Your favourite poem?

John Doe1

Mine is 'acqauinted with the night' by Robert Frost with a close second being 'if' by kipling

Kojak

"I hope that one day I can see,
My cataracts are blinding me"

by

Hans Moleman.

TeddyTedson

Not really big in to poetry but I do like On Raglan Road. That's probably also to with Luke Kelly singing it. Love that man. RIP

Hasmunch

I once knew a man from Nantucket...

Da Shins Kelly

'The Second Coming' by Yeats.

John Doe1

TeddyTedson wrote: »

Not really big in to poetry but I do like On Raglan Road. That's probably also to with Luke Kelly singing it. Love that man. RIP

Spine tingling rendition i have to say.:)

WindSock

The one about the dude who has soil on his shoes because he can't go to the dance and be merry like everyone else coz dey all m8s 4 eva nd he sad. nd pissed off coz d soil is all stoney and unfertile. like his bollix. like HIS FACE.

franklyon

Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbors drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art —
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like Nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors —
No — yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever — or else swoon to death.

-John Keats

ff9999

Edgar Allan Poe: Annabel Lee.



It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

guitarzero

Its not "poetry" but just as heavy.

You are the reason I don't want to die all the time
When I am with you life is worth living
Time away from you in strange and full of pain
When I look into your eyes
I can see how life has savaged you
It's ok if you fall
I will be there to catch you
Anyone that would want to hurt you
Would have to kill me to do it
I will never be able to pound words into lines
To match the velocity of your presence

pmurphy00

dun chaoin, paul durcan.
love that poem.

chucken1

John Doe1 wrote: »

Mine is 'acqauinted with the night' by Robert Frost with a close second being 'if' by kipling

Well thats no good?
Quote the Poems so we can read them

mackg

WindSock wrote: »

The one about the dude who has soil on his shoes because he can't go to the dance and be merry like everyone else coz dey all m8s 4 eva nd he sad. nd pissed off coz d soil is all stoney and unfertile. like his bollix. like HIS FACE.

That description is quite poetic.

chucken1

Mine is The Raven
..and Im not going to quote it

http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html

Amirani

http://ravendesign.ie/poems/the-tortoise/

The tortoise goes movey, movey.

Anonymous

“This prize-winning poem was written by a schoolboy from the North of Ireland some years back. The competition was judged by poet Paul Muldoon, who is Professor of Creative Writing in Princeton University. It seems so simple and yet it’s fresh and inventive and memorable; it brings language alive. There were hundreds of entries and some people, teachers especially, were annoyed with Muldoon for giving first prize to a one-line poem. They argued that there were far more sophisticated entries and that there was no such word as “movey”. ‘Well, there is now,’ replied Muldoon. Every year Professor Muldoon asks his creative writing class at Princeton to describe something in one line and in a way that makes you see that thing in a new way. That is what this boy did when he wrote about the tortoise going m-o-v-e-y, m-o-v-e-y. The poem is best read aloud and very s-l-o-w-l-y.”

Jess16

This one by Séamus Ó Néill:

Bhí subh milis
Ar bhaschrann an dorais
Ach mhúch mé an corraí
Ionam d'éirigh,
Mar smaoinigh mé ar an lá
A bheas an baschrann glan,
Agus an láimh bheag
Ar iarraidh.

Saila

only things I remember from poetry in school is

"two roads diverged in a yellow wood"

so the two roads diverged in a yellow wood poem

Dotrel

Advent by Patrick Kavanagh. Pretty much sums up my attitude and state of mind.

EKClarke

Down by the Salley Gardens by W.B. Yeats

Down by the salley gardens my love and I did meet;
She passed the salley gardens with little snow-white
feet.
She bid me take love easy, as the leaves grow on the tree;
But I, being young and foolish, with her would not
agree.

