World Poetry Day

Norman_Conquest

Well-known member
I thought we might have had one or two poems from our resident poet HarryVegas. Anyway, I have added two poems that mean a lot to me but could have added a lot more. Please feelfree to add your favourite poems.

The first poem I have added below is by A. A. Milne called Jonathon Jo that I use to read it to my boys at bedtime. The second is a poem by John Agard regarding a term we regularly got called when growing up (Half-Caste).

Jonathon Jo by A. A. Milne

Jonathan Jo
Has a mouth like an "O"
And a wheelbarrow full of surprises;
If you ask for a bat,
Or for something like that,
He has got it, whatever the size is.

If you're wanting a ball,
It's no trouble at all;
Why, the more that you ask for, the merrier -
Like a hoop and a top,
And a watch that won't stop,
And some sweets, and an Aberdeen terrier.

Jonathan Jo
Has a mouth like an "O,"
But this is what makes him so funny:
If you give him a smile,
Only once in a while,
Then he never expects any money!


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In the land of football, where heroes are made there was a man named Jonny, with a spirit unafraid a warrior on the pitch, with a heart full of fire he battles every day, never willing to tire.

With Middlesbrough he found his true destiny to play for the best and just for me, he trained and he fought, day after day, dreams were constructed and imaginations were
caught.

With every match, Jonny shines brighter, his skills are unmatched, his spirit a fighter he gives it his all, every time he plays from a quick cameo to commanding displays.

Ayresome Angels to Red Faction, they cheer and they sing for than man we call Jonny, he runs like the wind, his feet light as feather, he’s won all our hearts, a brute and a master a legend forever.

His name echoed loud throughout the stands for he was a hero, strong and grand he fights with passion, he fights with pride and never once dies he ever falter or hide

Through the highs and the lows, Jonny stands tall for he is a warrior, handsome and tall and when the final whistle blows, and the games finally done Jonny Howson emerges, as a true champion.
 
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There was a young lady from Keith,
Who could pull back foreskin with her teeth,
But you know what is funny,
She didn’t do it for money,
She did it for the cheese underneath
 
Wealthy vampires
With the cold hands of executioners
Execute
Executive decisions
Determined to destroy
What 1 million women, children, and men
1910 died, drowning in the rage of battle.
Mothers, half naked
Infants clutching thier necks
Running frantically
Tripping over the bodies of their sons
Teeth gnashing
Swinging machete
Spitting blood and mud, and screaming:
Land, and liberty!
Were erased.
Buried and burned
Along with the memory of the dead
Along with the ejido.
With the smooth stroke of a pen
And with the ghost of Nixon present in their eyes
They smiled.
And pronounced the omnipitence
Of the free market
The profits of profit
Extending the scurge of columbus and pizarro
The freedom to buy things you can never afford
The freedom for indians to buy corn that once
Flourished overgrown in their backyards
The freedom to die of curable disease
The freedom to watch their children's stomachs swell and burst
The freedom to starve and die
Without land or liberty
But Ramona, with eyes of obsidian
Peering through her blood and sweat drenched mask
Darding, unseen
Changing direction with the swiftness of a bird
Through the shanty's of the canyon
With every coyote, every insect, every phylum of life
Urging her, propelling her forward.
The leaves and branches of the forest
Part for miles, clearing her path
The voices and screams of the dead beneathe her feet
Echo in the deepest chasm of her soul
Hurling her, toward the city
History surging through her veins
Pulsing through her fingers
Hurling her, towards the city
She caresses her trigger
And the words of magome fulfil her being
And with each shot she fires, she affirms her movement
Enough! Enough!
No!
I will see my own blood flow
Before you take my land...or my liberty
 
Sir Brian had a battleaxe with great big knobs on.
He went among the villagers and blipped them on the head.
On Wednesday and on Saturday,
Especially on the latter day,
He called on all the cottages and this is what he said:


“I am Sir Brian!” (Ting-ling!)
“I am Sir Brian!” (Rat-tat!)
“I am Sir Brian,
“As bold as a lion!
“Take that, and that, and that!”
Sir Brian had a pair of boots with great big spurs on;.
A fighting pair of which he was particularly fond.
On Tuesday and on Friday,
Just to make the street look tidy,
He’d collect the passing villagers and kick them in the pond.
“I am Sir Brian!” (Sper-lash!)
“I am Sir Brian!” (Sper-losh!)
“I am Sir Brian,
“As bold as a Lion!
“Is anyone else for a wash?”
Sir Brian woke one morning and he couldn’t find his battleaxe.
He walked into the village in his second pair of boots.
He had gone a hundred paces
When the street was full of faces
And the villagers were round him with ironical salutes.
“You are Sir Brian? My, my.
“You are Sir Brian? Dear, dear.
“You are Sir Brian
“As bold as a lion?
“Delighted to meet you here!”
Sir Brian went a journey and he found a lot of duckweed.
They pulled him out and dried him and they blipped him on the head.
They took him by the breeches
And they hurled him into ditches
And they pushed him under waterfalls and this is what they said:
“You are Sir Brian — don’t laugh!
“You are Sir Brian — don’t cry!
“You are Sir Brian
“As bold as a lion —
“Sir Brian the Lion, goodbye!”
Sir Brian struggled home again and chopped up his battleaxe.
Sir Brian took his fighting boots and threw them in the fire.
He is quite a different person
Now he hasn’t got his spurs on,
And he goes about the village as B. Botany, Esquire.

“I am Sir Brian? Oh, no!
“I am Sir Brian? Who’s he?
“I haven’t any title, I’m Botany;
“Plain Mr. Botany (B.)”
 
