Any poems you'd like to recommend?

[Anima]

I quite like Walter Scott, although of course my family are Jacobites:mrgreen:.

He did popularise a lot of the highland myths, which perhaps are not to some Scots tastes, but he did his best to save what made Scotland Scotland against the onslaught of the reforms of Francophile and Anglophile Whigs and radicals.

What made Scotland Scotland was preserved in old folk songs, our education system, poetry, local traditions, our intellectual thinkers and the few from every generation who tried to resist being Anglicised beyond recognition. Scott was more effective in attempting to spread an image in England of some wild, savagely beautiful nation of viscious, unschooled, warlike but essentially pure people. He did attempt to expand and popularise some form of Scottish culture, but what he actually did, in my opinion, was to comodify a nation's culture into cheap symbols and a patronising view of us and our culture. In Scott's writings, Scotland was the image you see on tins of shortbread or tablet: a few sheep, a rural hamlet, a tartan sash and a few big-ass thistles.

 

[emdash]

since the raven is already here, The Bells by Edgar Allan Poe

I

Hear the sledges with the bells-
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
While the stars that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.

II

Hear the mellow wedding bells,
Golden bells!
What a world of happiness their harmony foretells!
Through the balmy air of night
How they ring out their delight!
From the molten-golden notes,
And all in tune,
What a liquid ditty floats
To the turtle-dove that listens, while she gloats
On the moon!
Oh, from out the sounding cells,
What a gush of euphony voluminously wells!
How it swells!
How it dwells
On the Future! how it tells
Of the rapture that impels
To the swinging and the ringing
Of the bells, bells, bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
To the rhyming and the chiming of the bells!

III

Hear the loud alarum bells-
Brazen bells!
What a tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!
In the startled ear of night
How they scream out their affright!
Too much horrified to speak,
They can only shriek, shriek,
Out of tune,
In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire,
In a mad expostulation with the deaf and frantic fire,
Leaping higher, higher, higher,
With a desperate desire,
And a resolute endeavor,
Now- now to sit or never,
By the side of the pale-faced moon.
Oh, the bells, bells, bells!
What a tale their terror tells
Of Despair!
How they clang, and clash, and roar!
What a horror they outpour
On the bosom of the palpitating air!
Yet the ear it fully knows,
By the twanging,
And the clanging,
How the danger ebbs and flows:
Yet the ear distinctly tells,
In the jangling,
And the wrangling,
How the danger sinks and swells,
By the sinking or the swelling in the anger of the bells-
Of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells,bells,
Bells, bells, bells-
In the clamor and the clangor of the bells!

IV

Hear the tolling of the bells-
Iron Bells!
What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!
In the silence of the night,
How we shiver with affright
At the melancholy menace of their tone!
For every sound that floats
From the rust within their throats
Is a groan.
And the people- ah, the people-
They that dwell up in the steeple,
All alone
And who, tolling, tolling, tolling,
In that muffled monotone,
Feel a glory in so rolling
On the human heart a stone-
They are neither man nor woman-
They are neither brute nor human-
They are Ghouls:
And their king it is who tolls;
And he rolls, rolls, rolls,
Rolls
A paean from the bells!
And his merry bosom swells
With the paean of the bells!
And he dances, and he yells;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the paean of the bells-
Of the bells:
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
To the throbbing of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells-
To the sobbing of the bells;
Keeping time, time, time,
As he knells, knells, knells,
In a happy Runic rhyme,
To the rolling of the bells-
Of the bells, bells, bells:
To the tolling of the bells,
Of the bells, bells, bells, bells-
Bells, bells, bells-
To the moaning and the groaning of the bells.

 

[Wessexman]

What made Scotland Scotland was preserved in old folk songs, our education system, poetry, local traditions, our intellectual thinkers and the few from every generation who tried to resist being Anglicised beyond recognition. Scott was more effective in attempting to spread an image in England of some wild, savagely beautiful nation of viscious, unschooled, warlike but essentially pure people. He did attempt to expand and popularise some form of Scottish culture, but what he actually did, in my opinion, was to comodify a nation's culture into cheap symbols and a patronising view of us and our culture. In Scott's writings, Scotland was the image you see on tins of shortbread or tablet: a few sheep, a rural hamlet, a tartan sash and a few big-ass thistles.

Well he was concerned mostly with the highlands and I'm not sure you can blame him for the commodification, that was not what he wanted. He wanted to protect local customs and traditions which he had some success in even at the price you are talking about. Without him and others like him I'm sure that less of what makes Scotland Scotland would survive, particularly in the highlands.

