Thread: Poetry? Maybe it isn't all arty farty bull?

Arch Your Back Bitch




Got me a blade, that’ll make you all sick ,
its a three inch long serrated edge kiss me quick .
This one I’ve diagnosed as my RocknRoller flicker.
And I’m gonna be more famous than Jack the Ripper

Chorus….
She loves me she loves my lop.
Such frantic eyes of the heads I chop.
And I’m dancing on flippety tippety toes,
on breasts and tummy’s of pillows,
its like I'm pirouetting on marsh mellows.
Just bring it on with those nubile ho’s .

Running down the hill and havin’ fun all the way .
I set about hackin’em , hell… I stayed all day .
Feedin’ on chicken mad arse with peel her eyes,
or a steak Diane with a side order of thighs

chorus

Ripping and a slitting in my field of murdered women .
Ex… Factor angels sit ..strumming ‘em to heaven .
So its from harp to ukulele for the up tempo .
With all those gorgeous ladies ar..souls passing in one go .

She loves me she loves my lop .
Frantic eyes in heads as I chop .
I’m dancing on flippety tippety toes ,
on breasts and tummy’s of pillows .
Its like I'm pirouetting on marsh mellows ,
Yeh baby, bring it on with those nubile ho’s .

Résumé - Dorothy Parker

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Not best known for his poetry, but if you write his words like this, it almost makes sense. Gentlemen, the words of Donald Rumsfeld:

The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.

—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

Glass Box
You know, it's the old glass box at the—
At the gas station,
Where you're using those little things
Trying to pick up the prize,
And you can't find it.
It's—

And it's all these arms are going down in there,
And so you keep dropping it
And picking it up again and moving it,
But—

Some of you are probably too young to remember those—
Those glass boxes,
But—

But they used to have them
At all the gas stations
When I was a kid.

—Dec. 6, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

A Confession
Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,
"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

—May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

Happenings
You're going to be told lots of things.
You get told things every day that don't happen.

It doesn't seem to bother people, they don't—
It's printed in the press.
The world thinks all these things happen.
They never happened.

Everyone's so eager to get the story
Before in fact the story's there
That the world is constantly being fed
Things that haven't happened.

All I can tell you is,
It hasn't happened.
It's going to happen.

—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

The Digital Revolution
Oh my goodness gracious,
What you can buy off the Internet
In terms of overhead photography!

A trained ape can know an awful lot
Of what is going on in this world,
Just by punching on his mouse
For a relatively modest cost!

—June 9, 2001, following European trip

The Situation
Things will not be necessarily continuous.
The fact that they are something other than perfectly continuous
Ought not to be characterized as a pause.
There will be some things that people will see.
There will be some things that people won't see.
And life goes on.

—Oct. 12, 2001, Department of Defense news briefing

Clarity
I think what you'll find,
I think what you'll find is,
Whatever it is we do substantively,
There will be near-perfect clarity
As to what it is.

And it will be known,
And it will be known to the Congress,
And it will be known to you,
Probably before we decide it,
But it will be known.

—Feb. 28, 2003, Department of Defense briefing

And now the clock has gone midnight to Sunday:



For The Fallen
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children,
England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.

Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.

But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;

As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.

THE SECOND COMING
W.B. Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

My Boy Jack
1914-18
Have you news of my boy Jack?"
Not this tide.
"When d'you think that he'll come back?"
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.


"Has any one else had word of him?: "
Not this tide.
For what is sunk will hardly swim,
Not with this wind blowing, and this tide.


"Oh, dear, what comfort can I find?"
None this tide,
Nor any tide,
Except he did not shame his kind--
Not even with that wind blowing, and that tide.


Then hold your head up all the more,
This tide,
And every tide;
Because he was the son you bore,
And gave to that wind blowing and that tide!

lot of dust in here, Iluv Kipling


the young british soldier.
last verse


when you'r wounded an left on Afghanistans planes,
an' the women come out to cut up what remains,
jest roll to your rifele an' blow out your brains,
an' go to your Gaws like a soldier.
go,go,go like a soldier

Originally Posted by BiscuitsAB

Originally Posted by Markintime

We've already had one Eric Bogle poem, "The Green Fields of France", here's another, equally poignant one:

now thats powerful

Really hurts to hear Shane and the Pogues sing it

Article in the Sunday Times today on modern war poetry - should be available online tomorrow (I think).

Ref Sunday Times, it is already online. The link is - www.timesonline.co.uk/warpoetry

At the risk of being sentimental, can I thank everyone who's contributed to this thread so far. It never fails to impress me, the breadth that Arrse can cover, from the Naafi Bar through to learned discussions being used in Commons Select Committees, and being able to quote poetry at each other at one in the morning (cough, cough, birds, Top Gear, football0

Scots, Wha Hae Wi' Wallace Bled
by Robert Burns

Scots, wha hae wi' Wallace bled,
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!

Now's the day, and now's the hour;
See the front o' battle lour,
See approach proud Edward's power—
Chains and slavery!

Wha will be a traitor-knave?
Wha can fill a coward's grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Let him turn and flee!

Wha for Scotland's king and law
Freedom's sword will strongly draw,
Freeman stand or freeman fa',
Let him follow me!

By oppression's woes and pains,
By your sons in servile chains,
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be free!

Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in ev'ry foe!
Liberty's in ev'ry blow!
Let us do or die!

On His Seventy-fifth Birthday - Walter Savage Landor

I strove with none; for none was worth my strife;
Nature I loved, and next to Nature, Art;
I warmed both hands before the fire of life;
It sinks, and I am ready to depart.

When you almost die
you look at life with a differant eye,
important things seem realy mundane,
and simple things visions one must retain,
walking the dogs is an important pleasurs, and an old photograph
becomes a priceless tresure.

Death Of A Ball Turret Gunner, Randall Jarrett
---------------------------------------------

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State

And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.

Six miles from earth, loosed from the dream of life,

I woke to black flack and the nightmare fighters.

And when I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

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Not quite sure what the 'State' is, but the rythm of that last line is just stunning.