherever they exist in space and time. They possess a rare quality that is hard to define, but it's something that ordinary souls can't help but hold in some sort of dubious esteem. In 1819, twenty three years after his death, Burns was still listed in one local directory among the town's residents. His address given as, The Mausoleum, St Michael's Churchyard...

Thine be the volumes, Jessy fair,
And with them take the poet's prayer -
That fate may in her fairest page,
With every kindliest, best presage
Of future bliss, enrol thy name;
With native worth, and spotless fame,
And wakeful caution still aware
Of ill - but chief, man's felon snare.
All blameless joys on earth we find,
And all the treasures of the mind -
These be thy guardian and reward,
So prays thy faithful friend, the Bard.

Squeers

>> Severin,
apologies for offending you<<

When is an apology disingenuous? When it is followed by an unfounded personal comment:

>>clearly you dislike having your complacency shaken<<

I freely admit to my faults, but "complacency" is not one of them. Oh, to have the luxury of complacency - I wish.

>> Severin's never heard of it, but there's such a 'thing' as Culturalism...<<

You base this claim on....?

You then state I have >>lashed out<<. I see a double standard, Squeers. And, believe me, when I do "lash out" you will know.

Much with the personal insults. Trolling, my dear?

You are then apparently attacked by some lurking complacency yourself, with a piece of sophistry that reads like a first draft of an English Lit 101 dissertation on Post Modern poetry.

As I stated above: "You have contributed much thought of far more value than the Houellebecqs of OLO." What went wrong? I can only surmise that the sharing of poetry brings out your snide side.

I echo Foxy's sentiments; you do rather appear to want to argue. However, I too must have been mistaken, you wish to engage in lively and witty banter.

Please, please, please regale us.

Will be back in a couple of days - be good boys and girls.

Squeers:"Foxy: <You seem to want an argument of some sort.>

I do not.
Apologies for the intrusion."

And another one bites the dust. How long before there's noone for foxy and Severin to talk to but themselves?

Severin,
you're right, my apology 'was' disingenuous; it was more in the nature of sympathy for your blinkered perspective and reactionary hostility to innovative thinking.

Foxy,
I'm not offended, and meant no offence. I appreciated the thread as it was, but I'm seldom comfortable with consensus. Indeed, I think OLO is most valuable when it challenges conventional thinking. I believe we are facing enormous, mainly man-made, challenges at every level of the human sphere, which suggests that we've been getting every facet of our existence wrong hitherto. No opportunity to interrogate our collective complacency should be lost; even delightful threads like this one, for mine, should not censor or excoriate political content. I stand by my comments above, that collectively our culture is complacent, indifferent, superficial and supercilious, or at best many people are frustrated by a sense of helplessness. We have to be careful then, surely, that we don't palliate those feelings, and political potential, with escapism. I would add too that when radical criticism is made of an institution and met with hostility, that is a sure sign that a raw nerve has been struck.
So you can expect me to be just as nettlesome in future threads. I can assure you though that I don't give myself an easy time of anything either. All new thinking begins by challenging old.
Of course maybe my thinking needs a challenge...

Am off now to the cinema to see Robin Hood with my kids.

Dear Squeers,

Fair enough.

I have to admit though that I'm a bit of
a dreamer, always have been. But not in a bad
way, I hope. I've always believed that when
you're skating on thin ice, you might as well
tap dance. Stick your neck out, volunteer, have
a go, reach out beyond your best performance,
and when you do, do so with style, elan, panache.
I feel that you'll learn more from a well executed
failure than from a success planned within the
dreary safety of what you already know.
Winning easy is boring, pointless work.

Anyway, that's just me. I tend to dream in perfect
detail.

Let us know what you thought of "Robin Hood,"
I intend to see it next week. I was given some
Gold Class movie tickets as part of a Christmas
present and they expire at the end of the month -
so I need to use them. I'm tossing up between
"Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," and "Robin Hood."
Leaning towards "Robin Hood," for my husband's sake.

Glad to see that ironed out - Severin, Squeers and Foxy - you are all tops amongst my favourite reads. I was sure your collective wisdom would prevail.

I can hardly wait to see Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It hasn't reached us here yet (last time I checked).

I get a bit sick of the Robin Hood story to be honest, though it should be interesting to see Russell give it a go. I read somewhere that he took some digs about his accent. That seems a bit petty given the usual run of movies where grating accents are par for the course.

