Poetry!

[diddyriddick]

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Dylan Thomas


Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

 

[RabidAlien]

Written by Leo Marks to his girlfriend/fiance Ruth, a WAAF who died in a plane crash in Canada. The poem was given to Violette Szabo as a poem-code, and still brings a lump to my throat when I read it:

The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours

The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause

For the peace of my years
In the long green grass
Will be yours and yours
And yours

 

[B-17engineer]

CIVIL WAR
Charles Dawson Shanly (1811-1875)

"Rifleman, shoot me a fancy shot
Straight at the heart of yon prowling vidette;
Ring me a ball in the glittering spot
That shines on his breast like an amulet!"

"Ah, captain! here goes for a fine-drawn bead,
There's music around when my barrel's in tune!"
Crack! went the rifle, the messenger sped,
And dead from his horse fell the ringing dragoon.

"Now, rifleman, steal through the bushes, and snatch
From your victim some trinket to handsel first blood;
A button, a loop, or that luminous patch
That gleams in the moon like a diamond stud!"

"O captain! I staggered, and sunk on my track,
When I gazed on the face of that fallen vidette,
For he looked so like you, as he lay on his back,
That my heart rose upon me, and masters me yet.

"But I snatched off the trinket--this locket of gold;
An inch from the centre my lead broke its way,
Scarce grazing the picture, so fair to behold,
Of a beautiful lady in bridal array."

"Ha! rifleman, fling me the locket!--'tis she,
My brother's young bride, and the fallen dragoon
Was her husband--Hush! soldier, 'twas Heaven's decree,
We must bury him there, by the light of the moon!

"But hark! the far bugles their warnings unite;
War is a virtue,-weakness a sin;
There's a lurking and loping around us to-night;
Load again, rifleman, keep your hand in!"

 

[Aaron Brooks Wolters]

Little Willy (anonomous)

Little Willy hung his sister
She was dead before we missed her
Little Willy's always up too tricks
Ain't he cute
He's only six

 

[BikerBabe]

Found this online.

Fünf Meilen Hoch

Schließende Dampfspuren - zu viele zu zählen; B-17s in der
Kastenanordnung; für Frauen und Kinder...das Vaterland selbst...
die unmögliche Aufgabe von sie alle senken.

Polen, Norwegen, Franzözen und Belgien; wir singen die Lieder
des sieges; Dänemarks, Hollands, Griechenlands
und Rußlands...flüchtiger Raum für den Dritten Reich;
die Juwele der Eroberung noch glänzend von unseren Uniformen,
wie wir in Hölle fliegen.

Indikatoren strömen hinter Flügeln und Cockpit während sechzig
Maschine gewehren nach Haus suchen, die Korne des Schweisses
tröpfelnd hinunter meinen Stern, Beleidigung an dieser Höhe,
vierzig unterhalb null. Sekunden später finden meine Kanonenbein
einen Kraftstofftank; eine sekunde der Bomber dort,
dann in einem Feuerkugel wird er gegangen.

Plötzlich haben meine Kamerad umdrehungen stark bis Kanal,
zwei oder drei "kleine Freunde" uns durch Überraschung, die Sonne
in unseren Augen genommen. Auf den Stock stark ziehen,
ein vertrauter schwere Koerperverletzung: Focke-Wulf -
Mustang - Messerschmitt, gerades fleisch und gewehren
gegurtet zu einer Maschine - Pratt u. Whitney - Merlin –
Daimler-Benz an 400mps, ein tödliches Spiel der marke...
fangen mich ab, wenn sie können.

Tauchend, um zu entgehen, meine Flugzeug Schauders,
geharkt mit Gewehrkugeln, zu spät sehe ich das P-51 gesperrt
auf mein Endstück. Keine Wahl aber Sprung oder Würfel.
Ich öffne das Kabinendach drehe dann die Kämpferoberseite unten,
die Schwerkraft, die mich von meinem brennen zieht Ross,
als Deutschland, nicht jetzt als eine heftig gezerrissen Steppdecke,
Wartezeiten still für mich aus den Grund.

© 1979 Chris Sorrenti


Five Miles High

Vapor trails closing - too many to count; B-17s in box formation;
for wives and children...the fatherland itself...
the impossible task of bringing them all down.

Poland, Norway, France and Belgium; we sing the hymns of victory;
Denmark, Holland, Greece and Russia…fleeting glory for the Third Reich;
the jewels of conquest still gleaming from our uniforms as we fly into Hell.

Tracers stream past wing and cockpit as sixty machine guns search for me,
beads of sweat trickling down my forehead, despite at this altitude,
forty below zero. Seconds later my cannons find a fuel tank;
one second the bomber's there, then in a fireball it's gone.

Suddenly my wingman banks hard to port, two or three "little friends"
have taken us by surprise, the sun in our eyes. Pulling hard on the stick,
a familiar mayhem: Focke-Wulf - Mustang - Messerschmitt,
just flesh and guns strapped to an engine - Pratt Whitney –
Rolls Royce Merlin - Daimler-Benz, at 400mph, a deadly game of tag...
catch me if you can.

Diving to escape, my aircraft shudders, raked with bullets,
too late I see the P-51 locked on my tail. No choice now but jump or die.
Opening the canopy, I turn the fighter upside down, gravity pulling me
from my burning steed, as Germany, no more now than a tattered quilt,
waits in silence for me below.

© 1979 Chris Sorrenti

 

[muller]

The Grand Old Duke of York,
He had ten thousand men,
His case comes up next week....

Spike Milligan.

 

[Njaco]

Here I sit
Brokenhearted
Tried to crap
But only farted.

 

[vikingBerserker]

As read in a Men's Room off of I-95. 3rd stall:

"As I sit here smelling vapor,
Some ***hole stole the toilet paper..."

 

[Lucky13]

The Unknown Soldier

He is known to the sun-white Majesties
Who stand at the gates of dawn.
He is known to the cloud-borne company
Whose souls but late have gone.
Like wind-flung stars through lattice bars
They throng to greet their own,
With voice of flame they sound his name
Who died to us unknown.

He is hailed by the time-crowned brotherhood,
By the Dauntless of Marathon,
By Raymond, Godfrey and Lion Heart
Whose dreams he carried on.
His name they call through the heavenly hall
Unheard by earthly ear,
He is claimed by the famed in Arcady
Who knew no title here.

Oh faint was the lamp of Sirius
And dim was the Milky Way.
Oh far was the floor of Paradise
From the soil where the soldier lay.
Oh chill and stark was the crimson dark
Where huddled men lay deep;
His comrades all denied his call
Long had they lain in sleep.

Oh strange how the lamp of Sirius
Drops low to the dazzled eyes,
Oh strange how the steel-red battlefields
Are floors of Paradise.
Oh strange how the ground with never a sound
Swings open, tier on tier,
And standing there in the shining air
Are the friends he cherished here.

They are known to the sun-shod sentinels
Who circle the morning's door,
They are led by a cloud-bright company
Through paths unseen before.
Like blossoms blown, their souls have flown
Past war and reeking sod,
In the book unbound their names are found
They are known in the courts of God!

by Angela Morgan

 

[Lucky13]

Iron

Carl Sandburg (1916)


Guns,
Long, steel guns,
Pointed from the war ships
In the name of the war god.
Straight, shining, polished guns,
Clambered over with jackies in white blouses,
Glory of tan faces, tousled hair, white teeth,
Laughing lithe jackies in white blouses,
Sitting on the guns singing war songs, war chanties.

Shovels,
Broad, iron shovels,
Scooping out oblong vaults,
Loosening turf and leveling sod.

I ask you
To witness-
The shovel is brother to the gun.


Grass

Carl Sandburg (1918)


Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

 

[RabidAlien]

Found in a stall at Big Bend Nat'l Park, Texas:

You can shake it,
you can squeeze it,
you can bang it on the wall,
but its always in your pants
that the final drop will fall.

 

[BikerBabe]

 

[B-17engineer]

Again...

 

[Heinz]

Want some real poetry check out WW1 poet Siegfried Sassoon.
Siegfried Sassoon - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Suicide In The Trenches

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.

In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go

Counter Attack

We'd gained our first objective hours before
While dawn broke like a face with blinking eyes,
Pallid, unshaved and thirsty, blind with smoke.
Things seemed all right at first. We held their line,
With bombers posted, Lewis guns well placed,
And clink of shovels deepening the shallow trench.
The place was rotten with dead; green clumsy legs
High-booted, sprawled and grovelled along the saps
And trunks, face downward, in the sucking mud,
Wallowed like trodden sand-bags loosely filled;
And naked sodden buttocks, mats of hair,
Bulged, clotted heads slept in the plastering slime.
And then the rain began,— the jolly old rain!

A yawning soldier knelt against the bank,
Staring across the morning blear with fog;
He wondered when the Allemands would get busy;
And then, of course, they started with five-nines
Traversing, sure as fate, and never a dud.
Mute in the clamour of shells he watched them burst
Spouting dark earth and wire with gusts from hell,
While posturing giants dissolved in drifts of smoke.
He crouched and flinched, dizzy with galloping fear,
Sick for escape,— loathing the strangled horror
And butchered, frantic gestures of the dead.

An officer came blundering down the trench:
'Stand-to and man the fire-step! 'On he went...
Gasping and bawling, 'Fire- step...counter-attack!'
Then the haze lifted. Bombing on the right
Down the old sap: machine- guns on the left;
And stumbling figures looming out in front.
'O Christ, they're coming at us!' Bullets spat,
And he remembered his rifle...rapid fire...
And started blazing wildly...then a bang
Crumpled and spun him sideways, knocked him
out To grunt and wriggle: none heeded him; he choked
And fought the flapping veils of smothering gloom,
Lost in a blurred confusion of yells and groans...
Down, and down, and down, he sank and drowned,
Bleeding to death. The counter-attack had failed

 

[RabidAlien]

Excellent, Heinz.

 

[BikerBabe]

LIVING IS --

Living is
a thing you do
now or never --
which do you?

- Piet Hein.

 

[vikingBerserker]

Very nice BB!

 

[Marcel]

LIVING IS --

Living is
a thing you do
now or never --
which do you?

- Piet Hein.

Piet Heijn? never knew he spoke English:

Piet Heijn, zijn naam is klein,
Zijn daden benne groot,
Hij heeft gewonnen de Zilvervloot....

Sounding through Ajax stadium

 

[BikerBabe]

Piet Heijn? never knew he spoke English:

Piet Heijn, zijn naam is klein,
Zijn daden benne groot,
Hij heeft gewonnen de Zilvervloot....

Sounding through Ajax stadium

Nope, danish designer, inventor, multi-talented artist and poet Piet Hein - 1905-1996.

Also known as Kumbel, whose small poems is known as Grooks.
Here's another one:

MEMENTO VIVERE

Love while you've got
love to give.
Live while you've got
life to live.

 

[bigZ]

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of—wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there,
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark nor even eagle flew—
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Junior (June 9, 1922 – December 11, 1941)