Poems that you love

[ChristopherSea]

I love the poetry of Robert E Howard because some of it, like this one tell a story well while painting a vivid picture with words.

Solomon Kane's Homecoming
by Robert E Howard

The white gulls wheeled above the cliffs, the air was slashed with foam,
The long tides moaned along the strand when Solomon Kane came home.
He walked in silence strange and dazed through the little Devon town;
His gaze, like a ghost’s come back to life, roamed up the streets and down.

The people followed wonderingly to mark his spectral stare,
And in the tavern silently they thronged about him there.
He heard as a man hears in a dream the worn old rafters creak,
And Solomon lifted his drinking-jack and spoke as a ghost might speak:

“There sat Sir Richard Grenville once; in smoke and flame he passed.
And we were one to fifty-three, but we gave them blast for blast.
From crimson dawn to crimson dawn, we held the Dons at bay.
The dead lay littered on our decks, our masts were shot away.

“We beat them back with broken blades, till crimsom ran the tide;
Death thundered in the cannon smoke when Richard Grenville died.
We should have blown her hull apart and sunk beneath the Main.”
The people saw upon his wrist the scars of the racks of Spain.

“Where is Bess?” said Solomon Kane. “Woe that I caused her tears.”
“In the quiet churchyard by the sea she has slept these seven years.”
The sea-wind moaned at the window-pane, and Solomon bowed his head.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and the fairest fade,” he said.

His eyes were mytical deep pools that drowned unearthly things,
And Solomon lifted up his head and spoke of his wanderings.
“Mine eyes have looked on sorcery in dark and naked lands,
Horror born of the jungle gloom and death on the pathless sands.

And I have known a deathless queen in a city old as Death,
Where towering pyramids of skulls her glory witnesseth.
“Her kiss was like an adder’s fang, with the sweetness Lilith had,
And her red-eyed vassals howled for blood in that City of the Mad.

And I have slain a vampire shape that drank a black king white,
And I have roamed through grisly hills where dead men walked at night.
“And I have seen heads fall like fruit in a slaver’s barracoon,
And I have seen winged demons fly all naked in the moon.

My feet are weary of wandering and age comes on apace;
I fain would dwell in Devon now, forever in my place.”
The howling of the ocean pack came whistling down the gale,
And Solomon Kane threw up his head like a hound that sniffs the trail.

A-down the wind like a running pack the hounds of the ocean bayed,
And Solomon Kane rose up again and girt his Spanish blade.
In his strange cold eyes a vagrant gleam grew wayward and blind and bright,
And Solomon put the people by and went into the night.

A wild moon rode the wild white clouds, the waves in white crests flowed,
When Solomon Kane went forth again, and no man knew his road.
They glimpsed him etched against the moon, where clouds on hilltop thinned;
They heard an eerie echoed call that whistled down the wind.

Is this the same Robert E Howard that began the 'Conan the Barbarian' series of novels? It sure has that same style and sound. I read many of his stories as a youth. I believe there were some chants and songs in the novels./Chris

[Blake]

I love the poetry of Robert E Howard because some of it, like this one tell a story well while painting a vivid picture with words.

Solomon Kane's Homecoming
by Robert E Howard

The white gulls wheeled above the cliffs, the air was slashed with foam,
The long tides moaned along the strand when Solomon Kane came home.
He walked in silence strange and dazed through the little Devon town;
His gaze, like a ghost’s come back to life, roamed up the streets and down.

The people followed wonderingly to mark his spectral stare,
And in the tavern silently they thronged about him there.
He heard as a man hears in a dream the worn old rafters creak,
And Solomon lifted his drinking-jack and spoke as a ghost might speak:

“There sat Sir Richard Grenville once; in smoke and flame he passed.
And we were one to fifty-three, but we gave them blast for blast.
From crimson dawn to crimson dawn, we held the Dons at bay.
The dead lay littered on our decks, our masts were shot away.

“We beat them back with broken blades, till crimsom ran the tide;
Death thundered in the cannon smoke when Richard Grenville died.
We should have blown her hull apart and sunk beneath the Main.”
The people saw upon his wrist the scars of the racks of Spain.

