The Poem thread

[intet_at_tabe]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]A NAUGHTY LITTLE POEM[/FONT]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Now if you read this carefully [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The dentist you will find [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Is not what you imagined [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]It's just your dirty mind!![/FONT]

:tiphat::tiphat::tiphat::tiphat::clap::clap::clap::clap::banana::banana::banana::banana::trp::trp::trp::trp::lol::lol::lol::lol: Salutations for Naughty, naughty Ms. Margaret.

Hats off guys, the most surpricing poem from Ms. Margaret this year (so far).

 

[marval]

Thank you Intet

Sorry to be naughty.
It was just a bit of fun.


Margaret

 

[methodistgirl]

If your hair looks like you just passed a wind tunnel with all the air blowing
and wear bibbed overalls chewing on a straw. You might be a Kentuckian
farmer and hillbilly.
judy tooley

 

[intet_at_tabe]

Thank you Intet

Sorry to be naughty.
It was just a bit of fun.

Margaret

Don´t worry Ms. Margaret :tiphat: Caught with my trousers down. At the age of 54, I can still laugh at anything, mostly myself - except for dentists.

You see there was no way this poem could be about dentists in my book, the sentence "I am glad I came now You made it worth my while".

Obviously no one is "glad" to go to the dentist. In my book a contradiction in terms. I have to visit a hypnotist every time I have to go. In fact he told me 26 years ago: "I can cure you from being terrified of dentists". He does - every time I go. What the heck 200 dollars here and 200 dollars there, who cares? And that´s before I have even entered the clinic of mouth torture.

I always have the image from the old american movie The Marathon Man (30 something years ago), Dustin Hoffman as the victim of Laurence Olivier acting like a former Nazi torturer inside Dustin´s mouth, asking the same question over and over again, about some missing diamonds. "Is it safe?", while hurting Dustin deliberately with his dentist instruments.

Here´s a peom about visiting the dentist.

"The Root Canal.", by Marge Piercy:

This tooth is hollowed out to a cave
Big enough for tourists
To go through in parties with guides
In flat-bottomed boats.
... I am nothing,
nothing at all, but a reluctant
pyramid standing here, a grandiose
talking headstone for my tooth.

 

[marval]

Ouch, a scary little poem.

I must say a dentists surgery is not my favourite place. If the hypnotism works then it is woth it.


Margaret

 

[marval]

Flow down, cold rivulet, to the sea,
Thy tribute wave deliver:
No more by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.​

Flow, softly flow, by lawn and lea,
A rivulet then a river;
No where by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.​

But here will sigh thine alder tree,
And here thine aspen shiver;
And here by thee will hum the bee,
For ever and for ever.​

A thousand suns will stream on thee,
A thousand moons will quiver;
But not by thee my steps shall be,
For ever and for ever.

Alfred Lord Tennyson​

 

[intet_at_tabe]

Nice poem Ms. Margaret :tiphat::clap:

Here´s one more poem by my favourite African American poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967):

Freedom's Plow​

When a man starts out with nothing,
When a man starts out with his hands
Empty, but clean,
When a man starts to build a world,
He starts first with himself
And the faith that is in his heart-
The strength there,
The will there to build.

First in the heart is the dream-
Then the mind starts seeking a way.
His eyes look out on the world,
On the great wooded world,
On the rich soil of the world,
On the rivers of the world.

The eyes see there materials for building,
See the difficulties, too, and the obstacles.
The mind seeks a way to overcome these obstacles.
The hand seeks tools to cut the wood,
To till the soil, and harness the power of the waters.
Then the hand seeks other hands to help,
A community of hands to help-
Thus the dream becomes not one man’s dream alone,
But a community dream.
Not my dream alone, but our dream.
Not my world alone,
But your world and my world,
Belonging to all the hands who build.

A long time ago, but not too long ago,
Ships came from across the sea
Bringing the Pilgrims and prayer-makers,
Adventurers and booty seekers,
Free men and indentured servants,
Slave men and slave masters, all new-
To a new world, America!

With billowing sails the galleons came
Bringing men and dreams, women and dreams.
In little bands together,
Heart reaching out to heart,
Hand reaching out to hand,
They began to build our land.
Some were free hands
Seeking a greater freedom,
Some were indentured hands
Hoping to find their freedom,
Some were slave hands
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
But the word was there always:
Freedom.

Down into the earth went the plow
In the free hands and the slave hands,
In indentured hands and adventurous hands,
Turning the rich soil went the plow in many hands
That planted and harvested the food that fed
And the cotton that clothed America.
Clang against the trees went the ax into many hands
That hewed and shaped the rooftops of America.
Splash into the rivers and the seas went the boat-hulls
That moved and transported America.
Crack went the whips that drove the horses
Across the plains of America.
Free hands and slave hands,
Indentured hands, adventurous hands,
White hands and black hands
Held the plow handles,
Ax handles, hammer handles,
Launched the boats and whipped the horses
That fed and housed and moved America.
Thus together through labor,
All these hands made America.

