Poems / poetry / verse

thanks

So if you have to merge this thread
Or let it sink without a trace
I'll have to buy a book instead
WGAF in any case?

hippy is the mergatron
he takes no prisoners

Missing Dates

Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.
It is not the effort nor the failure tires.
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.

It is not your system or clear sight that mills
Down small to the consequence a life requires;
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.

They bled an old dog dry yet the exchange rills
Of young dog blood gave but a month's desires.
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.

It is the Chinese tombs and the slag hills
Usurp the soil, and not the soil retires.
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.

Not to have fire is to be a skin that shrills.
The complete fire is death. From partial fires
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.

It is the poems you have lost, the ills
From missing dates, at which the heart expires.
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.

William Empson

ftfy

I didn't UT Fucking S
And other poem threads exist
But i was far too tired to U
T Fucking S for shit i've missed
**
*stops using site to edit own poems***

Yesterday I saw a worm

wriggling on his belly

I wonder if he'd like to come inside

and see what's on the telly.

This was the one i was after.

At t'Lancashire prick trials just past
A walnut from Bacup came last
There was one from Wigan
It were a big'un,
But best'un, from Preston, were vast.

A Conceptual artist from Kent
Did a shit on the side of a tent
A note on the floor
Said "Untitled 4"
So nobody knew what it meant

Last line for this one?

It was late and I'd run out of booze:
I thought, "Fuck it, I've nothing to lose."
I opened a vein
And in spite of the pain...
...

It was late and I'd run out of booze:
I thought, "Fuck it, I've nothing to lose."
I opened a vein
And in spite of the pain
I whispered "goodbye" to the blues

Nice one, better than mine.

.

I'm having trouble with this one:-

A graphic designer from Hackney
Likes to measure his penis exactly
"I prefer to inspect
When completely erect...

Hitcher by Simon Armitage.

I'd been tired, under
the weather, but the ansaphone kept screaming.
One more sick-note. mister, and you're finished. Fired.
I thumbed a lift to where the car was parked.
A Vauxhall Astra. It was hired.

I picked him up in Leeds.
He was following the sun to west from east
with just a toothbrush and the good earth for a bed. The truth,
he said, was blowin' in the wind,
or round the next bend.

I let him have it
on the top road out of Harrogate -once
with the head, then six times with the krooklok
in the face -and didn't even swerve.
I dropped it into third

and leant across
to let him out, and saw him in the mirror
bouncing off the kerb, then disappearing down the verge.
We were the same age, give or take a week.
He'd said he liked the breeze

to run its fingers
through his hair. It was twelve noon.
The outlook for the day was moderate to fair.
Stitch that, I remember thinking,
you can walk from there.

Hitcher by Simon Armitage.

ace. like that a lot.

High Windows by Philip Larkin

When I see a couple of kids
And guess he's fucking her and she's
Taking pills or wearing a diaphragm,
I know this is paradise

Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives--
Bonds and gestures pushed to one side
Like an outdated combine harvester,
And everyone young going down the long slide

To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if
Anyone looked at me, forty years back,
And thought, *That'll be the life;
No God any more, or sweating in the dark

About hell and that, or having to hide
What you think of the priest. He
And his lot will all go down the long slide
Like free bloody birds*. And immediately

Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:
The sun-comprehending glass,
And beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows
Nothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.

And one of my own for good measure.

In Christ Church Meadows by tomasito

Finally we got around
to talking things through
and were close to reaching
some kind of understanding
when an eight emerged
from over her shoulder,
clawing the Isis
like a grappling stick insect,
and in that moment of distraction
everything left to say
was suddenly said -
by the traction of oars
that sent coots scuttling;
by the slap of a palm
against its reflection.

Early shift.

At ungodly o'clock we shuffle from our beds,
half-hearted somnambulists,
beginning our day before the day begins.
Carrier bags and tupperware,
un-ironed clothes,
un-ironed faces,
tattered queues of sad lions,
roaring silent yawns at the passing cars,
waiting for scraps of meat.

Ambling through the factory gate,
amber slits the horizon,
soon the real people will wake.
Muted greetings at the punch clock,
cigarettes and steaming brews,
backwards perusal of the papers,
sport, then news,
the world might have ended,
but who scored the goal?

Air quivers as mighty motors shudder to life,
We yawn at the machines,
the machines roar back,
they are fed paper,
there's work to be done before we get our meat.
After hours of toil we are thrown our ration,
Ink and bacon,
Offset and HP,
Feed the press as you feed yourself.

Cracked porcelain trophies are held aloft,
In hands stained black by cyan, magenta, yellow.
As tea is supped,
the real people appear,
pinstripes,
leather,
hair gel and car keys,
smooth skin,
bright eyes and plastic good mornings.
The sun has now risen.
The day can begin.

A graphic designer from Hackney
Likes to measure his penis exactly
"I prefer to inspect
When completely erect
And I go from helmet to ballsack, see"

Tomasito...
I enjoyed that a lot. Very nice.

One of mine;

Felicity Kendalls apron is flecked with paint
From making house for five days straight
And while this heaven feels like home
We'll need to call on some restraint

Restraint from you / Restraint from I
We know this home cannot provide
All that we both need
Think. Too quick to proceed

Graphic representations of what we believe
Leaves paper blank, brings me to my knees
While vocal vocals vocabulary spill
Digs us deep and deeper still

Yet I crave this madness
Blank pages fill
Utterings, stutterings, but... but... butterings
So this is where I lay my head
Undress these thought and put them to bed.

I'm having trouble with this one:-

A graphic designer from Hackney
Likes to measure his penis exactly
"I prefer to inspect
When completely erect...

What disappoints women so matter of factly

Swallows you up, then she spits you out whole,
Like a dog with a bone, just like any new home,
Our fair lady London observes from afar,
Bursting at the seams with the next bright young thing.

‘Streets paved with gold’, so said another gone by,
Try as you might they never make themselves known,
To the poor man at least, with his ethic handed down,
It ends up with us, in our safe pair of hands.

Blustery tube wind, the creaking of doors,
Survival of the fittest, a joint London sneeze,
Cursory glances meet rigid indifference,
Metropolitan feast, we share it out as we please.

Jack & Jill went up the hill
Jack wanted to look up Jill's fanny
Jack came down with frown
He found out Jill was a Tranny

A graphic designer from Hackney
Likes to measure his penis exactly
"I prefer to inspect
When completely erect
And I go from helmet to ballsack, see"

brilliant

What disappoints women so matter of factly

You knew it was autobiographical