The Poetry Thread

[The Cure]

So I thought I would start up a thread where people can post favourite lines, verses or even whole poems to share and discuss. Original work is also very welcome.

I was inspired in part by Mercury Girl's signiture, which I noticed contains a couple of lines from Auden's beautiful "Funeral Blues". The imagery in that final verse is probably the most incredible I have ever come across. Since I adore poetry so much, I thought it would be nice to have a whole thread devoted to sharing and apperciating this beautiful art form.

So, to set the ball rolling, here is one of my personal favourites. I read it for the first time at age 14 and it had a profound effect on me, and still does to this day. It is called "I am" and is by John Clare. Enjoy:

I am---yet what I am, none cares or knows;

My friends forsake me like a memory lost:

I am the self-consumer of my woes---

They rise and vanish in oblivious host,

Like shadows in love's frenzied stifled throes

And yet I am, and live---like vapours tossed

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life or joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;

Even the dearest that I love the best

Are strange---nay, rather, stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man hath never trod

A place where woman never smiled or wept

There to abide with my Creator God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie

The grass below, above, the vaulted sky.

[Liz]

This was used on Home and Away in Don Fisher's leaving episode.

It is beautiful in every way, particularly with the music accompanying it in the scene and Norman Coburn's delivery.

INVICTUS - William Ernest Henley. 1849–1903

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the Pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate:

I am the captain of my soul.

[Pierced Musie]

I learnt this poem in my final year at primary school and have remembered it over the years.

If

by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,

Or being hated, don't give way to hating,

And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream-and not make dreams your master;

If you can think-and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

And treat those two imposters just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken

Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

To serve your turn long after they are gone,

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,

Or walk with Kings-nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And-which is more-you'll be a Man, my son!

[Cal]

We are studying this poem in English. I really like it... It's 'The Famine Road' by Eavan Boland.

"Idle as trout in light Colonel Jones

these Irish, give them no coins at all; their bones

need toil, their characters no less." Trevelyan's

seal blooded the deal table. The Relief

Committee deliberated: "Might it be safe,

Colonel, to give them roads, roads to force

From nowhere, going nowhere of course?"

one out of every ten and then

another third of those again

women – in a case like yours.

Sick, directionless they worked. Fork, stick

were iron years away; after all could

they not blood their knuckles on rock, suck

April hailstones for water and for food?

Why for that, cunning as housewives, each eyed –

as if at a corner butcher – the other's buttock.

anything may have caused it, spores

a childhood accident; one sees

day after day these mysteries.

Dusk: they will work tomorrow without him.

They know it and walk clear. He has become

a typhoid pariah, his blood tainted, although

he shares it with some there. No more than snow

attends its own flakes where they settle

and melt, will they pray by his death rattle.

You never will, never you know

but take it well woman, grow

your garden, keep house, good-bye.

"It has gone better than we expected, Lord

Trevelyan, sedition, idleness, cured

in one. From parish to parish, field to field;

the wretches work till they are quite worn,

then fester by their work. We march the corn

to the ships in peace. This Tuesday I saw bones

out of my carriage window. Your servant Jones."

Barren, never to know the load

of his child in you, what is your body

now if not a famine road?

--Eavan Boland

[Zetti]

I wrote a poem about My Dad. Bear in mind I was 10 when I wrote this

My Dad is a cold winters evening

in an icy park

He is a tuna sandwich

and News at Ten

He is a jacket and messed up

helmet hair

Sad I know

[Cerise]

That's so cute Zetti

[TeenTom]

Is there evan a difference

Love… Lust… is there even a difference between them, some say their complete opposites, some say there is no difference, and some say there is a thin line between them.

Does lust lead to love? Does love lead to lust? Does either lead to the other?

Good… Evil… is there even a difference between them, some say their complete opposites, some say there is no difference, and some say there is a thin line between them.

Good is there to introduce the essence of evil as evil is there to introduce the essence of good.

By T.J. Roberts

Proud

To feel proud is a great thing, to lose it equals pain so unique it is indescribable by any human to have ever lived on this very earth, it can strike at the very foundations of your sanity, shred you of your morals, make you hate life its self, or force you to lie through the rest of your days.

By T.J. Roberts

[emmasi]

Knowledge is Power, Power is fear

Sometimes I think I know nothing

Sometimes I think I know more than anyone will ever know

People tell me they know more than me

And I know I know little compared to them

But still, I know something

If only I know I know.

I know it’s stupid to be afraid

I know it’s stupid to be ignorant

How can I know what’s out there and know not to be afraid?

Isn’t it a contradiction?

I should fear sunlight and water

Earth and air

I should fear every element, including the human heart

That one is most deadly of all

But if I fear all of these things, the things that it’s smart to fear…

Then all I know is fear

And what good is that?

I think I’d rather not know.

[Zetti]

Noce Poem Emmasi

[Ashirr-Leigh]

Has anyone ever heard of Edwin Morgan? Think that's his name..

He's a Glaswegian poet!

We studied him alot in my English classes when I was in high school. Alot of his stuff is really good, just takes a bit of getting used to.

I'll see if I can dig out some of them and post them here.

He got me a B in English, lol!