rutopia.info

[taciturnfriend]

Hey, this isn't to suggest the previous thread is dead yet. There's some great stuff towards the end down there. But it must be getting close to being cut off, and since I don't start many threads I wanted this one.

So, let rip with the verse.

Bagpipe Music
Louis MacNeice

It's no go the merrygoround, it's no go the rickshaw,
All we want is a limousine and a ticket for the peepshow.
Their knickers are made of crêpe-de-chine, their shoes are made of python,
Their halls are lined with tiger rugs and their walls with heads of bison.

John MacDonald found a corpse, put it under the sofa,
Waited till it came to life and hit it with a poker,
Sold its eyes for souvenirs, sold its blood for whiskey,
Kept its bones for dumb-bells to use when he was fifty.

It's no go the Yogi-Man, it's no go Blavatsky,
All we want is a bank balance and a bit of skirt in a taxi.

Annie MacDougall went to milk, caught her foot in the heather,
Woke to hear a dance record playing of Old Vienna.
It's no go your maidenheads, it's no go your culture,
All we want is a Dunlop tyre and the devil mend the puncture.

The Laird o' Phelps spent Hogmanay declaring he was sober,
Counted his feet to prove the fact and found he had one foot over.
Mrs Carmichael had her fifth, looked at the job with repulsion,
Said to the midwife 'Take it away; I'm through with overproduction'.

It's no go the gossip column, it's no go the Ceilidh,
All we want is a mother's help and a sugar-stick for the baby.

Willie Murray cut his thumb, couldn't count the damage,
Took the hide of an Ayrshire cow and used it for a bandage.
His brother caught three hundred cran when the seas were lavish,
Threw the bleeders back in the sea and went upon the parish.

It's no go the Herring Board, it's no go the Bible,
All we want is a packet of fags when our hands are idle.

It's no go the picture palace, it's no go the stadium,
It's no go the country cot with a pot of pink geraniums,
It's no go the Government grants, it's no go the elections,
Sit on your arse for fifty years and hang your hat on a pension.

It's no go my honey love, it's no go my poppet;
Work your hands from day to day, the winds will blow the profit.
The glass is falling hour by hour, the glass will fall for ever,
But if you break the bloody glass you won't hold up the weather.

[imaginarylove]

That's a poem that I used to like, but doesn't bear much re-reading, I think.

Britten set it to music, as you may know.

[murmur]

I love surrealist poets, but can't find any in English.

[taciturnfriend]

You may be right about Bagpipe Music, but I love the way it captures a combination of joyous exuberance and hollow bitterness.

Lilypod posted an Elizabeth Bishop poem towards the end of the other thread. Everybody probably knows this one, a villanelle:

One Art
Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.


The villanelle is a deceptively difficult form, probably needing a subject that fits its repetitive structure, but it can't just repeat the same jokes or thoughts, needing forward movement too. There are very famous ones by Dylan Thomas, Auden and Roethke, but here are a few other good ones.


Song
Rhina Espaillat

From hair to horse to house to rose,
her tongue unfastened like her gait,
her gaze, her guise, her ghost, she goes.

She cannot name the thing she knows,
word and its image will not mate.
From hair to horse to house to rose

there is a circle will not close.
She babbles to her dinner plate.
All gaze and gaunt as ghost she goes—

smiling at these, frowning at those,
smoothing the air to make it straight—
from hair to horse to house to rose.

She settles in a thoughtful pose
as if she understood her fate,
her face, her gaze, her ghost. She goes

downstream relentlessly, she flows
where dark forgiving waters wait.
From hair to horse to house to rose,
her gaze, her guise, her ghost, she goes.


An interesting non-metrical one:

After the Season
Kate Light

Do not talk to me just now; let me be.
We were up to our ears in pain and loss, and so
I am reuniting all the lovers, fishing the drowned from the sea.

I am removing daggers from breasts and re-
zipping. Making it clear who loves whom—please go.
Do not talk to me just now; let me be.

I'm redistributing flowers and potions and flutes, changing key;
rewriting letters, pulling spring out of the snow.
I am reuniting all the lovers, fishing the drowned from the sea.

I am making madness sane, setting prisoners free,
cooling the consumptive cheek, the fevered glow.
Do not talk to me just now; let me be.

Pinkerton and Butterfly make such a happy
couple; Violetta has five gardens now to show...
I am reuniting all the lovers, fishing the drowned from the sea.

The jester and his daughter have moved to a distant city.
Lucia colors her hair now, did you know?
Come, let us talk, sit together and be
lovers reunited, fished like the drowned from the sea.


First Sight
Catherine Turfariello

I dreamed your face before we met,
A face familiar as my own.
Love was an effortless duet

For us, when, from a silhouette—
A fog around phosphoric bone—
I dreamed your face, before we met;

But when you surfaced, bruised and wet,
Your gaze was no one's I had known.
And so began a strained duet

Marred by false starts, wrong notes, regret,
Through which (love gone, or not yet grown)
I dreamed your face. Before we met,

You were a ghost. You hold me yet,
Substantial now as any stone.
How long we practiced our duet,

How slowly learned love's alphabet,
How long ago, asleep, alone,
I dreamed your face—before we met,
And started this undreamt duet.