In a field by the river my love and I did stand,
And on my leaning shoulder she laid her snow-white
hand.
She bid me take life easy, as the grass grows on the weirs;
But I was young and foolish, and now am full of tears

The Scientician

He Sits Down on the Floor of a School for the Retarded

Wereghost

I've always liked Tolkien's The Man In The Moon Stayed Up Too Late for its freshness and energy.

John Doe1

chucken1 wrote: »

Well thats no good?
Quote the Poems so we can read them

Cool:D I found acqauinted with the night so affecting because it deals with depression and when i first read it while i was very depressed.

I read if when i was like 10 and its always stuck with me




I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.


IF.....

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!

nice_very

2 posters just brought me wayyy back to my english class in school - I have been one aquainted with the night and : two roads diverged in a yellow wood (I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the diference)

thanks to those 2 posters

PrettyInPunk

Desiderata:

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

LadyGardener

'This Be The Verse' - Philip Larkin
'Hope Is The Thing With Feathers' - Emily Oddball
Anything by Morrissey.

franklyon wrote: »

Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney

This poem will always hold a certain poignancy for me. I learned it in sixth class, and something similar had happened to my sixth class teacher in her college days. She was late 50s probably at this time. When she was away at college, her six year old brother was hit by a car and killed. It had been his first time to be allowed to walk the short distance from the house to the post office to post a letter for his mother. So off he went, proud as punch... Hard luck, I would imagine there were very few cars on a little country road in those days.

Lazarus2.0

Couldn't decide between these two , merry old soul that I am


Oberon
Spike Milligan

The flowers in my garden grow down.
Their colour is pain
Their fragrance sorrow.
Into my eyes grow their roots
feeling for tears
To nourish the black
hopeless rose
within me.



BALLAD
Leonard Cohen

My lady was found mutilated
in a Mountain Street boarding house.
My lady was a tall slender love,
like one of Tennyson’s girls,
and you always imagined her erect on
a thoroughbred
in someone’s private forest.

But there she was,
naked on an old bed, knife slashes
cross her breasts, legs badly cut up:
Dead two days.
They promised me an early conviction.

We will eavesdrop on the adolescents
examining pocket-book covers in
drugstores.
We will note the broadest smiles at
torture scenes
in movie houses.
We will watch the old men in Dominion
Square
follow with their eyes
the secretaries from the Sun Life at
five-thirty...

Perhaps the tabloids alarmed him.
Whoever he was the young man came
alone
to see the frightened blonde have
her blouse
ripped away by anonymous hands;
the person guarded his mouth
who saw the poker blacken the
eyes
of the Roman prisoner;
the old man pretended to wind his
pocket-watch..

The man was never discovered.
There are so many cities!
So many knew of my lady and her
beauty.
Perhaps he came from Toronto, a halfcrazed
man
looking for some Sunday love;
or a vicious poet stranded too long in
Winnipeg;
or a Nova Scotian fleeing from the
rocks and preachers...

Everyone knew my lady
from the movies and art-galleries,
Body from Goldwyn.
Botticelli had
drawn her long limbs.
Rosetti the full mouth.
Ingres had coloured her skin.
She should not have walked so
bravely
through the streets.
After all, that was the Marian year, the
year
the rabbis emerged from their desert
exile, the year
the people were inflamed by
tooth-paste ads.

We buried her in Spring-time.
The sparrows in the air
wept that we should hide with earth
the face of one so fair.
The flowers they were roses
and such sweet fragrance gave
that all my friends were lovers
and we danced upon her grave.

CliffHuxtabel

"There once was a man named Weenis...."

cocoshovel

franklyon wrote: »

Mid-Term Break by Seamus Heaney

I hate that stupid poem. We were taught that every single year by the same thicko teacher in Secondary school. Drove our heads in.

