Poem Thread
After hearing a beautiful poem by Pvt. Vonk in the mist of battle PFC Milo came up with the perfect idea... To make a thread were we can all share our favourite poems. Everthing from self writen to quotes from others, just remember to give credits.
To start it al off:
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave 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.
-Dylan Thomas, 1914 - 1953
Comments
As a writing student, I can say that Poems are the trickiest and most finicky things to write!
I personally enjoy The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. It's a great poem!
I won't paste it here because it's long, but I'll include a link.
Roses are red.
Violets are blue.
This poem makes no sense.
Microwave.
-Unknown, 2000-2016
Body to body, skin to skin.
When it's stiff, stick it in.
It goes in dry, comes outwet.
The longer it's in, the stronger it gets.
It comes out dripping and starts to sag.
It's not what you think!
It's a lipton teabag!
-Unknown 2000-2016
Roses are red my ice cream is Vanilla, Don't shoot Harambe he is just a gorilla!
Personally, a poem I've grown quite fond of is the following:
("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 impostors 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!
I dig
She digs
He digs
It digs
We dig
They dig
Now my poem isn't Nobel worthy nor does it rhyme, but it's very deep
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING - Written in 1919 following the horror of WW1
On Death
J. Keats (1795-1821)
Actually got to me, somewhat.
I used to write poetry back in high school. Wrote this as a parting gift for an old girlfriend
(not) Alone
there are always 4 people behind you,
even when you are just on your own.
The one to your front is the person looking back on you,
trying to figure out and doubting a little.
the guy in the back is the one you look back on,
is the one who:
suffers or laughs whenever you are feeling happy and sad as well
but in reversed order.
Then we have your left,
they are presenting memories, thoughts and feelings.
on the right you have the emotions that control you,
but each and every single one of them will help you go through life,
not as good and positive as always but they will stay there forever.
So never say you're going to be alone,
You always have yourself to be counting on.
PFC Thomas stole my poem
"Life's a one way road. Don't just stand next to it and expect for someone to take you back." - 2016
"You never know your true genius untill you do what you love" - 2014
Dulce et Decorum Est
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.
Men Who March Away
What of the faith and fire within us
Men who march away
Ere the barn-cocks say
Night is growing gray,
To hazards whence no tears can win us;
What of the faith and fire within us
Men who march away?
Is it a purblind prank, O think you,
Friend with the musing eye
Who watch us stepping by,
With doubt and dolorous sigh?
Can much pondering so hoodwink you!
Is it a purblind prank, O think you,
Friend with the musing eye?
Nay. We see well what we are doing,
Though some may not see —
Dalliers as they be —
England’s need are we;
Her distress would leave us rueing:
Nay. We well see what we are doing,
Though some may not see!
In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just,
And that braggarts must
Surely bite the dust,
Press we to the field ungrieving,
In our heart of hearts believing
Victory crowns the just.
Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away
Ere the barn-cocks say
Night is growing gray,
Leaving all that here can win us;
Hence the faith and fire within us
Men who march away.
While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the village of Chōkan:
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever, and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?
At sixteen you departed
You went into far Ku-tō-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me.
I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Chō-fū-Sa.
;_;
The Soldier
If I should die, think only this of me:
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.
And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.
Aedh Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
W.B. Yeats (1899)
From a Man to a Soldier
To those that stand,
To those that fell,
Treated like sand,
Hear me yell!
"Monsters you are not,
For doing what you are told.
You give the enemy shot for shot,
but you take these memories 'til you are old."
Scarred as you are,
Brave as can be,
You tred death to make us free,
But not all stays the way it should be.
Now at home in flashing dreams,
You wake up at night with tears that sheen,
Your morals mined like a cracked seam,
Thinking "How am I seen?"
Not a monster are you,
Nor a boy as you once were,
You're human as much as I,
You've done your duty now rest in kind.
I do not pray for I am not a pious man,
Nor will I say "I know how you must feel,"
Just know that as you all fight,
I will be here hoping you come back.
Gimme gimme chicken tendies,
Be they crispy or from Wendys.
Spend my hard-earned good-boy points,
on Kid's Meal ball pit burger joints.
Mummy lifts me to the car,
To find me tendies near and far.
Enjoy my tasty tendie treats,
in comfy big boy booster seats.
McDonald's, Hardee's, Popeye's, Cane's,
But of my tendies none remains.