We can turn to Eddie Izzard for a bit of a laugh about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXaH9dZcR2c&feature=related

Dear Pynch,

Thanks for the link.

I'd love to see, "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,"
a friend saw it recently and thought it was great.
However, my husband hates sub-titles, so it'll
probably be "Robin Hood," minus the tights.
I think it will probably be more like "Gladiator,"
in Sherwood Forest, but we'll see.

Yes, I'm glad that we got it resolved as well.
I admire Squeers very much (voice of reason),
and of course Severin's in a class by herself,
and happens to be one of my favourite posters -
but don't tell her! ;-)

Sad about Antiseptic though. I've decided not to
play nasty with him - he's better at it!

Well, Robin Hood was disappointing; my boys got bored with it. My girls had sense enough not to go. Your comment, Foxy, <I think it will probably be more like "Gladiator," in Sherwood Forest> is spot on, only there is a (very)little humour and crow tries his best to evince a bit of gentlemanly charm--Errol Flynn he's not! Cate is heavenly as always, though she's a bit implausible wielding a broadsword against hardened French troups.
I enjoyed Pynchme's Eddie Izzard version more, I think.
My tip is go and see the Dragon Tattoo film instead; or better still stay home and watch George Clooney's "Up in the Air"; a wonderful film.

Dear Squeers,

Thanks so much for responding so quickly about
the "Robin Hood," film.

That tears it! We're not going to see, "Robin
Hood." What we're going to see I'm not sure
yet as we've got to use up the Gold Class
tickets by the end of the month. I've now
found out that "The Girl with The Dragon
Tattoo," has finished in Gold Class so
we'll have to choose something else.

But Thanks for the George Clooney recommendation.
My husband wanted to see it when it first came
out and we didn't make it. However, we'll definitely
take out the DVD from our local video store next
week.

You're a good father Squeers - taking your kids
to the movies on a Sunday!

Dear Squeers,

Finally a chance to reply.

I fear you may have the wrong tiger by the tail.

On Australia Day my family has a growing tradition of heading out to the in-law's sheep property and after a hearty meal, bringing out Banjo's poems and getting stuck in. His book is passed around and the dozen or so kids are encouraged to do a reading. The show stopper though is my brother-in-law, a fitter and turner by trade who would freely admit to reading no more than one book a year. But to hear his suitably gravelly voice lovingly caress Banjo's words is an annual delight. His reverence for poetry is not limited to Banjo's works but if all it is is 'naïve affection' of 'provincial pieties' then it is held very deeply.

However he is unlikely to ever contemplate reading this forum, even less likely to ever contribute, and would never waste his time trying to decipher your and probably my posts here.

So I think what probably makes this thread so “complacently middle-class” for your good self is the setting rather than the subject.

And in all truth I would to some extent agree with that sentiment. To be a regular participant here requires a number of things that only a section of our society enjoy. Leisure time for a start, plus a degree of computer literacy, a developed sense of English comprehension, some stridently held views and the gumption to expose them to critical review.

Cont...

Cont...

But hell I'm not bothered by assuming your label, it certainly helps keep the ego in check. What we see as a broad spectrum of OLO contributors, bracketed by the likes of runner to davidf, is in reality just a little slither of society's whole. And, I would contend, not an especially remarkable one at that. But once this is recognised it is easy enough to be comfortable with the thought.

What is a little more remarkable is the fair degree of civility in our discourse. I will admit to having grown into it through my participation in the OLO forum, thanks in no small measure to the likes of davidf and foxy.

I personally have found the rewards of that civil discourse far exceeding the momentary delights of one-up-man-ship, however I am the first to recognise the restraint involved can be seen by others as pomposity, or for you 'tea and cucumber' moments, but it is a price I'm happy to pay for the 'anaesthetic'.

Anyhow I've been told I look rather dashing in a smoking jacket.

Finally in the words of our dear Henry;

Bother not about the morrow, for sufficient to the day
Is the evil (rather more so). Put your trust in God and pray!
Study well the ant, thou sluggard. Blessed are the meek and low.
Ponder calmly on the lilies -- how they idle, how they grow.
A man's a man! Obey your masters! Do not blame the proud and fat,
For the poor are always with them, and they cannot alter that.
Lay your treasures up in Heaven -- cling to life and see it through!
For it cannot last for ever -- `I shall die some day,' says you.

