Your Favourite Poem

[anjelikaferrett]

Even though the kids are in their mid and late teens we still read this together on Christmas Eve, and have done so every year. Always a special part of Christmas:

'Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

The children were nestled all snug in their beds;
While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;
And mamma in her 'kerchief, and I in my cap,
Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap,
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow,
Gave a lustre of midday to objects below,
When what to my wondering eyes did appear,
But a miniature sleigh and eight tiny rein-deer,
With a little old driver so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment he must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name:
"Now, Dasher! now, Dancer! now Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! on, Cupid! on, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!"

As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky;
So up to the housetop the coursers they flew
With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too—
And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,
Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.
He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard on his chin was as white as the snow;

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
And the smoke, it encircled his head like a wreath;
He had a broad face and a little round belly
That shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight—
“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

Same here...and my kids are 18 and 22!!! But they insist "It's part of Christmas"

 

[chrissyjack]

The chicken is a noble beast
But the cow is more forlorner
Standing in the rain
With a leg at every corner

 

[Seathestars]

Voices


Here they are again, the voices

Ladies and Gentlemen, introducing

On my right shoulder, Mr not so nice, the nasty one, the obnoxious tyrant

On my left shoulder, Mr nice guy, loving, caring, affectionate


Why these battles

Why does the tyrant take control of me sporadically

Why does he temporarily destroy my inner calm

I don't like you Mr tyrant

You spoil me, you ruin me, you clash with the gentleness of my nature

You have a cunning way of bringing me round to your way of thinking, it's not nice

Leave me alone please, just let me be


Mr Caring, please help

Make my demons vanish, a thing of the past

You need to be stronger

You tell me to ignore those voices from over there

I know you're words ring true, but somehow I ignore your common sense

Deep down we both know what's right

He shouts so loud until I can't ignore him, and then I spoil it all


I want to be one of those people who only have Mr nice in their heads

The people I admire

The people I look up too



The clock of life ticks away

The voices chirp away

 

[kev]

Not technically a poem, but I love the words to this Ed Pickford song

The workers song

Come all of you workers who toil night and day
By hand and by brain to earn your pay
Who for centuries long past for no more than your bread
Have bled for your countries and counted your dead

In the factories and mills, in the shipyards and mines
We've often been told to keep up with the times
For our skills are not needed, they've streamlined the job
And with sliderule and stopwatch our pride they have robbed

But when the sky darkens and the prospect is war
Who's given a gun and then pushed to the fore
And expected to die for the land of our birth
When we've never owned one handful of earth?

We're the first ones to starve the first ones to die
The first ones in line for that pie-in-the-sky
And always the last when the cream is shared out
For the worker is working when the fat cat's about

All of these things the worker has done
From tilling the fields to carrying the gun
We've been yoked to the plough since time first began
And always expected to carry the can

 

[Whistlin' Dixie]

I'm gonna make one up cos I'm wired, the alehouse is shut and I've just drunk the last of me krakus

and I cant find me beak...for now - I must be crackers.



But I'm not, I'm just alert
and on the interweb
ideal world on the telly
because I've just tuned in to it
and the presenter's a blert.

Twenty-three fifty
Ten-to-twelve in real money
Under a Corbynista Government, time...
Gentlemen please?

Eh?

I wish I could come back to edit this
What do you mean
I can?
SOUND LID

Time to put porn on the tv
But I got brewer's droop
Boooooo


Ah well

Might go on youtube to watch Everton games.
I was on telly once, against united
We lost - lee sharp - big nonce
No wrongs got righted
Because that wall collapsed.

I hate them for that - and they call me bitter.

WELL UP YOURS RATS - I've got what's generally considered class.
My club has both history AND heritage.
You's are just a follow-on that happened to get a few refs decisions your way.
you were never that good
And now it shows
You're not on the big stage.

Nor we.
We don't kid ourselves though.
you kid nobody but yerselves
West brom? HA

And a cup final or was it two?
You lost both
And ended up with the same as us - nowt.

For now, I'm out. (off to read some threads)

PS - what's happened to the freeview porn on Television x? 'data service' ffs? Oh well....Back laters folks.Yes it's more prose than poetry...but who gives one, eh?

HA! CBA!!!


