# Short poems that aren't grim, please



## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2015)

Not necessarily happy ones, but non-depressing ones. But not ones that are saccharine enough to be found in a Hallmark card.
They have to be short enough to fit on the back of a postcard.
Like this one by Marianne Moore:

*A Jelly-Fish*
Visible, invisible,
a fluctuating charm
an amber-tinctured amethyst
inhabits it, your arm
approaches and it opens
and it closes; you had meant
to catch it and it quivers;
you abandon your intent

Let's have your suggestions, if you please.


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## ShiftyBagLady (Mar 12, 2015)

How about all imagist poetry ever *lit joke*


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## cesare (Mar 12, 2015)

Walter De La Mare - Silver
John Gillespie Magee - High Flight
John Masefield - Cargoes
Yeats - He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven
Leigh Hunt - Jenny Kissed Me


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## Santino (Mar 12, 2015)

Westron wind, when will thou blow?
The small rain down can rain.
Christ, if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again.


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## harpo (Mar 12, 2015)

I eat my peas with honey
I've done it all my life.
It makes the peas taste funny
But it keeps them on the knife.

Ogden Nash


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## Santino (Mar 12, 2015)

The Eagle

The clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls,
And like a thunderbolt he falls.

Tennyson


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## Santino (Mar 12, 2015)

Santino said:


> I always remember your beautiful flowers
> And the beautiful kimono you wore
> When you sat on the couch
> With that tigerish crouch
> ...


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## Greebo (Mar 12, 2015)

The Frog

What a wonderful bird the frog are! 
When he stands he sit almost; 
When he hop he fly almost. 
He ain't got no sense hardly; 
He ain't got no tail hardly either. 
When he sit, he sits on what he ain't got almost.

Unknown


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## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2015)

harpo said:


> I eat my peas with honey
> I've done it all my life.
> It makes the peas taste funny
> But it keeps them on the knife.
> ...


Thanks for reminding me of that one. My mum used to recite it all the time. That's going in the Mothers' Day card.


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## Brechin Sprout (Mar 12, 2015)

Are there any shorter than this one? By Dave Bishop, Lord Biro of Church of the Militant ElvIs.

*Ode to a Beautiful Princess*

Fucking Di!


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## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2015)

cesare said:


> Walter De La Mare - Silver
> John Gillespie Magee - High Flight
> John Masefield - Cargoes
> Yeats - He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven
> Leigh Hunt - Jenny Kissed Me


It'd be nice to see them up here.


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## Santino (Mar 12, 2015)

Brechin Sprout said:


> Are there any shorter than this one? By Dave Bishop, Lord Biro of Church of the Militant ElvIs.
> 
> *Ode to a Beautiful Princess*
> 
> Fucking Di!


*
On Going to Meet a Zen Master in the Kyushu Mountains and Not Finding Him*













		.


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## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2015)

Brechin Sprout said:


> Are there any shorter than this one? By Dave Bishop, Lord Biro of Church of the Militant ElvIs.
> 
> *Ode to a Beautiful Princess*
> 
> Fucking Di!


Yes, there is this one by Don Paterson:

*On Going to Meet a Zen Master in the Kyushu Mountains and Not Finding Him








*


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## cesare (Mar 12, 2015)

*Silver *


Slowly, silently, now the moon

Walks the night in her silver shoon;

This way, and that, she peers, and sees

Silver fruit upon silver trees;

One by one the casements catch

Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;

Couched in his kennel, like a log,

With paws of silver sleeps the dog;

From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep

Of doves in a silver-feathered sleep;

A harvest mouse goes scampering by,

With silver claws and a silver eye;

And moveless fish in the water gleam,

By silver reeds in a silver stream.



_Walter de la Mare_


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## Greebo (Mar 12, 2015)

The Masks of Love

I come in from a walk
With you
And they ask me
If it is raining.

I didn’t notice
But I’ll have to give them 
The right answer
Or they’ll think I’m crazy. 

Aldan Nowlan


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## Greebo (Mar 12, 2015)

The Kiss I Miss

That kiss, that kiss
That childlike kiss
That pecky on the cheek kiss
That I am here kiss
That who the hell cares kiss
That kiss, that kiss I miss 

David Keig


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## cesare (Mar 12, 2015)

High Flight 

Oh, I have slipped the surly bonds of earth, 
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings; 
Sunward I've climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds - 
and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of - 
wheeled and soared and swung high in the sunlit silence. 
Hovering there I've chased the shouting wind along 
and flung my eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious burning blue 
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace, 
where never lark, or even eagle, flew; 
and, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod 
the high untrespassed sanctity of space, 
put out my hand and touched the face of God.

_John Gillespie Magee, Jnr_


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## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2015)

Or Edwin Morgan's Siesta Of A Hungarian Snake:

s sz sz SZ sz SZ sz ZS zs ZS zs zs z


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## cesare (Mar 12, 2015)

Cargoes

Quinquireme of Nineveh from distant Ophir,
Rowing home to haven in sunny Palestine,
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood, cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amythysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon, and gold moidores.

Dirty British coaster with a salt-caked smoke stack,
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rails, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

_John Masefield_


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## cesare (Mar 12, 2015)

He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven

Had I the heavens' embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
The blue and the dim and the dark cloths
Of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

_W.B.Yeats_


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## Santino (Mar 12, 2015)

Madam,
I'm Adam.


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## cesare (Mar 12, 2015)

Jenny Kissed Me

Jenny kissed me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I'm weary, say I'm sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I'm growing old, but add,
Jenny kissed me.

_James Henry Leigh Hunt_


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## Santino (Mar 12, 2015)

Celia, Celia

by Adrian Mitchell

When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along the High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on





Especially good for Mother's Day, this one.


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## jjuice (Mar 12, 2015)

You and I -   Roger Mcgough

I explain quietly. You
hear me shouting. You
try a new tack. I
feel old wounds reopen.

You see both sides. I
see your blinkers. I
am placatory. You
sense a new selfishness.

I am a dove. You
recognize the hawk. You
offer an olive branch. I
feel the thorns.

You bleed. I
see crocodile tears. I
withdraw. You
reel from the impact.


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## Kaka Tim (Mar 12, 2015)

"Mr Pratt, your sheep are very fat, 
And we thank you for that ; 
We have left you the skins to pay your wife's pins,
And you must thank us for that."

Ditty addressed to a wealthy landowner, written on a sheepskin by Norfolk rebels - 1549.


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## fishfinger (Mar 12, 2015)

There are holes in the sky
Where the rain gets in
But they're ever so small
That's why the rain is thin.

Spike Milligan


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## Greebo (Mar 12, 2015)

Auntie Mary bought a canary
from the butcher's boy
and she hung it in the dairy
where it was her joy.
But the birdie widnae whistle
and she wondered why -
until she saw the sparrow feathers
coming through the dye.

Unknown


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## Treacle Toes (Mar 12, 2015)

I'd like to be a firefly
as a firefly is never glum
How can one be miserable
with light shining out of your bum.


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## toblerone3 (Mar 12, 2015)

Whirl up, sea—
 Whirl your pointed pines.
 Splash your great pines
 On our rocks.
 Hurl your green over us—
 Cover us with your pools of fir.

This poem is written by Hilda Doolittle.


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 12, 2015)

Soldier Freddy
was never ready,
But! Soldier Neddy,
unlike Freddy
Was always ready
and steady,

That's why,
When Soldier Neddy
Is-outside-Buckingham-Palace-on-guard-in -the-pouring-wind-and-rain-being-steady-and-ready ,
Freddy
is home in beddy. 

