Poetry

[Ralph.S.G.R]

I have always had a real love for poetry and, given the popularity of the haiku and 'roses are red...' threads, maybe some others on here do too!

So, with that in mind, i would like to use this thread as an opportunity for people to post some of their favourite poems- long or short, old or new.

Theres so many poems i could put here but, rather than starting with a Shakespearean sonnet or a Milton-esque epic, i'll go with a poem by Allan Ahlberg that reminds me very much of my primary school days.

Enjoy!

Finishing off
by Allan Ahlberg

The teacher said:
Come here, Malcolm!
Look at the state of your book.
Stories and pictures unfinished
Wherever I look

This model you started at Easter,
These plaster casts of your feet,
These graphs of the local traffic-
All of them incomplete.

You've a half-baked pot in the kiln room
And a half-eaten cake in your drawer.
You don't even finish the jokes you tell-
I really can't take any more.

And Malcolm said
... very little.
He blinked and shuffled his feet.
The sentence he finally started
Remained incomplete.

He gazed for a time at the floorboards;
He stared for a while into space;
With an unlined, unwhiskered expression
On his unfinished face.

[Just JT]

Here’s one I wrote a few years ago. You might know what it’s about, you might not. Anyways....

244 days

That night you went out, didn't want you to go,
You went anyways,
I thought that was fuckin low.

It was supposed be me and you, the two of us together,
We were like brothers, supposed to be forever.

The morning light woke me, like a bucket of ice cold snow,
He handed me the rest of my life in that bucket, how were you to know?

Was New Years morning,
Was good cause to take warning

It wasn't all your fault, you knew no other way,
Maybe different if your own dad had given you the time of day.

You never knew what was going on,
all that time, I was treated as a pawn.

It's been that many days since I've said no!!!
Imagine what it would be like if I hadn't let you go

Instead you were selfish, wanted your own time
In reality, it was when you crossed that final white line

I never knew what it would be like,
But now I know, man we were tight.

It's been that long ago, we have somethings still in common,
my birth, your death, and the time of my gestation

I will always love you, and will Always hate you,
You should have know what others would do without you

It's really unfair you left me this fight
All because you just weren't to fuckin bright!!

So here I sit, starting my 15th year
Wondering why the fuck you still aint here

I've sat up all night, writing this note,
244 days apart, What a fuckin joke!!

Not much to say or do,
Just sit, cry and think of you

It's my birthday, dad, 15 years of your fatherhood,
9 months after you should have covered your hood

Then today never would have happened...

[Ralph.S.G.R]

Here’s one I wrote a few years ago. You might know what it’s about, you might not. Anyways....



Very personal and heartfelt- thankyou.

[SouthernDude]

Lines on the Antiquity of Microbes (also known as Fleas)
by Strickland Gillilan

Adam
had 'em

[lliam]

Wear masks?
Who asks?
Me. Donald.
The toppled?
The mottled.

[SouthernDude]

Yes the roses are red,
But this is a limerick instead
Trying to stand out
Writing poems for clout
I have no idea what I've just said

[Falcons_11]

My favorite limerick. (Try saying this as fast as you can!)

"A tutor who tooted the flute
Tried to teach two young tooter to toot
Said the two to the tooter,
Is it harder to toot, or....
To tutor two tooters to toot?"

[BJade]

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
By William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Always reminds me of going to the place that inspired the poem
https://c8.alamy.com/comp/d7b6y6/wordsworth-daffodil-garden-grasmere-village-cumbria-lake-district-d7b6y6.jpg
https://wordsworth.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/daffodils-ullswater.jpg

[cocorayo]

Never got interested in English poetry, I always see more poetry in Spanish or Italian, I could put the translated versions of them but that wouldn't be appropiated. Anyways I'll stick around and see that big unknown of poetry in English ;)

[Ragle]

An Old Prat Called Donald

There once was a man who waddled.
He liked bragging and he dawdled.
With a terrible roar,
He fell to the floor,
He couldn't say no to the swaggled.

[Emmlikesrain]

There are some poems I like, but they are all in German and I'm not sure if there is a translation :( What should I do?