Whew, that is some angry brilliance.

Dear csteele,

Thank You for sharing the story of your
family's poetry readings with us.
I can visualize your brother reading
the poems and I wish I could sit quietly
in a corner and listen as well. Sheer magic!

I tend to browse in bookshops and peep
into the pages of paperbacks trying to
pick the best poems for children for
my Storytime sessions. Selecting for
older children I try to avoid the over-
reliance on poetry which has little appeal
to modern children. If I hope to hold the
attention of older readers I find its
necessary to make the poetry I select
relevant to their lives, and of course it's
got to ring true.

"Getting Albert off to bed
Is such an anxious task,
He never seems to want to go
Although you ask
And ask.

"Just five more minutes," Albert says.
Another five, and then
Before you know it, cunning boy,
He stretches it
To ten.

He brushes teeth with lazy strokes
He lingers and he plays.
"Please HURRY, Albert," people shout
But Albert stays
And stays.

Getting Albert into bed
Would seem a losing fight,
I think I'll go to bed
Instead.
So, everyone,
Goodnight!"

(Max Fatchen - his verse reminds me
of Ogden Nash).

Dear foxy,

My best win from a second-hand bookshop was Harold Bloom's 'Stories and Poems for Extremely Intelligent Children of All Ages' however it was not a poem from it that so struck my daughters but a short story by Emile Zola titled Complements.

It can be read here; http://www.101bananas.com/library2/complements.html

Being in their mid teens has obviously made them receptive to the tale but it is striking just how much it became part of our family's language.

Both of them are of course stunningly beautiful yet I suppose teenage insecurities about appearance are pretty universal.

Dear Csteele,
thanks for your thoughts. I will be very busy brushing up on Keats today, but shall respond as soon as I can. I would just say here, however, that I don't single out this thread or OLO for criticism (I admire many of the contributors too), but our whole representative culture.

I'm more a fan, btw, of Henry Lawson's bleak realism than I am of Banjo's romanticising of the outback; their poetic duel makes for a great dialogue!

I love the rhythm and turn of phrase of Banjo's works.

Here's a selection of stanzas from another's work that I've loved since I was a kiddo.

THE DEATH OF BEN HALL

Will. H. Ogilvie (1869 - 1963)


....



But his friend had read of the big reward,

And his soul was stirred with greed;

He fastened his door and window board,

He saddled his horse and crossed the ford,

And spurred to the town at speed.


......


False was the hand that raised the chain

And false was the whispered word:

'The troopers have turned to the south again,

You may dare to camp on the Gunning Plain.'

And the weary outlaw heard.



He walked from the hut but a quarter mile

Where a clump of saplings stood

In a sea of grass like a lonely isle;

And the moon came up in a little while

Like silver steeped in blood.



Ben Hall lay down on the dew-wet ground

By the side of his tiny fire;

And a night breeze woke, and he heard no sound

As the troopers drew their cordon round -

And the traitor earned his hire.



And nothing they saw in the dim grey light,

But the little glow in the trees;

And they crouched in the tall cold grass all night,

Each one ready to shoot at sight,

With his rifle cocked on his knees.



When the shadows broke and the dawn's white sword

Swung over the mountain wall,

And a little wind blew over the ford,

A sargeant sprang to his feet and roared:

'In the name of the Queen, Ben Hall!'



Haggard, the outlaw leapt from his bed

With his lean arms held on high,

'Fire!' And the word was scarcely said

When the mountains rang to rain of lead -

And the dawn went drifting by.



They kept their word and they paid his pay

Where a clean man's hand would shrink;

And that was the traitor's master day

As he stood by the bar on his homeward way

And called on the crowd to drink.



cont'd

He banned no creed and he barred no class,

And he called to his friends by name;

But the worst would shake his head and pass

And none would drink from the bloodstained glass

And the goblet red with shame.



And I know when I hear the last grim call

And my mortal hour is spent,

When the light is hid and the curtains fall

I would rather sleep with the dead Ben Hall

Than go where that traitor went.

It can be read in full here:
http://dreamsis29.tripod.com/DeathBenHall.htm

(Love that ending).

CS thanks for the story link. It was beaut.

Oh and Foxy I agree with what you said earlier. For me it's just a matter of not wasting more time and energy grappling with the determinedly antagonistic. Just too predictable. Too tedious.