It was those like him who at least turned the idea of savage, warlike highlanders into something romantic rather than despised in the lowlands and England as it had been before that. Some of the English had actually considered ethnic cleansing of the area even.

One must always remember just how threatened Scottish and particularly Highland culture was once and how remarkable it is that it not only survived but became glamourised and romanticised in the way it did. I'd take that over its eradication anyday.

 

[1069]

Any poems you'd like to recommend?

Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! and through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

 

[Red_Dave]

I couldn't see anything about poetry on the forum, and since I'm very into finding more decent poets to read, I thought I'd start a very self-serving thread. :mrgreen: So, any poems you'd like to post/recommend?

London William Blake

I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
And mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant's cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper's cry
Every blackening Church appals;
And the hapless soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage-hearse

La Muerta Pablo Neruda [translation below]
Si de pronto no existes,

si de pronto no vives,

yo seguiré viviendo.



No me atrevo,

no me atrevo a escribirlo,

si te mueres.



Yo seguiré viviendo.



Porque donde no tiene voz un hombre

allí, mi voz.



Donde los negros sean apaleados,

yo no puedo estar muerto.

Cuando entren en la cárcel mis hermanos

entraré yo con ellos.



Cuando la victoria,

no mi victoria,

sino la gran Victoria llegue,

aunque esté mudo debo hablar:

yo la veré llegar aunque esté ciego.



No, perdóname.

Si tú no vives,

si tú, querida, amor mío, si tú

te has muerto,

todas las hojas caerán en mi pecho,

lloverá sobre mi alma noche y día,

la nieve quemará mi corazón,

andaré con frío y fuego
y muerte y nieve,

mis pies querrán marchar hacia donde tú duermes, pero seguiré vivo,

porque tú me quisiste sobre
todas las cosas indomable,

y, amor, porque tú sabes que soy no sólo un hombre

sino todos los hombres.

Dead Woman

If suddenly you do not exist,

if suddenly you no longer live,

I shall live on.



I do not dare,

I do not dare to write it,

if you die.



I shall live on.



For where a man has no voice,

there, my voice.



Where blacks are beaten,

I cannot be dead.

When my brothers go to prison

I shall go with them.



When victory,

not my victory,

but the great victory comes,

even though I am mute I must speak;

I shall see it come even
though I am blind.



No, forgive me.

If you no longer live,

if you, beloved, my love,

if you have died,

all the leaves will fall in my breast,

it will rain on my soul night and day,

the snow will burn my heart,

I shall walk with frost and fire and death and snow,

my feet will want to walk to where you are sleeping, but

I shall stay alive,

because above all things
you wanted me indomitable,

and, my love, because you know that I am not only a man

but all mankind.

 

[Ethereal]

It is said that like a lion Satan roams the Earth,
But it is in the minds of men that he has given birth.
Spectral voices haunt our minds, disguised as conscious thought,
And through these voices evil deeds and malice are doth wrought.

For those in whom the holy light of Heaven doth reside,
Satan bends upon them all his will, his hatred, and his pride.
Cruel and wicked is the fall of those who fall from grace,
And wicked Satan plans this fall for all the human race.

Many a man is turned to evil by Satan‘s whispered lies,
Acting as stoppers for the ears and blinders for the eyes.
The world becomes not black and white when what is false is true,
So that those who sin for the evil one see not what they do.

He consumes the minds of men and makes the world his throne,
And for those men who sit in power rule their kingdoms not alone.
Hand puppets of the Evil Prince who think they rule all things,
Know not that while they dance and sing, Satan pulls their strings.

 

[Felicity]

It is said that like a lion Satan roams the Earth,
But it is in the minds of men that he has given birth.
Spectral voices haunt our minds, disguised as conscious thought,
And through these voices evil deeds and malice are doth wrought.

For those in whom the holy light of Heaven doth reside,
Satan bends upon them all his will, his hatred, and his pride.
Cruel and wicked is the fall of those who fall from grace,
And wicked Satan plans this fall for all the human race.

Many a man is turned to evil by Satan‘s whispered lies,
Acting as stoppers for the ears and blinders for the eyes.
The world becomes not black and white when what is false is true,
So that those who sin for the evil one see not what they do.

He consumes the minds of men and makes the world his throne,
And for those men who sit in power rule their kingdoms not alone.
Hand puppets of the Evil Prince who think they rule all things,
Know not that while they dance and sing, Satan pulls their strings.