*Spike Milligan*


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## JimW (Mar 12, 2015)

Sorley MacLean, from _Dain Do Eimhir, _no. LIV:


> You were dawn on the Cuillin and benign day on the Clarach ,
> the sun on his elbows in the golden stream and the white rose
> that breaks the horizon.
> 
> ...


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## Greebo (Mar 12, 2015)

Sardine Submarine

A baby sardine saw his first submarine,
He was scared so looked through a peephole.
“Oh come, come, come”, said the sardine’s mum,
“It’s only a tin full of people”!

Spike Milligan


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## JimW (Mar 12, 2015)

RS Thomas, _No Time_


She left me. What voice
colder than the wind
out of the grave said: 'It is over'? Impalpable,
invisible, she comes
to me still, as she would
do, and I at my reading.
There is a tremor
of light, as of a bird crossing
the sun's path, and I look
up in recognition
of a presence in absence.
Not a word, not a sound,
as she goes her way,
but a scent lingering
which is that of time immolating
itself in love's fire


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 12, 2015)

Greebo said:


> Sardine Submarine
> 
> A baby sardine saw his first submarine,
> He was scared so looked through a peephole.
> ...


Love it love it love it!!


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## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2015)

Orang Utan said:


> Yes, there is this one by Don Paterson:
> 
> *On Going to Meet a Zen Master in the Kyushu Mountains and Not Finding Him
> 
> ...





Santino said:


> *On Going to Meet a Zen Master in the Kyushu Mountains and Not Finding Him*
> 
> 
> 
> ...


i see you prefer the longer version


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 12, 2015)

On the Ning Nang Nong 
Where the Cows go Bong! 
and the monkeys all say BOO! 
There's a Nong Nang Ning 
Where the trees go Ping! 
And the tea pots jibber jabber joo. 
On the Nong Ning Nang 
All the mice go Clang 
And you just can't catch 'em when they do! 
So its Ning Nang Nong 
Cows go Bong! 
Nong Nang Ning 
Trees go ping 
Nong Ning Nang 
The mice go Clang 
What a noisy place to belong 
is the Ning Nang Ning Nang Nong!!

*Mr Spike Milligan *


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## Greebo (Mar 12, 2015)

Inventory:

Four be the things I am wiser to know:
Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
Four be the things I'd been better without:
Love, curiosity, freckles, and doubt.
Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.
Three be the things I shall have till I die:
Laughter and hope and a sock in the eye. 

Dorothy Parker


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 12, 2015)

Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!
Up above the world you fly,
Like a tea tray in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
How I wonder what you're at!

*Lewis Carroll*


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 12, 2015)

Greebo said:


> Inventory:
> 
> Four be the things I am wiser to know:
> Idleness, sorrow, a friend, and a foe.
> ...


Marvellous!!

I counter you with....

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
after four I'm under my host.

Also Dorothy Parker


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## Greebo (Mar 12, 2015)

THE HIPPOPOTAMUS

I shoot the Hippopotamus
	  with bullets made of platinum,
Because if I use leaden ones
	  his hide is sure to flatten 'em.

Hilaire Belloc


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## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2015)

more Spike:

The Lion

If you're attacked by a Lion
Find fresh underpants to try on
Lay on the ground quite still
Pretend you are very ill
Keep like that day after day
Perhaps the lion will go away


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 12, 2015)

Greebo said:


> THE HIPPOPOTAMUS
> 
> I shoot the Hippopotamus
> with bullets made of platinum,
> ...


There is a lovely rhythm to that.


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 12, 2015)

Orang Utan said:


> more Spike:
> 
> The Lion
> 
> ...


I wish I could double "like" that


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## Greebo (Mar 12, 2015)

A Pig's-Eye View of Literature

The Lives and Times of John Keats,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, and
George Gordon Noel, Lord Byron

Byron and Shelley and Keats
Were a trio of Lyrical treats.
The forehead of Shelley was cluttered with curls,
And Keats never was a descendant of earls,
And Byron walked out with a number of girls,
But it didn't impair the poetical feats
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley,
Of Byron and Shelley and Keats. 

Dorothy Parker


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 12, 2015)

I've run out now.
Jabberwocky is my next thought but it's not short!


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## Greebo (Mar 12, 2015)

Mrs Miggins said:


> There is a lovely rhythm to that.


Similar to some of the ones by Ogden Nash.


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 12, 2015)

Greebo said:


> A Pig's-Eye View of Literature
> 
> The Lives and Times of John Keats,
> Percy Bysshe Shelley, and
> ...


Great rhythm there too!


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 12, 2015)

Greebo said:


> Similar to some of the ones by Ogden Nash.


must look into that.


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## Greebo (Mar 12, 2015)

For blacker humour, I'd suggest any of the Ruthless Rhymes by Harry Graham (findable on the net).  eg
Tender-Heartedness

Billy, in one of his nice new sashes,
Fell in the fire and was burnt to ashes;
Now, although the room grows chilly,
I haven’t the heart to poke poor Billy.


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 12, 2015)

That's actually made me LOL!


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## Orang Utan (Mar 12, 2015)

I've been reading Emily Dickinson a bit. She's brilliant.


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## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

(Poem #1111) The Common Cormorant

 The common cormorant (or shag)
 Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
 You follow the idea, no doubt?
 It's to keep the lightning out.

 But what these unobservant birds
 Have never thought of, is that herds
 Of wandering bears might come with buns
 And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

Christopher Isherwood


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## Rebelda (Mar 13, 2015)

*First Sight
*
Lambs that learn to walk in snow
When their bleating clouds the air
Meet a vast unwelcome, know
Nothing but a sunless glare.
Newly stumbling to and fro
All they find, outside the fold,
Is a wretched width of cold.

As they wait beside the ewe,
Her fleeces wetly caked, there lies
Hidden round them, waiting too,
Earth's immeasurable surprise.
They could not grasp it if they knew,
What so soon will wake and grow
Utterly unlike the snow.

Philip Larkin


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 13, 2015)

_Speak roughly to your little boy
and beat him when he sneezes
he only does it to annoy
because he knows it teases.
I speak severely to my boy
I beat him when he sneezes
for he can thoroughly enjoy
the pepper when he pleases_

*Lewis Carroll*
(it is a bit grim so not sure whether it qualifies!)


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## Mrs Miggins (Mar 13, 2015)

Greebo said:


> (Poem #1111) The Common Cormorant
> 
> The common cormorant (or shag)
> Lays eggs inside a paper bag,
> ...


that's great! I love the image of wandering bears with buns and crumbs


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## fishfinger (Mar 13, 2015)

The Elephant

When people call this beast to mind,
They marvel more and more
At such a little tail behind,
So large a trunk before.

Hilaire Belloc


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## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

Mrs Miggins said:


> that's great! I love the image of wandering bears with buns and crumbs


Not high art, but such vivid imagery and not a word too many.


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## fishfinger (Mar 13, 2015)

The Bison

The Bison is vain, and (I write it with pain)
The Door-mat you see on his head
Is not, as some learned professors maintain,
The opulent growth of a genius’ brain;
But is sewn on with needle and thread.

Hilaire Belloc


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## wtfftw (Mar 13, 2015)

Plenty of Wendy Cope.


