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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".