Your Favourite Poem

[Methuselah]

Albert and the Lion. Used to know it all the way through but only remember bits now. So, bits.

There's a famous seaside place called Blackpool
What's noted for fresh air and fun
and Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
went there with young Albert their son

A grand little lad was young Albert
all dressed in his best, quite a swell
with a stick with an horses head handle
the finest that Woolworth's could sell.

After they had arrived there in Blackpool
they paid and went to the Zoo
where they'd camels and Lions and Tigers
and old ale and sandwiches too.

There was one great big Lion called Wallace
His face was all covered in scars
Lying in somnelent posture
with the side of his face on the bars

Well Albert had heard about Lions
how they was ferocious and wild
and to see this one lying so peaceful
well it didn't seem right to the child.

So straight away our brave little Albert
not showing a morsel of fear
took his stick with an horses head handle
and shoved it in Wallace's ear..

It was plain the the Lion didn't like it
for giving a kind of a roll
it pulled Albert inside the cage with him
and swallowed the little lad whole.

Goes on for several more verses which escape me now.

 

[Vegas Toffee Girl]

The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

 

[davids]

Allotments

I.
Heaped in corners, waiting to be of use -
twin-tub bleeding rust, prams missing wheels,
the inevitable shopping trolley, the foot-
loose, vagabond, down-at-heel

ephemera World gathers to itself
like leaves dying for November, or light
consecrated to a conflagration of grapes
you burst against the tartared backs of teeth -

what is is implicit in what it's not.
Take these planks, the hull of a re-fitted tug
now raised flower beds, or this Perspex bus-
stop reclaimed for a tumbledown hothouse.

God knows, even pebbles here might put down
roots, and grow...


II.
The Chinese refugees are putting down
roots, planning to grow nothing but green
for its own sake. It is a remedy
against nostalgia, the heartsick moon

pining for its reflection in the ruffled lake.
Tendrils grip the wire mesh like ropes
wound round a hawser. Learning to let go,
the sun impales the year on cemented brakes

of razor wire, necklaces of broken glass...
It is mind, says Hua-yen, that manifests
the intimacy of nature
in scattered fragments the wind disturbs,

awakening us from the loss of self
that gathers in corners, aching to be of use.

Written by one of our own.A man I was fortunate enough to call a friend.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2009/may/13/obituary-michael-murphy

 

[Sarnia Kevin]

'Twas a dirty night
'Twas a dirty trick
When the ship turned over
In the Atlantic

Well it rhymes doesn't it?

My dad's favourite poem (well he recited it often enough lollollol).

 

[summerisle]

Chaos - Gerard Nolt Trevilté

Apparently only 10% of people can pronounce correctly all the words.

 

[Number_25]

In the Johannesburg mines, there are 240,000 Native Africans working.

What kind of poem, would you make out of that?

240,000 natives working in the Johannesburg mines.

 

[JammyP]

Albert and the Lion. Used to know it all the way through but only remember bits now. So, bits.

There's a famous seaside place called Blackpool
What's noted for fresh air and fun
and Mr and Mrs Ramsbottom
went there with young Albert their son

A grand little lad was young Albert
all dressed in his best, quite a swell
with a stick with an horses head handle
the finest that Woolworth's could sell.

After they had arrived there in Blackpool
they paid and went to the Zoo
where they'd camels and Lions and Tigers
and old ale and sandwiches too.

There was one great big Lion called Wallace
His face was all covered in scars
Lying in somnelent posture
with the side of his face on the bars

Well Albert had heard about Lions
how they was ferocious and wild
and to see this one lying so peaceful
well it didn't seem right to the child.

So straight away our brave little Albert
not showing a morsel of fear
took his stick with an horses head handle
and shoved it in Wallace's ear..

It was plain the the Lion didn't like it
for giving a kind of a roll
it pulled Albert inside the cage with him
and swallowed the little lad whole.

Goes on for several more verses which escape me now.

 

[summerisle]

Elegy in a Country Churchyard : G K Chesterton.

The men that worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And bees and birds of England
About the cross can roam.

But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England,
They have no graves as yet.

 

[summerisle]

National poetry day today. Soon be Hallowe'en, so, one of my favourites :

The Witch : Mary Elizabeth Coleridge

I have walked a great while over the snow,
And I am not tall nor strong.
My clothes are wet, and my teeth are set,
And the way was hard and long.
I have wandered over the fruitful earth,
But I never came here before.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

The cutting wind is a cruel foe.
I dare not stand in the blast.
My hands are stone, and my voice a groan,
And the worst of death is past.
I am but a little maiden still,
My little white feet are sore.
Oh, lift me over the threshold, and let me in at the door!

Her voice was the voice that women have,
Who plead for their heart’s desire.
She came—she came—and the quivering flame
Sunk and died in the fire.
It never was lit again on my hearth
Since I hurried across the floor,
To lift her over the threshold, and let her in at the door.

 

[summerisle]

Written in 1920. Alfred Noyes also wrote an excellent ghost story - Midnight Express.

Alfred Noyes: The Victory Ball

The cymbals crash,
And the dancers walk,
With long white stockings
And arms of chalk,
Butterfly skirts,
And white breasts bare,
And shadows of dead men
Watching ’em there.

Shadows of dead men
Stand by the wall,
Watching the fun
Of the Victory Ball.
They do not reproach,
Because they know,
If they’re forgotten
It’s better so.

Under the dancing
Feet are the graves.
Dazzle and motley,
In long white waves,
Brushed by the palm-fronds
Grapple and whirl
Ox-eyed matron,
And slim white girl.

Fat wet bodies
Go waddling by,
Girdled with satin,
Though God knows why:
Gripped by satyrs
In white and black,
With a fat wet hand
On the fat wet back.

See, there’s one child
Fresh from school,
Learning the ropes
As the old hands rule.
God! how the dead men
Chuckle again,
As she begs for a dose
Of the best cocaine.

God, how that dead boy
Gapes and grins
As the tom-toms bang
And the shimmy begins.

“What do you think
We should find”, said the shade,
“When the last shot echoed
And peace was made?”
“Christ,” laughed the fleshless
Jaws of his friend,
“I thought they’d be praying
For worlds to mend,

“And making earth better
Or something silly
Like white-washing hell
Or Picca-damn-dilly.
They’ve a sense of humour,
These women of ours,
These exquisite lilies,
These fresh young flowers!”

“Pish”, said a statesman
Standing near,
I’m glad they keep busy
Their thoughts elsewhere!
We mustn’t reproach ‘em,
They’re young you see.”
“Ah”, said the dead men,
“So were we!”

Victory! Victory!
On with the dance!
Back to the jungle
The new beasts prance!
God, how the dead men
Grin by the wall,
Watching the fun
Of the Victory Ball.

 

[summerisle]

Elegy in a Country Churchyard
by G.K. Chesterton

The men that worked for England
They have their graves at home:
And bees and birds of England
About the cross can roam.

But they that fought for England,
Following a falling star,
Alas, alas for England
They have their graves afar.

And they that rule in England,
In stately conclave met,
Alas, alas for England,
They have no graves as yet.

 

[Connor]

Hatred.

Allardyce fat,
Allardyce bad,
I haven’t hated anyone like that,
Since I was a lad.

Thank you.

 

[kev]

 

[blueloon]

Not quite my favourite , but The Road not taken has appeared recently, but certainly my second favourite Frost poem. And like “Road” , there are lines which come into my mind occasionally.... “ But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep”

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
BY ROBERT FROST
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

 

[summerisle]