“On Waterloo Bridge where we said our goodbyes,
the weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I've fallen in love

On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:
This is nothing. you're high on the charm and the drink.
But the juke-box inside me is playing a song
That says something different. And when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair
I am tempted to skip. You're a fool. I don't care.
the head does its best but the heart is the boss-
I admit it before I am halfway across” 
― Wendy Cope, Serious Concerns


“The day he moved out was terrible – 
That evening she went through hell.
His absence wasn’t a problem
But the corkscrew had gone as well.” 
― Wendy Cope, Serious Concerns


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## quimcunx (Mar 13, 2015)

My nose, my nose, lived dangerously
It's courage was no stunt 
And during the war in Germany 
It was always out in front

But when the war was o'er
And we'd defeated the Hun
Suddenly for no reason at all 
My nose began to run. 

Spike Milligan

tiny little puppy dog
sleeping soundly as a log
better wake him for his dinner
or else he'll start to sleep much thinner 

 also spike

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach(to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

ee cummings


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## Red Cat (Mar 13, 2015)

Snow flakes fall from the sky
I cry when it lands on me
I try to dry it in the tumble dryer
Snow flakes are cold
The snowy winter is old
Lakes are full of snow flakes
Roses push up from the snow

My 7 year old who didn't win the key stage 1 poetry competition yesterday but as her mum obviously I think it's lovely.


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## Opera Buffa (Mar 13, 2015)

I do love a dry Martini
But I only have three at the most
After four I'm under the table
And with five I'm under the host


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## BigMoaner (Mar 13, 2015)

And did you get what you wanted, even so?
I did.
And what was it you wanted?
To call myself beloved,
To feel myself beloved on this earth.

-Raymond Carver, one of his last, apparently, before he died.


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## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

We caught the tread of dancing feet,
We loitered down the moonlit street,
And stopped beneath the harlot's house.

Inside, above the din and fray,
We heard the loud musicians play
The 'Treues Liebes Herz' of Strauss.

Like strange mechanical grotesques,
Making fantastic arabesques,
The shadows raced across the blind.

We watched the ghostly dancers spin
To sound of horn and violin,
Like black leaves wheeling in the wind.

Like wire-pulled automatons,
Slim silhouetted skeletons
Went sidling through the slow quadrille,

Then took each other by the hand,
And danced a stately saraband;
Their laughter echoed thin and shrill.

Sometimes a clockwork puppet pressed
A phantom lover to her breast,
Sometimes they seemed to try to sing.

Sometimes a horrible marionette
Came out, and smoked its cigarette
Upon the steps like a live thing.

Then, turning to my love, I said,
'The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust.'

But she--she heard the violin,
And left my side, and entered in:
Love passed into the house of lust.

Then suddenly the tune went false,
The dancers wearied of the waltz,
The shadows ceased to wheel and whirl.

And down the long and silent street,
The dawn, with silver-sandalled feet,
Crept like a frightened girl.


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## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

*Villanelle of His Lady’s Treasures*
I took her dainty eyes, as well
  As silken tendrils of her hair:
And so I made a Villanelle!  

I took her voice, a silver bell,
  As clear as song, as soft as prayer;
I took her dainty eyes as well.  

It may be, said I, who can tell,
  These things shall be my less despair?
And so I made a Villanelle!  

I took her whiteness virginal
  And from her cheek two roses rare:
I took her dainty eyes as well.  

I said: “It may be possible
  Her image from my heart to tear!”
And so I made a Villanelle.  

I stole her laugh, most musical:
  I wrought it in with artful care;
I took her dainty eyes as well;
And so I made a Villanelle.


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## BigMoaner (Mar 13, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> We caught the tread of dancing feet,
> We loitered down the moonlit street,
> And stopped beneath the harlot's house.
> 
> ...


load of shit, get it off


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## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

BigMoaner said:


> load of shit, get it off


not a fan of oscar wilde then i see


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## BigMoaner (Mar 13, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> not a fan of oscar wilde then i see


talk to the hand. load of shite.


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## Opera Buffa (Mar 13, 2015)

If with the literate I am
Impelled to try an epigram,
I never seek to take the credit;
We all assume that Oscar said it

- Dorothy Parker


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## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

BigMoaner said:


> talk to the hand. load of shite.


because...


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## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> *Villanelle of His Lady’s Treasures*
> I took her dainty eyes, as well
> As silken tendrils of her hair:
> And so I made a Villanelle!
> <snip>


This and your other suggestion (both of which are IMHO enjoyable) would have to be split between a few postcards, unless OU's handwriting is tiny.


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## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

BigMoaner said:


> talk to the hand. load of shite.


Let's see you write better, or come up with better, then.  I'd have suggested MacCavity, but it's too long.


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## BigMoaner (Mar 13, 2015)

Greebo said:


> Let's see you write better, or come up with better, then.


no.


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## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> We caught the tread of dancing feet,
> We loitered down the moonlit street,
> And stopped beneath the harlot's house.
> 
> ...


I couldn't fit that on a postcard!


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## BigMoaner (Mar 13, 2015)

there was a man with a big willy
and his friends called him billly
and he done a massive shit
on the pavement.


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## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

Orang Utan said:


> I couldn't fit that on a postcard!


i can.

get a bigger postcard. or write smaller.

next.


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## BigMoaner (Mar 13, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> because...


too long. needs to shorten it for the digitalz agez.


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## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

BigMoaner said:


> no.


Come on, be a mensch; this is for somebody who's fed up, feeling isolated, and would be climbing the walls if only their body would let them do it.


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## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2015)

BigMoaner said:


> load of shit, get it off


This is not the thread for this.


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## Opera Buffa (Mar 13, 2015)

BigMoaner said:


> there was a man with a big willy
> and his friends called him billly
> and he done a massive shit
> on the pavement.




Avant-garde.


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## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

The Bar By The Side Of The Road

There are liquorless souls that follow paths
Where whiskey never ran-
Let me live in a bar by the side of the road
And drink form the old beer can.

Let me live in the bar by the side of the road,
When the race of man goes dry,
The men who are "drys" and the men who are "wets,"
(But none who are so "wet" as I.)

I see from my bar by the side of the road,
A land with a drouth accurst;
And men who press on with the ardour of beer,
And men who are faint with thrist.

I know there are bars in Old Mexico,
And schooners of glorious height,
That the booze splashes on through the
long afternoon,
And floods through the gutters of night.

But still I take gin when the travellers take gin
And Scotch with the whiskey man
Nor ever refuse a thirsty soul
A swig from my old beer can.

For why should I praise Prohibition's restraints,
Or love the revenue man?
Let me live in a bar by the side of the road
And drink from the old beer can!


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## Opera Buffa (Mar 13, 2015)

I read Pickmans Models poems
I find them awfully long
The only way I can show him
Is to get some apostrophe's wrong


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## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2015)

These are too long, Pickman's!


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## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

A few by Pam Ayres, another one who's good at short and sweet, but never saccharine:

I am a Witney blanket,
Original and best.
You'll never get cold feet,
With me across your chest.
.................................
I am a dry stone waller,
All day I dry stone wall.
Of all appalling callings,
Dry stone walling's
Worst of all.
...............................
My mother had a Flit gun,
'T was not devoid of charm.
A bit of Flit
shot out of it,
The rest shot up her arm.
...................................
Driving in London's a pleasure,
I prize it above any other.
With fingers of steel,
One hand grips the wheel
And the A to Z's clenched in the other.


----------



## Opera Buffa (Mar 13, 2015)

I am sister to the rain;
Fey and sudden and unholy,
Petulant at the windowpane,
Quickly lost, remembered slowly.