[Falcons_11]

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
By William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Always reminds me of going to the place that inspired the poem
image (https://c8.alamy.com/comp/d7b6y6/wordsworth-daffodil-garden-grasmere-village-cumbria-lake-district-d7b6y6.jpg)
image (https://wordsworth.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/daffodils-ullswater.jpg)

Hi Jade,

William Wordsworth is one of my favorite British poets. He, along with Samuel Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Period. One of my favorite poems by Wordsworth is "The Solitary Reaper".

In my humble opinion, Wordsworth, next to Shakespeare, Burns and Milton, is perhaps the best British poet in his time.

[Ralph.S.G.R]

There are some poems I like, but they are all in German and I'm not sure if there is a translation :( What should I do?

There are some germans here... just post the original!

[lliam]

What should I do?

I suggest post one of these in orig. German and then add your or another translation , if in your opinion the latter seems to be more properly translated.

[SouthernDude]

Those that like things I like are like me
I like the things I like
I like the people like me
Maybe I should find those like me
Because I don't like things I don't like
The things I don't like I don't like
The people I don't like I don't like
I must find people like me
Or else I'll be stuck with ones I don't

[Daughter of Artemis]

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud
By William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

Always reminds me of going to the place that inspired the poem
image (https://c8.alamy.com/comp/d7b6y6/wordsworth-daffodil-garden-grasmere-village-cumbria-lake-district-d7b6y6.jpg)
image (https://wordsworth.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/daffodils-ullswater.jpg)
Great poem and love the pictures too~!

[SonOfSeven]

The Conqueror Worm
By
Edgar Allan Poe

Lo! 'tis a gala night
⁠Within the lonesome latter years!
An angel throng, bewinged, bedight
⁠In veils, and drowned in tears,
Sit in a theatre, to see
⁠A play of hopes and fears,
While the orchestra breathes fitfully
⁠The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,
⁠Mutter and mumble low,
And hither and thither fly—
⁠Mere puppets they, who come and go
At bidding of vast formless things
⁠That shift the scenery to and fro,
Flapping from out their Condor wings
⁠Invisible Wo!

That motley drama—oh, be sure
⁠It shall not be forgot!
With its Phantom chased for evermore,
⁠By a crowd that seize it not,
Through a circle that ever returneth in
⁠To the self-same spot,
And much of Madness, and more of Sin,
⁠And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout
⁠A crawling shape intrude!
A blood-red thing that writhes from out
⁠The scenic solitude!
It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs
⁠The mimes become its food,
And the angels sob at vermin fangs
⁠In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!
⁠And, over each quivering form,
The curtain, a funeral pall,
⁠Comes down with the rush of a storm,
And the angels, all pallid, and wan,
⁠Uprising, unveiling, affirm
That the play is the tragedy, "Man,"
⁠And its hero the Conqueror Worm.

[SonOfSeven]

I guess, employing a poem about death, in my own way I killed this thread, or so it would seem. Sorry about that

[Falcons_11]

A Fairy's Song

Over hill, over dale,
Thorough bush, through brier,
Over park, over pale,
Thorough flood, thorough fire,
I wander everywhere.

Swifter than the moon's sphere;
And I serve the Fairy Queen,
To dew her orbs upon the green;
The cowslips tall her pensioners be;
In their gold coats spots you see;
Those be rubies, fairy favours,
In those freckles live their savours,
I must go seek some dewdrops here,
And hang a pearl in every cowslip's ear.

-William Shakespeare-

[BJade]

Not sure if song lyrics count, but definitely poetic -

"Another Love" by Tom Odell

I wanna take you somewhere so you know I care
But it’s so cold and I don’t know where
I brought you daffodils in a pretty string
But they won’t flower like they did last spring

And I wanna kiss you, make you feel alright
I’m just so tired to share my nights
I wanna cry and I wanna love
But all my tears have been used up



And if somebody hurts you I wanna fight,
But my hands been broken, one too many times
So I use my voice, I'll be so fucking rude
Words they always win, but I know I'll lose

And I'll sing a song, that'd be just ours,
But I sang 'em all to another heart
And I wanna cry I wanna learn to love,
But all my tears have been used up

[lliam]

that famous poem

0xvkAQTeSfE

[Claire Asteroid]

The cat sat on the mat