Squeers: Glad that you got a kick out of Eddie Izzard. Watching him on Utube is one of my favourite forms of procrastination!

pynch

Dear csteele,

Thank You for the Emile Zola story.
It resonates with me as well.

I remember as a teenager having the
longest plaits, my hair was way past my
waist and very thick. I stood out from
the other girls at school. I kept asking
my mother to have a modern trendy short cut.
Mum said no. So one day I snipped off one
of the plaits, and that was that! I ended
up getting my short cut.

Today, my long mane is back - (my husband
loves long hair), and I wouldn't change
it for a short cut for quids. So there
you are. Peer pressure when you're young
has a great influence.

Dear Pynch, Thanks for all your choices in poetry.
I enjoy them very much. People's choices bring
back so many memories of things learned in the
past and stored in our memories.

Dear Squeers, Don't forget to share some of your
poetry readings with the rest of us.

Dear Csteel and all,
Tried to post this last night but computer issues.
I’m still growing into my gentility on OLO, but not sure whether to accept this encroaching persona gratia or reject him; as he becomes more urbane, does he not lose his critical edge, sacrificing politics for diplomacy? “Diplomacy is thinking twice before saying nothing”, someone once said.
No, Squeers is not ready for the smoking jacket just yet. Complacency is an unfounded luxury; there’s work to be done and thoughts to be thunk. The world is a mess and we have an obligation to our children to act, or at least foment. Thus your Lawson quote is precisely the kind of fatalism I rebel against. For too long the human race has rationalised away its evil deeds via religion or philosophy. Religion is the refuge of the sophist and the defeated. Herein I differ with Keats, who’s philosophy surely we can only embrace in a climate of idealism, when all that’s solid melts into air. For me, we can only be complacent, or romantic, when the ‘suffering’ in the world is reducible to philosophy. Ultimately, life ‘is’ reducible to philosophy, the absurd, but we’re not there yet, and nature and natural being is still rather neat and we shouldn’t despise it. Did we despise it when we were young and vigorous? No, it’s only when we’re old and infirm, with nothing to gain and nothing to lose, that we learn such affectation and abandon the world.
Not very inspiring, I know, but it’s been a long day. A poem to follow.

Continued.

“A Shattered Illusion”

On everything poetic
Your moderns look askance:
And daily Prose deals frequent blows
Destructive to Romance.

But though Romance is dying,
Like everything that's nice,
Since I was young I've thought it hung
Around the Edelweiss.

'Twas plucked, I deemed, by lovers,
Who braved the Alpine snows,
And hung for weeks from icy peaks,
Suspended by their toes:

They cared not though beneath them
There yawned a drop of miles,
But with a grin they roped it in,
And won their lady's smiles.

But now it seems that perils
Need not be faced at all:
You only need to buy the seed,
The price of which is small;

And in the heart of London,
A mile from Temple Bar,
You plant in earth your pennyworth,
And then - well, there you are!

Oh, Times's correspondent,
You might have spared us this!
We did not know that this was so,
And ignorance was bliss.

If further revelations
You chance to have in store,
Be generous, please, and spare us these,
I hear they don't want more. PG Wodehouse

In the same vein, Squeers, there's this:

They flutter behind us
Our possible pasts
Some wild-eyed and crazy
Some frightened and masked

A warning to anyone
Still in command
Of our possible futures
To take care

Roger Waters

Sry, should be "your" possible pasts and "their" possible futures.

Dear Squeers,

Another interesting post from you.
The poet Kevin Gilbert talks along
a similar theme. He tells us that
we have a direct responsibility to
the world we live in and our children.
That responsibility can be exercised in
a number of positive ways, it's our choice
to find the most effective (being perhaps
the ballot box, constitutional change and
personal commitment to action?).

"If all the lovely melodies
in all the world were ever sung
and all the master's masterpieces
in the greatest galleries ever hung
and all the statues of David and
the poems and the works of man
were to burn bright for death's delight
throughout our land
a little child looked up and smiled
and beamed with pride and love and joy
and said: 'You won't let them drop that bomb
on me Daddy. You'll stop them, won't you Daddy?'

