National Poetry Day

[no mo do yakamo]

My friend Billy
Had a ten foot willy,
He showed it to the girl next door.
She thought it was a snake
And hit it with a rake
And now its only 4 ft 4.

[longrunsthefox]

My friend Billy
Had a ten foot willy,
He showed it to the girl next door.
She thought it was a snake
And hit it with a rake
And now its only 4 ft 4.

Did your Daddy recite that one to you? 

[ONeill]

DEDICATION
by Patrick MacGill


From 1000 years of Irish Poetry I speak with a proud tongue of the people who were
And the people who are,
The worthy of Ardara, the Rosses and Inishkeel,
My kindred-
The people of the hills and the dark-haired passes
My neighbours on the lift of the brae,
In the lap of the valley.

To them Slainthé!

I speak of the old men,
The wrinkle-rutted,
Who dodder about foot-weary -
For their day is as the day that has been and is no more -
Who warm their feet by the fire,
And recall memories of the times that are gone;
Who kneel in the lamplight and pray
For the peace that has been theirs -
And who beat one dry-veined hand against another
Even in the sun-
For the coldness of death is on them.

I speak of the old women
Who danced to yesterday's fiddle
And dance no longer.
They sit in a quiet place and dream
And see visions
Of what is to come,
Of their issue,
Which has blossomed to manhood and womanhood -
And seeing thus
They are happy
For the day that was leaves no regrets,
And peace is theirs
And perfection.

I speak of the strong men
Who shoulder their burdens in the hot day,
Who stand on the market-place
And bargain in loud voices,
Showing their stock to the world.
Straight the glance of their eyes -
Broad-shouldered,
Supple.
Under their feet the holms blossom,
The harvest yields.
The their path is of prosperity.

I speak of the women,
Strong hipped, full-bosomed,
Who drive the cattle to graze at dawn,
Who milk the cows at dusk.
Grace in their homes,
And in the crowded ways
Modest and seemly -
Mother of children!

I speak of the children
Of the many townlands,
Blossoms of the Bogland,
Flowers of the Valley,
Who know not yesterday, nor to-morrow,
And are happy,
The pride of those who have begot them.

And thus it is,
Every and always,
In Ardara, the Rosses and Inishkeel -
Here, as elsewhere,
The Weak, the Strong, and the Blossoming -
And thus my kindred.

To them Slainthe!

[ONeill]

A Visit From My Wife

by O'Donovan Rossa

A single glance, and that glance the first,
And her image was fixed in my mind and nursed;
And now it is woven with all my schemes,
And it rules the realm of all my dreams.

One of Heaven's best gifts in an earthly mould,
With a figure Appelles might paint of old -
All a maiden's charms with a matron's grace,
And the blossom and bloom off the peach in her face.

And the genius that flashes her bright black eye
Is the face of the sun in a clouded sky;
She has noble thoughts - she has noble aims
And these thoughts on her tongue are sparkling gems.

With a gifted mind and spirit meek
She would right the wronged and assist the weak;
She would scorn dangers to cheer the brave,
She would smite oppression and free the slave.

Yet a blighted life is my loved one's part,
And death cold shroud is around her heart,
For winds from the "clouds of fate" have blown
That force her to face the hard world alone.

And a daughter she of trampled land,
With its children exiled, prisoned, banned;
And she vowed her love to a lover whom
The tyrant had marked for a felon's doom.

And snatched from her side erre the honeymoon wanted:
In the dungeons of England he lies enchained;
And the bonds that bind him "for life" a slave
Are binding his love to his living grave.

He would sever the link of such hopeless love,
Were that sentence "for ever" decreed above.
For the pleasures don't pay for the pains of life -
To be living in death with a widowed wife.

A single glance, and that glance the first,
And her image was fixed in my mind and nursed,
And now she's the woof of my worldly schemes,
And she sits enthroned as the queen of my dream

[Aerlik]

 

Keep it coming O'Neill.  This is great stuff.  My late father was a great one for poetry, as were many of his generation as at school it was usually thumped into them by the teachers at the national schools.

I got my hand on a wonderful CD "4000 works of Literature" at the PO here in Oz 7 years ago.  It is full of the classics of ancient and modern literature though no Heaney unfortunately.  Makes for interesting browsing.

[ardmhachaabu]

Seo ceann as Gaeilge is maith liom go mór.  Bhí seo scriofa ag fear as Ard an Rátha darbh ainm Pádraig MacSuibhne

Ag Foghlaim

Chuaigh sé ar bhunscoil
ag foghlaim mar chách:
gach samhradh ar saoire,
uibheacha um Cháisc

Chuaigh sé ar mhéanscoil
ina óganach chaol:
fuair sé eolas na leabhar
agus fios ar an tsaol.

Chuaigh sé ar ollscoil
le dúil ins an chéim:
fuair sé léargas ar dhaoine
agus fosta air féin.

[saffron sam2]

That time of the year again.

Any additions?

[guy crouchback]

 this be the vers by  the great philip larkin
This Be The Verse

They f**k you up, your mum and dad.
  They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
  And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
  By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
  And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
  It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
  And don't have any kids yourself.