Original material?

 

[Ethereal]

Original material?

Indeed, fair maiden.

 

[Felicity]

Indeed, fair maiden.

Well done!:applaud Bravo!

 

[Tucker Case]

Mammella sonetto

I die without the warmth of your embrace,
Longing so I lose my soul, my mind.
O'er mountains will I climb to take my place.
Verily, I shall search untill I find
Eternal bliss from your caress so sweet
Your flesh upon my cheek, my love so true
Only for to taste the flavor I doth seek
Under Satan's lash I still continue
Robbed of my strength I remain in battle
Blaring trumpets as I begin my surge
Oh! Shall they proclaim my rise from chattel?
Or accompany my funeral dirge?
But such peril I shall eagerly face
So that I may feel one final warm embrace

 

[Rick]

Here's one of my all time favorites:

The Cremation of Sam McGee

by Robert W. Service

Poem: The Cremation of Sam McGee

I memorized it and performed it (actually performed with pantomime) when I was a freshman in high school. Northerners and Easterners will be able to relate to the climax of the narrative. :mrgreen:

 

[Felicity]

Mammella sonetto

I die without the warmth of your embrace,
Longing so I lose my soul, my mind.
O'er mountains will I climb to take my place.
Verily, I shall search untill I find
Eternal bliss from your caress so sweet
Your flesh upon my cheek, my love so true
Only for to taste the flavor I doth seek
Under Satan's lash I still continue
Robbed of my strength I remain in battle
Blaring trumpets as I begin my surge
Oh! Shall they proclaim my rise from chattel?
Or accompany my funeral dirge?
But such peril I shall eagerly face
So that I may feel one final warm embrace

Tucker...you just....words escape me.:shock::mrgreen:

 

[AuHtwoh64]

Here are the first three and the final stanza of my all time fav.

Evolution ~ by Langdon Smith

EvolutionPoem

...

quoted above was my latest fav, which I love for the images and really beautiful words taken from the annals of scientific nomenclature. Another, one which I refer to as my "bible" because it "says it all", is the Rubaiyat (Of Omar Khayyam), which I'll provide fifteen of my favorite stanzas of:
(without notation version one. There are at least five vesions written by Fitzgerald)

This is one of the most often quoted poems of all time. . .

1.
Awake! for Morning in the Bowl of Night
Has flung the Stone that puts the Stars to Flight:
And Lo! the Hunter of the East has caught
The Sultán's Turret in a Noose of Light.

7.
Come, fill the Cup, and in the Fire of Spring
The Winter Garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To fly--and lo! the Bird is on the Wing.

11.
Here with a Loaf of Bread beneath the Bough,
A Flask of Wine, a Book of Verse--and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness--
And Wilderness is Paradise enow.

16.
Think, in this batter'd Caravanserai
Whose Doorways are alternate Night and Day,
How Sultán after Sultán with his Pomp
Abode his Hour or two, and went his way.

20.
Ah, my Beloved, fill the Cup that clears
TO-DAY of past Regrets and future Fears:
To-morrow! Why, To-morrow I may be
Myself with Yesterday's Sev'n thousand Years.

27.
Myself when young did eagerly frequent
Doctor and Saint, and heard great Argument
About it and about: but evermore
Came out by the same Door as in I went.

46.
For in and out, above, about, below,'
Tis nothing but a Magic Shadow-show,
Play'd in a Box whose Candle is the Sun,
Round which we Phantom Figures come and go.

49.
'Tis all a Chequer-board of Nights and Days
Where Destiny with Men for Pieces plays:
Hither and thither moves, and mates, and slays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays.

51.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

(71. version 2)
I sent my Soul through the Invisible,
Some letter of that After-life to spell:
And after many days my Soul return'd
And said, "Behold, Myself am Heav'n and Hell :"

(72. versuib 2)
Heav'n but the Vision of fulfill'd Desire,
And Hell the Shadow of a Soul on fire,
Cast on the Darkness into which Ourselves,
So late emerg'd from, shall so soon expire.

68.
That ev'n my buried Ashes such a Snare
Of Perfume shall fling up into the Air,
As not a True Believer passing by
But shall be overtaken unaware

73.
Ah Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire
To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire,
Would not we shatter it to bits--and then
Re-mould it nearer to the Heart's Desire!

74.
Ah, Moon of my Delight who know'st no wane,
The Moon of Heav'n is rising once again:
How oft hereafter rising shall she look
Through this same Garden after me---in vain!