His question mark
was like an arc all ringed around
with burning flame
I said in loving confidence:
'We'll stop them, child'
but in my heart is fear and burning shame
I actually PAY the Man
to make the BOMB
I pay him Tax to sing
his song of hate
I keep the war-dog on his chain
I help to feel and feed his hate
I PAY THE MAN to make his bomb
to hold the world and my child in fear
I close my heart to human beings
as if afraid
when love draws near

It's ME who's wrong
It's ME who'll burn the song
It's me who'll burn the lovely melody
because I fear other human near
who may somehow flood human love to me
the flame will burn and melt the eyes
of my children as they turn
to me and say with love for me
and faith today:
"You will stop them dropping the bomb on me
won't you Dad?'

The Garden of Love - William Blake

I went to the Garden of Love,
And saw what I never had seen:
A Chapel was built in the midst,
Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;
So I turn'd to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore;

And I saw it was filled with graves
And tomb-stones where flowers should be;
And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires.

"...people laughing, people crying,
babies born and old men dying,
the endless circle turns another turn -
Ever changing - colours blending,
no beginning - without ending -
we live and learn
forgetting what we learn -
Is it right of is it wrong for
us to sing and who's the song for?
the endless circle turns another turn -
we live and learn
forgetting what we learn
Loving, hating, joy and sorrow,
yesterday, today, tomorrow -
the endless circle turns another turn -
Like a mist upon the mountain,
like a never-ending fountain -
We live and learn -
forgetting what we learn ..."

(Nan Whitcomb).

Foxy wrote: That responsibility can be exercised in a number of positive ways, it's our choice to find the most effective (being perhaps the ballot box, constitutional change and personal commitment to action?).

Dear Foxy,

Those are fine, respectable ways. However, to create desirable change we must sometimes be less respectable.

It is better to be violent, if there is violence in our hearts, than to put on the cloak of nonviolence to cover impotence. Mohandas Gandhi

One of my few heroes is John Brown who was hanged for his unsuccessful uprising at Harper's Ferry. In charge at his hanging was the traitor-to-be, Robert E Lee, who led a much greater uprising. After his fight for slavery he headed a university and died, laden with honours. In my opinion John Brown was a much better man. As a child I lived not far from John Brown's grave, and my family would occasionally visit it. Often we were the only white people there

Dear Squeers,

Thank you for the reply.

You have said;

“No, Squeers is not ready for the smoking jacket just yet. Complacency is an unfounded luxury; there’s work to be done and thoughts to be thunk. The world is a mess and we have an obligation to our children to act, or at least foment.”

But don't you think that tilting your lance at a thread on poetry might be a little Quixotic?

“we can only be complacent, or romantic, when the ‘suffering’ in the world is reducible to philosophy.”

Next you will be sidling up to lovers on park benches saying “It is just the drive to inseminate, cut to the chase!”

From one of my favourite wordsmiths that I thought you might like.

The higher that the monkey can climb
The more he shows his tail
Call no man happy 'til he dies
There's no milk at the bottom of the pail

God builds a church
The devil builds a chapel
Like the thistles that are growing
'round the trunk of a tree
All the good in the world
You can put inside a thimble
And still have room for you and me

If there's one thing you can say
About Mankind
There's nothing kind about man
You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again

Dear David F.,

Mahatmas Gandhi also said:

"What difference does it make to the dead,
the orphans and the homeless,
whether the mad destruction is wrought under
the name of totalitarianism or the holy name
of liberty or democracy?"

He said:

"I object to violence because when it appears to do
good, the good is only temporary. The evil it does
is permanent."

And Golda Meir said:

"It is true we have won all our wars, but we have
paid for them. We don't want victories anymore."

Dorothy Green has the final word:

"No on has the right to exhort writers to
write on certain subjects or take up particular
moral stances. But if they love their art, we
can expect them to be on the side of life rather
than death, on the side of being, rather than
non-being, to prefer the beauty of this planet to
its desecration, and to use writing to reveal
truths.

We need above all to fall in love with this planet,
which, as far as we know, is the only one carefully
balanced to sustain human life without assistance
from somewhere else.

In the most destructive age in history, the word 'creative'
is more mindlessly bandied about than ever before;
a fact we need to ponder as writers. The truth is that
human beings came into a world prepared for them. If
we blow it up, we cannot hope to put it together again.
We cannot 'create' something out of nothing: even
the greatest artist did not invent colour, nor the
greatest musician sound, nor the greatest writer - speech.
All we can do is discover, imitate, re-arrange-or-destroy.
Our worst illusion is that we might return to the state of
primitive man. But he did not have polluted soil,
poisoned streams, irradiated game and vegetable foods."