“Where is Bess?” said Solomon Kane. “Woe that I caused her tears.”
“In the quiet churchyard by the sea she has slept these seven years.”
The sea-wind moaned at the window-pane, and Solomon bowed his head.
“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, and the fairest fade,” he said.

His eyes were mytical deep pools that drowned unearthly things,
And Solomon lifted up his head and spoke of his wanderings.
“Mine eyes have looked on sorcery in dark and naked lands,
Horror born of the jungle gloom and death on the pathless sands.

And I have known a deathless queen in a city old as Death,
Where towering pyramids of skulls her glory witnesseth.
“Her kiss was like an adder’s fang, with the sweetness Lilith had,
And her red-eyed vassals howled for blood in that City of the Mad.

And I have slain a vampire shape that drank a black king white,
And I have roamed through grisly hills where dead men walked at night.
“And I have seen heads fall like fruit in a slaver’s barracoon,
And I have seen winged demons fly all naked in the moon.

My feet are weary of wandering and age comes on apace;
I fain would dwell in Devon now, forever in my place.”
The howling of the ocean pack came whistling down the gale,
And Solomon Kane threw up his head like a hound that sniffs the trail.

A-down the wind like a running pack the hounds of the ocean bayed,
And Solomon Kane rose up again and girt his Spanish blade.
In his strange cold eyes a vagrant gleam grew wayward and blind and bright,
And Solomon put the people by and went into the night.

A wild moon rode the wild white clouds, the waves in white crests flowed,
When Solomon Kane went forth again, and no man knew his road.
They glimpsed him etched against the moon, where clouds on hilltop thinned;
They heard an eerie echoed call that whistled down the wind.

Is this the same Robert E Howard that began the 'Conan the Barbarian' series of novels? It sure has that same style and sound. I read many of his stories as a youth. I believe there were some chants and songs in the novels./Chris

Yes, Conan is what he is famous for. But he had quite a bit more interesting works and poetry.

[Asyndetoff]

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

John Donne

[Leanne]

I do love Donne The metaphysics are awesome.

[Truerenigma]

I do love Donne The metaphysics are awesome.

Yes. The Great Maker of Cliches. No matter how many times they are imitated, the originals never get old, to me.

[Leanne]

I know a few clods we wouldn't miss if they were washed out to sea, though

[ellajam]

I came across this today on Librivox, falling fast.


Betsey and I are Out
By Will Carleton (1845–1912)

[Born in Hudson, Lenawee Co., Mich., 1845. Died in Brooklyn, N. Y., 1912. Farm Ballads. 1873.]

Draw up the papers, lawyer, and make ’em good and stout;
For things at home are crossways, and Betsey and I are out.
We, who have worked together so long as man and wife,
Must pull in single harness for the rest of our nat’ral life.

“What is the matter?” say you. I swan it’s hard to tell!
Most of the years behind us we’ve passed by very well;
I have no other woman, she has no other man—
Only we’ve lived together as long as we ever can.

So I have talked with Betsey, and Betsey has talked with me,
And so we’ve agreed together that we can’t never agree;
Not that we’ve catched each other in any terrible crime;
We’ve been a-gathering this for years, a little at a time.

There was a stock of temper we both had for a start,
Although we never suspected ’twould take us two apart;
I had my various failings, bred in the flesh and bone;
And Betsey, like all good women, had a temper of her own.

The first thing I remember whereon we disagreed
Was something concerning heaven—a difference in our creed;
We arg’ed the thing at breakfast, we arg’ed the thing at tea,
And the more we arg’ed the question the more we didn’t agree.

And the next that I remember was when we lost a cow;
She had kicked the bucket for certain, the question was only—How?
I held my own opinion, and Betsey another had;
And when we were done a-talkin’, we both of us was mad.

And the next that I remember, it started in a joke;
But full for a week it lasted, and neither of us spoke.
And the next was when I scolded because she broke a bowl;
And she said I was mean and stingy, and hadn’t any soul.