75.
And when Thyself with shining Foot shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in thy joyous Errand reach the Spot
Where I made one--turn down an empty Glass!

...Finis

Here’s a link to four of Fitzgerald’s versions set side-by-side

...

 

[Ally]

I have two favorites...

Batter My Heart

by John Donne

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,
Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Leavetaking

I never thought it would be Paradise.
I walked a rugged pathway from the start.
No Ugliness was hidden from my eyes,
Nor was Life's pain a stranger to my heart.
And yet, the earth sprung firm beneath my feet
And summer winds were gentle to my hair
I breathed upon the dusk and found it sweet,
I gazed upon the dawn and found it fair.
I know gray moors where shadow mists lie curled
And sunbright streams and night skies rich with stars.
For all its faults, I so have loved this World
And found it beautiful, despite its scars.
Though Angels sing of Glories greater still,
I leave in sadness much against my will.

 

[Oftencold]

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

 

[RightinNYC]

Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart....Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away

pr0FF3ss0r_F4rnsw0rth: ozymandias' jungle beast was calt "bubastis," that is hilarious its got both "boob" and "ass" in the name an almost tits at the end
pr0FF3ss0r_F4rnsw0rth: isent that funny

The Dugout: Watchmaker, Part Three - MLB FanHouse

 

[AuHtwoh64]

A Good Poem in Blank Verse about Carpentry & "Wrecking"

The Man Who Built This House

First realize he didn't build it for himself,
and that changes a man, and the way he thinks
about building a house. There is joy but
it's a colder type—he'd as easily joy in
tearing it down, as we have done, down
to the bare frame, loaded boxes of lath
and plaster, stirring a dust unstirred since
well, we know the date: Thursday, June 19, 1930.
Date on the newspaper stuffed between
the doorbell battery and the box it lodged in.
Not so long ago, seventy years, historical
only to a Californian. The headline: "Admiral Byrd
Given Welcome In N.Y." "Rear Admiral
Richard E. Byrd, conqueror of the South Pole."
Safe to say, the man who built this house
is gone or nearly gone by now—and we think
of the houses we have built, and the strangers
who will certainly, eventually come to change
or tear them down—that further event that
needs to happen. And there is foulness
to this dust, dust locked in walls till
we arrived to release it to the world again.
So, maybe, all is as it should be. Still, the man
himself haunts me. I noticed it—especially
after my apprentice saw fit to criticize his work,
this neat but spindly frame of rough 2x4's
2x4's for the walls, the rafters, even for the ceiling joists
(that he tied to the ridge to keep the ceiling from sagging)
that functioned adequately all these years
till we knocked it loose. And so, for reasons
my apprentice wouldn't understand, I admit
a liking, yes, for him and for this sketch
of a house, the lightness of his eye, as if
there might be something else to think about:
a sister taken sick, or maybe just a book or
a newspaper with a coffee and a smoke, as if
to say to the world: This is all you take from me.
Of course, having lived here a month already,
I know better—accustomed now to the
hieroglyphs of his keel marks, his red crayon
with an arrow denoting the sole plate of a wall,
imaginary, invisible lines that he
unknowing, passes on to me, numbers and lines
radiating from the corners and the eaves
—where the bird nests hide inside the vents—
all lining up, falling plumb, coming square and true
for me, and all his offhand easiness just a guise
for a mind too quick ever to be satisfied
—just moving quickly through the motions.
And, now, what he has to show for it, hauled away
in boxes and bags, and me about to alter
what's left—not like Byrd's Pole, fixed
forever. The pure radiating lines forever
flowing and unalterable—lines of mind only,
without a house attached. And yet, even a South Pole
doesn't seem much of an accomplishment to us—
to have merely found another place on Earth.
There is a special pity that we reserve
for the dead, trapped in their newspapers'
images of time, wearing what they wore,
doing what they did. I feel as much for this man here,
and for the force it took to pull a chalked string
off the floor, let it snap, and, make a wall.
Something apart from something else,
Not forever but for a little while.
He must have felt it too, a man like him,
Else why leave the newspaper for us?

above from "Hammer poems" by Mark Turpin
...

