1. Standard memberGrampy Bobby
    Boston Lad
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    43012
    08 Jan '13 07:251 edit
    Poetry You Still Like

    Musee des Beaux Arts


    About suffering they were never wrong,
    The old Masters: how well they understood
    Its human position: how it takes place
    While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
    How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
    For the miraculous birth, there always must be
    Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
    On a pond at the edge of the wood:
    They never forgot
    That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
    Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
    Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
    Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.


    In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
    Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
    Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
    But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
    As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
    Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
    Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
    Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

    (W. H. Auden)
    .
  2. Standard memberGrampy Bobby
    Boston Lad
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    08 Jan '13 07:282 edits
    Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

    According to Brueghel
    when Icarus fell
    it was spring

    a farmer was ploughing
    his field
    the whole pageantry

    of the year was
    awake tingling
    with itself

    sweating in the sun
    that melted
    the wings' wax

    unsignificantly
    off the coast
    there was

    a splash quite unnoticed
    this was
    Icarus drowning

    (William Carlos Williams)
    .
  3. Standard memberHandyAndy
    Read a book!
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    08 Jan '13 12:13
    Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
    a splash quite unnoticed
    this was
    Icarus drowning
    Do you identify with Icarus, Bobby?
  4. Account suspended
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    08 Jan '13 14:002 edits
    brilliant a poetry thread, i love this poem, from the Irish,

    Tá Mé 'mo Shuí (I Am Awake)

    I am up since the moon arose last night
    Putting down a fire again and again and keeping it lit
    The family is in bed and here am I by myself
    The cocks are crowing and the country is asleep but me.
    I love your mouth, your eyebrows and your cheeks
    Your bright blue eyes for whose sake I gave up contentment
    In longing for you I cannot see to walk the road
    Friend of my bosom, the mountains lie between me and you.
    Learned men say that love is a fatal sickness
    I never admitted it until now that my heart is broken
    It’s a very painful illness, alas, I have not avoided it
    And it sends a hundred arrows through the core of my heart.
    I met a fairy woman in the hollow of Béal an Átha
    I asked her would any key unlock the love in my heart
    And she said in soft, simple language
    “When love enters the heart it will never be driven from it.”

    YouTube

    you cannot reach me people, i am already torn and out there!
  5. Joined
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    08 Jan '13 17:45
    Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
    [b]Poetry You Still Like

    Musee des Beaux Arts


    About suffering they were never wrong,
    The old Masters: how well they understood
    Its human position: how it takes place
    While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
    How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
    For the miraculous birth, there always ...[text shortened]... y falling out of the sky,
    Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

    (W. H. Auden)
    .[/b]
    Just about any part of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Edward FitzGerald's Translation. It's in AABA Rhyme scheme.

    Here is a verse that speaks to me about some of the RHP forums:

    "Myself when young did eagerly frequent
    Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
    About it and about: but evermore
    Came out by the same Door as in I went."
  6. Standard memberChessPraxis
    Cowboy From Hell
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    08 Jan '13 17:54
    Originally posted by JS357
    Just about any part of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Edward FitzGerald's Translation. It's in AABA Rhyme scheme.

    Here is a verse that speaks to me about some of the RHP forums:

    "Myself when young did eagerly frequent
    Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
    About it and about: but evermore
    Came out by the same Door as in I went."
    Here's something nice done in an ABBA rhyme.

    YouTube
  7. Subscriberrookie54
    free tazer tickles..
    wildly content...
    Joined
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    08 Jan '13 18:00
    Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
    [b]Poetry You Still Like

    Musee des Beaux Arts


    About suffering they were never wrong,
    The old Masters: how well they understood
    Its human position: how it takes place
    While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
    How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
    For the miraculous birth, there always ...[text shortened]... y falling out of the sky,
    Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

    (W. H. Auden)
    .[/b]
    i like pottery...

    this thread might be better suited in the culture forum...
  8. Dublin Ireland
    Joined
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    08 Jan '13 19:17
    Originally posted by rookie54
    i like pottery...

    this thread might be better suited in the culture forum...
    That's rich coming from you
    with all your crazy rhymes!!


    LOL,

    😲
  9. Standard memberGrampy Bobby
    Boston Lad
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    08 Jan '13 19:30
    Introduction To Poetry

    I ask them to take a poem
    and hold it up to the light
    like a color slide

    or press an ear against its hive.

    I say drop a mouse into a poem
    and watch him probe his way out,

    or walk inside the poem's room
    and feel the walls for a light switch.

    I want them to waterski
    across the surface of a poem
    waving at the author's name on the shore.

    But all they want to do
    is tie the poem to a chair with rope
    and torture a confession out of it.

    They begin beating it with a hose
    to find out what it really means.