And so that bowl kept pourin’ dissensions in our cup;
And so that blamed cow-critter was always a-comin’ up;
And so that heaven we arg’ed no nearer to us got,
But it gave us a taste of somethin’ a thousand times as hot.

And so the thing kept workin’, and all the self-same way;
Always somethin’ to arg’e, and somethin’ sharp to say;
And down on us came the neighbors, a couple dozen strong,
And lent their kindest sarvice for to help the thing along.

And there has been days together—and many a weary week—
We was both of us cross and spunky, and both too proud to speak;
And I have been thinkin’ and thinkin’, the whole of the winter and fall,
If I can’t live kind with a woman, why, then, I won’t at all.

And so I have talked with Betsey, and Betsey has talked with me,
And we have agreed together that we can’t never agree;
And what is hers shall be hers, and what is mine shall be mine;
And I’ll put it in the agreement, and take it to her to sign.

Write on the paper, lawyer—the very first paragraph—
Of all the farm and live-stock that she shall have her half;
For she has helped to earn it, through many a weary day,
And it’s nothing more than justice that Betsey has her pay.

Give her the house and homestead—a man can thrive and roam;
But women are skeery critters, unless they have a home;
And I have always determined, and never failed to say,
That Betsey never should want a home if I was taken away.

There is a little hard money that’s drawin’ tol’rable pay:
A couple of hundred dollars laid by for a rainy day;
Safe in the hands of good men, and easy to get at;
Put in another clause there, and give her half of that.

Yes, I see you smile, sir, at my givin’ her so much;
Yes, divorce is cheap, sir, but I take no stock in such!
True and fair I married her, when she was blithe and young;
And Betsey was al’ays good to me, exceptin’ with her tongue.

Once when I was young as you, and not so smart, perhaps,
For me she mittened a lawyer, and several other chaps;
And all of them was flustered, and fairly taken down,
And I for a time was counted the luckiest man in town.

Once when I had a fever—I won’t forget it soon—
I was hot as a basted turkey and crazy as a loon;
Never an hour went by me when she was out of sight—
She nursed me true and tender, and stuck to me day and night.

And if ever a house was tidy, and ever a kitchen clean,
Her house and kitchen was tidy as any I ever seen;
And I don’t complain of Betsey, or any of her acts,
Exceptin’ when we’ve quarrelled, and told each other facts.

So draw up the paper, lawyer, and I’ll go home to-night,
And read the agreement to her, and see if it’s all right;
And then in the mornin’, I’ll sell to a tradin’ man I know,
And kiss the child that was left to us, and out in the world I’ll go.

And one thing put in the paper, that first to me didn’t occur:
That when I am dead at last she’ll bring me back to her;
And lay me under the maples I planted years ago,
When she and I was happy before we quarrelled so.

And when she dies I wish that she would be laid by me,
And, lyin’ together in silence, perhaps we will agree;
And, if ever we meet in heaven, I wouldn’t think it queer
If we loved each other the better because we quarrelled here.

[Leanne]

I don't remember if I mentioned this already but I don't think so... anyway...

The Old Fools by Philip Larkin

What do they think has happened, the old fools,
To make them like this? Do they somehow suppose
It's more grown-up when your mouth hangs open and drools,
And you keep on pissing yourself, and can't remember
Who called this morning? Or that, if they only chose,
They could alter things back to when they danced all night,
Or went to their wedding, or sloped arms some September?
Or do they fancy there's really been no change,
And they've always behaved as if they were crippled or tight,
Or sat through days of thin continuous dreaming
Watching the light move? If they don't (and they can't), it's strange;
Why aren't they screaming?

At death you break up: the bits that were you
Start speeding away from each other for ever
With no one to see. It's only oblivion, true:
We had it before, but then it was going to end,
And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour
To bring to bloom the million-petalled flower
Of being here. Next time you can't pretend
There'll be anything else. And these are the first signs:
Not knowing how, not hearing who, the power
Of choosing gone. Their looks show that they're for it:
Ash hair, toad hands, prune face dried into lines -
How can they ignore it?

