Thread: Circus: The Very Much Shorter Oxford Book of English Verse Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
I mean, have you seen some poems? They go on for pages. As a service to the culture hungry, but time starved, this thread aims to provide Famous Poems in digested form.

To Daffodils: Wordsworth

I took a walk and saw some daffs.
Was like a poem, ready penned.
Now, when life's that bit short on laffs
I find they cheer me up no end.


[ 23. April 2015, 07:28: Message edited by: Doublethink. ]
 
Posted by StevHep (# 17198) on :
 
Incautiously the
Light Brigade Charged. Oops. Blood and
Thunder. Swift retreat
 
Posted by Smudgie (# 2716) on :
 
The Highwayman - Alfred Noyes

The highwayman and Bess, his love,
betrayed by ostler, Tim,
both died by gunshot. Now they're ghosts.
But Tim... what became of him?

[ 25. July 2014, 09:23: Message edited by: Smudgie ]
 
Posted by Yorick (# 12169) on :
 
In the final year of the Trojan war
Achilles, piqued, would fight no more
So Hector smashed the Greeks on shore
Then killed Patroclus: spilled his gore
This roused our man- ‘Revenge!’ he swore
And popped a cap in the ass of Hector
(and with the loss of Pat he felt so sore
that he messed with the corpse to even the score)

And what came next you’ll know, of course-
They smashed up Troy with a hollow horse
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
A sailor shot an albatross
A foolish avicide
It brought a curse upon his ship
And all his shipmates died
He wished that he could die as well
But that was not to be
The Lord had different plans for this
Poor wretch upon the sea
So now he's cursed to tell his tale
In every port and street
To teach God's word of love for all
The creatures that we meet
So if you see an albatross
Just stop and have a think
Of "water water everywhere,
But not a drop to drink"!
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yorick:
In the final year of the Trojan war
Achilles, piqued, would fight no more
So Hector smashed the Greeks on shore
Then killed Patroclus: spilled his gore
This roused our man- ‘Revenge!’ he swore
And popped a cap in the ass of Hector
(and with the loss of Pat he felt so sore
that he messed with the corpse to even the score)

And what came next you’ll know, of course-
They smashed up Troy with a hollow horse

[Overused]

(now do the Odyssey [Biased] )
 
Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :
 
Arjuna paused before the battle
To ask if men should die like cattle.
Lord Krishna told him: "It's all right
A warrior's Dharma is to fight."
 
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
Ozymandias with apologies to Shelley

When I was travelling abroad
I saw a broken statue there
Looks like it used to be quite good.
I guess pride goes before a fall.

(Was going to do Tennyson's Ulysses as it's one of my favorites, but had to do this instead as I was reminded of it by poems we have memorized.)
 
Posted by Thyme (# 12360) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by agingjb:
Arjuna paused before the battle
To ask if men should die like cattle.
Lord Krishna told him: "It's all right
A warrior's Dharma is to fight."

"LIKE!"

(I like them all but this one especially)
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Today sitting out upon the stair
I met a man who wasn't all there.
He fixed me with a glittering eye
And bored me with an attempt to try
To tell me how he once shot a bird
And got into a mess. Word after word -
I yawned, "No more! Enough! I'm dreading
This going on - I'm late for a wedding."
I grew ruder, sniggered, and groaned
But to no avail and on he droned.
I wandered off, left the rest unheard
Muttered irritably, "What a nerd."
 
Posted by agingjb (# 16555) on :
 
Mr Chapman "loud and bold":
Made Homer rock like Krakatoa
And now I've found his "realms of gold".
I feel like Herschel or Balboa.
 
Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :
 
Went for a walk one midlife day
It seemed as if I'd lost my way
Met up with Virgil, trusty guide
I'd pass through Hell at his side
"Look there, Dante, on your left
Is one who is of God bereft
And, going down, look to the right
Another without His holy light
Think of God's justice, beyond reason
Not bound to any mortal season
Now see the three, in mouth of one
Frozen there, 'till time is done
Now let us leave this hateful place
And see again the stars in space"
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
April is the cruellest month.
The chair I sat in, like a burnished throne,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
Was in rats' alley, where the dead men lost their bones.
And I, Tiresias, have foresuffered all.

There is no hot water, said Sweeney. What shall we do?

Weialala leia
Wallala leialala
Woo hoo hoo
Hoo hoo hee.
 
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
The devil fell
And Adam rose.
Then came Eve
And caused our woes.

(With apologies for the sexism.)

[ 25. July 2014, 22:59: Message edited by: Robert Armin ]
 
Posted by Smudgie (# 2716) on :
 
From a Railway Carriage: R L Stevenson

Train fast.
Things passed.
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Season of mists
Fruitful harvest days
O fleeting beauty of nature.
 
Posted by Gildas (# 525) on :
 
Beowulf fought Grendel, and rendered him quite armless.
And then killed Grendel's mother; a woman fierce and charmless.
The land was free and happy; brave Beowulf was king.
But alas it ended badly when a dragon lost his bling.
 
