Poems..

[Guest Gone Fishing...]

 

Please add a poem with the authors name, thanks..
 

[Guest Gone Fishing...]

English translation of the French poet Charles Baudelaire -
"Destruction" 

 

 

The Devil stirs about me without rest,

And round me floats like noxious air and thin;

I breathe this poison-air which scalds my breast,

And fills me with desires of monstrous sin.

 

Knowing my love of Art, he sometimes takes

The shape of supple girls supremely fair;

And with a wily, canting lie he makes

My heated lips his shameful potions share.

 

Then far he leads me from the sight of God,

Crushed with fatigue, to where no man has trod-

To the vague, barren plains where silence sounds,

 

And hurls into my face his foul construction

Of slimy clothes, and gaping, putrid wounds,

And all the bleeding harness of Destruction !
 

[BonRimbaud]

A Song: “Men of England”

BY PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

Men of England, wherefore plough

For the lords who lay ye low?

Wherefore weave with toil and care

The rich robes your tyrants wear?

 

Wherefore feed and clothe and save

From the cradle to the grave

Those ungrateful drones who would

Drain your sweat—nay, drink your blood?

 

Wherefore, Bees of England, forge

Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,

That these stingless drones may spoil

The forced produce of your toil?

 

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,

Shelter, food, love’s gentle balm?

Or what is it ye buy so dear

With your pain and with your fear?

 

The seed ye sow, another reaps;

The wealth ye find, another keeps;

The robes ye weave, another wears;

The arms ye forge, another bears.

 

Sow seed—but let no tyrant reap:

Find wealth—let no imposter heap:

Weave robes—let not the idle wear:

Forge arms—in your defence to bear.

 

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells—

In hall ye deck another dwells.

Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see

The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

 

With plough and spade and hoe and loom

Trace your grave and build your tomb

And weave your winding-sheet—till fair

England be your Sepulchre.

[BonRimbaud]

 

dedicated to Matt hancock

TWAT

By John Cooper Clarke 

 

Like a Night Club in the morning, you’re the bitter end
Like a recently disinfected shit-house, you’re clean round the bend 
You give me the horrors
Too bad to be true 
All of my tomorrow’s
Are lousy coz of you 
You put the Shat in Shatter
Put the Pain in Spain
Your germs are splattered about
Your face is just a stain

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

You’re like a dose of scabies
I’ve got you under my skin
You make life a fairy tale… Grimm!

People mention murder, the moment you arrive
I’d consider killing you if I thought you were alive
You’ve got this slippery quality
It makes me think of phlegm
And a dual personality
I hate both of them

Your bad breath, vamps disease, destruction, and decay
Please, please, please, please, take yourself away
Like a death a birthday party
You ruin all the fun
Like a sucked and spat our smartie
you’re no use to anyone
Like the shadow of the guillotine
On a dead consumptive’s face
Speaking as an outsider
What do you think of the human race

You went to a progressive psychiatrist
He recommended suicide…
Before scratching your bad name off his list
And pointing the way outside

You hear laughter breaking through, it makes you want to fart
You’re heading for a breakdown
Better pull yourself apart

Your dirty name gets passed about when something goes amiss
Your attitudes are platitudes
Just make me wanna piss

What kind of creature bore you
Was is some kind of bat
They can’t find a good word for you
But I can…

TWAT

[BonRimbaud]

To a Mouse

BY ROBERT BURNS

 

On Turning her up in her Nest, with the Plough, November 1785.

 

Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie,

O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty,

          Wi’ bickerin brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee

          Wi’ murd’ring pattle!

 

I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion

Has broken Nature’s social union,

An’ justifies that ill opinion,

          Which makes thee startle,

At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,

          An’ fellow-mortal!

 

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;

What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!

A daimen-icker in a thrave

          ’S a sma’ request:

I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave,

          An’ never miss ’t!

 

Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin!

It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin!

An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,

          O’ foggage green!

An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin,

          Baith snell an’ keen!

 

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,

An’ weary Winter comin fast,

An’ cozie here, beneath the blast,

          Thou thought to dwell,

Till crash! the cruel coulter past

          Out thro’ thy cell.

 

That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble

Has cost thee monie a weary nibble!

Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,

          But house or hald,

To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble,

          An’ cranreuch cauld!

 

But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane,

In proving foresight may be vain:

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men

          Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,

          For promis’d joy!

 

Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me!

The present only toucheth thee:

But Och! I backward cast my e’e,

          On prospects drear!