Perhaps being old is having lighted rooms
Inside you head, and people in them, acting
People you know, yet can't quite name; each looms
Like a deep loss restored, from known doors turning,
Setting down a lamp, smiling from a stair, extracting
A known book from the shelves; or sometimes only
The rooms themselves, chairs and a fire burning,
The blown bush at the window, or the sun's
Faint friendliness on the wall some lonely
Rain-ceased midsummer evening. That is where they live:
Not here and now, but where all happened once.
This is why they give

An air of baffled absence, trying to be there
Yet being here. For the rooms grow farther, leaving
Incompetent cold, the constant wear and tear
Of taken breath, and them crouching below
Extinction's alp, the old fools, never perceiving
How near it is. This must be what keeps them quiet:
The peak that stays in view wherever we go
For them is rising ground. Can they never tell
What is dragging them back, and how it will end? Not at night?
Not when the strangers come? Never, throughout
The whole hideous inverted childhood? Well,
We shall find out.

[Truerenigma]

Bra

What a good fit! But the label says Honduras:
Alas, I am Union forever, yes, both breasts
and the heart between them committed to U.S. labor.

But such a splendid fit! And the label tells me
the woman who made it, bronze as the breasts now in it,
speaks the language I dream in; I count in Spanish

the pesos she made stitching this breast-divider:
will they go for her son's tuition, her daughter's wedding?
The thought is a lovely fit, but oh, the label!

And oh, those pesos that may be pennies, and hard-earned.
Was it son or daughter who made this, unschooled, unwedded?
How old? Fourteen? Ten? That fear is a tight fit.

If only the heart could be worn like the breast, divided,
nosing in two directions for news of the wide world,
sniffing here and there for justice, for mercy.

How burdened every choice is with politics, guilt,
expensive with duty, heavy as breasts in need of
this perfect fit whose label says Honduras.

Rhina P. Espaillat

[milo]

Bra

What a good fit! But the label says Honduras:
Alas, I am Union forever, yes, both breasts
and the heart between them committed to U.S. labor.

But such a splendid fit! And the label tells me
the woman who made it, bronze as the breasts now in it,
speaks the language I dream in; I count in Spanish

the pesos she made stitching this breast-divider:
will they go for her son's tuition, her daughter's wedding?
The thought is a lovely fit, but oh, the label!

And oh, those pesos that may be pennies, and hard-earned.
Was it son or daughter who made this, unschooled, unwedded?
How old? Fourteen? Ten? That fear is a tight fit.

If only the heart could be worn like the breast, divided,
nosing in two directions for news of the wide world,
sniffing here and there for justice, for mercy.

How burdened every choice is with politics, guilt,
expensive with duty, heavy as breasts in need of
this perfect fit whose label says Honduras.

Rhina P. Espaillat

First read and I already love it.

[just mercedes]

In Europe - Lawrence Durrell (this poem is sparking me into writing)

IN EUROPE
recitative for a radio play

Three voices to an accompaniment of a drum and bells, and the faint grunt and thud of a dancing bear.

MAN
The frontiers at last, I am feeling so tired.
We are getting the refugee habit,

WOMAN
moving from island to island
where the boundaries are clouds
where the frontiers of the land are water.

OLD MAN
We are getting the refugee habit,

WOMAN
we are only anonymous feet moving
without friends any more, without books
or companionship any more. We are getting -

MAN
the refugee habit. There’s no end
to the forest, and no end to the moors:
between the just and the unjust
there is little distinction.

OLD MAN
Bodies like houses, without windows and doors:
the children have become so brown,
their skins have become dark with sunlight,

MAN
they have learned to eat standing.

OLD MAN
When we come upon men crucified
or women hanging downward from the trees
they no longer understand

WOMAN
how merciful is memory with its fantasies.
They are getting the refugee habit ...

OLD MAN
how weary are the roads of the blood.
Walking forwards towards death in my mind
I am walking backwards again into my youth;
a mother, a father and a house.
One street, a certain town, a particular place:
and the feeling of belonging somewhere
of being appropriate to certain fields and trees.

