favourite poem

[sebastian firefly]

marlon brando reading eliots "hollow men" does it for me

 

Edited 11 March, 2011 by sebastian firefly
alzeimers

[hamster]

Desideratum (sp). Says everything that you needto get through the dayand life in general.

 

 

Read by me adit is on the wall of my favourite toilet at work.

[Seaford Saint]

When I see a couple of kids

And guess he's ****ing 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Like an outdated combine harvester,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.

[hamster]

/\

it doesn't even rhyme, try again.

 

Seriously though, what is it about? I am guessing it is slightly anti Catholicism, no?

[saintbletch]

Poetry on SaintsWeb - whatever next?

 

This poem has always been a bit of a badge that I have worn throughout my academic and working careers. Whenever someone has looked down upon me because I lacked education or perhaps that I hadn't had the start in life that they had, I think of this poem.

 

I lived in Australia for a while in the early 90s and loved learning about some of their bush poets. Australians really celebrate their early settlers and the hard life they had to endure in a pretty unwelcoming country. Many poets and songwriters have documented those tough times.

 

Henry Lawson was one such poet. He'd had a really humble life but worked hard and educated himself and became a journalist (I think) and a published poet. But whilst his work was really well received by the masses, he got a lot of criticism from more educated poets/critics.

 

They cruelly attacked his grammar and lack of education and in this poem he attacks them back, saying that know nothing of the real Australian people and that they care more about grammar than the meaning of the words.

 

It reminds me of Dylan's "Positively Fourth Street".

 

The Uncultured Rhymer to his Cultured Critics - Henry Lawson

 

Fight through ignorance, want, and care —

Through the griefs that crush the spirit;

Push your way to a fortune fair,

And the smiles of the world you’ll merit.

Long, as a boy, for the chance to learn —

For the chance that Fate denies you;

Win degrees where the Life-lights burn,

And scores will teach and advise you.

 

My cultured friends! you have come too late

With your bypath nicely graded;

I’ve fought thus far on my track of Fate,

And I’ll follow the rest unaided.

Must I be stopped by a college gate

On the track of Life encroaching?

Be dumb to Love, and be dumb to Hate,

For the lack of a college coaching?

 

You grope for Truth in a language dead —

In the dust ’neath tower and steeple!

What know you of the tracks we tread?

And what know you of our people?

‘I must read this, and that, and the rest,’

And write as the cult expects me? —

I’ll read the book that may please me best,

And write as my heart directs me!

 

You were quick to pick on a faulty line

That I strove to put my soul in:

Your eyes were keen for a ‘dash’ of mine

In the place of a semi-colon —

And blind to the rest. And is it for such

As you I must brook restriction?

‘I was taught too little?’ I learnt too much

To care for a pedant’s diction!

 

Must I turn aside from my destined way

For a task your Joss would find me?

I come with strength of the living day,

And with half the world behind me;

I leave you alone in your cultured halls

To drivel and croak and cavil:

Till your voice goes further than college walls,

Keep out of the tracks we travel!

[miserableoldgit]

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.

Leo Marks

What makes this poem particularly poignant is that it was written for a girlfriend killed in an air crash, but became widely known because he used it as key for a secret code for an SOE agent, Violette Szabo, going on an almost suicidal mission during WWII. Marks worked for the British SOE (Special Operations Executive) which ran agents in enemy territory. His book "Between Silk and Cyanide - A Code Maker`s War 1941-45" is a superb read.

 

 

[sebastian firefly]

quite like this