Wrote this when Willie Whigham died ...

A lovely ugly bu99er,
you were number one in your day
with a face sent straight from Heaven
to scare star strikers away.

A skinny malinky gangler
sent doon from the lochs
with honours in keeping clean sheets
in the high school of hard knocks.

And I can still see you there now
at halftime on the pitchside track
having a minute with the fans
sharing a fag and the crack.

Tipping over top corner scorchers,
a teddy boy, woodbined flyer,
palming away mam’s jokes about
a face to keep kids off the fire.

The Holgate has a new angel,
singing away in the dark.
He’s rough and he’s tough
and his voice is gruff –
St Willie Of Ayresome Park.
 
Much to his Mum and Dad's dismay,
Horace ate himself one day.
He didn't stop to say his grace,
He just sat down and ate his face.
We can't have this! His Dad declared,
If that lad's ate, he should be shared.
But even as they spoke they saw,
Horace eating more and more.
First his legs then his thighs,
His arms, his nose, his hair, his eyes...
Stop him someone! Mother cried,
Those eyeballs would be better fried!
But all too late, for they were gone,
And he had started on his dong...
Oh! Foolish child! The father mourns,
You could have deep fried that with prawns,
Some parsley and some tartar sauce...
But Horace was on his second course.
His liver and his lights and lung,
His ears, his neck, his chin, his tongue.
To think I raised him from the cot,
And now he's going to scoff the lot!
His Mother cried, What shall we do?
What's left won't even make a stew...
And as she wept her son was seen,
To eat his head, his heart, his spleen.
And there he lay, a boy no more,
Just a stomach, on the floor.
None the less, since it was his,
They ate it-that's what haggis is.
 
I was once asked to write/read a poem that summed up where I grew up.

I much prefer the written version, though the verbalised one makes me smile too.

It's called "A Teesside Greeting"

(S)oothe
Afu
Cayoe
 
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Boris Johnson's Defence Speech Revealed

I was stood behind the goal for that Gordon Banks save.
I was Robert Burns’ mate, wrote Scotland The Brave.
I played cricket for England, bowled out Javed Miandad.
The unknown soldier in Westminster Abbey? My grandad!

I fought in the Falklands, died twice, came back to life.
I once dated Princess Di but dumped her for my wife.
Churchill foresaw the greatness for which I was destined.
My relationship with the truth cannot be questioned.

I've got the morals of a shark, the ethics of a louse
and I never knowingly misled the house.
 
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Wilfred Owen
"The Miners"

There was a whispering in my hearth,
A sigh of the coal,
Grown wistful of a former earth
It might recall.

I listened for a tale of leaves
And smothered ferns,
Frond-forests, and the low sly lives
Before the fauns.

My fire might show steam-phantoms simmer
From Time's old cauldron,
Before the birds made nests in summer,
Or men had children.

But the coals were murmuring of their mine,
And moans down there
Of boys that slept wry sleep, and men
Writhing for air.

And I saw white bones in the cinder-shard,
Bones without number.
Many the muscled bodies charred,
And few remember.

I thought of all that worked dark pits
Of war, and died
Digging the rock where Death reputes
Peace lies indeed.

Comforted years will sit soft-chaired,
In rooms of amber;
The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered
By our life's ember;

The centuries will burn rich loads
With which we groaned,
Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,
While songs are crooned;
But they will not dream of us poor lads,
Left in the ground.
 
ODE TO WILDER TIMES

Money is an essential part of life,
But it should not dominate one's mind.
Money may come and Money may depart,
Morality once lost, cannot be regained.

One should not run after money,
Money should flow after any.
When we do our duty sincerely,
Money may shower like honey.

One can be happy if he has money,
One cannot be peaceful without honesty.
One can be proud if he has currency,
But cannot be elite if he looses sincerity.

S. Gibson 3/10/22 🤣
 
This is my current favourite poem. A stunning bit of work ...

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by Carol Ann Duffy

'In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.'

If poetry could tell it backwards, true, begin
that moment shrapnel scythed you to the stinking mud…
but you get up, amazed, watch bled bad blood
run upwards from the slime into its wounds;
see lines and lines of British boys rewind
back to their trenches, kiss the photographs from home -
mothers, sweethearts, sisters, younger brothers
not entering the story now
to die and die and die.
Dulce- No- Decorum- No- Pro patria mori.
You walk away.

You walk away; drop your gun (fixed bayonet)
like all your mates do too -
Harry, Tommy, Wilfred, Edward, Bert -
and light a cigarette.
There's coffee in the square,
warm French bread
and all those thousands dead
are shaking dried mud from their hair
and queuing up for home. Freshly alive,
a lad plays Tipperary to the crowd, released
from History; the glistening, healthy horses fit for heroes, kings.

You lean against a wall,
your several million lives still possible
and crammed with love, work, children, talent, English beer, good food.
You see the poet tuck away his pocket-book and smile.
If poetry could truly tell it backwards,
then it would.
 
My favourite poem, me to a tee as well....

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed


Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.


I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie

The grass below—above the vaulted sky.

I am, by John Clare
 
My favourite poem, me to a tee as well....

I am—yet what I am none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost:
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shadows in love’s frenzied stifled throes
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed


Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I loved the best
Are strange—nay, rather, stranger than the rest.


I long for scenes where man hath never trod
A place where woman never smiled or wept
There to abide with my Creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie

The grass below—above the vaulted sky.

I am, by John Clare
Ah poor old John Clare, never properly recognised in his own time. This is my favourite by him too.
 
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