Dear Foxy,

There is hope. Birds singing, sunbeams piercing the clouds, fish rippling the water, lion cubs suckling at mother's breast and abandoned cities gradually crumbling as greenery enfolds them. As the disease called humankind departs the rest of nature will gradually reclaim their habitat. The sixth distinction will end with the disappearance of the species that has corrupted the earth.

Human inventions of good, evil, ideology, philosophy, the supernatural and science will disappear. Then some creature will develop the ability to make abstractions, and the beat will go on.

Dear David F.,

I know that you're right!

I can honestly say that I've reached
that point in my life where I wake
up each morning with more energy
and zest than ever before. I
sometimes get filled with such joy
and excitement at the prospect of
new opportunities for this perhaps
most interesting segment of my life's
journey. "What does the future hold
for me now?" The best thing is,
I just don't know!

Well these are deep waters and I think I'll sleep on it.

Dear Foxy,

Don't you dare agree with davidf!

You can't write something brilliant like

“We need above all to fall in love with this planet,
which, as far as we know, is the only one carefully
balanced to sustain human life without assistance
from somewhere else.”

and then fall on your sword by letting him get away with;

“As the disease called humankind departs the rest of nature will gradually reclaim their habitat.”

We are nature just as any bird, fish or lion cub and as such we are driven to procreate, compete, and kill. How many zebra infants will succumb to davidf's suckling cubs? Nature ain't a 'bed of roses' so to speak.

And as my man Tom says “You can drive out nature with a pitch fork
But it always comes roaring back again”

However what other creature has the capacity to 'fall in love with this planet'?

For those who believe in the promise of the species nature's roar is getting dimmer and therein lies hope.

Dear davidf,

When you say “The sixth distinction will end with the disappearance of the species that has corrupted the earth.” I hear;

6:11 Now the people of the earth were corrupt in the sight of God, and the land was filled with violence.

And,

6:5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the land, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.
6:6 And the LORD was sorry that He had made man in the land, and He was grieved in His heart.
6:7 And the LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land...

This is the same Genesis God you have had occasion to rail against in past posts yet you seem to be donning his robes.

I suppose, if I were to be a little mischievous, I might paint Foxy, with her strong message of hope and zest for life, as our Jesus, although right now she is in the desert being tempted. ;)

Y'see?

>>As the disease called humankind departs the rest of nature will gradually reclaim their habitat. The sixth distinction will end with the disappearance of the species that has corrupted the earth.<<

Tol'ja

Nothing good can come from reading poetry.

Csteele: <But don't you think that tilting your lance at a thread on poetry might be a little Quixotic?

“we can only be complacent, or romantic, when the ‘suffering’ in the world is reducible to philosophy.”

Next you will be sidling up to lovers on park benches saying “It is just the drive to inseminate, cut to the chase!”>

Thanks for the witty response, though I was more alluding to Romanticism than lovers.
It is perhaps a shame to spoil a thread devoted to poetry with politics; and yet our aestheticising of literature is a modern overlay on what began as rhetoric and always had political intent and effects. To admire poetry merely for its own sake is a decadent refinement and nonsense. We draw inspiration from what we perceive to be the content, and are seduced by how it's couched. It's the rhetorical effect of the bible, for instance, much of which is palpable nonsense, that's seduced us for millennia. We're so beguiled by the poesy of the promise of eternal life, couched in such eloquent strains, that we buy it and make murderous doctrines of antiquities, of cultural texts utterly remote from our own. Which is not to say that we shouldn't be inspired by great texts, but that we should appreciate them critically, in their context and be wary of their rhetorical burden on our own.
Today, we too often fetishise cultural delights, both at the expense of the 'real' world, and to the point where they're devoid of political or contemporary didactic content (there is of course avant-garde art too, but it's seldom 'popular'). We forget that culture and its texts are 'not' real, yet they divert us inordinately from what 'is', indeed we treat them 'as' real. DavidF's scenario is a logical observation of the inevitable--which is being greatly precipitated by our indifference to the 'actual'.
"some people think that life's the thing, but I prefer reading" (Logan Pearsall Smith). ...Ah, but today reading has diversified into myriad escapism, a virtual lifeworld and afterlife, but no real world or real consequences to our real actions.