Labor! Out of labor came villages
And the towns that grew cities.
Labor! Out of labor came the rowboats
And the sailboats and the steamboats,
Came the wagons, and the coaches,
Covered wagons, stage coaches,
Out of labor came the factories,
Came the foundries, came the railroads.
Came the marts and markets, shops and stores,
Came the mighty products moulded, manufactured,
Sold in shops, piled in warehouses,
Shipped the wide world over:
Out of labor-white hands and black hands-
Came the dream, the strength, the will,
And the way to build America.
Now it is Me here, and You there.
Now it’s Manhattan, Chicago,
Seattle, New Orleans,
Boston and El Paso-
Now it’s the U.S.A.

A long time ago, but not too long ago, a man said:
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL--
ENDOWED BY THEIR CREATOR
WITH CERTAIN UNALIENABLE RIGHTS--
AMONG THESE LIFE, LIBERTY
AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.
His name was Jefferson. There were slaves then,
But in their hearts the slaves believed him, too,
And silently too for granted
That what he said was also meant for them.
It was a long time ago,
But not so long ago at that, Lincoln said:
NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
WITHOUT THAT OTHER’S CONSENT.
There were slaves then, too,
But in their hearts the slaves knew
What he said must be meant for every human being-
Else it had no meaning for anyone.
Then a man said:
BETTER TO DIE FREE
THAN TO LIVE SLAVES
He was a colored man who had been a slave
But had run away to freedom.
And the slaves knew
What Frederick Douglass said was true.

With John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, Negroes died.
John Brown was hung.
Before the Civil War, days were dark,
And nobody knew for sure
When freedom would triumph
"Or if it would," thought some.
But others new it had to triumph.
In those dark days of slavery,
Guarding in their hearts the seed of freedom,
The slaves made up a song:
Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
That song meant just what it said: Hold On!
Freedom will come!
Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
Out of war it came, bloody and terrible!
But it came!
Some there were, as always,
Who doubted that the war would end right,
That the slaves would be free,
Or that the union would stand,
But now we know how it all came out.
Out of the darkest days for people and a nation,
We know now how it came out.
There was light when the battle clouds rolled away.
There was a great wooded land,
And men united as a nation.

America is a dream.
The poet says it was promises.
The people say it is promises-that will come true.
The people do not always say things out loud,
Nor write them down on paper.
The people often hold
Great thoughts in their deepest hearts
And sometimes only blunderingly express them,
Haltingly and stumblingly say them,
And faultily put them into practice.
The people do not always understand each other.
But there is, somewhere there,
Always the trying to understand,
And the trying to say,
"You are a man. Together we are building our land."

America!
Land created in common,
Dream nourished in common,
Keep your hand on the plow! Hold on!
If the house is not yet finished,
Don’t be discouraged, builder!
If the fight is not yet won,
Don’t be weary, soldier!
The plan and the pattern is here,
Woven from the beginning
Into the warp and woof of America:
ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL.
NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH
TO GOVERN ANOTHER MAN
WITHOUT HIS CONSENT.
BETTER DIE FREE,
THAN TO LIVE SLAVES.
Who said those things? Americans!
Who owns those words? America!
Who is America? You, me!
We are America!
To the enemy who would conquer us from without,
We say, NO!
To the enemy who would divide
And conquer us from within,
We say, NO!
FREEDOM!
BROTHERHOOD!
DEMOCRACY!
To all the enemies of these great words:
We say, NO!

A long time ago,
An enslaved people heading toward freedom
Made up a song:
Keep Your Hand On The Plow! Hold On!
The plow plowed a new furrow
Across the field of history.
Into that furrow the freedom seed was dropped.
From that seed a tree grew, is growing, will ever grow.
That tree is for everybody,
For all America, for all the world.
May its branches spread and shelter grow
Until all races and all peoples know its shade.
KEEP YOUR HAND ON THE PLOW! HOLD ON!

 

[marval]

Hi Intet

That is a beautiful poem

Written right from the heart.


Margaret

 

[marval]

A cloudless night like this ​

Can set the spirit soaring:
After a tiring day
The clockwork spectacle is
Impressive in a slightly boring
Eighteenth-century way.

It soothed adolescence a lot
To meet so shameless a stare;
The things I did could not
Be so shocking as they said
If that would still be there
After the shocked were dead

Now, unready to die
Bur already at the stage
When one starts to resent the young,
I am glad those points in the sky
May also be counted among
The creatures of middle-age.