    (Billy Collins)
  10. Standard memberHandyAndy
    Read a book!
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    08 Jan '13 19:41
    Originally posted by rookie54
    this thread might be better suited in the culture forum...
    Suited for the culture forum
    That lofty shrine of rare decorum
    Edifying sanctum sanctorum
    For all who know what's good for 'em
  11. Dublin Ireland
    Joined
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    08 Jan '13 20:05
    Originally posted by HandyAndy
    Suited for the culture forum
    That lofty shrine of rare decorum
    Edifying sanctum sanctorum
    For all who know what's good for 'em
    Pretty impressive Andy.
  12. Standard memberGrampy Bobby
    Boston Lad
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    08 Jan '13 21:111 edit
    I'm Nobody! Who are you?

    I'm Nobody! Who are you?
    Are you – Nobody – too?
    Then there's a pair of us!
    Don't tell! They'd banish us – you know!

    How dreary – to be – Somebody!
    How public – like a Frog –
    To tell one's name – the livelong June –
    To an admiring Bog!

    (Emily Dickinson)
  13. Standard memberChessPraxis
    Cowboy From Hell
    American West
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    09 Jan '13 02:18
    A Cowboy's Hat
    Author: Baxter Black

    The rules of the range are simple at best
    Should you venture in that habitat.
    Don't cuss a man's dog, be good to the cook
    And don't mess with a cowboy's hat.

    Now I'll admit there's dogs that need cussin'
    And when Cookie starts out in the spring
    His grub ain't fit for buzzard consumption
    But a hat? That's a personal thing!

    Sometimes it's all that a cowboy owns
    Or, at least, that he owns free and clear
    So when someone suggests that he check it
    He'll prob'ly act like he didn't hear

    'Cause he'd no more think of leavin' his hat
    Than he'd consider crossin' a pard.
    Id be like a zebra leavin' his stripes
    Or a lawyer forgettin' his card!

    In a dance hall, a court room or cafe
    If asked, he'll stick it under his chair
    Or decide to himself if hats ain't welcome
    Then just maybe he shouldn't be there.

    He subscribes to a loose code of conduct
    That's unwritten but here's how it's said,
    "There's only one place that a hat belongs
    And that's settin' on top of yer head!"

    If you're givin' some thought to my comments
    You'd expect and exception whereat
    A place exists that's propitiously sound
    For a cowboy to take off his hat.

    If you're thinkin' a wedding, forget it!
    That's half a hitch a cowboy can't tie
    And if your final guess is a funeral,
    I can tellya friend, they never die!

    So a word to the wise is sufficient
    And I guess I should leave it at that.
    Suffice it to say, you can bum his last chew
    But don't mess with a cowboy's hat!
    Repeat after me

    Don't mess with a cowboy's hat!
  14. Joined
    29 Dec '08
    Moves
    6788
    09 Jan '13 02:33
    Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
    [b]Poetry You Still Like

    Musee des Beaux Arts


    About suffering they were never wrong,
    The old Masters: how well they understood
    Its human position: how it takes place
    While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
    How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
    For the miraculous birth, there always ...[text shortened]... y falling out of the sky,
    Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

    (W. H. Auden)
    .[/b]
    Here's my own, that I posted to the Spirituality forum in reply to Bosse de Nage:

    A cut and paste:

    26 Mar '12 18:34
    Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
    a) Is there a rational basis for the belief that God exists?

    b) Is belief-in-the-existence-of-God synonymous with having faith / being faithful?


    An ode to this forum

    Your post, I dread,
    Like many a thread,
    Will soon coalesce
    Into a mess
    Where some will wallow,
    And others will follow,
    Along the same lines,
    In spite of the signs.
    There are just a few memes,
    Maybe ten themes,
    That make up the mire.
    There are warnings so dire,
    Of brimstone and fire.
    For mistaken readings,
    Are promised beatings.
    For wrongful belief,
    There will be no relief.
    The purveyors of truth,
    Will act less than couth,
    And demanders of proof,
    Will stand all aloof.
    While the few lurkers,
    Go slowly berserkers,
    And the rest of the forum?
    We really borum.
  15. Standard memberGrampy Bobby
    Boston Lad
    USA
    Joined
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    Moves
    43012
    09 Jan '13 07:081 edit
    The Secret

    Two girls discover
    the secret of life
    in a sudden line of
    poetry.

    I who don't know the
    secret wrote
    the line. They
    told me

    (through a third person)
    they had found it
    but not what it was
    not even

    what line it was. No doubt
    by now, more than a week
    later, they have forgotten
    the secret,

    the line, the name of
    the poem. I love them
    for finding what
    I can't find,

    and for loving me
    for the line I wrote,
    and for forgetting it
    so that

    a thousand times, till death
    finds them, they may
    discover it again, in other
    lines

    in other
    happenings. And for
    wanting to know it,
    for

    assuming there is
    such a secret, yes,
    for that
    most of all.

    (Denise Levertov)
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