Friday Poetry Corner

**The Lone Gunman** · 9 September 2005, 07:29

EVIDENTLY
CHICKEN TOWN

the ******* cops are ******* keen

to ******* keep it ******* clean

the ******* chief's a ******* swine

who ******* draws a ******* line

at ******* fun and ******* games

the ******* kids he ******* blames

are nowehere to be ******* found

anywhere in chicken town

the ******* scene is ******* sad

the ******* news is ******* bad

the ******* weed is ******* turf

the ******* speed is ******* surf

the ******* folks are ******* daft

don't make me ******* laugh

it ******* hurts to look around

everywhere in chicken town

the ******* train is ******* late

you ******* wait you ******* wait

you're ******* lost and ******* found

stuck in ******* chicken town

the ******* view is ******* vile

for ******* miles and ******* miles

the ******* babies ******* cry

the ******* flowers ******* die

the ******* food is ******* muck

the ******* drains are ******* ****ed

the colour scheme is ******* brown

everywhere in chicken town

the ******* pubs are ******* dull

the ******* clubs are ******* full

of ******* girls and ******* guys

with ******* murder in their eyes

a ******* bloke is ******* stabbed

waiting for a ******* cab

you ******* stay at ******* home

the ******* neighbors ******* moan

keep the ******* racket down

this is ******* chicken town

the ******* train is ******* late

you ******* wait you ******* wait

you're ******* lost and ******* found

stuck in ******* chicken town

the ******* pies are ******* old

the ******* chips are ******* cold

the ******* beer is ******* flat

the ******* flats have ******* rats

the ******* clocks are ******* wrong

the ******* days are ******* long

it ******* gets you ******* down

evidently chicken town

LYRICS © JOHN COOPER CLARKE

**The Late, Great JC** · 9 September 2005, 07:47

The day the river freezes
Is the day it won´t seem fair
´Cause they´ll come to get the River Lady
And I don´t think they´ll care

I know they´ll scrape her paint off
In their same old foolish ways
Now the people see the river
But the old ships gone away

Water turns cold and gets ta freezin´
Before you even know it
The old girl´s easin´
Away from her berth
Round by the point
And out of our view

Off in the mist
Her engine´s woundin´
Like on the banks
That old horn´s soundin´
A little goodbye
A little I´ll do what I must do

A little goodbye
A little I´ll do what I must do

A da da dum, dum, dum, da da da dum dum

I know I will remember
When I cannot hear that horn
That would roll up by the mountains
As she took us through the storm

I know they´ve got to take her
But I can´t say I approve
´Cause she´s won so many battles
That I hate to see her lose

Water turns cold and gets ta freezin´
Before you even know it
The old girl´s easin´
Away from her berth
Round by the point
And out of our view

A little goodbye
A little I´ll do, what I must do

The water turns cold
And gets to freezin´
Before you even know it
The old girl´s easin´
Away from her berth
´Round by the point
And out of our view

Off in the mist
Her engine´s boundin´
Like on the banks
That old horn´s soundin´
A little goodbye
A little I´ll do
What I must do

A little goodbye
A little I´ll do
What I must do

Not quite a poem, but it'll do!

**threaded** · 9 September 2005, 08:25

0x0d2c

May all your signals trap
May your references be bounded
All memory aligned
Floats to ints be rounded
Remember.... Nonzero is TRUE
++ adds one
Arrays start with [0]
NULL points to none

For octal use zero
0x means in hex
use = to set
and == for a test

Use -> for a pointer
a dot if it's not
?: is confusing
use this a lot

a.out is your program
there's no 'u' in foobar
and char (*(*x())[])() is
a function returning a pointer
to an array of pointers
to functions returning a char

**WageSlave** · 9 September 2005, 08:36

Like City's rain, my heart...

Like city's rain, my heart
Rains teardrops too. What now,
This languorous ache, this smart
That pierces, wounds my heart?

Gentle, the sound of rain
Pattering roof and ground!
Ah, for the heart in pain,
Sweet is the sound of rain!

Tears rain-but who knows why?-
And fill my heartsick heart.
No faithless lover's lie? . . .
It mourns, and who knows why?

And nothing pains me so--
With neither love nor hate--
A simply not to know
Why my heart suffers so.

-Verlaine

**AlfredJPruffock** · 9 September 2005, 09:02

Sea-Fever

I MUST down to the seas again,
to the lonely sea and the sky

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking

And a grey mist on the sea's face and a grey dawn breaking.