Ellis Dee

The more I look around me, the more this one by Clarke Van Ness appeals to me:



'Twas an evening in October, I'll confess I wasn't sober,
I was carting home a load with manly pride,
When my feet began to stutter and I fell into the gutter,
And a pig came up and lay down by my side.
Then I lay there in the gutter and my heart was all a-flutter,
Till a lady, passing by, did chance to say:
"You can tell a man that boozes by the company he chooses,"
Then the pig got up and slowly walked away.


Then I heard a gentle mooing, it was like a pigeon cooing,
As a home returning cow stopped in her stride,
And her eyes were big and gentle; her expression sentimental,
As she curtsied low and sat down by my side.
Then I saw her eyelids flutter and a tear fell in the gutter,
As the owner of the cow did loudly say:
"Leave that brute this moment, Sonja, or your milk will curdle on ya,"
Then the cow got up and slowly walked away.


Then the moon began to shine in that old gutter I reclined in,
Thinking of the weakness of the human race,
When a dog sat down beside me, and I thought he came to chide me,
Till he gently licked the stubble on my face.
In the gutter, still reclining, I began "Sweet Adeline-ing,"
While the dog raised up his head to loudly bay;
Then his mistress said, "Come, Fido, that disgusting man may bite you,"
Then the dog got up and slowly walked away.


Down the street there came a clatter, and a gentle pitter-patter,
As a pair of goats along the gutter ran;
And it seemed that Billy knew me, for he quickly drew up to me,
While his wife munched on an empty sardine can.
Then again my pulse did flutter, and my heart was soft as butter;
Till the Nanny goat, unto her mate, did say:
"William dear, your social status don't include men such as that is,"
Then the goat got up and slowly walked away.


Now lately I've been thinking that I will quit my drinking.
I'm going to leave off whiskey, beer and grog,
For there's no consolation, but only aggravation,
You can't even find friendship with a hog.

Little Acorn

I used to love poetry in secondary school. I only have one poetry book now though as an adult. Don't really have a favourite I think, will just post a few that I still like and can remember of the top of my head. One is from this film:

Funeral Blues: WH Auden

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_a-eXIoyYA

and..

A Disused Shed in Co. Wexford: Derek Mahon

http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=a%20disused%20shed%20in%20co.%20wexford&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CBoQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thepoem.co.uk%2Fpoems%2Fmahon.htm&ei=9SDXTp21BZKwhAfQhJipDg&usg=AFQjCNHUW4rcwLowPNyybnQBFW4VyfMgxg

Even now there are places where a thought might grow —
Peruvian mines, worked out and abandoned
To a slow clock of condensation,
An echo trapped forever, and a flutter
Of wildflowers in the lift-shaft,
Indian compounds where the wind dances
And a door bangs with diminished confidence,
Lime crevices behind rippling rainbarrels,
Dog corners for bone burials;
And a disused shed in Co. Wexford,

Deep in the grounds of a burnt-out hotel,
Among the bathtubs and the washbasins
A thousand mushrooms crowd to a keyhole.
This is the one star in their firmament
Or frames a star within a star.
What should they do there but desire?
So many days beyond the rhododendrons
With the world waltzing in its bowl of cloud,
They have learnt patience and silence
Listening to the rooks querulous in the high wood.

They have been waiting for us in a foetor
Of vegetable sweat since civil war days,
Since the gravel-crunching, interminable departure
of the expropriated mycologist.
He never came back, and light since then
Is a keyhole rusting gently after rain.
Spiders have spun, flies dusted to mildew
And once a day, perhaps, they have heard something —
A trickle of masonry, a shout from the blue
Or a lorry changing gear at the end of the lane.

There have been deaths, the pale flesh flaking
Into the earth that nourished it;
And nightmares, born of these and the grim
Dominion of stale air and rank moisture.
Those nearest the door growing strong —
'Elbow room! Elbow room!'
The rest, dim in a twilight of crumbling
Utensils and broken flower-pots, groaning
For their deliverance, have been so long
Expectant that there is left only the posture.