-Dottie Parker again


----------



## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

Opera Buffa said:


> <snip>
> -Dottie Parker again


Shes's another one who wrote plenty of short stuff.


----------



## Rebelda (Mar 13, 2015)

Not a poem, but possibly the greatest words ever written (imo).

Be not afeared; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments 
Will hum about mine ears; and sometimes voices,
That if I had waked after long sleep,
Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,
The clouds methought would open, and show riches
Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked
I cried to dream again.

Caliban, _The Tempest_, III. 2. 127-135.


----------



## Brechin Sprout (Mar 13, 2015)

John Cooper Clarke's Haiku:

Writing a poem
In seventeen syllables
Is very diffic


----------



## 8115 (Mar 13, 2015)

Too lazy to look for one for you.

http://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poetry/tags

also

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michaelangelo

Excerpt from Eliots "The love song of J. Alfred Prufock".

And

*Had I not been awake bu Seamus Heaney*

HAD I NOT BEEN AWAKE I WOULD HAVE MISSED IT,
A WIND THAT ROSE AND WHIRLED UNTIL THE ROOF
PATTERED WITH QUICK LEAVES OFF THE SYCAMORE

AND GOT ME UP, THE WHOLE OF ME A-PATTER,
ALIVE AND TICKING LIKE AN ELECTRIC FENCE:
HAD I NOT BEEN AWAKE I WOULD HAVE MISSED IT,

IT CAME AND WENT SO UNEXPECTEDLY
AND ALMOST IT SEEMED DANGEROUSLY,
RETURNING LIKE AN ANIMAL TO THE HOUSE,

A COURIER BLAST THAT THERE AND THEN
LASPED ORDINARY. BUT NOT EVER
AFTER. AND NOT NOW.


----------



## 8115 (Mar 13, 2015)

*There’s a certain Slant of light (258)*
Emily Dickinson, 1830 - 1886

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons – 
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes – 

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us – 
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are – 

None may teach it – Any – 
‘Tis the Seal Despair – 
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air – 

When it comes, the Landscape listens – 
Shadows – hold their breath – 
When it goes, ‘tis like the Distance
On the look of Death –


*The Brain—is wider than the Sky*
632

The Brain—is wider than the Sky—
For—put them side by side—
The one the other will contain
With ease—and You—beside—

The Brain is deeper than the sea—
For—hold them—Blue to Blue—
The one the other will absorb—
As Sponges—Buckets—do—

The Brain is just the weight of God—
For—Heft them—Pound for Pound—
And they will differ—if they do—
As Syllable from Sound—


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 13, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> The Bar By The Side Of The Road
> 
> There are liquorless souls that follow paths
> Where whiskey never ran-
> ...


bangs fist on table, too long FFS


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

BigMoaner said:


> bangs fist on table, too long FFS


you've the attention span of an amnesiac gnat.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

Opera Buffa said:


> I read Pickmans Models poems
> I find them awfully long
> The only way I can show him
> Is to get some apostrophe's wrong


opera buffa
is well known as a duffer


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 13, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> you've the attention span of an amnesiac gnat.


that gnat's a cunt


----------



## BigMoaner (Mar 13, 2015)

i started out on burgandy
but soon hit the harder stuff.

no one ever told me the game would get this rough.

i'm going back to new york city, i do believe i've had enough.

bob dylan.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 13, 2015)

Overheard on a Saltmarsh
Nymph,nymphwhat are your beads?
Green glass,goblin.Why do you stare at them?
Give them me.
No
Give them me.Give them me.
No.
Then I will howl all night in the reeds,
Lie in the mud and howl for them.
Goblin,why do you love them so?
They are better than stars or water,
Better than voices of winds that sing,
Better than any man's fair daughter,
Your green glass beads on a silver ring.
Hush,I stole them out of the moon.
Give me your beads.I want them.
No
I will howl in a deep lagoon
For your green glass beads,I love them so.
Give them me.Give them.
No.

Harold Munro


----------



## ElizabethofYork (Mar 13, 2015)

I am going to kill my husband, I have stuck all I can stick,
His constant criticising is getting on my wick.
He takes it all for granted, but tonight I can relax,
For the minute he complains, I shall whop him with the axe.


----------



## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

Wind, Wind ~

Wind, wind heather gypsy
Whistling in my tree
All the heart of me is tipsy
At the sound of thee
Sweet with scent of clover
Soft with breath of sea
Wind, wind, wayman lover,
Whistling in my tree.

unknown


----------



## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

ElizabethofYork said:


> I am going to kill my husband, I have stuck all I can stick, <snip>


Harry Graham?  It sounds like him.

Necessity

Late last night I slew my wife,
   Stretched her on the parquet flooring;
I was loath to take her life,
   But I had to stop her snoring.


----------



## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

Apppreciation

Auntie, did you feel no pain
   Falling from that apple tree?
Will you do it, please, again?
   ‘Cos my friend here didn’t see.

Harry Graham


----------



## ElizabethofYork (Mar 13, 2015)

Greebo said:


> Harry Graham?  It sounds like him.



No, Pam Ayres!


----------



## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

ElizabethofYork said:


> No, Pam Ayres!


I don't know why people think her stuff's twee etc - a lot of it's extremely gritty, but with a more humourous touch than Wendy Cope.


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 13, 2015)

Adlestrop

Yes,I remember Adlestrop-
The name,because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly.It was late June.

The steam hissed.Someone cleared his throat.
No-one left and no-one came
On the bare platform.What I saw
Was Adlestrop-only the name
And willows,willow herb,and grass,
And meadowsweet,and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky
And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by him,and round him,mistier,
Farther and farther,all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

Up above the streets and houses, rainbow climbing high,
Everyone can see it smiling over the sky.
Paint the whole world with a rainbow.

All along the streams and rivers, shining in the lakes,
See the colours of the rainbow as the morning breaks.
Paint the whole world with a rainbow.

Red, the colour of a sunrise, white clouds floating in a sky of blue,
Green for the rivers, Gold for the cornfields, the day is shining new.

Red, the colour of a sunset, grey shadows creep across the hills,
The sun is sinking, colours are fading, the fields are dark and still.

Take some green from a forest, blue from the sea,
Find the misty pot of gold, and mix them for a week.
Paint the whole world with a rainbow.

Red, the colour of a sunrise white clouds floating in a sky of blue,
Green for the rivers, gold for the cornfields, the day is shining new.


----------



## Santino (Mar 13, 2015)

Duncan2 said:


> Adlestrop
> 
> Yes,I remember Adlestrop-
> The name,because one afternoon
> ...


 
Not Adlestrop, no - besides, the name
hardly matters. Nor did I languish in June heat.
Simply, I stood, too early, on the empty platform,
and the wrong train came in slowly, surprised, stopped.
Directly facing me, from a window,
a very, very pretty girl leaned out.

When I, all instinct,
stared at her, she, all instinct, inclined her head away
as if she'd divined the much married life in me,
or as if she might spot, up platform,
some unlikely familiar.

For my part, under the clock, I continued
my scrutiny with unmitigated pleasure.
And she knew it, she certainly knew it, and would
not glance at me in the silence of not Adlestrop.

Only when the train heaved noisily, only
when it jolted, when it slid away, only then,
daring and secure, she smiled back at my smile,
and I, daring and secure, waved back at her waving.
And so it was, all the way down the hurrying platform
as the train gathered atrocious speed
towards Oxfordshire or Gloucestershire.

