Share a poem with us today

[AirwickWithCheese]

Something polite and meaningful. 

Be nice.  

Thank you. 

[AirwickWithCheese]

Please, no original work. You're not that good. 

Thank you. 

[AirwickWithCheese]

Also, please stop thinking about throwing scalding water or tar on your neighbor's dog. Stop getting into confrontations on the road and with Mexicans at the grocery store just because you really dislike their music. 

[maddmaxx ★]

Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,

Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours.

[Page Turner]

 

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

 

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

 

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

 

BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

[Randomguy]

28 minutes ago, AirwickWithCheese said:

Something polite and meaningful. 

Be nice.  

Thank you. 

Don't tell me what to do, my poems are wonderful!

[Page Turner]

27 minutes ago, AirwickWithCheese said:

Please, no original work. You're not that good. 

Thank you. 

 

 

...

[AirwickWithCheese]

1 minute ago, Randomguy said:

Don't tell me what to do, my poems are wonderful!

 

1 minute ago, Page Turner said:

 

 

...

 Both of you are first-class losers in poetry. 

Love,

 Cheese

PS..    write me a poem about a moon penny, the daisy flower. 

[jsharr ★]

In Dillman's Grove 
In Dillman's Grove my love did die, 
and now in ground shall ever lie. 
None could ever replace her visage, 
until your face brought thoughts of kissage.*

 

@Kzoo   * not "that" kind of kissage.  This is about true love, not self serving pandering.

 

 

 

[jsharr ★]

To Ma Own Beloved Mary. 
A poem on her 17th birthday.’ 
- Ewen McTeagle

Lend us a couple of bob till Thursday, 
I’m absolutely skint 
But I’m expecting a postal order 
And I can pay you back 
As soon as it comes. 

[TrentonMakes]

[maddmaxx ★]

5 minutes ago, AirwickWithCheese said:

 

 Both of you are first-class losers in poetry. 

Love,

 Cheese

PS..    write me a poem about a moon penny, the daisy flower. 

Sorry cheese but that was an original of "roses are red" from Les Misérables, Fantine, Book Seven, Chapter Six.  Who am I to argue with real poets outside of South Greenville?

[AirwickWithCheese]

Just now, maddmaxx said:

Sorry cheese but that was an original of "roses are red" from Les Misérables, Fantine, Book Seven, Chapter Six.  Who am I to argue with real poets outside of South Greenville?

Was referring to RG and Page. Please apologize now. 

Thank you. 

[smudge ★]

Isn't there some lovely poem about someone from Nantucket...?

[maddmaxx ★]

4 minutes ago, AirwickWithCheese said:

Was referring to RG and Page. Please apologize now. 

Thank you. 

I saw that "like" cheese.  Just being informative to help with your confusion.

[maddmaxx ★]

1 minute ago, smudge said:

Isn't there some lovely poem about someone from Nantucket...?

The rhyming line will get you banished though unless she travels to Phu Cat.

[AirwickWithCheese]

1 minute ago, maddmaxx said:

I saw that "like" cheese.  Just being informative to help with your confusion.

I thank you for your politeness and understanding as my blood sugar is low

[AirwickWithCheese]

2 minutes ago, smudge said:

Isn't there some lovely poem about someone from Nantucket...?

Hi smudge. I trust you are well and break no bones this year. 

Respectfully,

Howard Cheese

[dinneR ★]

 

[jsharr ★]

Louie Louie, oh no, you take me where ya gotta go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby
Louie Louie, oh baby, take me where ya gotta go

A fine little girl, she waits for me
Me catch the ship across the sea
Me sailed the ship all alone
Me never think I'll make it home

Louie Louie, oh no no no, me gotta go, oh no
Louie Louie, oh baby, me gotta go

Three nights and days I sailed the sea
Me think of girl constantly
On the ship, I dream she there
I smell the rose in her hair

Louie Louie, oh no, me gotta go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby
Louie Louie, oh baby, me gotta go
Okay, let's give it to 'em right now