A half century, without visitors, in the dark —
Poor preparation for the cracking lock
And creak of hinges. Magi, moonmen,
Powdery prisoners of the old regime,
Web-throated, stalked like triffids, racked by drought
And insomnia, only the ghost of a scream
At the flashbulb firing squad we wake them with
Shows there is life yet in their feverish forms.
Grown beyond nature now, soft food for worms,
They lift frail heads in gravity and good faith.

They are begging us, you see, in their wordless way,
To do something, to speak on their behalf
Or at least not to close the door again.
Lost people of Treblinka and Pompeii!
'Save us, save us,' they seem to say,
'Let the god not abandon us
Who have come so far in darkness and in pain.
We too had our lives to live.
You with your light meter and relaxed itinerary,
Let not our naive labours have been in vain!'

I felt a funeral in my brain: Emily Dickinson
http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=i%20felt%20a%20funeral%20in%20my%20brain&source=web&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CC0QFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.poets.org%2Fviewmedia.php%2FprmMID%2F15391&ei=oCnXTsCqGYqphAfpqbXIDg&usg=AFQjCNGKG3X-3txA0ghGDxyPALn6-qWDnQ

Hope is the thing with feathers; Emily Dickinson
http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=emily%20dickinson%20hope%20is%20the%20thing%20with%20feathers&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Facademic.brooklyn.cuny.edu%2Fenglish%2Fmelani%2Fcs6%2Fhope.html&ei=qSzXTqb0BcmxhAeTtKmxDg&usg=AFQjCNHpbIYunLK-kPw4zyhobWk3mmsssQ

Child: Sylvia Plath
http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=sylvia%20plath%20child&source=web&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CCcQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.breakoutofthebox.com%2Fchild.htm&ei=PirXTp7SOIOphAfWlYDBDg&usg=AFQjCNGQ4XaGwaNRJwxC3zY6LDUs1ZF6sQ


The Arrival of the Bee Box: Sylvia Plath
http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=the%20arrival%20of%20the%20bee%20box&source=web&cd=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBkQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.angelfire.com%2Ftn%2Fplath%2Farrival.html&ei=birXTrD1DsWEhQfDt_3RDg&usg=AFQjCNE79ev85rCW3drklbEMu3NicgK3zQ

Morning Song: Sylvia Plath
http://www.google.ie/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=sylvia%20plath%20morning%20song%20&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.internal.org%2FSylvia_Plath%2FMorning_Song&ei=4y7XTvWcJI6ChQeO8vjUDg&usg=AFQjCNGv2nOR4p75e1uIyQrpzE7-9GRlMg


A short little poem that I loved as a child:
The Germ: Ogden Nash

'The Germ'

A mighty creature is the germ,
Though smaller than the pachyderm.
His customary dwelling place
Is deep within the human race.
His childish pride he often pleases
By giving people strange diseases.
Do you, my popet, feel infirm?
You probably contain a germ.

There's loads more I loved, might post some of them later.:)
I should really start reading more poetry again.

triseke

Another poster beat me to it.

One of my favourite poems has to be "Funeral Blues" by W.H. Auden.

"Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good."


Really does describe grief better than anything I have ever read, especially the third verse.

Junco Partner

The second coming by yeats heavy heavy stuff

anything wilfred owen wrote

and this by mark lamarr of never mind the buzzcocks fame
"too fast to live, too young to work"

I'm the James Dean of the dole queue
You've got to admire my cheek -
Trying to work out how to live fast and die young
On seventeen-fifty a week.
A legend in my own cubicle
All alone, never one of the mob
I'm the James Dean of the dole queue
A rebel without a job.

foxyboxer

Kinsella's Mirror in February

You'll reach a point in your life where it becomes poignant i.e. can't stop getting old

The day dawns, with scent of must and rain,
Of opened soil, dark trees, dry bedroom air.
Under the fading lamp, half dressed -- my brain
Idling on some compulsive fantasy --
I towel my shaven jaw and stop, and stare,
Riveted by a dark exhausted eye,
A dry downturning mouth.
It seems again that it is time to learn,
In this untiring, crumbling place of growth
To which, for the time being, I return.
Now plainly in the mirror of my soul
I read that I have looked my last on youth
And little more; for they are not made whole
That reach the age of Christ.