- Dannie Abse


----------



## Cloo (Mar 13, 2015)

> *The Orange*
> At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
> The size of it made us all laugh.
> I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
> ...


 
The subject matter of the next may seem dark, but it's more about wonder than anything else:



> A Dead Mole by Andrew Young.
> Strong-shouldered mole,
> That so much lived below the ground,
> Dug, fought and loved, hunted and fed,
> ...


----------



## Greebo (Mar 13, 2015)

There was a little sparrow
Flew all the way to Spain.
He carried out his mission
And then flew back again.
But halfway on his journey
He met a great big hawk,
Who pulled out all his feathers
And said "You blighter, walk!".

unknown


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2015)

ElizabethofYork said:


> I am going to kill my husband, I have stuck all I can stick,
> His constant criticising is getting on my wick.
> He takes it all for granted, but tonight I can relax,
> For the minute he complains, I shall whop him with the axe.


by who?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> Up above the streets and houses, rainbow climbing high,
> Everyone can see it smiling over the sky.
> Paint the whole world with a rainbow.
> 
> ...


nope, TOO LONG!


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2015)

Santino said:


> Not Adlestrop, no - besides, the name
> hardly matters. Nor did I languish in June heat.
> Simply, I stood, too early, on the empty platform,
> and the wrong train came in slowly, surprised, stopped.
> ...


you must have tiny handwriting


----------



## Santino (Mar 13, 2015)

Orang Utan said:


> you must have tiny handwriting


I was only posting it in response to Duncan.


----------



## Duncan2 (Mar 13, 2015)

Quite so and thanks.


----------



## A380 (Mar 13, 2015)

More Wendy Cope

If I went vegetarian
And didn't eat lambs for dinner,
I think I'd be a better person
And also thinner.

But the lamb is not endangered
And at least I can truthfully say
I have never, ever eaten a barn owl,
So perhaps I am OK.


----------



## A380 (Mar 13, 2015)

And more Wendy Cope

“Bloody men are like bloody buses —
You wait for about a year
And as soon as one approaches your stop
Two or three others appear.

You look at them flashing their indicators,
Offering you a ride.
You’re trying to read the destinations,
You haven’t much time to decide.

If you make a mistake, there is no turning back.
Jump off, and you’ll stand there and gaze
While the cars and the taxis and lorries go by
And the minutes, the hours, the days.”

(sorry, this is probably 'grim' isn't it?)


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

A380 said:


> More Wendy Cope
> 
> If I went vegetarian
> And didn't eat lambs for dinner,
> ...


you don't know what you're missing wendy cope


----------



## A380 (Mar 13, 2015)

Last Wendy Cope (for now, from me)

Two Cures for Love 

1. Don’t see him. Don’t phone or write a letter. 
2. The easy way: get to know him better.


----------



## A380 (Mar 13, 2015)

To Kipling:

When Earth's last picture is painted and the tubes are twisted and dried, 
When the oldest colours have faded, and the youngest critic has died, 
We shall rest, and, faith, we shall need it--lie down for an eon or two, 
Till the Master of All Good Workmen shall put us to work anew. 

And those that were good shall be happy: they shall sit in a golden chair; 
They shall splash at a ten-league canvas with brushes of comets' hair; 
They shall find real saints to draw from--Magdalene, Peter, and Paul; 
They shall work for an age at a sitting and never be tired at all! 

And only The Master shall praise us, and only The Master shall blame; 
And no one shall work for money, and no one shall work for fame, 
But each for the joy of the working, and each, in his separate star, 
Shall draw the Thing as he sees It for the God of Things as They Are!


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

Orang Utan 

you should do a series of 36 cards each featuring one sonnet from lovecraft's 'fungi from yuggoth' cycle


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

e.g.

*VII. Zaman’s Hill*

The great hill hung close over the old town,
A precipice against the main street’s end;
Green, tall, and wooded, looking darkly down
Upon the steeple at the highway bend.
Two hundred years the whispers had been heard
About what happened on the man-shunned slope—
Tales of an oddly mangled deer or bird,
Or of lost boys whose kin had ceased to hope.

One day the mail-man found no village there,
Nor were its folk or houses seen again;
People came out from Aylesbury to stare—
Yet they all told the mail-man it was plain
That he was mad for saying he had spied
The great hill’s gluttonous eyes, and jaws stretched wide.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2015)

you forget one crucial thing...


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

Orang Utan said:


> you forget one crucial thing...


you can't write?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> you can't write?


Lovecraft is a teeny weeny bit grim.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

Orang Utan said:


> Lovecraft is a teeny weeny bit grim.


tish.


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> bdumm tish.


----------



## Pickman's model (Mar 13, 2015)

[IMG]http://www.urban75.net/forums/data/avatars/l/3/3081.jpg?1426186312[/IMG]
why's it going to take you till july to think of a new tagline?


----------



## Orang Utan (Mar 13, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> why's it going to take you till july to think of a new tagline?


i haven't got time to think about until then.


----------



## JTG (Mar 13, 2015)

The Laughing Heart - Charles Bukowski

your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.


----------



## fishfinger (Mar 18, 2015)

I made myself a snowball - Shel Silverstein

I made myself a snowball,
as perfect as could be.
I thought I’d keep it as a pet,
and let it sleep with me.
I made it some pajamas
And a pillow for its head.
Then last night it ran away,
But first it wet the bed!


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 23, 2015)

More please.
She likes getting them, and her reading of books is slowing down as she loses concentration or falls asleep a lot


----------



## Ceej (Jun 23, 2015)

Shortest i know....

*On the Inevitable Decline Into Mediocrity of the Popular Musician Who Attains a Comfortable Middle Age
BY DAVID MUSGRAVE*

O Sting...where is they death?


..and for those if us who ever made a poor decision...excellent use of the comma too!

*Permissive Society 
By Connie Bensley*

Wake, for the dawn has put the stars to flight, 
And in my bed a stranger, so once more, 
What seemed to be a good idea last night, 
Appears, this morning, sober, rather poor.


----------



## Ceej (Jun 23, 2015)

*A Conceit by Maya Angelou*

Give me your hand
Make room for me
to lead and follow
you
beyond this rage of poetry.

Let others have
the privacy of
touching words
and love of loss
of love.
For me
Give me your hand.


----------



## MochaSoul (Jun 23, 2015)

*Precision German Craftsmanship*
By  Matthew Rohrer b. 1970

It was a good day and I was about to do something important
and good, but then I unscrewed the pen I was using
to see the ink. Precision German craftsmanship.
The Germans are so persnickety and precise,
they wash their driveways. Their mountains and streams
dance around each other in a clockwork, courtly imitation
of spring. They build the Panzer tank, out of rakes
hoses and garden gnomes; they built me.
And I’ve seated myself above an avenue on the brink
of mystery, always just on the lip, with my toes over the lip
but my bowels behind.

When I replaced the ink the sky was socked in,
only one window of blue open in the north, directly over someone.
But that person was reading about Rosicrucians in the laundromat,
he was unaware as the blue window closed above him.
The rest of us are limp and damp,
I see a button in front of us that says “spin cycle.”
I’m going to push it.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/features/audioitem/2934


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 23, 2015)

*-2*

Everybody wants to go to bed 
with everybody else, they're
lined up for blocks, so I'll 
go to bed with you. They won't 
miss us. 