I must down to the seas again
for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must down to the seas again
to the vagrant gypsy life.

To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

John Masefield.

**Jabberwocky** · 9 September 2005, 09:15

Under Milk Wood

It is Spring, moonless night in the small town, starless and bible-black, the
cobblestreets silent and the hunched, courter's-and-rabbits' wood limping
invisible down to the sloeblack, slow, black, crowblack, fishingboat-bobbing
sea. The houses are are blind as moles (though moles see fine tonight in the
snouting, velvet dingles) or blind as Captain Cat there in the muffled middle by the pump and the town clock, the shops in mourning, the Welfare Hall in widows' weeds. And all the people of the lulled and dumbfound town are sleeping now.

Hush, the babies are sleeping, the farmers, the fishers, the tradesmen and
pensioners, cobbler, schoolteacher, postman and publican, the undertaker and the fancy woman, drunkard, dressmaker, preacher, policeman, the webfoot cocklewomen and the tidy wives. Young girls lie bedded soft or glide in their dreams, with rings and trousseaux, bridesmaided by glow-worms down the aisles of the organplaying wood. The boys are dreaming wicked of the bucking ranches of the night and the jollyrodgered sea. And the anthracite statues of the horses sleep in the fields, and the cows in the byres, and the dogs in the wet-nosed yard; and the cats nap in the slant corners or lope sly, streaking and needling, on the one cloud of the roofs.

You can hear the dew falling, and the hushed town breathing.

Only your eyes are unclosed to see the black and folded town fast, and slow,
asleep.

And you alone can hear the invisible starfall, the darkest-before-dawn minutely dewgrazed stir of the black, dab-filled sea where the Arethusa, the Curlew and the Skylark, Zanzibar, Rhiannon, the Rover, the Cormorant, and the Star of Wales tilt and ride.

Listen. It is night in the chill, squat chapel, hymning in bonnet and brooch and bombazine black, butterfly choker and bootlace bow, coughing like nannygoats, sucking mintoes, fortywinking hallelujah; night in the four-ale, quiet as a domino; in Ocky Milkman's lofts like a mouse with gloves; in Dai Bread's bakery flying like black flour. It is tonight in Donkey Street, trotting silent, with seaweed on its hooves, along the cockled cobbles, past curtained fernpot, text and trinket, harmonium, holy dresser, watercolours done by hand, china dog and rosy tin teacaddy. It is night neddying among the snuggeries of babies.

Look. It is night, dumbly, royally winding through the Coronation cherry trees;
going through the graveyard of Bethesda with winds gloved and folded, and dew doffed; tumbling by the Sailors Arms.

Time passes. Listen. Time passes.

Come closer now.

Only you can hear the houses sleeping in the streets in the slow deep salt and silent black, bandaged night. Only you can see, in the blinded bedrooms, the combs and petticoats over the chairs, the jugs and basins, the glasses of teeth, Thou Shalt Not on the wall, and the yellowing dickybird-watching pictures of the dead. Only you can hear and see, behind the eyes of the sleepers, the movements and countries and mazes and colours and dismays and rainbows and tunes and wished and flight and fall and despairs and big seas of their dreams.

From where you are, you can hear their dreams...

**wobbegong** · 9 September 2005, 11:42

Nice one Jabber. I'd forgotten how good that is.

Here's another gem from the great one . . .

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.

**The Late, Great JC** · 9 September 2005, 11:44

Ther's mony a badge that's unco braw;
Wi' ribbon, lace and tape on;
Let kings an' princes wear them a' -
Gie me the Master's apron!

The honest craftsman's apron,
The jolly Freemason's apron,
Be he at hame, or roam afar,
Before his touch fa's bolt and bar,
The gates of fortune fly ajar,
`Gin he but wears the apron!

For wealth and honor, pride and power
Are crumbling stanes to base on;
Eternity suld rule the hour,
And ilka worthy Mason!
Each Free Accepted Mason,
Each Ancient Crafted Mason.

Then, brithers, let a halesome sang
Arise your friendly ranks alang!
Guidwives and bairnies blithely sing
To the ancient badge wi' the apron string
That is worn by the Master Mason!

- Robert Burns

**WageSlave** · 9 September 2005, 11:50

JC, do you have to change your sandals at the Lodge?

Friday Poetry Corner