Below my window the wakening trees,
Hacked clean for better bearing, stand defaced
Suffering their brute necessities;
And how should the flesh not quail, that span for span
Is mutilated more? In slow distaste
I fold my towel with what grace I can,
Not young, and not renewable, but man.

leonidas83

Dylan Thomas - And Death shall have no Dominion

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion

Gr8 gr8 poem

Capt'n Midnight

chucken1 wrote: »

Mine is The Raven
..and Im not going to quote it

http://www.heise.de/ix/raven/Literature/Lore/TheRaven.html

Here's some Nostalgia

Abort, Retry, Ignore

Once upon a midnight dreary, fingers cramped and vision bleary,
System manuals piled high and wasted paper on the floor,
Longing for the warmth of bed sheets, still I sat there doing spreadsheets.
Having reached the bottom line I took a floppy from the drawer,
I then invoked the SAVE command and waited for the disk to store,
Only this and nothing more.

Deep into the monitor peering, long I sat there wond'ring, fearing,
Doubting, while the disk kept churning, turning yet to churn some more.
But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token.
"Save!" I said, "You cursed mother! Save my data from before!"
One thing did the phosphors answer, only this and nothing more,
Just, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

Was this some occult illusion, some maniacal intrusion?
These were choices undesired, ones I'd never faced before.
Carefully I weighed the choices as the disk made impish noises.
The cursor flashed, insistent, waiting, baiting me to type some more.
Clearly I must press a key, choosing one and nothing more,
From "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

With fingers pale and trembling, slowly toward the keyboard bending,
Longing for a happy ending, hoping all would be restored,
Praying for some guarantee, timidly, I pressed a key.
But on the screen there still persisted words appearing as before.
Ghastly grim they blinked and taunted, haunted, as my patience wore,
Saying "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

I tried to catch the chips off guard, and pressed again, but twice as hard.
I pleaded with the cursed machine: I begged and cried and then I swore.
Now in mighty desperation, trying random combinations,
Still there came the incantation, just as senseless as before.
Cursor blinking, angrily winking, blinking nonsense as before.
Reading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

There I sat, distraught, exhausted, by my own machine accosted.
Getting up I turned away and paced across the office floor.
And then I saw a dreadful sight: a lightning bolt cut through the night.
A gasp of horror overtook me, shook me to my very core.
The lightning zapped my previous data, lost and gone forevermore.
Not even, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

To this day I do not know the place to which lost data go.
What demonic nether world us wrought where lost data will be stored,
Beyond the reach of mortal souls, beyond the ether, into black holes?
But sure as there's C, Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate and more,
You will one day be left to wander, lost on some Plutonian shore,
Pleading, "Abort, Retry, Ignore?"