Continued..
Of course it used to be that only the aristocracy enjoyed culture to the point of transcendence. At the neo-classical court of Louis XIV, the heroes of antiquity were emulated to such an extent that writers like Racine composed tragedies that were the last word in 'realism'. An extraordinary claim, unless you consider that such hyperbolic cultural artifice was based on the conviction that the natural was a product of culture and training. According to Erich Auerbach, "it became possible to consider natural what at all times and under all conditions move men's hearts: their feelings and passions. The natural was at the same time the eternally human".
Today such royal coteries, living the high life in Versailles, are expanding into global consumer culture, just as supercilious, remote from and indifferent to ordinary terrestrial concerns; such as the 'suffering (of all species)' I mentioned above. Modern Western culture is just as unreal, profligate and unsustainable as Louis XIV's, except its become a global plague.
But since this thread is devoted poetry, and I don't know any bleak enough, I'll have done with the politics.

Allow me to Thank You all for your inputs
into this thread.

I thought it appropriate to end the thread with a poem
by Maurice Strangard. I've chosen this poem because
of its poignant insistance that, "Somewhere there
must be a place called Little Peace." An appropriate
ending, along with the hope for our planet's future.
In the words of Mal Morgan, "La Mama Poetica,":

"Poetry demands that particular talent to reiterate,
to synthesize, in a new and startling way. It is
that creativity which makes fresh the discovery, which
moulds what appears to be the new reality. It is
that clarity of vision which makes one realize that
today is the first day of the rest of your life, which
made Charles Olson proclaim, - 'What does not change
is the will to change.' Because I believe this, my life
over the years, in spite of adversity, has moved towards
fulfilment, with my work and with the people who are
close to me. That there can be change, and that there are
positive alternatives is evident; then let us find and
take direction.

"I notice there is a place named
Little Stringy Bark Creek.

The place I suppose
Where Little Ned Kelly
Shot Little Sergeant Kennedy.

Just a little bit
Enough
To let him know
How other people felt.
The place from which no doubt
They took Little Ned to Melbourne
And hung him.
Just a little bit
Enough
To let him know
That no one need fear death.

Somewhere there must be a place
Called Little Peace.
Where men with little humanity
Do not have the power
To make great decisions.
Where little fears do not lessen
The so small span
Of our lives.

Where
For once
We can know peace.
Just a little
To know the taste of it."

Aww Squeers,

Now I just want to give you a hug.

From my lowly perch I see someone who has climbed the ivory tower (sorry about the monkey reference before), scanned the far horizons, observed it is 'vanities of vanities' and are now intent on shouting down to the rest of us; “It is all crap so you have to stop enjoying yourselves right this minute!”

A bit like a Houyhnhnm telling us all to stop Yahoo-ing about, then when one of us jokingly asks why such a long face, you are at a loss because you can't find a poem bleak enough.

But in speaking of Swift I am reminded of his epitaph which he wrote for himself in Latin and was poetically translated by Yeats as;

Swift has sailed into his rest.
Savage indignation there
cannot lacerate his breast.
Imitate him if you dare,
world-besotted traveller.
He served human liberty.

The light Swift shone on his culture was fierce and in some fashion you are doing the same. So good winds good Sir.

Eek!

Sorry Foxy, I didn't realise you had closed the curtains. That's what I get for composing offline and posting without looking.

Thank you for the thread and your poems. I will be dipping back to reread everyone's offerings at my leisure. Apologies for letting politics intrude.

Csteele,
I despise the ivory towers and can assure you I've had my fill of life experience. I'm aware that my position borders on the ridiculous, but I was trying to validate an alternative critical paradigm to aesthetics and hermeneutics. I might add that while it's an easy gesture to set my position up as risible, this is from someone who (presumably) believes in Biblical Fairy Tales and Christian morality? So who's tilting at windmills?
I'm a big fan of Swift and Cervantes myself btw:

"Nor shall thy beauty fade unsung,
When life forsakes my gelid veins;
My clay-cold lips and frozen tongue
In death shall raise immortal strains,
My soul when freed from cumb'rous clay,
Her flight over Stygian waves shall take;
And while on Lethe's banks I stray,
My song shall charm the oblivious lake"

Ah but the Don, ever the romantic, is incomplete without Sancho.

Foxy,
sorry I didn't get to replying to your last generous lyrical thoughts, and thank you for enduring my worldliness :-)