Me see

Me see Jamaica, the moon above
It won't be long me see me love
Me take her in my arms and then
I tell her I'll never leave again

Louie Louie, oh no, me gotta go, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, baby
Louie Louie, oh baby, me gotta go
I said me gotta go now
Let's hustle on out of here
Let's go

 

Richard Berry

[jsharr ★]

The screen door slams, Mary's dress waves
Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays
Roy Orbison singing for the lonely
Hey, that's me and I want you only
Don't turn me home again, I just can't face myself alone again
Don't run back inside, darling, you know just what I'm here for
So you're scared and you're thinking that maybe we ain't that young anymore
Show a little faith, there's magic in the night
You ain't a beauty but, hey, you're alright
Oh, and that's alright with me

[Kirby]

From Emily Dickinson

“Hope” is the thing with feathers -

That perches in the soul -

And sings the tune without the words -

And never stops - at all -

 

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm -

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

 

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -

And on the strangest Sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity,

It asked a crumb - of me.

[team scooter]

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon....

I go off to work on Monday morning

Tuesday I go off to honeymoon

I'll be back again before its time for sunny down

I'll be lazing on a Sunday afternoon

Bicycling on every Wednesday evening

Thursday I go waltzing to the zoo

I come from London town

I'm just an ordinary guy

Fridays I go painting in the Louvre

I'm bound to be proposing on a Saturday night

And lazing on a Sunday afternoon......... Freddie Mercury

 

[Kzoo]

2 hours ago, AirwickWithCheese said:

Something polite and meaningful. 

Be nice.  

I'm out...

[Dirtyhip]

She likes to gamble by shorting pot stocks.

Day trading in my income range is unorthodox.

Hoping for another million for spring equinox.

[maddmaxx ★]

19 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

She likes to gamble by shorting pot stocks.

Day trading in my income range is unorthodox.

Hoping for another million for spring equinox.

Iambetting pentameter.

[jsharr ★]

2 hours ago, Kzoo said:

I'm out...side yelling at  kids
Useless obnoxious little squids
Get off of my lawn
You foul Satan spawn
Or I will tell your mom what you did.

fify

[Randomguy]

a 340 dollar horse and a hundred dollar whore

BY CHARLES BUKOWSKI

don’t ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see me
at the racetrack any day half drunk
betting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs,
but let me tell you, there are some women there
who go where the money goes, and sometimes when you
look at these whores these onehundreddollar whores
you wonder sometimes if nature isn’t playing a joke
dealing out so much breast and ass and the way
it’s all hung together, you look and you look and
you look and you can’t believe it; there are ordinary women
and then there is something else that wants to make you
tear up paintings and break albums of Beethoven
across the back of the john; anyhow, the season
was dragging and the big boys were getting busted,
all the non-pros, the producers, the cameraman,
the pushers of Mary, the fur salesman, the owners
themselves, and Saint Louie was running this day:
a sidewheeler that broke when he got in close;
he ran with his head down and was mean and ugly
and 35 to 1, and I put a ten down on him.
the driver broke him wide
took him out by the fence where he’d be alone
even if he had to travel four times as far,
and that’s the way he went it
all the way by the outer fence
traveling two miles in one
and he won like he was mad as hell
and he wasn’t even tired,
and the biggest blonde of all
all ass and breast, hardly anything else
went to the payoff window with me.

 

that night I couldn’t destroy her
although the springs shot sparks
and they pounded on the walls.
later she sat there in her slip
drinking Old Grandad
and she said
what’s a guy like you doing
living in a dump like this?
and I said
I’m a poet

and she threw back her beautiful head and laughed.

you? you . . . a poet?

I guess you’re right, I said, I guess you’re right.

but still she looked good to me, she still looked good,
and all thanks to an ugly horse
who wrote this poem.

[MickinMD ★]

When I was a kid in a very poor family and knew it was going to be harder for me than for most kids to make something of myself, I was very moved and encouraged when I first read Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken.  I've felt, ever since, that choosing the more difficult path at times in my in life where I could have taken an easy way out "has made all the difference."