But sure as there's C, Pascal, Lotus, Ashton-Tate

Feisar

Bingen on the Rhine

A SOLDIER of the Legion lay dying in Algiers,
There was a lack of woman's nursing, there was dearth of woman's tears;
But a comrade stood beside him, while his lifeblood ebbed away,
And bent with pitying glances, to hear what he might say.
The dying soldier faltered, and he took that comrade's hand,
And he said, "I nevermore shall see my own, my native land:
Take a message, and a token, to some distant friends of mine,
For I was born at Bingen, -- at Bingen on the Rhine.
"Tell my brothers and companions, when they meet and crowd around,
To hear my mournful story, in the pleasant vineyard ground,
That we fought the battle bravely, and when the day was done,
Full many a corpse lay ghastly pale beneath the setting sun;
And, mid the dead and dying, were some grown old in wars, --
The death-wound on their gallant breasts, the last of many scars;
And some were young, and suddenly beheld life's morn decline, --
And one had come from Bingen, -- fair Bingen on the Rhine.
"Tell my mother that her other son shall comfort her old age;
For I was still a truant bird, that thought his home a cage.
For my father was a soldier, and even as a child
My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles fierce and wild;
And when he died, and left us to divide his scanty hoard,
I let them take whate'er they would, -- but kept my father's sword;
And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light used to shine
On the cottage wall at Bingen, -- calm Bingen on the Rhine.
"Tell my sister not to weep for me, and sob with drooping head,
When the troops come marching home again with glad and gallant tread,
But to look upon them proudly, with a calm and steadfast eye,
For her brother was a soldier too, and not afraid to die;
And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her in my name
To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame,
And to hang the old sword in its place (my father's sword and mine)
For the honor of old Bingen, -- dear Bingen on the Rhine.
"There's another, -- not a sister: in the happy days gone by
You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her eye;
Too innocent for coquetry, -- too fond for idle scorning, --
O friend! I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest mourning!
Tell her the last night of my life (for, ere the moon be risen,
My body will be out of pain, my soul be out of prison), --
I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yellow sunlight shine
On the vine-clad hills of Bingen, -- fair Bingen on the Rhine.
"I saw the blue Rhine sweep along, -- I heard, or seemed to hear,
The German songs we used to sing, in chorus sweet and clear;
And down the pleasant river, and up the slanting hill,
The echoing chorus sounded, through the evening calm and still;
And her glad blue eyes were on me, as we passed, with friendly talk,
Down many a path beloved of yore, and well-remembered walk!
And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly, in mine, --
But we'll meet no more at Bingen, -- loved Bingen on the Rhine."
His trembling voice grew faint and hoarse, -- his grasp was childish weak, --
His eyes put on a dying look, -- he sighed, and ceased to speak;
His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life had fled, --
The soldier of the Legion in a foreign land is dead;
And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly she looked down
On the red sand of the battle-field, with bloody corses strown;
Yet calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light seemed to shine,
As it shone on distant Bingen, -- fair Bingen on the Rhine.

Caroline Norton

jackie1974

Funeral Blues and Midterm Break stand out for the sheer grief in the words.

I love 'Stopping by Woods on a snowy evening' Robert Frost

And this is apt for the weather, I love it

Winter

(From "Love's Labour's Lost")

When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,

When blood is nipp’d and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson’s saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marion’s nose looks red and raw,

When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-whit;Tu-who, a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

Amirani

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 honeybee,
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.


W.B. Yeats

yeppydeppy

Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.
Jenny Joseph

sbsquarepants

Favourite is probably A dream within a dream, by Edgar Allen Poe. I also love, She walks in beauty by Byron, and If by Kipling - he makes exceedingly good mince pies too:D

Edit just remembered - Paradise Lost - A bit on the long side, but i loved the passages from it i done in school

keano_afc

September 1913:

What need you, being come to sense,
But fumble in a greasy till
And add the halfpence to the pence
And prayer to shivering prayer, until
You have dried the marrow from the bone;
For men were born to pray and save;
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet they were of a different kind,
The names that stilled your childish play,
They have gone about the world like wind,
But little time had they to pray
For whom the hangman's rope was spun,
And what, God help us, could they save?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Was it for this the wild geese spread
The grey wing upon every tide;
For this that all that blood was shed,
For this Edward Fitzgerald died,
And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone,
All that delirium of the brave?
Romantic Ireland's dead and gone,
It's with O'Leary in the grave.

Yet could we turn the years again,
And call those exiles as they were
In all their loneliness and pain,
You'd cry `Some woman's yellow hair
Has maddened every mother's son':
They weighed so lightly what they gave.
But let them be, they're dead and gone,
They're with O'Leary in the grave.

