Favourite Poem....

[Bobby Connor]

Not massively into poetry but am a huge fan of Keats since we were forced to read this for higher English:

 

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness,--

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

 

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

 

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

 

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

 

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

 

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain ---

To thy high requiem become a sod.

 

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

 

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music --- Do I wake or sleep?

[Ke1t]

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1bbJT7bZVA&feature=related

 

Alternatively

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-o-6ftmw8CE

[wilm1542]

Edgar Allan Poe The Raven

[Dandyesque]

Lewis Carroll - "Jabberwocky"

 

"'Twas brilling and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the mire...."

 

All complete nonsense, but it sort of makes sense in a roundabout sort of way.

 

A bit like Redstars posts.

[barassie_afc]

my one about Tup that got heinously pulled

[Bobby Connor]

Edgar Allan Poe The Raven

 

That is a brilliant poem!

 

The Simpson's version was class.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlgQQgDhH7U

[StandFree1982]

Sylvia Plath - Tulips + others

 

Dark, depressing poetry at it's finest.

[vokeyuk]

edgar allen poe - annabel lee

 

[Bluto10]

my fav poet is phil larkin.

 

one hell of an ugly looking bloke, but he cant half write a poem.

[Sheeptastic]

Bit of a cliche but Kipling's If.

 

Or the Football Manager version...

 

[Bobby Connor]

Son, I'm 30

I only went with your mother 'cos she's dirty

I don't have a decent bone in me

Come up and see me

[Bobby Connor]

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

 

Kelt, was is your interpretation of that? I just don't get it at all.

[phoenix]

'I Had A Slouch Hat Too One Time'

 

 

[Bluto10]

after larkin, my favourite is the mozzmeistergeneral.

 

he's more of a social poet, but his stuff touches me deeply.

[Bobby Connor]

This is for you Pheonix.

 

You have to believe in God before you can say there are things that man was not meant to know. I don't think there's anything man wasn't meant to know. There are just some stupid things that people shouldn't do.

 

(David Cronenberg (b. 1943), Canadian filmmaker. Cronenberg on Cronenberg, ch. 1, ed. Chris Rodley (1992).)

[davieb]

The Road Not Taken

 

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 took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

Robert Frost

[looksgoodinred]

Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

[Ke1t]

Kelt, was is your interpretation of that? I just don't get it at all.

 

This is my favourite poem for a number of reasons, not least that it's short and thus doesn't lose my attention before I reach the end

 

It's also the poem that I feel creates the best sense of tone and being. And the funny thing is that Shelley didn't even particularly like this work at all. Mental.

 

The poem is superficially about a once mighty ruler, Ozymandais... a ruler who had vast monuments raised to celebrate his own greatness. Presumably the ruler of a vast and powerful Empire who, if we read the legend on the great monument in question, was fair taken by his own power.

 

""My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

 

Unfortunately for Ozzie, for all his assumed power and might, he was ultimately nothing but a mortal man. His power did nothing to perpetuate or immortalise this (presumably self-) proclaimed "King of Kings. And now, many years later, his might and power are gone and all but forgotten... his empire a desert, the monuments raised in his name crumbled to ruins. And the only people who know of his vanished might are travelers through that desert who may inadvertently stumble upon some ancient ruin of that vanished empire.

 

The subtext is that power and might are fleeting, an illusion that people buy into at the time, but in the scheme of things all man's glories ain't shit, my brother.

 

They should teach the meaning of this poem to every American kid... and maybe some of that arrogance and ignorance would be curtailed.

 

[Dazzler]

"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" by Dylan Thomas

 

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rage at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

 

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

 

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

[Redstar]

Lewis Carroll - "Jabberwocky"

 

"'Twas brilling and the slithey toves did gyre and gimble in the mire...."

 

All complete nonsense, but it sort of makes sense in a roundabout sort of way.

 

A bit like Redstars posts.

 

I'll take that as a back handed complement...sort of

 

"If"...by Rudyard Kipling's my fave

[Ke1t]

I do like The Jabberwocky. Reading it is like magic mushrooms in text form

 

One of my favourite films inna.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4k40VYQAT0&feature=related

[Bobby Connor]

This is my favourite poem for a number of reasons, not least that it's short and thus doesn't lose my attention before I reach the end

 

It's also the poem that I feel creates the best sense of tone and being. And the funny thing is that Shelley didn't even particularly like this work at all. Mental.

 

The poem is superficially about a once mighty ruler, Ozymandais... a ruler who had vast monuments raised to celebrate his own greatness. Presumably the ruler of a vast and powerful Empire who, if we read the legend on the great monument in question, was fair taken by his own power.

 

""My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

 

Unfortunately for Ozzie, for all his assumed power and might, he was ultimately nothing but a mortal man. His power did nothing to perpetuate or immortalise this (presumably self-) proclaimed "King of Kings. And now, many years later, his might and power are gone and all but forgotten... his empire a desert, the monuments raised in his name crumbled to ruins. And the only people who know of his vanished might are travelers through that desert who may inadvertently stumble upon some ancient ruin of that vanished empire.

 

The subtext is that power and might are fleeting, an illusion that people buy into at the time, but in the scheme of things all man's glories ain't shit, my brother.

 

They should teach the meaning of this poem to every American kid... and maybe some of that arrogance and ignorance would be curtailed.

 

 

That, my friend, is bloody brilliant. Cheers.

[urbanprotection]

[tightbreeks]

coleridge, the rime of the....

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfNAiPpApx4

[scotfree]

Dulce et Decorum est

By Wilfred Owen

 

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.

[Guest milne_afc]

Is this some kinda "in joke"?

 

Sick bastards.

[Bobby Connor]

Is this some kinda "in joke"?

 

Sick bastards.

 

Take thine beak from out my heart and take thy form from aff my door!

[phoenix]

 

This is for you Pheonix.

 

 

 

 

Cheers Bobby , very appropriate.

 

Did you lug intae Kerouac reading his ane prose( poetry wi'oot the rhyming wurdz ).

 

Kerouac's mate was William Burroughs whose novel 'Naked Lunch' was turned into a movie by Cronenberg.....apologies if this is already known to you. I think it has been on tv and I seem to remember it was a bit hard to sit thro'. Must get a copy for my 'Beat Collection'.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch_(film)

 

 

 

[Bobby Connor]

Cheers Bobby , very appropriate.

 

Did you lug intae Kerouac reading his ane prose( poetry wi'oot the rhyming wurdz ).

 

Kerouac's mate was William Burroughs whose novel 'Naked Lunch' was turned into a movie by Cronenberg.....apologies if this is already known to you. I think it has been on tv and I seem to remember it was a bit hard to sit thro'. Must get a copy for my 'Beat Collection'.

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_Lunch_(film)

 

 

 

 

Very creepy and disturbing film. Haven't read the book.

 

You might like this Pheonix.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6soziGhCc50&feature=related

 

If you're doing business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing!