2013-09-01 – Poets Ride

This actually sounds like fun. I'm off to Wales the next day so if I'm packed and ready I might come along.

We promise not to lose you :)

I wonder if we'd count as a family here? http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/events/pages/default.aspx?location=Keats%20House#

Probably no less dysfunctional than most ...

Ha! That's a point. Maybe it's not PC to for them question our somewhat unconventional party.

Yeah how dare they judge us.

I'm sure you can sweet-talk them with a few lines of your poetry, YAL.

• 'Ode To A Nightingale Nice Ticket Person'
  *
  

I wonder if we'd count as a family here?

Possibly :-/

In if this ride ends at Kensal Green.

1. Lynx (List jinx)
   

fixed

1. Miss Mouse
   
2. YAL
   
3. mands
   
4. Oz ( possibly )
   
5. BN ( possibly - also, my knowledge of poetry is very poor indeed )
   
6. Lynx (is a poet, but didn't know it)
   
7. skydancer (has no answer)
   

In, Im a total pleb but my Grandad used to work for this geezer....,Alfred, Lord Tennyson

You're no pleb Tony, you haz Kindle ;)

What did your grandfather do for Tennyson? Cool story bro.

This sounds great, I will speak with my other half as it is her birthday on the 4th so we may be celebrating at the weekend. If not hopefully we'll both come along!

1. Miss Mouse
   
2. YAL
   
3. mands
   
4. Oz ( possibly )
   
5. BN ( possibly - also, my knowledge of poetry is very poor indeed )
   
6. Lynx (is a poet, but didn't know it)
   
7. skydancer (has no answer)
   
8. HairyChris (lowly musician, lousy lyricist)
   

ftfy

1. Miss Mouse
   
2. YAL
   
3. mands
   
4. Oz ( possibly )
   
5. BN ( possibly - also, my knowledge of poetry is very poor indeed )
   
6. Lynx (is a poet, but didn't know it)
   
7. skydancer (has no answer)
   
8. HairyChris (lowly musician, lousy lyricist, great beard)
   

I once tried and failed to find Ernest Dowson's grave in Brockley & Ladywell Cemetery. So, in for this.

1. Miss Mouse
   
2. YAL
   
3. mands
   
4. Oz ( possibly )
   
5. BN ( possibly - also, my knowledge of poetry is very poor indeed )
   
6. Lynx (is a poet, but didn't know it)
   
7. skydancer (has no answer)
   
8. HairyChris (lowly musician, lousy lyricist, great beard)
   
9. alexanderb
   

will you be passing by places commemorated in verse too?
there used to be a few lines of Benjamin Zephaniah verse on a lit up display in Green Street, but I don't think it's there anymore. csb.

A few here and there yes - Westminster Bridge (Wordsworth, natch) and some others but it's mostly tucked away homes in pretty neighbourhoods...

So not going to Slough, then?

Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough!
It isn’t fit for humans now,
There isn’t grass to graze a cow.
Swarm over, Death!

Come, bombs and blow to smithereens
Those air-conditioned, bright canteens,
Tinned fruit, tinned meat, tinned milk, tinned beans,
Tinned minds, tinned breath.

Mess up the mess they call a town—
A house for ninety-seven down
And once a week a half a crown
For twenty years.

And get that man with double chin
Who’ll always cheat and always win,
Who washes his repulsive skin
In women’s tears:

And smash his desk of polished oak
And smash his hands so used to stroke
And stop his boring dirty joke
And make him yell.

But spare the bald young clerks who add
The profits of the stinking cad;
It’s not their fault that they are mad,
They’ve tasted Hell.

It’s not their fault they do not know
The birdsong from the radio,
It’s not their fault they often go
To Maidenhead

And talk of sport and makes of cars
In various bogus-Tudor bars
And daren’t look up and see the stars
But belch instead.

In labour-saving homes, with care
Their wives frizz out peroxide hair
And dry it in synthetic air
And paint their nails.

Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough
To get it ready for the plough.
The cabbages are coming now;
The earth exhales.

Yeah, maybe not.

I have longed to move away
From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terror's continual cry
That grows more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea.
I have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
For there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper,
And the Thunder of calls and notes.

I have longed to move away but am afraid
That some life, yet unspent, might exlpode
From the old lie burning on the ground,
And cracking into the air leave me half blind.
Neither by night's ancient fear,
The parting of hat from hair,
Pursed lips at the reciever,
Shall I fall to death's feather.
By these I would not care to die,
Half convention and Half lie.

...But I'm still in london so might as well come on the ride I suppose

still the nations favourite..
by Mary Elizabeth Frye

Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

Can you lot stop speaking in tongues?

1. Miss Mouse
   
2. YAL
   
3. mands
   
4. Oz ( possibly )
   
5. BN ( possibly - also, my knowledge of poetry is very poor indeed )
   
6. Lynx (is a poet, but didn't know it)
   
7. skydancer (has no answer)
   
8. HairyChris (lowly musician, lousy lyricist, great beard)
   
9. alexanderb
   
10. Stonehedge (piss artist)
    

Mine was Dylan Thomas btw. Just realised I will be cycling on Dartmoor on the first. Have fun everyone x

Confirmed :-)

1. Miss Mouse
   
2. YAL
   
3. mands
   
4. Oz ( possibly )
   
5. BN
   
6. Lynx (is a poet, but didn't know it)
   
7. skydancer (has no answer)
   
8. HairyChris (lowly musician, lousy lyricist, great beard)
   
9. alexanderb
   
10. Stonehedge (piss artist)