Poets Corner

[Mick Mac]

With apologies to the first 5 posts.

[Jah Lush]

Mick Mac Wrote:

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> What a shit thread.

You started it.

[Parkdrive]

The Listeners

The Listeners

By Walter De La Mare 1873?1956 Walter De La Mare

?Is there anybody there?? said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grasses

Of the forest?s ferny floor:

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller?s head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

?Is there anybody there?? he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;

No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,

Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners

That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

By the lonely Traveller?s call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

?Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

Louder, and lifted his head:?

?Tell them I came, and no one answered,

That I kept my word,? he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,

Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,

When the plunging hoofs were gone.

[jctg]

Mick Mac Wrote:

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> What a shit thread.

>

> Is there some rule that poetry has to be "funny".

They're more pithy.

[steveo]

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 Redbreast in a Cage

Puts all Heaven in a Rage.

A dove house fill?d with doves and pigeons

Shudders Hell thro? all its regions.

A Dog starv?d at his Master?s Gate

Predicts the ruin of the State.

A Horse misus?d upon the Road

Calls to Heaven for Human blood.

Each outcry of the hunted Hare

A fiber from the Brain does tear.

William Blake

[Alan Medic]

Written by someone from my neck of the woods.......

An Elegy On The Death Of A Mad Dog

Good people all, of every sort,

Give ear unto my song;

And if you find it wondrous short,

It cannot hold you long.

In Islington there was a man

Of whom the world might say,

That still a godly race he ran?

Whene'er he went to pray.

A kind and gentle heart he had,

To comfort friends and foes;

The naked every day he clad?

When he put on his clothes.

And in that town a dog was found,

As many dogs there be,

Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound,

And curs of low degree.

This dog and man at first were friends;

But when a pique began,

The dog, to gain some private ends,

Went mad, and bit the man.

Around from all the neighbouring streets

The wond'ring neighbours ran,

And swore the dog had lost its wits

To bite so good a man.

The wound it seemed both sore and sad

To every Christian eye;

And while they swore the dog was mad,

They swore the man would die.

But soon a wonder came to light

That showed the rogues they lied,?

The man recovered of the bite,

The dog it was that died!

Oliver Goldsmith

[Dopamine1979]

Me? We.

Muhammad Ali

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/a_mans_a_man_for_a_that/

well it is 25 January.

[uncleglen]

Since there is a vote in September:

?Fuckin failures in a country of failures. Its nae good blamin it oan the English fir colonising us. Ah don't hate the English. They're just wankers. We are colonised by wankers. We can't even pick a decent, vibrant healthy society to be colonised by. No..we are ruled by effete arseholes. What does that make us? The lowest of the low, the scum of the earth. The most wretched servile, miserable, pathetic trash that was ever shat intae creation. Ah don't hate the English. They just git oan wis the shite thev got. Ah hate the Scots.?

? Irvine Welsh, Trainspotting

[maxxi]

Peckhamgatecrasher Wrote:

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> http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/a_mans

> _a_man_for_a_that/

>

>

> well it is 25 January.

ditto...

There was a young Scotsman called Andy,

Who knocked over his bottle of Shandy.

He lifted his kilt,

To wipe up what he spilt,

And the barmaid said, "Blimey! That's handy!"

[KidKruger]

Catholic Priest

===============

what is this feast

of the catholic priest

who fails a boys trust

for the want of his lust

his fetish for young

his fetish for young

hold down and use

control and abuse

stand them in fear

ignoring the tear

having his way

having his way

the muffled whine

the boy is mine

not a word be said

but silence instead

he'll come back for more

he'll come back for more

smooth pure child skin

paternal priest grin

the boy needs your care

and you strip him bare

taking your fill

taking your fill

boy, accept it with grace

and know your place

you matter most least

to the high priest

[Jah Lush]

Fecking hell! Who wrote that?

[aquarius moon]

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair grows in me

and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting for their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

[Jah Lush]

Beasley Street

Far from crazy pavements ?

The taste of silver spoons

A clinical arrangement

On a dirty afternoon

Where the fecal germs of Mr Freud

Are rendered obsolete

The legal term is null and void

In the case of Beasley Street

In the cheap seats where murder breeds

Somebody is out of breath

Sleep is a luxury they don?t need

- a sneak preview of death

Belladonna is your flower

Manslaughter your meat

Spend a year in a couple of hours

On the edge of Beasley Street

Where the action isn?t

That?s where it is

State your position

Vacancies exist

In an X-certificate exercise

Ex-servicemen excrete

Keith Joseph smiles and a baby dies

In a box on Beasley Street

From the boarding houses and the bedsits

Full of accidents and fleas

Somebody gets it

Where the missing persons freeze

Wearing dead men?s overcoats

You can?t see their feet

A riff joint shuts ? opens up

Right down on Beasley Street

Cars collide, colours clash

Disaster movie stuff

For a man with a Fu Manchu moustache

Revenge is not enough

There?s a dead canary on a swivel seat

There?s a rainbow in the road

Meanwhile on Beasley Street

Silence is the code

Hot beneath the collar

An inspector calls

Where the perishing stink of squalor

Impregnates the walls

The rats have all got rickets

They spit through broken teeth

The name of the game is not cricket

Caught out on Beasley Street

The hipster and his hired hat

Drive a borrowed car

Yellow socks and a pink cravat

Nothing La-di-dah

OAP, mother to be

Watch the three-piece suite

When shit-stoppered drains

And crocodile skis

Are seen on Beasley Street

The kingdom of the blind

A one-eyed man is king

Beauty problems are redefined

The doorbells do not ring

A lightbulb bursts like a blister

The only form of heat

Here a fellow sells his sister

Down the river on Beasley Street

The boys are on the wagon

The girls are on the shelf

Their common problem is

That they?re not someone else

The dirt blows out

The dust blows in

You can?t keep it neat

It?s a fully furnished dustbin,

Sixteen Beasley Street

Vince the ageing savage

Betrays no kind of life

But the smell of yesterday?s cabbage

And the ghost of last year?s wife

Through a constant haze

Of deodorant sprays

He says retreat

Alsations dog the dirty days

Down the middle of Beasley Street

People turn to poison

Quick as lager turns to piss

Sweethearts are physically sick

Every time they kiss.

It?s a sociologist?s paradise

Each day repeats

On easy, cheesy, greasy, queasy

Beastly Beasley Street

Eyes dead as vicious fish

Look around for laughs

If I could have just one wish

I would be a photograph

On a permanent Monday morning

Get lost or fall asleep

When the yellow cats are yawning

Around the back of Beasley Street.

John Cooper Clarke

[Mick Mac]

Love Beasley Street.