She tries to make me take a nappy,
But sleeping doesn't make me happy.
Tendies are the only food,
That puts me in the napping mood.
I'll scream and shout and make a fuss,
I'll scratch, I'll bite, I'll even cuss!
Tendies are my heart's desire,
Fueled by raging, hungry fire.
Mummy sobs and wails and cries,
But tears aren't tendies, nugs or fries.
My good-boy points were fairly earned,
To buy the tendies that I've yearned.
But there's no tendies on my plate!
Did mummy think that I'd just ate?
"TENDIES TENDIES GET THEM NOW,
YOU FAT, UNGRATEFUL, SLUGGISH SOW!"
REEEEEE!-
Snails
It never fails,
Those pesky snails,
Are always in the pudding.
Lousy guests,
Those nasty pests,
They're always up to something.
I've tried like mad to find their nest,
But snails are smart, I must confess.
The trails they leave can fool the best-
And snails are good at hiding.
Oh well,
At least they don't make threats,
They don't eat meat, they don't place bets,
They almost always pay their debts,
And never puff on cigarettes.
I think I'll keep these snails as pets,
And feed them lots of pudding.
Old Age Pensioner's Knickers
Roses' are red
Violet's are blue
Ethel's are green
For the Fallen
Robert Laurence Binyon (1869-1943)
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill: Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres.
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
Hugh Selwyn Mauberley 1 by Ezra Pound
(Life and Contacts)
E. P. ODE POUR L’ÉLECTION DE SON SÉPULCHRE
For three years, out of key with his time,
He strove to resuscitate the dead art
Of poetry; to maintain “the sublime”
In the old sense. Wrong from the start—
No, hardly, but, seeing he had been born
In a half savage country, out of date;
Bent resolutely on wringing lilies from the acorn;
Capaneus; trout for factitious bait:
“Idmen gar toi panth, os eni Troie
Caught in the unstopped ear;
Giving the rocks small lee-way
The chopped seas held him, therefore, that year.
His true Penelope was Flaubert,
He fished by obstinate isles;
Observed the elegance of Circe’s hair
Rather than the mottoes on sun-dials.
Unaffected by “the march of events,”
He passed from men’s memory in l’an trentiesme
De son eage; the case presents
No adjunct to the Muses’ diadem.
II
The age demanded an image
Of its accelerated grimace,
Something for the modern stage,
Not, at any rate, an Attic grace;
Not, not certainly, the obscure reveries
Of the inward gaze;
Better mendacities
Than the classics in paraphrase!
The “age demanded” chiefly a mould in plaster,
Made with no loss of time,
A prose kinema, not, not assuredly, alabaster
Or the “sculpture” of rhyme.
III
The tea-rose, tea-gown, etc.
Supplants the mousseline of Cos,
The pianola “replaces”
Sappho’s barbitos.
Christ follows Dionysus,
Phallic and ambrosial
Made way for macerations;
Caliban casts out Ariel.
All things are a flowing,
Sage Heracleitus says;
But a tawdry cheapness
Shall reign throughout our days.
Even the Christian beauty
Defects—after Samothrace;
We see to kalon
Decreed in the market place.
Faun’s flesh is not to us,
Nor the saint’s vision.
We have the press for wafer;
Franchise for circumcision.
All men, in law, are equals.
Free of Peisistratus,
We choose a knave or an eunuch
To rule over us.
A bright Apollo,
tin andra, tin eroa, tina theon,
What god, man, or hero
Shall I place a tin wreath upon?
IV
These fought, in any case,
and some believing, pro domo, in any case ...
Some quick to arm,
some for adventure,
some from fear of weakness,
some from fear of censure,
some for love of slaughter, in imagination,
learning later ...
some in fear, learning love of slaughter;
Died some pro patria, non dulce non et decor” ...
walked eye-deep in hell
believing in old men’s lies, then unbelieving
came home, home to a lie,
home to many deceits,
home to old lies and new infamy;
usury age-old and age-thick
and liars in public places.
Daring as never before, wastage as never before.
Young blood and high blood,
Fair cheeks, and fine bodies;
fortitude as never before
frankness as never before,
disillusions as never told in the old days,
hysterias, trench confessions,
laughter out of dead bellies.
V
There died a myriad,
And of the best, among them,
For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization.
Charm, smiling at the good mouth,
Quick eyes gone under earth’s lid,
For two gross of broken statues,
For a few thousand battered books.