- Richard Brautigan


----------



## JimW (Jun 24, 2015)

Bird-song drowns me in feeling.
Back to my shack of straw to sleep.
Cherry-branches burn with crimson flower,
Willow-boughs delicately trail.
Morning sun flares between blue peaks,
Bright clouds soak in green ponds.
Who guessed I’d leave that dusty world,
Climbing the south slope of Cold Mountain?

-- Hanshan, 9th century Chinese hermit-poet, translation from here


----------



## Santino (Jun 29, 2015)

The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance
by Li Po

Translated by Ezra Pound

The jewelled steps are already quite white with dew,
It is so late that the dew soaks my gauze stockings,
And I let down the crystal curtain
And watch the moon through the clear autumn.




NOTES: Jewel stairs, therefore a palace. Grievance, therefore there is something to complain of. Gauze stockings, therefore a court lady, not a servant who complains. Clear autumn, therefore he has no excuse on account of weather. Also she has come early, for the dew has not merely whitened the stairs, but has soaked her stockings. The poem is especially prized because she utters no direct reproach.


----------



## DotCommunist (Jun 29, 2015)

Santino said:


> The Jewel Stairs’ Grievance
> by Li Po
> 
> Translated by* Ezra Pound*
> ...


----------



## Rebelda (Jun 29, 2015)

*April*
_Nympharum membra disjecta
_
Three spirits came to me
And drew me apart
To where the olive boughs
Lay stripped upon the ground:
Pale carnage beneath bright mist.

Ezra Pound


----------



## Rebelda (Jun 29, 2015)

*The Bath Tub*

As a bathtub lined with white porcelain,
When the hot water gives out or goes tepid,
So is the slow cooling of our chivalrous passion,
O my much praised but-not-altogether-satisfactory lady.

Ok don't send that one to your mum OU 

*
Alba*

As cool as the pale wet leaves
							of the lily-of-the-valley
She lay beside me in the dawn.

*
Alba*
_from "Langue d'Oc"
_
When the nightingale to his mate
Sings day-long and night late
My love and I keep state
In bower,
In flower,
'Til the watchman on the tower
Cry:
			 "Up! Thou rascal, Rise,
			  I see the white
							Light
							And the night
									 Flies."

all Ezra Pound.

Eta: oh fuckit, I spent ages formatting those correctly and either the boards or my iPad has undone it. Will no one think of the imagists? 

Eta again: if you quote me they are formatted correctly in the text box. If you decide you like them


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 29, 2015)

i am troubled by his alleged fascism, but they are beautiful poems


----------



## Rebelda (Jun 29, 2015)

Orang Utan said:


> i am troubled by his alleged fascism, but they are beautiful poems


<there was a reply here> Ack I can't be arsed, I'm not doing a degree any more. Sorry


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 29, 2015)

Rebelda said:


> <there was a reply here> Ack I can't be arsed, I'm not doing a degree any more. Sorry


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 29, 2015)

"Things we've lost"

to step back
and drink together
in a pub built for old boys
now that
would be something

low conversation
if necessary -
stuffing appearing
from within red leather snug seats -
a barman who won't hurry
but knows your name -
smoke from half-remembered cigarettes curling
away from us
like time -
misty reflections glinting in the optics
the world - elsewhere

with

the whole place quiet
and heroically weary
like a washed-up boxer
punch-drunk and
fighting from memory


----------



## toblerone3 (Jun 29, 2015)

Go and catch a falling star,
  Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
  Or who cleft the devil's foot. 

- John Donne


----------



## toblerone3 (Jun 29, 2015)

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question ...
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 30, 2015)

I've posted this on urban before but it's wonderful - for all the parents

"A Cradle Song" - WB Yeats

The angels are stooping
Above your bed;
They weary of trooping
With the whimpering dead.
God's laughing in Heaven
To see you so good;
The Sailing Seven
Are gay with His mood.
I sigh that kiss you,
For I must own
That I shall miss you
When you have grown.


----------



## billy_bob (Jun 30, 2015)

Ceej said:


> *On the Inevitable Decline Into Mediocrity of the Popular Musician Who Attains a Comfortable Middle Age
> BY DAVID MUSGRAVE*
> 
> O Sting...where is they death?



That was a classic Urban tagline a long time ago, wasn't it? Can't remember whose...

Bashō:

Don't imitate me;
it's as boring
as the two halves of a melon.


Silent the old town
the scent of flowers floating
And the evening bell


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 30, 2015)

*Villanelle of His Lady’s Treasures*
I took her dainty eyes, as well
  As silken tendrils of her hair:
And so I made a Villanelle!  

I took her voice, a silver bell,
  As clear as song, as soft as prayer;
I took her dainty eyes as well.  

It may be, said I, who can tell,
  These things shall be my less despair?
And so I made a Villanelle!  

I took her whiteness virginal
  And from her cheek two roses rare:
I took her dainty eyes as well.  

I said: “It may be possible
  Her image from my heart to tear!”
And so I made a Villanelle.  

I stole her laugh, most musical:
  I wrought it in with artful care;
I took her dainty eyes as well;
And so I made a Villanelle. 


--ernest dowson


----------



## DotCommunist (Jun 30, 2015)

Did Pound translate all of Li Pos work then, cos theres a great one about drinking alone in the moonlight from li


----------



## Pickman's model (Jun 30, 2015)

That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.


----------



## Steel Icarus (Jun 30, 2015)

I've got a book of some of Pound's translations somewhere, but I can't lay my hands on it at the moment

yeah, I know,


----------



## Santino (Jun 30, 2015)

DotCommunist said:


> Did Pound translate all of Li Pos work then, cos theres a great one about drinking alone in the moonlight from li


Don't think so. They are quite free translations too, some I think translated from the Japanese version of the Chinese original.


----------



## Orang Utan (Jun 30, 2015)

Pickman's model said:


> That is no country for old men. The young
> In one another’s arms, birds in the trees
> —Those dying generations—at their song,
> The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
> ...


Not a short poem.


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## Pickman's model (Jun 30, 2015)

Orang Utan said:


> Not a short poem.


it's a fuck of a lot shorter than orlando furioso or paradise lost.


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## Greebo (Jul 2, 2015)

All of the following are by John Hegley:

Memory

my sister loved animals
she was always taking the dog out
and stroking it
and the goldfish
.........
My doggie don't wear glasses

my doggie don't wear glasses
so they're lying when they say
a dog looks like its owner
aren't they
........
Glastonbury

it is the peace festival
midnight
moonlight
and the sound of drumbeat and song
as long as the night is
a night of dancing chanting rhythm and release
it is the festival of peace
and there's nowhere round here you can get any
.......
Liverpool

on the ferry across the Mersey
it was cold
and I wore my jersey
...........
Well executed poem

before the blast of the squad
his last request
was a bullet-proof vest
or a God
.........
In class

by chance I glance at her answer paper
protective of her labour
my next-door neighbour
drops an accusing karate chop
across the page-top
to stop me copying
as she writes
her name
.......
Gaul

Once a Centurion soldier
said Venus how I want to hold yer
she replied I'm a god
and it's great on my tod
and his mate said Marcellus I told yer.


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## Greebo (Jul 3, 2015)

Network SouthEast beast

Benevolent
not malevolent;
after its feast
of commuters,
they are released.

John Hegley


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## billy_bob (Jul 3, 2015)

John Hegley's great. One which I can't find on the nets, so I'm probably misquoting:

*Ode to a traffic policewoman*

I wanted her soft verges
But she gave me the hard shoulder


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## hattie (Jul 3, 2015)

billy_bob said:


> John Hegley's great. One which I can't find on the nets, so I'm probably misquoting:
> 
> *Ode to a traffic policewoman*
> 
> ...