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
Wordsworth loved his early years;
His poetry bores me to tears.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Yeats: Sailing to Byzantium

No fun being old
Just turn me to gold.
 
Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :
 
It snowed one day
I took a ride
The woods looked great
But I went on.

I took a walk
Fork in the road
I went one way
Everything changed.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Chaucer: the Miller's Tale

As part of the farce
You get to coo and bill -
But don't leave your arse
On the window sill.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
John Keats: La Belle Dame Sans Merci

Alfresco sex
Can lead to a hex.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
Thinking of the Waste Land, has anyone not come across these by Wendy Cope?
 
Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :
 
Far too distracted to write anything decent at the moment, but Firenze, I am loving many of the ones you are writing here.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Thinking of the Waste Land, has anyone not come across these by Wendy Cope?

H.P. Lovecraft wrote wrote a parody of The Waste Land, shortly after it was published.

Lovecraft copies few of Eliot's actual words and images, but rather focusses on spoofing what he evidently regarded as the pretentious and long-winded spirit of the original poem.
 
Posted by Starbug (# 15917) on :
 
The Lady of Shalott

She lay in the boat and floated downstream;
The mirror was broken - the end of a dream.
Singing the things that she never could say,
When he finally found her, she'd passed away.

A good thing, really, she didn't find out
Her imaginary lover was a selfish lout.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
For Eliot parodies, I always liked Chard Whitlow best.
 
Posted by mark_in_manchester (# 15978) on :
 
quote:
H.P. Lovecraft wrote wrote a parody of The Waste Land, shortly after it was published.
Mention of Lovecraft and parody brought to mind this - The Call of Cthulu, by Dr Seuss.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
That is fantastic.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
For Eliot parodies, I always liked Chard Whitlow best.

The best parody in English considered purely as a parody, though I think Lear's The Dong with the Luminous Nose manages to send up Edgar Allan Poe and also be a better serious Poe poem than any that Poe wrote himself at the same time.
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
This graveyard's getting a bit too dark
Lots of bodies in this dead-people park
No idea who any of them were
Not really bothered and don't much care.
Had fun reading the better tombstones
Some terrible rhymes, so lots of groans -
Wait. Stands the church clock at three past ten?
Right, time to shove off to home again.

Elegy, not written by Gray.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Burns: To a Louse

The louse was big,
The louse was fat,
The louse was on
A wumman's hat.
That's the story -
Here's the sermon:
Folk will always
Clock your vermin.
 
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
Had we but world enough and time,
But yet we don't, it's such a crime.
So darling, pull your knickers down,
I want to screw you while in town.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.
Hardly a man's alive, ye ken,
Who remembers that poem from start to end...
 
Posted by Vulpior (# 12744) on :
 
A man on a horse in a wood
Arrived as he promised he should.
He called from outside
But no-one replied.
They listened; just ghosts in the hood.
 
Posted by Marvin the Martian (# 4360) on :
 
Bloody train
delayed again

 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Dirck sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and me;
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
We went through the night and we went through the day
Gallopy gallopy the whole bloomin' way!
And all I remember is friends flocking round
As I sat with my head 'twixt my knees on the ground
Asking what happened and they told me and said
"Why didn't you just email or phone us instead?"
 
Posted by Heavenly Anarchist (# 13313) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Robert Armin:
Had we but world enough and time,
But yet we don't, it's such a crime.
So darling, pull your knickers down,
I want to screw you while in town.

This made me laugh out loud [Smile]
 
Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 
Nightingales sang in a wood:
Jolly good.
People who think they're sad
Must be mad.
 
Posted by Starbug (# 15917) on :
 
Water, water, everywhere -
It makes me so damn cross;
If I can't find a drink, I'll shoot
That bloody albatross.
 
Posted by Stetson (# 9597) on :
 
Walt Whitman: Song Of Myself

You name it, I am it.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Sumer is ycumen in:
Lewd sing cuckoo!
And every other friggin' bird out there, stuffing the eaves with nests and making out in the street.

[ 30. July 2014, 23:13: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
 
Posted by Welease Woderwick (# 10424) on :
 
Should you ask whence these stories
Whence these legends and traditions
About some young Red Indian princeling
[Native American, First Nations people]
That go on for days, weeks, months, years
As he meets young Minniehaha
And their trials underwent together
[All in trochaic tetrameter]
Before she dies like an operatic heroine
Before his conversion in the last pages
To the God of the white colonists.

The End
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Birkir kills Fafnir.
'Revenge!' The women cry.
Eldur kills Gunnar.
'Your turn to die!'
Goti kills Hafnar.
'Blood must blood supply!'
Himar kills Jorvi
And before the gore is dry
Knut kills Lars
'Revenge!' The women cry.
 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
Odysseus, king of Ithaca,
Went off to fight some war
Left his wife and son at home
As he had done before.