The Road Not Taken

By Robert Frost

 

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

 

 

[Page Turner]

6 hours ago, AirwickWithCheese said:

Hi smudge. I trust you are well and break no bones this year. 

Respectfully,

Howard Cheese

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939).  (from The Wild Swans at Coole.  1919.)

5. The Collar-bone of a Hare 

 

WOULD I could cast a sail on the water
Where many a king has gone
And many a king’s daughter,
And alight at the comely trees and the lawn,
The playing upon pipes and the dancing,	5
And learn that the best thing is
To change my loves while dancing
And pay but a kiss for a kiss.
I would find by the edge of that water
The collar-bone of a hare	10
Worn thin by the lapping of water,
And pierce it through with a gimlet and stare
At the old bitter world where they marry in churches,
And laugh over the untroubled water
At all who marry in churches,	15
Through the white thin bone of a hare.

[Page Turner]

7 hours ago, AirwickWithCheese said:

 Both of you are first-class losers in poetry. 

Love,

 Cheese

 

[Page Turner]

The oaken monkey went to sea, in a submarine of verdigris.

Off the rocky coast of Innisfree, a maple mermaid he did see.

 

Long golden hair, round breasts did trail, deep blue eyes and a fishy tail.

And in her arms, the Holy Grail ! "Hard o'er," barked Monk, "and jib the sail !"

 

"Fair mermaid," Captain Monk then cried, "Come live with me, and be my bride."

"And bring the Grail," (in a soft aside).  But she disappeared with the ebbing tide.

[smudge ★]

7 hours ago, AirwickWithCheese said:

Hi smudge. I trust you are well and break no bones this year. 

Respectfully,

Howard Cheese

I shall put forth my best effort to break no bones. Thank you.

[petitepedal ★]

I missed this...damn  I do not know if I can find the poem I am thinking of...Helen at 96 coordinates a couple of poetry sessions at work.

[onbike1939]

 

                  Just a thought

 

 

They do say....I hear it all the time

that with age comes wisdom

which of course is rubbish.....

as age only brings with it

the inability to pee at will

and the doubtful gift of hair

which will now grow anywhere but where it should

 

Now that I'm properly old

I can speak with some authority when I affirm

that I am every bit as stupid now

as I ever I was when young...

and while I would never seek some special treatment.....

I do know some things which may prove useful

to those seeking knowledge

 

It would be pleasant to dispense these nuggets

from some agreeable place.....

a flower-bedecked bower perched on a hill perhaps

where I could sit...modestly dressed in a white robe

perhaps attended to by a few hand-maidens....

nothing showy of course....

seemly-looking matrons who could also cook would suffice

 

The spoken word being a fleeting thing

I should have to write something down I suppose

and paper and pen wouldn't quite cut it really

carved on stone tablets it would be just the thing

but given that I'm sitting on the top of a hill

it's going to be hell to get them down

what with my knees and all.

 

 

[onbike1939]

Now how did I guess you would like this max?

[maddmaxx ★]

Just now, onbike1939 said:

Now how did I guess you would like this max?

It has a certain resonance with my soul.

[BuffJim]

13 hours ago, team scooter said:

Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon....

I go off to work on Monday morning

Tuesday I go off to honeymoon

I'll be back again before its time for sunny down

I'll be lazing on a Sunday afternoon

Bicycling on every Wednesday evening

Thursday I go waltzing to the zoo

I come from London town

I'm just an ordinary guy

Fridays I go painting in the Louvre

I'm bound to be proposing on a Saturday night

And lazing on a Sunday afternoon......... Freddie Mercury

 

Love that song. 

[onbike1939]

2 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

It has a certain resonance with my soul.

Here's another one of mine.

Just Saying

 

I’m not complaining mind

but it is a bit frustrating… this living a life…

it’s true that I’ve been here a long time

but it’s only now that I’m getting the hang of it

and now given the state of me

I may pop off at any time….

