Other people's poems

[stanyewest]

I hardly ever read long poems I prefer poems to be short snippets.

An image in words.

Suicide In The Trenches-Siegfried Sassoon
[hr]
I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.


In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.



You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

[chicken]

"the explosion" by philip larkin has now been posted twice in this thread....


which is a testament to how utterly great it is....how it grabs your tender parts and turns them backwards.

[elko]

Need I post this? ....probably not, but I'm going to anyway. I don't think I like that many poems, and I certainly don't pretend to have any authority on the subject, but I think this is one of the best ever written. I guess it's kind of famous but I don't think that makes it rubbish.

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime. --
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, --
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[stanyewest]

One of the best poems ever written there elko.

At our school they did a recital of this and completely missed the point and made it a patriotic pro-war thing. I felt physically sick I truly did.

[elko]

:blink:

That's just....odd. There's plenty of pro-war poetry out there, how on earth could they misunderstand this one?

[sonandheir]

"the explosion" by philip larkin has now been posted twice in this thread....


which is a testament to how utterly great it is....how it grabs your tender parts and turns them backwards.

Larkin was a brilliant poet, and it is obvious to see that his work was an influence on Morrissey. In fact, Morrissey is the musical Larkin.

[Lazy Dyke]

Larkin is brilliant! Morrissey was inspired by him, no less? My favourite poem by his is the prestiged High Windows.

High Windows

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fucking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

Here's a few of my other favourite poems.. which I studied in english literature in school I do believe:

Havisham by Carol Anne Duffy
Beloved sweetheart bastard. Not a day since then
I haven't wished him dead. Prayed for it
so hard I've dark green pebbles for eyes,
ropes on the back of my hands I could strangle with.

Spinster. I stink and remember. Whole days
in bed cawing Nooooo at the wall; the dress
yellowing, trembling if I open the wardrobe;
the slewed mirror, full-length, her, myself, who did this

to me? Puce curses that are sounds not words.
Some nights better, the lost body over me,
my fluent tongue in its mouth in its ear
then down till suddenly bite awake. Love's

hate behind a white veil; a red balloon bursting
in my face. Bang. I stabbed at a wedding cake.
Give me a male corpse for a long slow honeymoon.
Don't think it's only the heart that b-b-b-breaks.

Havisham is a character from Great Expectations by Dickens. Never read it, heard she's captured the character pretty well though tbh. I can't concentrate on Dickens.. pretty difficult reading I find.



I am very bothered by Simon Armitage

I am very bothered when I think
of the bad things I have done in my life.
Not least that time in the chemistry lab
when I held a pair of scissors by the blades
and played the handles
in the naked lilac flame of the Bunsen burner;
then called your name, and handed them over.

O the unrivalled stench of branded skin
as you slipped your thumb and middle finger in,
then couldn't shake off the two burning rings. Marked,
the doctor said, for eternity.

Don't believe me, please, if I say
that was just my butterfingered way, at thirteen,
of asking you if you would marry me.

I didn't study this, but I studied Simon Armitage and I really liked his poetry and have since bought a book, this is in one of them and I like it.. because it has many different sides to it, including I think, quite a humorous one.

[elko]

I think we studied all those poets in school for GCSE. Armitage is dead brilliant, there's a poem that starts 'those bastards in their mansions' that is just....really good. And his stuff is funny as well, and not too difficult- like the Nick Hornby of poetry.

[Lazy Dyke]

I think we studied all those poets in school for GCSE. Armitage is dead brilliant, there's a poem that starts 'those bastards in their mansions' that is just....really good. And his stuff is funny as well, and not too difficult- like the Nick Hornby of poetry.

I find it doesn't challenge me too much. Sometimes you don't want to sit and analyse you wan't to understand and get the point. I think he has the ability to do this, but at the same time not make what he's trying to dull. I remember that, that's a pretty strong viewed poem eh? I love "Mother any distance greater than a single span" as well. I studied it for an essay.

[sonandheir]

In a music magazine that came out a few months ago (Mojo?), they did a short section on the poets that influenced Morrissey - Larkin being one of them. I think they cited the following as being rather Larkin-esque:

Oh, the last bus I missed to Maudlin Street
So he drove me home in the Van
Complaining, "Women only like me for my mind..."
Don't leave your torch behind
A powercut ahead; 1972, you know

Anyway, I find both Larkin and Morrissey's personalities to be so similar. It's almost eerie.

Havisham is one of my favourite poems also ... I'm guessing we all studied the same GCSE syllabus ...

[Lazy Dyke]

Funnily enough those lines are some of my favourite Morrissey lyrics.. the line:
Complaining, "Women only like me for my mind..."
is brilliant! I just love it, pure genius.

I guess we did. They are rather good modern poets though, even if they are wh0red through the GCSE syllabus and such.

[stanyewest]

I really like Simon Armitage another good poem in that bank of poetry Nothings Changed which is about post SAfrica apartheid and how little has changed.

Dodgy bastard used to be a terrorist and he talks of havig a bomb to shatter the glass.

Other good poems (and these are known by hel(moz) to be favourites) are .....

Half Caste

<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Excuse me

standing on one leg

I’m half-caste

Explain yuself

wha yu mean

when yu say half-caste

yu mean when Picasso

mix red an green

is a half-caste canvas/

explain yuself

wha yu mean

when yu say half-caste

yu mean when light an shadow

mix in de sky

is a half-caste weather/

well in dat case

england weather

nearly always half-caste

in fact some o dem cloud

half-caste till dem overcast

so spiteful dem don’t want de sun pass

ah rass/

explain yuself

wha yu mean

when yu say half-caste

yu mean tchaikovsky

sit down at dah piano

an mix a black key

wid a white key

is a half-caste symphony/

Explain yuself

Wha yu mean

Ah listening to yu wid de keen

half of mih ear

Ah looking at yu wid de keen

half of mih eye

and when I’m introduced to yu

I’m sure you’ll understand

why I offer yu a half-a-hand

an when I sleep at night

I close half-a-eye

consequently when I dream

I dream half-a-dream

an when moon begin to glow

I half-caste human being

cast half-a-shadow

but yu must come back tomorrow

wid de whole of yu eye

an de whole of yu ear

an de whole of yu mind

an I will tell yu

de other half

of my story

John Agard<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[elko]

Are all these poems gonna be from the AQA Eng Lang syllabus? :rolleyes:

Just kidding, it's a good poem. And cause you study it, you get to understand it easier. Like that one about the nine o clock news, that's good an all.

[sonandheir]

Are all these poems gonna be from the AQA Eng Lang syllabus? :rolleyes:

Just kidding, it's a good poem. And cause you study it, you get to understand it easier. Like that one about the nine o clock news, that's good an all.

I guess they are ...

Did anyone see the video of John Agard 'performing' Half Caste? 'Twas funny ... Anyway, the poem "Vultures" had some great lines:

"Praise bounteous
providence if you will
that grants even an ogre
a tiny glow-worm
tenderness encapsulated
in icy caverns of a cruel
heart or else despair
for in every germ
of that kindred love is
lodged the perpetuity
of evil."

Perfect ...

[Lazy Dyke]

Oh I remember Vultures! Excellent poem, I loved Nothings' Changed too... we should probably get out of the AQA book now, but it is a very good collection of poems and studying them in school means you can appreciate them.