It's cosier thinking of night
As more an Old People's Home
Than a shed for a faultless machine,
That the red pre-Cambrian light
Is gone like Imperial Rome
Or myself at seventeen.

Yet however much we may like
The stoic manner in which
The classical authors wrote,
Only the young and rich
Have the nerve or the figure to strike
The lacrimae rerum note.

For the present stalks abroad
Like the past and its wronged again
Whimper and are ignored,
And the truth cannot be hid;
Somebody chose their pain,
What needn't have happened did.

Occurring this very night
By no established rule,
Some event may already have hurled
Its first little No at the right
Of the laws we accept to school
Our post-diluvian world:

But the stars burn on overhead,
Unconscious of final ends,
As I walk home to bed,
Asking what judgment waits
My person, all my friends,
And these United States.

WH Auden

 

[marval]

Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey.
We had nothing to do and nothing to say.
We were nearing the end of a dismal day,
And then there seemed to be nothing beyond,
Then
Daddy fell into the pond!

And everyone's face grew merry and bright,
And Timothy danced for sheer delight.
"Give me the camera, quick, oh quick!
He's crawling out of the duckweed!" Click!

Then the gardener suddenly slapped his knee,
And doubled up, shaking silently,
And the ducks all quacked as if they were daft,
And it sounded as if the old drake laughed.
Oh, there wasn't a thing that didn't respond
When
Daddy Fell into the pond!

Alfred Noyes

 

[intet_at_tabe]

Everyone grumbled. The sky was grey.

Nice poem Ms. Margaret, of course except for the father.

Here´s another one, you will know from Goerge Gershwin, which I can remember being sung by the American bass voice of Paul Robeson, who also did a magnificant edition of the Negro Spiritual: Old Man River.

"Summertime
And the living is easy
Fish are jumpin'
And the cotton is high​

Oh, your daddy's rich
And your mama's good lookin'
So hush little baby now
don't you cry​

One of these mornin's
You're gonna rise up singin'
Then you'll spread your wings
And take to the sky​

But til that mornin'
Ain't nothin' can harm you
With your daddy
And your mammy
standin' by."​

by George Gershwin and Dubose Heyward, Porgy and Bess ​

 

[marval]

Yes lovely, I loved Paul Robeson. What a voice, I have a tape of him singing, just wonderful.


Margaret

 

[marval]

Here is a poem I remember my parents reading to me when I was young.


I Remember, I Remember


I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

I remember, I remember
The roses red and white,
The violets and the lily cups--
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday,--
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then
That is so heavy now,
The summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.

I remember, I remember
The fir-trees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from Heaven
Than when I was a boy.

Thomas Hood

 

[methodistgirl]

If we could see through His eyes
The way He can see with one eye,
There is one thing that is revealed.
To always stand still in awe.
At the beauty of his creation
People of the world and every nation.
Creatures great and small he made them all.
If we could see through His eyes,
What would we see?
A big magnificent universe,
A world full of creation?
If we did see through his eyes
Would we live in love and peace?
Be slow at anger and speediest
Too love and understand each other.
For that is seen through his eye.
judy tooley

 

[marval]

Thank you Judy, that is beautiful.


Margaret

 

[marval]

The Night by Hilaire Belloc​

Most Holy Night, that still dost keep
The keys of all the doors of sleep,
To me when my tired eyelids close
Give thou repose.

And let the far lament of them
That chaunt the dead day’s requiem
Make in my ears, who wakeful lie,
Soft lullaby.

Let them that guard the hornаed Moon
By my bedside their memories croon.
So shall I have new dreams and blest
In my brief rest.

Fold thy great wings about my face,
Hide day-dawn from my resting-place,
And cheat me with thy false delight,
Most Holy Night.

 

[marval]

A poem for Judy


As you travel on life's way

Happy Birthday, gentle friend
have a blessed day
May your heart be filled with wonders
as you travel on life's way

I pray your day is filled with love
and joy of every kind
May the world rise to greet you
I hope these things you find

Joy, peace and happiness
contentment in your heart
May you find all these spirit fruits
the ones that you impart

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Anon

 

[marval]

Here is another one of mine.

Oh to be.


Oh to be a regal swan
How gracefully they swim
Gliding down the rivers
Feathers neat and trim.

Oh to be an eagle
Soaring up on high
Coasting on the wind of life
Master of the sky.

Oh to be a lion
King of the jungle he
Prowling through the undergrowth
Who will his next prey be?

Oh to be a giraffe
With a neck so tall
Surveying all around him
Reaching the high leaves all.

Oh to be a monkey
Swinging in the trees
Eating coconuts and bananas
And playing as they please.

Oh a lovely animal
I would like to be
Living a life of freedom
That will do for me.

 

[Contratrombone64]

Margaret - very beautiful

 

[marval]

Thank you CT.