^ That's Adrian Henri 

I don't want to post simply to correct you so here's a short poem:

I have seen flowers come in stony places
And kind things done by men with ugly faces
And the gold cup won by the worst horse at the races,
So I trust too.
John Masefield


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## billy_bob (Jul 3, 2015)

hattie said:


> ^ That's Adrian Henri
> 
> I don't want to post simply to correct you





Not a problem, seeing as I was blatantly wrong! At least I got the poem itself nearly right, apart from putting it in third person.

*Song for a Beautiful Girl Petrol pump Attendant on the Motorway by Adrian Henri*

I wanted your soft verges
But you gave me the hard shoulder


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## billy_bob (Jul 3, 2015)

Ok, this one's definitely Hegley:

I remember Luton
As I'm swallowing my crouton

He's getting a lot of substance about language and class, identity, and leaving your roots behind/not being able to leave your roots behind into two lines there.


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## billy_bob (Jul 3, 2015)

S☼I said:


> I've got a book of some of Pound's translations somewhere, but I can't lay my hands on it at the moment
> 
> yeah, I know,
> 
> View attachment 73390



I'm so glad this 'Cool story bro' thing is an _internet _meme. I'd definitely get a bit punchy if I heard anyone saying it in real life.


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## hash tag (Jul 19, 2015)

Once I saw a little worm
Wriggling on his belly
Perhaps he'd like to come inside
And see what's on the telly

spike


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## Orang Utan (Jan 8, 2016)

Bump.
Any more suggestions?


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## Santino (Jan 8, 2016)

The rich will make temples for Shiva.
What shall I, a poor man, do?
My legs are pillars,
The body the shrine,
The head a cupola of gold.
Listen, O lord of the meeting rivers,
Things standing shall fall,
But the moving ever shall stay.

	- Basavanna


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## billy_bob (Jan 8, 2016)

The cow is of the bovine ilk;
One end is moo, the other milk


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## billy_bob (Jan 8, 2016)

My absolute favourite poem, by William Carlos Williams:

*This is Just to Say*

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold

And this 'reply' by Kenneth Koch is not so short but you can't really quote one without the other:

*Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams*

1
I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.
I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do
and its wooden beams were so inviting.

2
We laughed at the hollyhocks together
and then I sprayed them with lye.
Forgive me. I simply do not know what I am doing.

3
I gave away the money that you had been saving to live on for the next ten years.
The man who asked for it was shabby
and the firm March wind on the porch was so juicy and cold.

4
Last evening we went dancing and I broke your leg.
Forgive me. I was clumsy and
I wanted you here in the wards, where I am the doctor!


I reguarly use the third line of variation 2 when apologising for something.


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## A380 (Jan 8, 2016)

Not sure about the sentiment: But cracking to read out loud.

Vitaï Lampada


There's a breathless hush in the Close to-night -- 
Ten to make and the match to win -- 
A bumping pitch and a blinding light, 
An hour to play and the last man in. 
And it's not for the sake of a ribboned coat, 
Or the selfish hope of a season's fame, 
But his Captain's hand on his shoulder smote 
"Play up! play up! and play the game!" 

The sand of the desert is sodden red, -- 
Red with the wreck of a square that broke; -- 
The Gatling's jammed and the colonel dead, 
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke. 
The river of death has brimmed his banks, 
And England's far, and Honour a name, 
But the voice of schoolboy rallies the ranks, 
"Play up! play up! and play the game!" 

This is the word that year by year 
While in her place the School is set 
Every one of her sons must hear, 
And none that hears it dare forget. 
This they all with a joyful mind 
Bear through life like a torch in flame, 
And falling fling to the host behind -- 
"Play up! play up! and play the game!" 

Sir Henry Newbolt


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## Orang Utan (Jan 8, 2016)

Not short is it though?


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## A380 (Jan 8, 2016)

*Celia, Celia*

Adrian Mitchell


When I am sad and weary

When I think all hope has gone

When I walk along High Holborn

I think of you with nothing on


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## Orang Utan (Jan 8, 2016)

I like that on, but I can't send it to my mum


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## Orang Utan (Jan 8, 2016)

It's also already been posted


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## dessiato (Jan 8, 2016)

I love this thread.


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## 8115 (Jan 8, 2016)

Some haikus by Jack Kerouac

The windmills of
Oklahoma look
In every direction

First frost dropped
all leaves
Last night - peacemaker

The housecats, amazed
at something new, 
Looking in the same direction


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## 8115 (Jan 8, 2016)

Song by Seamus Heaney

A Rowan like a lipsticked girl.
Between the by-road and the main road
Alder trees at a wet and dripping distance
Stand off among the rushes.

There are the mud-flowers of dialect
And the immortelles of perfect pitch
And that moment when the bird sings very close
To the music of what happens.


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## A380 (Jan 8, 2016)

More Wendy Cope: pushing the length limit?

*After the Lunch*
On Waterloo Bridge, where we said our goodbyes,
The weather conditions bring tears to my eyes.
I wipe them away with a black woolly glove
And try not to notice I’ve fallen in love.

On Waterloo Bridge I am trying to think:
This is nothing. You’re high on the charm and the drink.
But the juke-box inside me is playing a song
That says something different. And when was it wrong?

On Waterloo Bridge with the wind in my hair
I am tempted to skip. You’re a fool. I don’t care.
The head does its best but the heart is the boss.
I admit it before I am halfway across.


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## Orang Utan (Sep 27, 2016)

Roger McGough's Survivor made her laugh out loud today:

Everyday,
I think about dying.
About disease, starvation,
violence, terrorism, war,
the end of the world.

It helps
keep my mind off things


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## Orang Utan (Sep 27, 2016)

Gonna have to start a new thread about poems that can be read aloud.
Michael Rosen's Chocolate Cake was brilliant today too.
Can anyone remember the one about him chewing a bus ticket? We had a laugh about it today even though neither of us could remember what it was called.


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## hash tag (Sep 27, 2016)

Orang Utan said:


> Bump.
> Any more suggestions?



*Things that go 'bump' in the night 
Should not really give one a fright. 
It's the hole in each ear 
That lets in the fear, 
That, and the absence of light! *

Milligan


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## A380 (Sep 28, 2016)

Orang Utan said:


> Gonna have to start a new thread about poems that can be read aloud.
> Michael Rosen's Chocolate Cake was brilliant today too.
> Can anyone remember the one about him chewing a bus ticket? We had a laugh about it today even though neither of us could remember what it was called.


Reading aloud. Got to be Kipling. I'm not sure his politics were what many of the left think they were. (Although White Mans' Burden...) but cracking to read many of them. Do the thread and we will fill it.


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## hash tag (Oct 6, 2016)

Today is National Poetry Day!

When I'm old and mankey,
I'll never use a hanky.
I'll wee on plants
and soil my pants
and sometimes get quite cranky.
Holding

Just about sums me up


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## billy_bob (Oct 6, 2016)

Orang Utan said:


> Gonna have to start a new thread about poems that can be read aloud.
> Michael Rosen's Chocolate Cake was brilliant today too.
> Can anyone remember the one about him chewing a bus ticket? We had a laugh about it today even though neither of us could remember what it was called.