Still appropriate nearly 100 years later.

edgecutter

The Earl of Rochester's 'A Ramble in St. James's Park'. I can't post the poem due to its content, but Rochester speaks from the heart and also seems like a lad.

Mongarra

I haven't a clue who wrote it, or when, but I learned it in the back of a taxi one night about 40 years ago when we were all a little under the weather and I still use it as my party piece.

The dogs they had a meeting, they came from near and far,
Some came by horse-drawn vehicle and some by motor car.
On their way into the meeting, in a hall they had to book,
Each dog he took his ars*hole off and hung it on a hook.
Hardly were they seated, every mother's son and sire
When a little b*stard of a pup began to shout out "Fire".
So out they all rushed in a bunch, they had not time to look,
Each dog he grabbed at random an ars*hole from a hook.
They got their ars*holes all mixed up, this made them very sore
To have to wear an ars*hole that they never wore before.
And that's the reason why you'll see, when walking down the street,
Each dog he'll stop and swap a smell with every dog he meets,
And that's the reason why a dog will leave a grand fat bone
And go and smell an ars*hole in the hope he'll find his own.:)

Precious flower

Loved Robert Frost in school
After Apple-Picking
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree
Toward heaven still,
And there's a barrel that I didn't fill
Beside it, and there may be two or three
Apples I didn't pick upon some bough.
But I am done with apple-picking now.
Essence of winter sleep is on the night,
The scent of apples: I am drowsing off.
I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight
I got from looking through a pane of glass
I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough
And held against the world of hoary grass.
It melted, and I let it fall and break.
But I was well
Upon my way to sleep before it fell,
And I could tell
What form my dreaming was about to take.
Magnified apples appear and disappear,
Stem end and blossom end,
And every fleck of russet showing clear.
My instep arch not only keeps the ache,
It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round.
I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend.

And I keep hearing from the cellar bin
The rumbling sound
Of load on load of apples coming in.
For I have had too much
Of apple-picking: I am overtired
Of the great harvest I myself desired.
There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch,
Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall.
For all
That struck the earth,
No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble,
Went surely to the cider-apple heap
As of no worth.
One can see what will trouble
This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is.
Were he not gone,
The woodchuck could say whether it's like his
Long sleep, as I describe its coming on,
Or just some human sleep.

Eavan Boland
Child Of Our Time
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Yesterday I knew no lullaby
But you have taught me overnight to order
This song, which takes from your final cry
Its tune, from your unreasoned end its reason;
Its rhythm from the discord of your murder,
Its motive from the fact you cannot listen.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]We who should have known how to instruct
With rhymes for your waking, rhythms for your sleep
Names for the animals you took to bed,
Tales to distract, legends to protect,
Later an idiom for you to keep
And living, learn, must learn from you, dead.[/FONT]


[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]To make our broken images rebuild
Themselves around your limbs, your broken
Image, find for your sake whose life our idle
Talk has cost, a new language. Child
Of our time, our times have robbed your cradle.
Sleep in a world your final sleep has woken.[/FONT]

ronano

Da Shins Kelly wrote: »

'The Second Coming' by Yeats.

This!

don't like yeats the person but damn the poet was exceptional

BrensBenz

The Moon by Robert Louis Stevenson

The moon has a face like the clock in the hall;
She shines on thieves on the garden wall,
On streets and fields and harbour quays,
And birdies asleep in the forks of the trees.

The squalling cat and the squeaking mouse,
The howling dog by the door of the house,
The bat that lies in bed at noon,
All love to be out by the light of the moon.

But all of the things that belong to the day
Cuddle to sleep to be out of her way;
And flowers and children close their eyes
Till up in the morning the sun shall arise.