WOMAN
Now our address is the world. Walls
constrain us. O do you remember
the peninsula where we so nearly died
and the way the trees looked owned
human and domestic like a group of horses?
They said it was Greece.

MAN
Through Prussia into Russia,
through Holland into Poland,
through Rumania into Albania.

WOMAN
Following the rotation of the seasons.

OLD MAN
We are getting the refugee habit:
the past and the future are not enough,
are two walls only between which to die;
who can live in a house with two walls?

MAN
The present is an eternal journey;
in one country winter, in another spring.

OLD MAN
I am sick of the general deaths:
we have seen them impersonally dying:
everything I had hoped for, fireside and hearth,
and death by compromise some summer evening.

MAN
You are getting the refugee habit:
you are carrying the past in you
like a precious vessel, remembering
in essence, ownership and ordinary loving.

WOMAN
We are too young to remember.

OLD MAN
Nothing disturbed such life as I remember
but telephone or telegram
such death-bringers to the man among the roses
in the garden of his house, smoking a pipe.

WOMAN
We are the dispossessed, sharing
with gulls and flowers our lives of accident:
no time for love, no room for love:
if only the children -

MAN
were less wild and unkempt, belonged
to the human family, not speechless

OLD MAN
and shy as the squirrels in the trees;

WOMAN
if only the children

OLD MAN
recognized their father, smiled once more.

OLD MAN + WOMAN
They have got the refugee habit
walking about in the rain for food
looking at their faces in the bottom of wells:

OLD MAN
they are living the popular life.
All Europe is moving out of winter
into spring with all boundaries being
broken down, dissolving, vanishing.
Migrations are beginning, a new habit
from where the icebergs rise in the sky
to valleys where corn is spread like butter ...

WOMAN
So many men and women - each one a soul.

MAN
So many souls, crossing the world

OLD MAN
so many bridges to the end of the world.
Frontiers mean nothing any more ...

WOMAN
peoples and possessions,
lands, rights,
titles, holdings,
trusts, bonds ...

OLD MAN
mean nothing any more, nothing.
A whistle, a box, a shawl, a cup,
a broken sword wrapped in newspaper.

WOMAN
All we have left us, out of context,

OLD MAN
a jar, a mousetrap, a broken umbrella,
a coin, a pipe, a pressed flower

WOMAN
to make an alphabet for our children.

OLD MAN
A chain, a whip, a lock,
a drum and a dancing bear ...

WOMAN
We have got the refugee habit.
Beyond tears at last, into some sort of safety
from fear of wanting, fear of hoping,
fear of everything but dying.
We can die now.

OLD MAN
Frontiers mean nothing any more. Dear Greece!

MAN
Yes. We can die now.

[Truerenigma]

Bra

What a good fit! But the label says Honduras:
Alas, I am Union forever, yes, both breasts
and the heart between them committed to U.S. labor.

But such a splendid fit! And the label tells me
the woman who made it, bronze as the breasts now in it,
speaks the language I dream in; I count in Spanish

the pesos she made stitching this breast-divider:
will they go for her son's tuition, her daughter's wedding?
The thought is a lovely fit, but oh, the label!

And oh, those pesos that may be pennies, and hard-earned.
Was it son or daughter who made this, unschooled, unwedded?
How old? Fourteen? Ten? That fear is a tight fit.

If only the heart could be worn like the breast, divided,
nosing in two directions for news of the wide world,
sniffing here and there for justice, for mercy.

How burdened every choice is with politics, guilt,
expensive with duty, heavy as breasts in need of
this perfect fit whose label says Honduras.

Rhina P. Espaillat

First read and I already love it.

yah, I recently bought one of her books and I'm loving it. So much better than some of that crap you get in Poetry, and their online Foundation, Poems.com, etc..

[Truerenigma]

Ballade of Indignation

I'm driving through New Mexico, let's say,
facing the glories of the setting sun.
But just before I get to Santa Fe,
there you are, stranger, with your ganglion
sized brain and SUV that weighs a ton,
paying no mind to sunset's golden crown,
but nitter-nattering ninety-nine to one …
so would you kindly put your cell phone down?