Copyright when Gegs AKA the people's poet - ie ME dies

Punks & skins & rastas will line the streets in mourning, and kids will cry
And grown-ups will ask
"But WHY are the kids crying"
and the kids will say:
"Haven't you heard - Gegs is dead....The people's poet is deadddddddd"

And then, one particularly articulate women, will lose her articulacy, and strip down to her......Nah - she won't
And I won't be thjere to see it


Thjere? WT Absolute F? I'm afraid that wasn't in the plan,
But bedtime is - cos me plan ain't workin'
I'd say goodnight just about now
And hand over to the night shift - to wake up to loads of alerts telling me they like
Or quote me as some genius
OR
Tell me in the mornin' - NO SHIRKIN'

That shallot.

I thank you. x

 

[Whistlin' Dixie]

David Byrne I am not....

Sorry folks, jus' weird atm. First go of the caper since new year (?)
And I've got no beer
I share my birthday with John Flansburgh from They Might Be Giants
They might be giants
They might be rain
They might be heat
They might be fryin' up a stalk of wheattttt

Yes - I know - BED. I'm gonna regret this in the morning - if I run out of moolah or t'other first.
I got a terrible thirst
But I don't want water

Ain't got milk, ain't got juice
Got now worth drinkin' in this hoose
Got no ganja to make you smile
(Don't need it to be as weird as I am.)
I live across the road from a paedophile...

It's true!
Beasted his own daughter.
And she's back livin' in his house
The wirral for ya.
eh, azul?

The wirral for ya?
Even New Brighton town has them.
Watch your sons & daughters
Especially by that fair.
Nonces paradise so it is

Everyone's in bed now, off to work tomorrow mornin'
So got nobody to speak to & nowt better to do.
But, for Evertonians
Everywhere!

Know this

I think the world of you.

God bless us every one xx

 

[rascal]

Au-dessus des étangs, au-dessus des vallées,
Des montagnes, des bois, des nuages, des mers,
Par delà le soleil, par delà les éthers,
Par delà les confins des sphères étoilées,

Mon esprit, tu te meus avec agilité,
Et, comme un bon nageur qui se pâme dans l'onde,
Tu sillonnes gaiement l'immensité profonde
Avec une indicible et mâle volupté.

Envole-toi bien loin de ces miasmes morbides;
Va te purifier dans l'air supérieur,
Et bois, comme une pure et divine liqueur,
Le feu clair qui remplit les espaces limpides.

Derrière les ennuis et les vastes chagrins
Qui chargent de leur poids l'existence brumeuse,
Heureux celui qui peut d'une aile vigoureuse
S'élancer vers les champs lumineux et sereins;

Celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes,
Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,
— Qui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort
Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes!

 

[summerisle]

Au-dessus des étangs, au-dessus des vallées,
Des montagnes, des bois, des nuages, des mers,
Par delà le soleil, par delà les éthers,
Par delà les confins des sphères étoilées,

Mon esprit, tu te meus avec agilité,
Et, comme un bon nageur qui se pâme dans l'onde,
Tu sillonnes gaiement l'immensité profonde
Avec une indicible et mâle volupté.

Envole-toi bien loin de ces miasmes morbides;
Va te purifier dans l'air supérieur,
Et bois, comme une pure et divine liqueur,
Le feu clair qui remplit les espaces limpides.

Derrière les ennuis et les vastes chagrins
Qui chargent de leur poids l'existence brumeuse,
Heureux celui qui peut d'une aile vigoureuse
S'élancer vers les champs lumineux et sereins;

Celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes,
Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,
— Qui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort
Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes!

Is this here we go, here we go, here we go in French ?

 

[peteblue]

The chicken is a noble beast
But the cow is more forlorner
Standing in the rain
With a leg at every corner

It's hard to improve on the classics..........

 

[Abertonian]

One of my own from a few years ago.

Ode to a mushroom.

Oh little mushroom
Your disgusting shape I do hate
As much as the evil,
Your existence creates
Doesn't matter how you're prepared
Raw, fried or oven baked
One things for sure
You better stay off my plate.

 

[summerisle]

John Betjeman - Slough


Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn't fit for humans now,
There isn't grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air -conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town—
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who'll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women's tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It's not their fault that they are mad,
They've tasted Hell.

