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Favorite poetry/poets

#21
Edited for profanity:

Evidently Chickentown - John Cooper Clarke

The ****ing cops are ****ing keen
To ****ing keep it ****ing clean
The ****ing chief's a ****ing swine
Who ****ing draws a ****ing line
At ****ing fun and ****ing games
The ****ing kids he ****ing blames
Are nowhere to be ****ing found
Anywhere in Chickentown

The ****ing scene is ****ing sad
The ****ing news is ****ing bad
The ****ing weed is ****ing turf
The ****ing speed is ****ing surf
The ****ing folks are ****ing daft
Don't make me ****ing laugh
It ****ing hurts to look around
Everywhere in Chickentown

The ****ing train is ****ing late
You ****ing wait you ****ing wait
You're ****ing lost and ****ing found
Stuck in ****ing Chickentown

The ****ing view is ****ing vile
For ****ing miles and ****ing miles
The ****ing babies ****ing cry
The ****ing flowers ****ing die
The ****ing food is ****ing muck
The ****ing drains are ****ing ****ed
The colour scheme is ****ing brown
Everywhere in Chickentown

The ****ing pubs are ****ing dull
The ****ing clubs are ****ing full
Of ****ing girls and ****ing guys
With ****ing murder in Their eyes
A ****ing bloke is ****ing stabbed
Waiting for a ****ing cab
You ****ing stay at ****ing home
The ****ing neighbors ****ing moan
Keep The ****ing racket down
This is ****ing Chickentown

The ****ing train is ****ing late
You ****ing wait you ****ing wait
You're ****ing lost and ****ing found
Stuck in ****ing Chickentown

The ****ing pies are ****ing old
The ****ing chips are ****ing cold
The ****ing beer is ****ing flat
The ****ing flats have ****ing rats
The ****ing clocks are ****ing wrong
The ****ing days are ****ing long
It ****ing gets you ****ing down
Evidently Chickentown
 
#22
bassybill said:
slobake - I think your poetry quotes show how you need to be able to follow rules before you can break them. Kind of like music, really.

Poetry is not random. Quite the reverse. Random jottings are random (and sometimes interesting). But they're not necessarily poetry.
Click to expand...

I am uneducated when it comes to poetry so I can only agree. I accept that fact that what I write is random jottings and not poetry. I am glad that you at least find some if it interesting. When I write it is more for my own sanity than anything else.
Thanks for this. I really try and write from my heart. I suppose i could take a class on writing poetry but that does not fit into my life right now.
 
#23
slobake said:
I am uneducated when it comes to poetry so I can only agree. I accept that fact that what I write is random jottings and not poetry. I am glad that you at least find some if it interesting. When I write it is more for my own sanity than anything else.
Thanks for this. I really try and write from my heart. I suppose i could take a class on writing poetry but that does not fit into my life right now.
Click to expand...
Riddim, baby! Riddim!!!
 
#29
I'm more of a traditionalist:

Well I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head
That didn't hurt

And the beer I had for breakfast
Wasn't bad
So I had one more
For desert

Than I fumbled in my closet
Through my clothes
And found
My cleanest
Dirty shirt

And I washed my face
And combed my hair
and stumbled down the stairs
To meet the day

I'd smoked my mind
The night before
On cigarettes and songs
I'd been picking

But I lit my 1st
& watched a small kid
Cussing at a can
That he was kicking

Then I headed down the street
And caught the Sunday smell
Of someone
Frying chicken

And Lord it took me back
To something
I'd lost
Somehow somewhere
Along the way

On that Sunday morning sidewalk
I'm wishing Lord
That I was stoned
Cause there's something
Bout a Sunday
Makes a body feel alone

And there s nothing short of dying
Half as lonely as the sound
As a sleeping city sidewalk
And Sunday morning coming down

In the park I saw a daddy
With a laughing little girl he was swinging
Then I stopped by a Sunday school
And listened to a song
They were singing

Then I headed off to home
And somewhere far away
A lonely bell was ringing
And it echoed through the canyon
Like the disappearing dreams
Of yesterday

CHORUS

"Sunday Morning Coming Down"
- Kris Kristofferson
 
#30
bachlover said:
I'm more of a traditionalist:

Well I woke up Sunday morning
With no way to hold my head
That didn't hurt

And the beer I had for breakfast
Wasn't bad
So I had one more
For desert....etc

"Sunday Morning Coming Down"
- Kris Kristofferson
Click to expand...


oh, man...if we're allowed to bring popular song lyrics into this thread (and i think the rules should say we are....i have an absolute work of poetry, written, to my knowledge, by Greg Lake), i've got a great one...now, i have to admit, bachlover's is mighty good, and powerful...but so is mine

King Crimson--EPITAPH

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
When silence drowns the screams.

Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known;
Knowledge is a deadly friend
When no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.

Confusion will be my epitaph.
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back
and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying,
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying.


i don't know...this song never fails to move me

davesignatureII-1.png
 
#31
I have always like Shel Silverstein. A sample of his work....
Oh, if you’re a bird, be an early bird
And catch the worm for your breakfast plate.
If you’re a bird, be an early bird—
But if you’re a worm, sleep late.

-Mike
 
#32
十年磨一劍，
霜刃未曾試。
今日把似君，
誰為不平事。

For ten years I have been polishing this sword;
Its frosty edge has never been put to the test.
Now I am holding it and showing it to you, sir:
Is there anyone suffering from injustice?

--The Swordsman, Jia Dao
 
#34
Coleridge is great. I also like Li Po.

Drinking Alone By Moonlight, by Li Po (first of three parts)

A cup of wine, under the flowering trees
I drink alone, for no friend is near.
Raising my cup, I beckon the bright moon,
For he, with my shadow, will make three men.
The moon, alas, is no drinker of wine;
Listless, my shadow creeps about at my side.
Yet with the moon as friend and the shadow as slave
I must make merry before the Spring is spent.
To the songs I sing the moon flickers her beams;
In the dance I weave my shadow tangles and breaks.
While we were sober, three shared the fun;
Now we are drunk, each goes his way.
May we long share our odd, inanimate feast,
And meet at last on the Cloudy River of the sky.
 
#35
I don't have a favorite, but I've been revisiting Carl Sandburg lately. If you're not familiar with him, he's also interesting as a music archivist: he went around collecting American folk songs before anyone had tape to record them on, putting together The American Songbag.

He was a prolific poet, though he may be more famous for his Pulitzer-prize-winning biography of Lincoln.

Here's one of my favorite agricultural poems of his:

Laughing Corn

THERE was a high majestic fooling
Day before yesterday in the yellow corn.

And day after to-morrow in the yellow corn
There will be high majestic fooling.

The ears ripen in late summer
And come on with a conquering laughter,
Come on with a high and conquering laughter.

The long-tailed blackbirds are hoarse.
One of the smaller blackbirds chitters on a stalk
And a spot of red is on its shoulder
And I never heard its name in my life.

Some of the ears are bursting.
A white juice works inside.
Cornsilk creeps in the end and dangles in the wind.
Always—I never knew it any other way—
The wind and the corn talk things over together.
And the rain and the corn and the sun and the corn
Talk things over together.

Over the road is the farmhouse.
The siding is white and a green blind is slung loose.
It will not be fixed till the corn is husked.
The farmer and his wife talk things over together.
 
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