I’m dining out, which is the perfect way
to make the brain cells sing in unison,
relaxing with my Merlot and filet,
when there you are with that damned cell phone on
your ear, discussing how some game's been won
and whether stocks are up or upside-down.
You’re sharing all your life with everyone,
so would you kindly put your cell phone down?

Haven't you noticed it's a lovely day?
The kind that makes you want to jump and run?
But even jogging, you can't throw away
that cell phone, can you? Why, you've just begun
to give your boss a sales plan that will stun
competitors and make your rivals drown.
Look out, you fool! You're running down a nun,
so would you kindly put your cell phone down?

L'Envoi

Friend, I'm no longer saying this for fun.
Road rage has made me rampage through the town.
I’m out of Prozac, and I have a gun.
So would you kindly put your cell phone down?

Gail White

[shemthepenman]

Juniper Suction
By Marc Bolan

There's a crawling sensation
An Astral vibration
That's sucking me into your sight
I can tell by your hair
In the juniper chair
And the piraty twist of your mouth
I've constructed your frame
In a plasticine game
And your eyes are the sweets of my youth
But I'm naked and bare in the ice of your stare
And I'm useless at telling the truth
So I hide with my head in the tent of the bed
And my body is sucked through your eyes
Then I quiver and shiver and start to deliver the goods
Then I vanish in size.

[shemthepenman]

ok , this isnt technically a poem (in the sense that it is a song lyric), but i think technically it is, so bite me...

The Curse of Millhaven by Nick Cave

I live in a town called millhaven
And it's small and it's mean and it's cold
But if you come around just as the sun goes down
You can watch the whole town turn to gold
It's around about then that I used to go a-roaming
Singing la la la la la la la lie
All god's children they all gotta die
My name is loretta but I prefer lottie
I'm closing in on my fifteenth year
And if you think you have seen a pair of eyes more green
Then you sure didn't see them around here
My hair is yellow and I'm always a-combing
La la la la la la la lie
Mama often told me we all got to die
You must have heard about the curse of millhaven
How last christmas bill blake's little boy didn't come
Home
They found him next week in one mile creek
His head bashed in and his pockets full of stones
Well, just imagine all the wailing and moaning
La la la la la la la lie
Even little billy blake's boy, he had to die
Then professor o'rye from millhaven high
Found nailed to his door his prize-winning terrier
Then next day the old fool brought little biko to school
And we all had to watch as he buried her
His eulogy to biko had all the tears a-flowing
La la la la la la la lie
Even god's little creatures, they have to die
Our little town fell into a state of shock
A lot of people were saying things that made little sense
Then the next thing you know the head of handyman joe
Was found in the fountain of the mayor's residence
Foul play can really get a small town going
La la la la la la la lie
Even god's children all have to die
Then, in a cruel twist of fate, old mrs colgate
Was stabbed but the job was not complete
The last thing she said before the cops pronounced her
Dead
Was, my killer is loretta and she lives across the
Street!
Twenty cops burst through my door without even phoning
La la la la la la la lie
The young ones, the old ones, they all gotta die
Yes, it is i, lottie. the curse of millhaven
I've struck horror in the heart of this town
Like my eyes ain't green and my hair ain't yellow
It's more like the other way around
I gotta pretty little mouth underneath all the foaming
La la la la la la la lie
Sooner or later we all gotta die
Since I was no bigger than a weavil they've been saying i
Was evil
That if bad was a boot that I'd fit it
That I'm a wicked young lady, but I've been trying hard
Lately
O fuck it! I'm a monster! I admit it!
It makes me so mad my blood really starts a-going
La la la la la la la lie
Mama always told me that we all gotta die
Yeah, I drowned the blakey kid, stabbed mrs. colgate, i
Admit
Did the handyman with his circular saw in his garden shed
But I never crucified little biko, that was two junior
High school psychos
Stinky bohoon and his friend with the pumpkin-sized head
I'll sing to the lot, now you got me going
La la la la la la la lie
All god's children have all gotta die
There were all the others, all our sisters and brothers
You assumed were accidents, best forgotten
Recall the children who broke through the ice on lake
Tahoo?
Everyone assumed the warning signs had
Followed them to the bottom
Well, they're underneath the house where I do quite a bit
Of stowing
La la la la la la la lie
Even twenty little children, they had to die
And the fire of '91 that razed the bella vista slum
There was the biggest shit-fight this country's ever seen
Insurance companies ruined, land lords getting sued
All cause of wee girl with a can of gasoline
Those flames really roared when the wind started blowing
La la la la la la la lie
Rich man, poor man, all got to die
Well I confessed to all these crimes and they put me on
Trial
I was laughing when they took me away
Off to the asylum in an old black mariah
It ain't home, but you know, it's fucking better than
Jail
It ain't such bad old place to have a home in
La la la la la la la lie
All god's children they all gotta die
Now I got shrinks that will not rest with their endless
Rorschach tests
I keep telling them they're out to get me
They ask me if I feel remorse and I answer, why of
Course!
There is so much more I could have done if they'd let
Me!
So it's rorschach and prozac and everything is groovy
Singing la la la la la la la lie
All god's children they all have to die
La la la la la la la lie
I'm happy as a lark and everything is fine
Singing la la la la la la la lie
Yeah, everything is groovy and everything is fine
Singing la la la la la la la lie
All god's children they gotta die

