Reply to: Friday Poetry Corner

[thunderlizard]

A pedant writes

A fantastic Friday Poetry Corner, despite the shaky start.
Disagree about the number of asterisks in the Johnny Clarke poem though. When I've heard him do it, it's 'bloody' not '*******', except for the obvious internal rhymes on "stuck in ******' chickentown. So it should be "The ****** weed is ****** turf", not "The ******* weed is ******* turf"

JCC performs this poem in the film of Middleton's "The Changeling". But don't let that tempt you to watch the film because it's dire.

Top marks for "Do not go gentle..."

[The Late, Great JC]

Well, I say!

When talk turns to religion
I have notions of my own
Have my versions of the Bible
And things I think alone.

And I find them satisfying,
Find them comforting to me,
Though I wouldn't lose my temper
If you chose to disagree.

For religion as I see it
Is a pathway to the goal,
And its something to be settled
Between each man and his soul.

Now I'm not a Roman Catholic,
But I wouldn't go so far
As to fling away the friendship
Of the ones I know that are.

I've lived and neighbored with them
Come to love them through and through
I've respect and admiration
For the kindly things they do.

I've known Methodists, Baptists,
Scientists and Jews,
Whose friendship is a treasure
That I wouldn't want to lose.

So when the people talk religion,
I just settle back and see
Every helpful, loyal friend
Each Church has given me.

[Dundeegeorge]

And one for you JC

Jesus entering from the rear (by The Feederz)

We nailed you to a cross, but you're still a ******* pain
Dead 2000 years, still can't get it through your brain
You're just a worthless corpse, you're just a pile of tulip
Give me a couple of nails, and I'll ventilate your pit

Jesus entering from the rear
******* you in the ass
Just another faggot
In just another mass

We won't take it any more, we just won't take that trash
You're another stupid martyr with another rectal rash
We won't take you in the butt, we're just waiting for the when
We've got a lot of nails to do it to you again

You thought it would be cute, you thought it would be fun
But wait 'til I split your tulipter with a soldering gun
Jesus on a plate, Jesus a la carte
Jesus under glass, just another ******* tart

[The Late, Great JC]

The Thousandth Man

One man in a thousand, Solomon says,
Will stick more close than a brother.
And it's worth while seeking him half your days
If you find him before the other.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine depend
On what the world sees in you,
But the Thousandth man will stand your friend
With the whole round world agin' you.

'Tis neither promise nor prayer nor show
Will settle the finding for 'ee.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em go
By your looks, or your acts, or your glory.
But if he finds you and you find him.
The rest of the world don't matter;
For the Thousandth Man will sink or swim
With you in any water.

You can use his purse with no more talk
Than he uses yours for his spendings,
And laugh and meet in your daily walk
As though there had been no lendings.
Nine hundred and ninety-nine of 'em call
For silver and gold in their dealings;
But the Thousandth Man he's worth 'em all,
Because you can show him your feelings.

His wrong's your wrong, and his right's your right,
In season or out of season.
Stand up and back it in all men's sight --
With that for your only reason!
Nine hundred and ninety-nine can't bide
The shame or mocking or laughter,
But the Thousandth Man will stand by your side
To the gallows-foot -- and after!

- Rudyard Kipling

[Dundeegeorge]

Friday somebody else's poetry corner - Get a Life!!!!

Your mommy told you this
And your daddy told you that
Always think like this
And never do that
You learned so many feelings
But what is there to that
Which are really yours
Or are you just a copycat
You're so boring boring boring
Always tape machine recording
You're so boring boring boring
I've heard all this before

Planless and mindless
Scraps from anywhere
Bunch of used parts
From garbage pails everywhere
Frankenstein became a monster
Just like you
Your scars only show
When someone talks to you
You're so boring boring boring
Always tape machine recording
You're so boring boring boring
I've heard all this before

Your emotions make you a monster

[The Late, Great JC]

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

Sometimes one is unshod!

I See You've Traveled Some

Wherever you may chance to be;
wherever you may roam:
far away in foreign lands
or just at Home, Sweet Home;
It always gives you pleasure,
it makes your heart strings hum
just to hear the words of cheer -
"I see you've traveled some."

When you get the brother's greeting
and he takes you by the hand,
it thrills you with a feeling
you cannot understand.
You feel that bond of brotherhood;
that tie that's sure to come
when you hear him say in a friendly way,
"I see you've traveled some."

And if you are a stranger
in a strange land, all alone
If fate has left you stranded,
dead broke and far from home,
if a stranger stops and takes your hand,
it thrills you - makes you dumb,
when he says with a grip of fellowship,
"I see you've traveled some."

And when your final summons comes
to take a last long trip.
Adorned with Lambskin Apron white
and gems of fellowship.
The Tiler at the Golden Gate
with square and rule and plumb
will size up your deeds and say "Walk in,
I see you've traveled some."

[scotspine]

I will arise and go now,
And go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there,
Of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there,
A hive for the honey bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there,
For peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning
To where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer,
And noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now,
For always night and day
I hear lake water lapping
With low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway
Or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.


Er: William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939

[WageSlave]

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

[The Late, Great JC]

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

[wobbegong]

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.

[Jabberwocky]

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...

[AlfredJPruffock]

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.

[WageSlave]

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

[threaded]

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

[The Late, Great JC]

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!