I mean the whole of this life thing

is a bit bewildering if I’m honest..

years of trying to understand what’s going on

and even now I’m rarely sure of anything

 

In my time I’ve asked all of the big questions

you know…like… why are we here?

and what’s the meaning of life?

and why don’t all men wear trousers with elasticated waists?

It’s all been a bit of a mystery really

and especially so when it comes to women…

I have tried mind……tried to understand

what they were all about exactly…

wasted years looking for answers

before realising that there were none

and that if there were some

I wouldn’t understand them anyway

 

 

[maddmaxx ★]

Ah.  A do over

A chance to make amends

But then I'm me

So what would change

[tybeegb]

El Dorado

 

Gaily bedight,

   A gallant knight,

In sunshine and in shadow,   

   Had journeyed long,   

   Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.

 

   But he grew old—

   This knight so bold—   

And o’er his heart a shadow—   

   Fell as he found

   No spot of ground

That looked like Eldorado.

 

   And, as his strength   

   Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow—   

   ‘Shadow,’ said he,   

   ‘Where can it be—

This land of Eldorado?’

 

   ‘Over the Mountains

   Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,   

   Ride, boldly ride,’

   The shade replied,—

‘If you seek for Eldorado!’

 

Edgar Allen Poe

 

The movie was on twice this week, but I sing this in the jam a lot.  

[maddmaxx ★]

4 minutes ago, tybeegb said:

El Dorado

 

Gaily bedight,

   A gallant knight,

In sunshine and in shadow,   

   Had journeyed long,   

   Singing a song,

In search of Eldorado.

 

   But he grew old—

   This knight so bold—   

And o’er his heart a shadow—   

   Fell as he found

   No spot of ground

That looked like Eldorado.

 

   And, as his strength   

   Failed him at length,

He met a pilgrim shadow—   

   ‘Shadow,’ said he,   

   ‘Where can it be—

This land of Eldorado?’

 

   ‘Over the Mountains

   Of the Moon,

Down the Valley of the Shadow,   

   Ride, boldly ride,’

   The shade replied,—

‘If you seek for Eldorado!’

 

Edgar Allen Poe

 

The movie was on twice this week, but I sing this in the jam a lot.  

A great movie from the 60's.  Technicolor.  Music by Nelson Riddle (route 66 theme). Good cast. A blend of serious, western, comedy and morality.  What more could one ask for?

Alan Bourdillion Traherne,

[AirwickWithCheese]

Fine folks of the Cafe,

Today is now Thursday. I asked for your poems on Wednesday, not Thursday. 

Thank you. 

[onbike1939]

2 minutes ago, AirwickWithCheese said:

Fine folks of the Cafe,

Today is now Thursday. I asked for your poems on Wednesday, not Thursday. 

Thank you. 

Ingratitude 

How many pearls must I cast….
how many will the swinish feet tramp down
before my soaring spirit flags and fickle muse 
takes flight without a backward glance?

So many riches spent and spent again
with no return or recompense
my virgin brow no laurel bears
my genius goes for ever unremarked 

Is there not one blessed soul that kindles…
blazes into glorious flame and light
when touched by verse sublime
must I ever go unheard?

Must these treasures be buried undisturbed
as in some Pharaoh's dusty tomb
until some gentle hand in time unknown
reveals them to the world’s adoring gaze.


 

 

[Page Turner]

7 hours ago, AirwickWithCheese said:

Fine folks of the Cafe,

Today is now Thursday. I asked for your poems on Wednesday, not Thursday. 

Thank you. 

...is it Thursday already ? How the moments do fly away when engaged in the poetic. 

[Randomguy]

Where is my trophy, Cheese?

[AirwickWithCheese]

1 minute ago, Randomguy said:

Where is my trophy, Cheese?

[dinneR ★]

The Summer Say by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

[Randomguy]

20 minutes ago, AirwickWithCheese said:

How dare you give me an Oprah but not a like for what is clearly the most significant poem in this thread.

I demand several apologies!

[Square Wheels]

I'm not smart enough to understand poetry.  I'm too literal.