[shemthepenman]

a sad donkey
and a fat man smiling - by billy childish

speaking as a man who doesnt eat cheese
and who paddled into 2nd place in the
kent schools under-18s slalom 1975
(three entrants only)

speaking as a man with twelve fillings
four verucas
and one o’level (art grade A) walderslade secondary
school for boys 1976

speaking as an artist of dubious merit
and the writer of lewd verses

speaking as a man who caught paul wellers plectrum
thrown into the audience at Battersea town hall
jubilee week 1977 (support group the boys)

speaking as a man who carved the reclining admiral
and van gogh without a moustache
apprentice stone manson
her majestys dockyard chatham 1976

speaking as a man who wore second hand shoes
up until he was 33

speaking as a man who tried to run down johnny rotten
on the pavement outside the roebuck public house kings rd
london 1978 (drunk in charge of a push bike)

speaking as a man with eyes the shape of little fishies
the hands of my father and somebody elses legs
i see that truth only comes staggering up the mountain side
like a sad donky teetering under the weight of a fat man smiling

[ellajam]

First read, still grinning, thanks for posting it..

(The other one was interesting too. )

a sad donkey
and a fat man smiling - by billy childish

speaking as a man who doesnt eat cheese
and who paddled into 2nd place in the
kent schools under-18s slalom 1975
(three entrants only)

speaking as a man with twelve fillings
four verucas
and one o’level (art grade A) walderslade secondary
school for boys 1976

speaking as an artist of dubious merit
and the writer of lewd verses

speaking as a man who caught paul wellers plectrum
thrown into the audience at Battersea town hall
jubilee week 1977 (support group the boys)

speaking as a man who carved the reclining admiral
and van gogh without a moustache
apprentice stone manson
her majestys dockyard chatham 1976

speaking as a man who wore second hand shoes
up until he was 33

speaking as a man who tried to run down johnny rotten
on the pavement outside the roebuck public house kings rd
london 1978 (drunk in charge of a push bike)

speaking as a man with eyes the shape of little fishies
the hands of my father and somebody elses legs
i see that truth only comes staggering up the mountain side
like a sad donky teetering under the weight of a fat man smiling

[newsclippings]

Everyone starts somewhere:

[ChristopherSea]

Everyone starts somewhere:

Now that looks like a poem written by someone with the moniker 'Billy Childish'!

[newsclippings]

Came across this spoken word 'slam poetry' last night and thought it was wonderful
http://vimeo.com/10167703

'The Fisherman by Anis Mojgani

I love Anis Mojgani. I had the pleasure of chatting with him through email once. :]

---

Everyone starts somewhere:

Now that looks like a poem written by someone with the moniker 'Billy Childish'!

Chuck Palahniuk circa 5th grade. He's a famous writer now. But the poetry kills me. I love it.