An’ forward tho’ I canna see,

          I guess an’ fear!

Edited October 24, 2020 by BonRimbaud

[Oakwise]

Now it's the massacre of human life as we know it . . . 

 

 

[Macnamara]

Don Juan- Byron (1819)

 

“Who hold the balance of the world? Who reign

O’er congress, whether royalist or liberal?

Who rouse the shirtless patriots of Spain? [*]

(That make old Europe’s journals squeak and gibber all.)

Who keep the world, both old and new, in pain

Or pleasure? Who make politics run glibber all?

The shade of Buonaparte’s noble daring? —

Jew Rothschild, and his fellow-Christian, Baring.

VI

Those, and the truly liberal Lafitte,

Are the true lords of Europe. Every loan

Is not a merely speculative hit,

But seats a nation or upsets a throne.

Republics also get involved a bit;

Columbia’s stock hath holders not unknown

On ‘Change; and even thy silver soil, Peru,

Must get itself discounted by a Jew.”

 

[Oakwise]

The law will hang the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But lets the greater thief go loose

Who steals the common from the goose

 

- Anon

Edited October 24, 2020 by Oakwise

[Oakwise]

I am

By John Clare

 

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed

 

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

 

I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie
The grass below—above the vaulted sky.

 

[Oakwise]

Auguries of Innocence
BY WILLIAM BLAKE

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage 
A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thr' all its regions 
A dog starvd at his Masters Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State 
A Horse misusd upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood 
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fibre from the Brain does tear 
A Skylark wounded in the wing 
A Cherubim does cease to sing 
The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight
Does the Rising Sun affright 
Every Wolfs & Lions howl
Raises from Hell a Human Soul 
The wild deer, wandring here & there 
Keeps the Human Soul from Care 
The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife
And yet forgives the Butchers knife 
The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that wont Believe
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbelievers fright
He who shall hurt the little Wren
Shall never be belovd by Men 
He who the Ox to wrath has movd
Shall never be by Woman lovd
The wanton Boy that kills the Fly
Shall feel the Spiders enmity 
He who torments the Chafers Sprite
Weaves a Bower in endless Night 
The Catterpiller on the Leaf
Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief 
Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly 
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh 
He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar 
The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat 
Feed them & thou wilt grow fat 
The Gnat that sings his Summers Song
Poison gets from Slanders tongue 
The poison of the Snake & Newt
Is the sweat of Envys Foot 
The poison of the Honey Bee
Is the Artists Jealousy
The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags
Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags 
A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent 
It is right it should be so 
Man was made for Joy & Woe 
And when this we rightly know 
Thro the World we safely go 
Joy & Woe are woven fine 
A Clothing for the soul divine 
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine 
The Babe is more than swadling Bands
Throughout all these Human Lands
Tools were made & Born were hands 
Every Farmer Understands
Every Tear from Every Eye
Becomes a Babe in Eternity 
This is caught by Females bright
And returnd to its own delight 
The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar 
Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore 
The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath
Writes Revenge in realms of Death 
The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air
Does to Rags the Heavens tear 
The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun 
Palsied strikes the Summers Sun
The poor Mans Farthing is worth more
Than all the Gold on Africs Shore
One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands
Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands 
Or if protected from on high 
Does that whole Nation sell & buy 
He who mocks the Infants Faith
Shall be mockd in Age & Death 
He who shall teach the Child to Doubt
The rotting Grave shall neer get out 
He who respects the Infants faith
Triumphs over Hell & Death 
The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons
Are the Fruits of the Two seasons 
The Questioner who sits so sly 
Shall never know how to Reply 
He who replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the Light of Knowledge out 
The Strongest Poison ever known
Came from Caesars Laurel Crown 
Nought can Deform the Human Race
Like to the Armours iron brace 
When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow
To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow 
A Riddle or the Crickets Cry
Is to Doubt a fit Reply 
The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile
Make Lame Philosophy to smile 
He who Doubts from what he sees
Will neer Believe do what you Please 
If the Sun & Moon should Doubt 
Theyd immediately Go out 
To be in a Passion you Good may Do 
But no Good if a Passion is in you 
The Whore & Gambler by the State
Licencd build that Nations Fate 
The Harlots cry from Street to Street 
Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet 
The Winners Shout the Losers Curse 
Dance before dead Englands Hearse 
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born 
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight 
Some are Born to sweet delight 
Some are Born to Endless Night 
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night 
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light 
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night 
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day