Eternal Father
Jerry Jenkins

“Eternal Father” was the hymn they played
at father’s funeral—that hymn alone.
For me, the sound of it will never fade.

The house is empty now, the home he made,
as hollow as the homilies they drone.
Eternal Father, was the hymn they played

a false refuge, in which they could evade
the truth they fear, that they have always known?
For me, the sound of it will never fade.

It quivers in my memory like a blade.
What flayed my sorrow to its very bone,
Eternal Father, was the hymn. It played

companion to the coffin lid and spade,
the clods that fell in hollow monotone.
For me, the sound of it will never fade.

They tell me that I shouldn’t be afraid,
that we all live in You. But is Your throne
eternal? Father, was the hymn they played
for me? The sound of it will never fade.


Is that too many of them? There are more...

[taciturnfriend]

[murmur]

Thank you.

[Haru]

Has anyone ever visited Constantly Risking Absurdity? Some great stuff there.

I like this Simon Armitage poem, too.

You May Turn Over And Begin...

'Which of these films was Dirk Bogarde
not in? One hundredweight of bauxite

makes how much aluminium?
How many tales in The Decameron?

General Studies, the upper sixth, a doddle, a cinch
for anyone with an ounce of common sense

or a calculator
with a memory feature.

Having galloped through but not caring enough
to check or double-check, I was dreaming of

milk-white breasts and nakedness, or more specifically
virginity.

That term - everybody felt the heat
but the girls were having none of it:

long and cool like cocktails
out of reach, their buns and pigtails

only let out for older guys with studded jackets
and motor-bikes and spare helmets.

One jot of consolation
was the tall spindly girl riding pillion

on her man's new Honda
who, with the lights at amber,

put down both feet and stood to stretch her limbs,
to lift the visor and push back her fringe

and to smooth her tight jeans.
As he pulled off down the street

she stood there like a wishbone,
high and dry, her legs wide open,

and rumour has it he didn't notice
till he came round in the ambulance

having underbalanced on a tight left-hander.
A Taste Of Honey. Now I remember.

[youraprilfoolsman]

*disclaimer*

what you are about to read is frank and explict.


Flower


Every time I see your face
I get all wet between my legs
Every time you pass me by
I heave a sigh of pain

Every time I see your face
I think of things unpure unchaste
I want to fuck you like a dog
I'll take you home and make you like it

Everything you ever wanted
Everything you ever thought of is
Everything I'll do to you
I'll fuck you and your minions too

Your face reminds me of a flower
Kind of like you're underwater
Hair's too long and in your eyes
Your lips a perfect suck me size

You act like you're fourteen years old
Everything you say is so
Obnoxious, funny, true and mean
I want to be your blowjob queen

You're probably shy and introspective
That's not part of my objective
I just want your fresh young jimmy
Cramming slamming ramming in me

Every time I see your face
I think of things unpure unchaste
I want to fuck you like a dog
I'll take you home and make you like it

Everything you ever wanted
Everything you ever thought of is
Everything I'll do to you
I'll fuck you 'til your dick is blue

[Ninja Squid]

I'm convinced TOYL is from Planet Vogsphere... or perhaps he is Paul Neil Milne Johnstone of Redbridge.

[imaginarylove]

[youraprilfoolsman]

well i didn't write that one, so i can't take any credit. it's one liz phair wrote and is one of her more popular ones.

[imaginarylove]

Well, post your crappy song lyrics somewhere else. This is the poetry thread.

[youraprilfoolsman]

I find poetry so hard to read
For one it hurts the tiny brain inside a cell
And those big words
Have me ringing like a bell

Do I know what they mean?
Not really sure
Is It something that can be seen
Seen and unseen
Heard but then lost
Amidst a jungle of words

I find poetry so hard to read
And even harder to speak
I can’t say what I feel
Just because the way it’s written
Won’t come across as real


Things like iambic pĕntăm`ətər
bother me so
As I’m not a strict fol·low·er
And what the hell is metonymic
If I raise my hand I feel stupid
But the example used
Has me really confused


“he spent the evening reading Shakespeare'”
Well of course he did
What else would it be?
Now there’s a great longing I fear
In posting this

For I’m sure the poetry zealots
Would hang me up by my words
Or would that be
Plain stupid ole me


to each his own.

[NimbleMarmoset]

[taciturnfriend]

*bites tongue*

OK. There are other threads more suited to the posting of song lyrics. While some may work as poetry, many will not. How about, if you want to post song lyrics here, you write something saying why you think they work as poetry - technically (not "because they make me feel x")?

And can I suggest a limit to the number of one's own poems, too? One every few days? Just so as not to overload things and cause arguments.