I've got it here, in _You Tell Me_, a joint collection of Rosen and Roger McGough poems. Signed copy too: 'Hallo [my name], Michael Rosen was here' 

*A Bad Habit*

Cigarette, Mike?’ they say,
‘I don’t smoke,’ I say.
‘Haven’t you got any bad habits?’ they say,
‘Yes,’ I say, ‘I chew bus tickets’.

I can’t stop it.
The conductor gives me my ticket
and before I know I’ve done it
I’ve rolled it up
and I’m sucking on it like a cigarette.

I hold it with my fingers.
I roll it.
I flick it.
I hold it in my lips.

But there’s a snag with my bus-ticket cigarettes:
they go soggy
they go gooey
and I nibble
and I bite
and I chew –
my bus tickets get shorter and shorter
and before I know I’ve done it
all I’ve got is a ball of soggy paper
rolling round my mouth.

Disgusting.

Smokers buy pills to stop their filthy habit.
All I’ve got is bus inspectors.

You see, once, not long ago,
I was on a bus
and my ticket was in a ball
rolling round my mouth
and suddenly – above me –
there’s the inspector
‘tickets, please,’ he says,
and there’s me – nibble, nibble, nibble
on the mushed up ball of paper in my mouth.

He wants to see my ticket.
Of course he can see my ticket
if he doesn’t mind inspecting
a little ball of mush.

So I say, ‘Yes, you can see my ticket,’
and I stuck my finger in my mouth
and hauled out the blob.

He looks at it.
He looks at me.
It’s sitting there on the end of my finger
‘What’s that?’ he says,
‘My ticket,’ I said
‘What did you have for breakfast?’ he says,
‘Corn Flakes’, I said.
Mmm,’ he says,
‘did you ever think of having a slice or two of toast
as well, old son,’ he says
‘and maybe you won’t be so tempted by our tickets
And he left it at that.

But it’s very hard to break the habit,
even after a warning like that.
Got any ideas?


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## zoooo (Oct 6, 2016)

This one just made me a bit sniffly. But I may be hormonal.

The Orange

by Wendy Cope.

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange—
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave—
They got quarters and I got a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It's new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over. 
I love you. I'm glad I exist.


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## hash tag (Oct 6, 2016)

I'm glad I exist?


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## oneflewover (Oct 6, 2016)

Brian Bilston on Twitter gives me little poetry fix

Some put together for poetry day.
15 poems to celebrate National Poetry Day, by Brian Bilston


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## porp (Oct 8, 2016)

For some reason, this one's been on my mind a lot recently. 'A Dead Statesman' by Kipling, from his War Epitaphs. It is a bit grim, but very short.

I could not dig: I dared not rob:
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What tale shall serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?


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## hash tag (Oct 21, 2016)

Potentially grim, but positive and uplifting

If I should die before the rest of you,
Break not a flower nor inscribe a stone.
Nor, when I'm gone, speak in a Sunday voice,
But be the usual selves that I have known.
Weep if you must,
Parting is hell.
But life goes on,
So........ sing as well

Joyce Grenfell


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## hash tag (Apr 5, 2020)

I'm trying to write the longest first line that poetry has ever had,
for a start that wasn't bad,
now here comes longer,
eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I know I cheated;
it was the only way to avoid being defeated


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## platinumsage (May 23, 2020)




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## chalkhorse (Jun 1, 2020)

*Toad *

Stop looking like a purse. How could a purse
Squeeze under the rickety door and sit,
Full of satisfaction in a man’s house?

You clamber towards me on your four corners –
Right hand, left foot, left hand, right foot.

I love you for being a toad,
For crawling like a Japanese wrestler,
And for not being frightened.

I put you in my purse hand not shutting it,
And set you down outside directly under
Every star.

A jewel in your head? Toad,
You’ve put one in mine,
A tiny radiance in a dark place.

Norman MacCaig


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## scifisam (Jun 1, 2020)

hash tag said:


> I'm glad I exist?



What's wrong with that? 

Wendy Cope is the queen of short, memorable poems. 

I used to memorise a poem to recite to my ex at night every day, back when we didn't hate each other. This was one of my favourites, "On Giving Up Smoking":

There's not a Shakespeare sonnet
Or a Beethoven quartet
That's easier to like than you
Or harder to forget.

You think that sounds extravagant?
I haven't finished yet —
I like you more than I would like
To have a cigarette.


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## Throbbing Angel (Jun 1, 2020)

My favourite short poem and the only one I can remember is

Tom Jones by John Cooper Clarke

*TOM JONES*
Back in town in a black Rolls Royce
The funky, hunky housewives choice
In one fact he can rejoice
His trousers don’t affect his voice


and I also like


*HAIKU*
To-con-vey one’s mood
In sev-en-teen syll-able-s
Is ve-ry dif-fic


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## scifisam (Jun 1, 2020)

Throbbing Angel said:


> My favourite short poem and the only one I can remember is
> 
> Tom Jones by John Cooper Clarke
> 
> ...



Nitpick: 

In sev-en-teen-syll-ab-les


To make it be seven syllables. Guess that could have been his point, but it'd be superfluous and would take away from the last line.


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## billy_bob (Jun 26, 2020)

Arguably it doesn't have the gravitas of some posted here, but I'm nevertheless surprised to realise this thread has never been graced with John Lillison's 'O Pointy Birds' from _The Man with Two Brains_.

O pointy birds
Oh, pointy pointy
Anoint my head
Anointy nointy


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## deeyo (Jun 26, 2020)

Long walks at night -
that's whats good for the soul:
peeking into windows
watching tired housewives
trying to fight off
their beer-maddened husbands

_ and the moon and the stars and the world_
_-charles bukowski_​


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## platinumsage (May 14, 2022)




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## platinumsage (Aug 8, 2022)




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## May Kasahara (Aug 8, 2022)

One of my favourites.


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## hash tag (Oct 16, 2022)

The Train Journey, by David Quick, 7 years old 

Hurry up, hurry up 
Get right up, get right up 
Sit back up, sit back up 
Clickety clack, clickety clack 
On the track, on the track. 

I saw a tunnel, I saw a tunnel 
Under a tunnel, under a tunnel 
Out of the tunnel, out of the tunnel 
Clickety clack, clickety clack 

Home at last, home at last.


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## surreybrowncap (Oct 21, 2022)

*POSTCARDS FROM THE HEDGEHOG*
By A.F. Harrold
_i_
Dear Mum,
Beautiful weather.
I saw a fox last night,
did as you always said
and rolled into a ball.
After a while it went away.
I was a bit scared all the same.
Wish you were here.

Love Simon

_ii_
Dear Mum,
Lovely weather today.
Just saw a really pretty girl.
Not sure how to approach her.
She makes me really shy
but just all warm inside.
I rolled up in to a ball.
Wish you were here.

Love Simon

_iii_
Dear Mum,
It's raining today. I ate a slug.
Wasn't as good as the ones
you used to give us.
Tomorrow I think I'll approach the girl.
Perhaps I'll take her a slug.
She makes me ever so nervous.
I rolled up in to a ball.
Wish you were here.

Love Simon

_iv_
Dear Mum,
Sun's come out again.
This morning I was very brave
and I went to see her.
I edged up very carefully as you suggested,
but when I spoke to her
I discovered she was actually a pine-cone.
I felt very embarrassed.
Rolled up in to a ball.
Wish you were here.

Love Simon


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## danski (Oct 21, 2022)

See the happy moron,
He doesn’t give a damn,
I wish I were a moron,
My god, perhaps I am.


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