[EnigmaticWorld]

[EnigmaticWorld]

 

Quote

A translation of a Welsh WW1 poem written by an anonymous soldier (probably from the Royal Welsh Fusiliers), combined with some Robert Graves. The words are obviously bitter satire so don't take them literally :)

 

 

[shabbirss]

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowering breast;
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Whose intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

--"Trees," by Joyce Kilme

[Stephen Sela]

"yada yada hi dharmasya
glanir bhavati bharata abhyutthanam
dharmasya tadatmanam srjamy
aham paritranaya sadhunam vinasaya ca duskrtam
dharma-samsthapanarthaya sambhavami yuge yuge "  -Vasya

Translation from 'Bhagavad Gita As It is": Whenever and wherever there is a decline in religious practice, O descendant of Bharata, and a predominant rise of irreligion--at that time I descend Myself. In order to deliver the pious and to annihilate the miscreants, as well as to reestablish the principles of religion, I advent Myself millennium after millennium.

[EnigmaticWorld]

Invictus by William Ernest Henley

 

Out of the night that covers me,  

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,   

I thank whatever gods may be   
For my unconquerable soul.   

In the fell clutch of circumstance 
I have not winced nor cried aloud.   
Under the bludgeonings of chance   
My head is bloody, but unbowed.   

Beyond this place of wrath and tears   
Looms but the Horror of the shade, 
And yet the menace of the years   
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.   

It matters not how strait the gate,   
How charged with punishments the scroll,   
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

 

[Strummer101]

LITERATURE

A Short Analysis of A. E. Housman’s ‘Into my heart an air that kills’

 

 

 

A. E. Housman (1859-1936) 

 

The fortieth poem from A Shropshire Lad, which begins ‘Into my heart an air that kills’, is one of his most famous poems, a short lyric about nostalgia and growing old.

 

Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.

[kitkat]

Remember

By Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,

         Gone far away into the silent land;

         When you can no more hold me by the hand,

Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.

Remember me when no more day by day

         You tell me of our future that you plann'd:

         Only remember me; you understand

It will be late to counsel then or pray.

Yet if you should forget me for a while

         And afterwards remember, do not grieve:

         For if the darkness and corruption leave

         A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,

Better by far you should forget and smile

         Than that you should remember and be sad.

[Strummer101]

W.B. Yeats;

 

He wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet:

But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

 

 

What the critics say
"Yeats? That old fairy." (Shane MacGowan)

[Macnamara]

Logs to burn! Logs to burn!

Logs to save the coal a turn!

here's the word to make you wise

When you hear the woodsman's cries.

 

Beechwood fires burn bright and clear,

Hornbeam blazes too,

If the logs are kept a year

And seasoned through and through.

 

Oak logs will warm you well

If they're old and dry,

Larch logs of pinewood smell

But the sparks will fly.

 

Pine is good and so is yew

For warmth through wintry days

But poplar and willow, too

Take long to dry and blaze.

 

Birch logs will burn too fast,

Alder scarce at all.

Chestnut logs are good to last

If cut in the fall.

 

Holly logs will burn like wax,

You should burn them green,

Elm logs like smouldering flax,

No flame is seen.

 

Pear logs and apple logs,

They will scent your room.

Cherry logs across the dogs

Smell like flowers in bloom.

 

But ash logs, all smooth and grey,

Burn them green or old,

Buy up all that come your way,

They're worth their weight in gold.

 

 

[kitkat]

Nothing Gold Can Stay

By Robert Frost

 

Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

[Macnamara]

Falling Free

by Eivor Palsdottir & Trondur Bogason

 

Your eyes tell me stories that I can understand
I have seen the future written in your hand
Now I surrender
I am falling down
Hoping you will catch me before I hit the ground
You are all I see
For you I am falling free
I have walked the steepest mountains, sailed the seven seas

 

I have been looking for you in every part of me
Now I surrender
I am falling down
Hoping you will catch me before I hit the ground
You are all I see
For you I am falling free
You, my destiny
For you I am falling free

 

 

[facere arbitrium]

Enjoyed the synthesis of spoken word, written word and visual animation on this one. Originally a spoken word poem by a rapper named Sean Michael Daley whose stage name is Slug.

[Mitochondrial Eve]

A poem written by a friend of mine.

 

The Severest Agony

 

You take my heart

With your hand,

And crush it like you

Understand.

[EnigmaticWorld]

 

[EnigmaticWorld]