 

[niftydrifty]

Comes the time when it's later
and onto your table the headwaiter
puts the bill, and very soon after
rings out the sound of lively laughter--

Picking up change, hands like a walrus,
and a face like a barndoor's,
and a head without any apparent size,
nothing but two eyes--

So that's you, man,
or me. I make it as I can,
I pick up, I go
faster than they know--

Out the door, the street like a night,
any night, and no one in sight,
but then, well, there she is,
old friend Liz--

And she opens the door of her cadillac,
I step in back,
and we're gone.
She turns me on--

There are very huge stars, man, in the sky,
and from somewhere very far off someone hands
me a slice of apple pie,
with a gob of white, white ice cream on top of it,
and I eat it--

Slowly. And while certainly
they are laughing at me, and all around me is racket
of these cats not making it, I make it

in my wicker basket.

- Robert Creeley

 

[niftydrifty]

The Play

I am the only actor.
It is difficult for one woman
to act out a whole play.
The play is my life,
my solo act.
My running after the hands
and never catching up.
(The hands are out of sight -
that is, offstage.)
All I am doing onstage is running,
running to keep up,
but never making it.

Suddenly I stop running.
(This moves the plot along a bit.)
I give speeches, hundreds,
all prayers, all soliloquies.
I say absurd things like:
egss must not quarrel with stones
or, keep your broken arm inside your sleeve
or, I am standing upright
but my shadow is crooked.
And such and such.
Many boos. Many boos.

Despite that I go on to the last lines:
To be without God is to be a snake
who wants to swallow an elephant.
The curtain falls.
The audience rushes out.
It was a bad performance.
That’s because I’m the only actor
and there are few humans whose lives
will make an interesting play.
Don’t you agree?

- Anne Sexton

 

[AuHtwoh64]

CARPENTER

Unasked, he once said what he required of life
and I was more surprised by the occasion of his
telling me than by his simple words;
rest when he got home, beer, and sports on tv;

he said it earnestly without swagger or resignation,
with the pride and appraisal of a man who perceived
himself ordinary and wanted what he had.
And I wondered if his flatness was meant to be

a check to me, carpenter, same as him but with desires
flagrant and helplessly exposed by the years.
He held the rope while I drove nails
at the edge of a steep roof above a sixty-foot drop.

I trusted him not because he was the least imaginative
but because he understood and accepted that I was scared.
A kind of respect really. As much as I longed
to tell my secrets he kept his mostly,

sitting on the ridge awkwardly transferring
a cigarette from hand to lip
as he adjusted the rope around his back and down to me—
occasionally holding it with one hand

as he took a drag, though not thoughtlessly.
He tied steel his first day, an apprentice
from the union accustomed to abuse, his hands clumsy
with the linesman's pliers but fast

from effort instead of skill—the sharp wire
leaving a dozen marks of his work
on the back of his hands before lunch.
In the union he only learned to run shearwall,

miles of it, but these mornings walking with cigarette
and coffee from his truck he asks about the day:
"What's up?" regarding me on his heels,
having learned most of what I've taught.

Now with a family at thirty-four his belly sags,
and when he runs the bases he comes back to the bench
with pain in his chest. On the phone his wife tells me
of him standing in her kitchen, tool belt on,

with the six-foot level I gave him for his birthday,
saying "Hey Hon, look!" And on the jobsite
we crown and cut a beam that we will raise to span
two gables and support the rafters on the roof

while discussing how to set the ladders, and who gets which
end: getting tasks and calls straight—then leaning, reaching
from his ladder, guiding the beam to the wall he grins
at me grimacing, anticipates the weight.


above from "Hammer poems" by Mark Turpin

...

 

[bhkad]

Here's a favorite poem from my childhood.

Abraham Lincoln was a heck of a man who walked around town with his **** in his hand.

He'd say, "Pardon me lady, I'm just doin my duty, step around the corner and let me **** your b***y."

 

[Tucker Case]

Here's a favorite poem from my childhood.

Abraham Lincoln was a heck of a man who walked around town with his **** in his hand.

He'd say, "Pardon me lady, I'm just doin my duty, step around the corner and let me **** your b***y."

I especially like that one because of it's historic accuracy.

 

[AuHtwoh64]

Fleas ("The Siphonaptera")

Big fleas have little fleas
Upon their backs to bite’em
Little fleas
Have lesser fleas
And so on ad-finitum
[ And the great fleas themselves, in turn, have greater fleas to go on; While these again have greater still, and greater still, and so on.
[1872 — A. De morgan Budget of Paradoxes 377] ]

~~~~

Viscosity

Big whirls have little whirls
That feed on their velocity
Little whirls have lesser whirls
And so on to viscosity

—Richardson, (1922)