[Harold Disgracey]

Spring

by Gerard Manley Hopkins
 
Nothing is so beautiful as Spring—
   When weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush ;
   Thrush's eggs look little low heavens, and thrush
Through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring
The ear, it strikes like lightnings to hear him sing ;
   The glassy peartree leaves and blooms, they brush
   The descending blue ; that blue is all in a rush
With richness ; the racing lambs too have fair their fling.
 
What is all this juice and all this joy ?
   A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning
In Eden garden.—Have, get, before it cloy,
 
   Before it cloud, Christ, lord, and sour with sinning,
Innocent mind and Mayday in girl and boy,
   Most, O maid's child, thy choice and worthy the winning.

[Olly]

The Ballad of William Bloat

Raymond Calvert



In a mean abode on the Skankill Road
Lived a man named William Bloat;
He had a wife, the curse of his life,
Who continually got his goat.
So one day at dawn, with her nightdress on
He slit her bloody throat.

With a razor gash he settled her hash
Never was crime so slick
But the drip drip drip on the pillowslip
Of her lifeblood made him sick.
And the knee-deep gore on the bedroom floor
Grew clotted and cold and thick.

And yet he was glad he had done what he had
When she lay there stiff and still
But a sudden awe of the angry law
Struck his heart with an icy chill.
So to finish the fun so well begun
He resolved himself to kill.

He took the sheet from the wife's coul' feet
And twisted it into a rope
And he hanged himself from the pantry shelf,
'Twas an easy end, let's hope.
In the face of death with his latest breath
He solemnly cursed the Pope.

But the strangest turn to the whole concern
Is only just beginning.
He went to Hell but his wife got well
And she's still alive and sinnin',
For the razor blade was German made
But the sheet was Belfast linen. 

[Orior]

On yonder hill,
There sat a bucket.
Its not there now,
Cause someone tuck it.

[Orior]

Ruth sat on my motorbike,
directly to the back of me.
I went over a bump at 65,
and rode on Ruthlessly.

[Evil Genius]

Dunno who it is by , my Granny used to come out with it.

Oh woman of three cows a gra,
don't let your tongue thus rattle
don't be saucy,don't be stiff because you may have cattle
Ive seen and heres my hand to you,I only say what's true
there's many a one with twice your stock not half so proud as you
good luck to you ,don't scorn the poor,and don't be their despiser
for worldly wealth soon melts away and cheats the very miser
and death soon strips the proudest wreath from haughty human brow
then ask yourself should you be proud,oh woman of three cows.

Excellent, rh.

New to me, so I had to Google it - turns out it was by James Clarence Mangan, more famous for "My Dark Rosaleen".

Have to say, it's much better than MDR, which is basically a wheen of verses with just one message - and hardly a profound one, at that.

http://www.irishcultureandcustoms.com/poetry/Mangan.html

[Evil Genius]

The Ballad of William Bloat

Raymond Calvert



In a mean abode on the Skankill Road
Lived a man named William Bloat;
He had a wife, the curse of his life,
Who continually got his goat.
So one day at dawn, with her nightdress on
He slit her bloody throat.

With a razor gash he settled her hash
Never was crime so slick
But the drip drip drip on the pillowslip
Of her lifeblood made him sick.
And the knee-deep gore on the bedroom floor
Grew clotted and cold and thick.

And yet he was glad he had done what he had
When she lay there stiff and still
But a sudden awe of the angry law
Struck his heart with an icy chill.
So to finish the fun so well begun
He resolved himself to kill.

He took the sheet from the wife's coul' feet
And twisted it into a rope
And he hanged himself from the pantry shelf,
'Twas an easy end, let's hope.
In the face of death with his latest breath
He solemnly cursed the Pope.

But the strangest turn to the whole concern
Is only just beginning.
He went to Hell but his wife got well
And she's still alive and sinnin',
For the razor blade was German made
But the sheet was Belfast linen.

Though not a McCooey myself, I've been known to offer that one (to music) when the drink is taken, but try as I might, I can never remember the second verse.

Anyhow, though I know I should appreciate the likes of Yeats, Heaney, Blake and Wordsworth etc, they are often too much "hard work" for me. I actually find myself more drawn to less high-brow poetry, such as above - particular favourites are WF Marshall and Robert Service.

I also like poets like Kipling (exceedingly good), who nicely fill the gap between doggerel and high-brow.

But the absolute Prince of Poets for me has to be Burns. He can "do profundity" with the best of them, yet never leaves his listener behind, struggling with metaphor, obtuseness or pretension.

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an 'men
Gang aft agley,
An'lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!"
http://www.robertburns.org/works/75.shtml

[guy crouchback]

more  from larkin

DUBLINESQUE     

  Down stucco sidestreets,
Where light is pewter
And afternoon mist
Brings lights on in shops
Above race-guides and rosaries,
A funeral passes.

The hearse is ahead,
But after there follows
A troop of streetwalkers
In wide flowered hats,
Leg-of-mutton sleeves,
And ankle-length dresses.

There is an air of great friendliness,
As if they were honouring
One they were fond of;
Some caper a few steps,
Skirts held skilfully
(Someone claps time),

And of great sadness also.
As they wend away
A voice is heard singing
Of Kitty, or Katy,
As if the name meant once
All love, all beauty.