A favourite, from primary school, but only because our teacher recited it while making appropriate facial expressions and hand movements, e.g. his eyes darted left and right through the phrase “....thieves on a garden wall” and didn’t use the universal, mandatory and God-awful poetry-reading drone that still makes me want to go somewhere else when |I hear it. He brought the words to life and they’ve stayed with me for fifty years.
Also, you could do a lot worse that have a read of these extracts of lyrics from a certain Robert Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan). You know, that lad can turn a phrase!

….
Though I know that evenin's empire has returned into sand
Vanished from my hand,
Left me blindly here to stand but still not sleeping.
My weariness amazes me, I'm branded on my feet,
I have no one to meet,
And the ancient empty street's too dead for dreaming.
….
Take me on a trip upon your magic swirlin' ship,
My senses have been stripped,
My hands can't feel to grip,
My toes too numb to step,
Wait only for my boot heels to be wanderin',

I'm ready to go anywhere,
I'm ready for to fade,
Into my own parade,
Cast your dancing spell my way,
I promise to go under it.
….
Though you might hear laughin', spinnin' swingin' madly across the sun,
It's not aimed at anyone,
It's just escapin' on the run,
And but for the sky there are no fences facin',
And if you hear vague traces of skippin' reels of rhyme,
To your tambourine in time,
It's just a ragged clown behind,
I wouldn't pay it any mind,
It's just a shadow you're seein' that he's chasing.

….
Then take me disappearin' through the smoke rings of my mind,
Down the foggy ruins of time,
Far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees,
Out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea,
Circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate,
Driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.

Hey! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
I'm not sleepy and there is no place I'm going to.
Hey! Mr Tambourine Man, play a song for me,
In the jingle jangle morning I'll come followin' you.

endabob1

Memory of my Father

Every old man I see
Reminds me of my father
When he had fallen in love with death
One time when sheaves were gathered.

That man I saw in Gardner Street
Stumbled on the kerb was one,
He stared at me half-eyed,
I might have been his son.

And I remember the musician
Faltering over his fiddle
In Bayswater, London,
He too set me the riddle.

Every old man I see
In October-coloured weather
Seems to say to me:
"I was once your father."


Patrick Kavanagh

Truley

Hiawatha's Childhood by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

It's just one chapter of an epic poem, full chapter can be found here

And the West-Wind came at evening,
Walking lightly o'er the prairie,
Whispering to the leaves and blossoms,
Bending low the flowers and grasses,
Found the beautiful Wenonah,
Lying there among the lilies,
Wooed her with his words of sweetness,
Wooed her with his soft caresses,
Till she bore a son in sorrow,
Bore a son of love and sorrow.

Thus was born my Hiawatha,
Thus was born the child of wonder;
But the daughter of Nokomis,
Hiawatha's gentle mother,
In her anguish died deserted
By the West-Wind, false and faithless,
By the heartless Mudjekeewis.


For her daughter long and loudly
Wailed and wept the sad Nokomis;
"O that I were dead!" she murmured,
"O that I were dead, as thou art!
No more work, and no more weeping,
Wahonowin! Wahonowin!"


By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.
Dark behind it rose the forest,
Rose the black and gloomy pine-trees,
Rose the firs with cones upon them;
Bright before it beat the water,
Beat the clear and sunny water,
Beat the shining Big-Sea-Water.


There the wrinkled old Nokomis
Nursed the little Hiawatha,
Rocked him in his linden cradle,
Bedded soft in moss and rushes,
Safely bound with reindeer sinews;
Stilled his fretful wail by saying,
"Hush! the Naked Bear will hear thee!"
Lulled him into slumber, singing,
"Ewa-yea! my little owlet!
Who is this, that lights the wigwam?
With his great eyes lights the wigwam?
Ewa-yea! my little owlet!"

foxyboxer

Me, We.

- Muhammed Ali

Formosa

If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath
I'd live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You'd see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. "Poor young chap,"
I'd say — "I used to know his father well;
Yes, we've lost heavily in this last scrap."
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I'd toddle safely home and die — in bed.