It's not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It's not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren't look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

 

[DownOnTheUpside]

@COYBL25 @jal123

Found it

Heres the one ive had published in some competition when i was with my old bird

Sinner's hope:

There was a touch
That found it's fuel
It wasn't much
But it found you

...and all the times id given up
All the imitations of love
All the bargains I had made
You had blown them all away

And in came passion, in came fear
And I was getting out of there
I've thought a lot, I've wasted time
But I never thought that you'd be mine

If pride's a sin, I'm far gone
But I'm coming up, im not alone
Wrath is mine and envy too
But so is hope, and it's from you

I know that we're all mortal
And life can cloud the eyes
If you can't walk, I'll help you crawl
And your problems will be mine

You are my sense of beauty
I'm forever in your debt
And I'll be here till you dont want me here
Cause my darling, it ain't forever yet

I'll speak of love without shame
And I will find joy anew
I feel alive and you're to blame
So hannah, this one goes out to you

----------------------------------------------

Something a bit darker

I've seen the future, seen what's coming next -
just years of days and nights of getting wrecked
my alternate future, dazzling bright, cause life aint right since you left, Had six years of the best, now I'm laying the future to rest, a half-hearted emotional wreck, human conveyer belt of depressive dialect. My problem isn't self respect, it's my intellect; trapped in a world that's failed my test, at best


Good intentions built the bars of this cage,
I'd judge people my keepers by how the speak & behave
justify your hero complex; why should life be saved or more truthfully - delayed en route to the grave, sickening slaves do anything to be safe, to buy some extra days, self replicate without a thought to the lives they create; as they raise the stakes and multiply the pain

Well if thought are electricity, I've grappled with these thoughts - enough to power a city, so can you explain to me, there must be some mistake, cause when I see I disbelieve, the caliber of semi simian apes they call 'head of state' a brief pause for the accusations of race - that's their recourse when their words hold no weight, but being part of this species is the real disgrace, it's hard to believe I'm only 5' 8, when most people metaphorically don't reach my waist, yet hold me back like weights to deprive me of my grace- that's why my face is set in stone distaste

 

[jal123]

Love the second one mate, sounds like an Eminem track to me x

 

[DownOnTheUpside]

Love the second one mate, sounds like an Eminem track to me x

Haha i go to battle nights in manchester and ive recently gone through a massive hip hop phase

Chino xl and rhyme asylum are well worth checking out if thats your thing and you havent give them a listen already

 

[Diogenes the Cynic]

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and oblivion so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

by Pablo Neruda

 

[COYBL25]

@COYBL25 @jal123

Found it

Heres the one ive had published in some competition when i was with my old bird

Sinner's hope:

There was a touch
That found it's fuel
It wasn't much
But it found you

...and all the times id given up
All the imitations of love
All the bargains I had made
You had blown them all away

And in came passion, in came fear
And I was getting out of there
I've thought a lot, I've wasted time
But I never thought that you'd be mine

If pride's a sin, I'm far gone
But I'm coming up, im not alone
Wrath is mine and envy too
But so is hope, and it's from you

I know that we're all mortal
And life can cloud the eyes
If you can't walk, I'll help you crawl
And your problems will be mine

You are my sense of beauty
I'm forever in your debt
And I'll be here till you dont want me here
Cause my darling, it ain't forever yet

I'll speak of love without shame
And I will find joy anew
I feel alive and you're to blame
So hannah, this one goes out to you

----------------------------------------------

Something a bit darker

I've seen the future, seen what's coming next -
just years of days and nights of getting wrecked
my alternate future, dazzling bright, cause life aint right since you left, Had six years of the best, now I'm laying the future to rest, a half-hearted emotional wreck, human conveyer belt of depressive dialect. My problem isn't self respect, it's my intellect; trapped in a world that's failed my test, at best


Good intentions built the bars of this cage,
I'd judge people my keepers by how the speak & behave
justify your hero complex; why should life be saved or more truthfully - delayed en route to the grave, sickening slaves do anything to be safe, to buy some extra days, self replicate without a thought to the lives they create; as they raise the stakes and multiply the pain

Well if thought are electricity, I've grappled with these thoughts - enough to power a city, so can you explain to me, there must be some mistake, cause when I see I disbelieve, the caliber of semi simian apes they call 'head of state' a brief pause for the accusations of race - that's their recourse when their words hold no weight, but being part of this species is the real disgrace, it's hard to believe I'm only 5' 8, when most people metaphorically don't reach my waist, yet hold me back like weights to deprive me of my grace- that's why my face is set in stone distaste

I love the first one mate, it reads like a Johnny Cash song, which is praise indeed.

I'm struggling to get my head round the second one as there's so much there.

Great stuff, you could be the forums Poet Laureate !