War won, he made for Ithaca
But took a scenic route
Stopped off at several islands
And plundered them for loot.

Odysseus, king of Ithaca,
Embarked on a ten-year cruise
Stopped off at yet more islands
For feasting, fun and booze.

Sometimes he thought of Ithaca
On one night of food and wine
He looked around in the morning
And found all his crew were swine.

Odysseus, king of Ithaca
Got back home in the end
Found his wife a-marrying a man
He once had called his friend.

Should he stay in Ithaca?
Ten full years had now passed...
The Trojan War had come and gone –
Well, he was home at last.
 
Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 
Pious Aeneas fled far his home
Loved Dido; left her. Founded Rome.
 
Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :
 
I don't know what version
You drew on to write.
But you cast an aspersion
That isn't quite right.
Not according to Homer,
The first to compose
The tale of that roamer,
No slight did expose.

I have an attachment to the honour of she whose name I bear.

The Returns explored a variety of themes.

Remarriage 1.
Clytemnestra took an axe
and gave Cassandra twenty whacks.
And when she saw what she had done,
gave Agamemnon twenty one.

Remarriage 2.
Diomedes in coming home
Found his wife was "moving on"
So he moved on, not quite to Rome,
Thinking he was better gone.

Remarriage 3.
Didn't happen. How much more do I have to unpick this plot?

[ 31. July 2014, 19:50: Message edited by: Penny S ]
 
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
Beowulf once went off roaming,
Found a monster in the gloaming;
Knocked him off, then killed his mum,
But by a dragon he got done.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
'Bella's taken up with a common chap'
'Is that so? We can't have that!'
'Larry, old boy, we have a mood
To take a ride in a deep dark wood'
'Isa dear, what have you got
Buried in that basil pot?'
 
Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :
 
Lady in tower
Trapped in her bower
Sees a knight,
Gorgeous wight.
From mirror turns
At once learns
That death is nigh.
With one sigh
She kicks the bucket.
As she saw,
So she must suck it.
She's not large
So in a barge
Downstream floats
Among the boats.
Knight's regretful
But forgetful
And as we've seen
Lays a queen.
 
Posted by QLib (# 43) on :
 
(Ah - Tennyson. What a good idea!)

Mariana lived within a mould'ring grange
It seems the locals found her pretty strange.
Sisters! All preach this motto if you can:
Don't let your sense of worth hang on a man.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
Continuing with Alfred, Lord...

The wet sea shore.
You are no more.
 
Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :
 
And from Ogden Nash -

There exists not a man
Who can stay in the right
With a woman who's plan
Is to start up a fight.
 
Posted by Robert Armin (# 182) on :
 
The Christian faith was like the sea,
So much it made you shout.
But things have changed. Alas, it seems
Today the tide's gone out.
 
Posted by jacobsen (# 14998) on :
 
And from Rudyard Kipling:

Fight with a male -
You could come out alive
But not with a female -
You'd never survive.
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
*bump*
 
Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :
 
What took JK so long?

On a dark and snowy night
With drunken kin set for a fight
Poor love-sick Maddie pined for her knight.
He, meanwhile, got hid in a closet
Choosing not to hear the prophet
Of impending doom and death
If he didn’t hold his breath.

Sweet Madeline, wrapped in her dream
Just half-awake, she did not scream
But rather, blushing rosy-red
She took young Porphyro to bed!
Once woken properly she swore
She could not hate him, just adore
Till time stood still, for if he left
She’d be distraught, lift all bereft.

So Porphyro a plan he made
To get them safe past knights and knaves
And leave her kin whose anger swore
To rend him limb-from-limb for sure.

The beadsman died, no more Ave
While in the storm they fled away
To safety, straight across the moor
And happiness for evermore.
 
Posted by Banner Lady (# 10505) on :
 
Mourning the gifts of Lewis Carroll:

The jabberwock
is long since dead
Common sense
cut off its head.
 
Posted by Cottontail (# 12234) on :
 
O young Lochinvar won't take no for an answer,
and fancies himself as a bit of a dancer;
turns up at a wedding where Ellen, the bride,
had oddly said yes to a chap we deride;
our gallant runs off with the lass on his horse.
we never do hear if she got her divorce.
 
Posted by Firenze (# 619) on :
 
You gallop for hours between Aix and Ghent -
Of course this was before the Internent.
 
Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :
 
You see how I just squished this flea?
It symbolized your virginity.
***
Why work so hard, and be worn out?
I'll enjoy my garden, like a lout.
 
Posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe (# 5521) on :
 
Walt Whitman, "To a Locomotive in Winter"

Engine and cars in the driving snow:
Come talk to me before you go.
 
Posted by The5thMary (# 12953) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Firenze:
Chaucer: the Miller's Tale

As part of the farce
You get to coo and bill -
But don't leave your arse
On the window sill.

[Overused]
 
Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Ah, verse, the language of liturgy ...

DT
Circstyx Host
 
Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :
 
A good test, DT. Step up to the plate, SPK or AR.
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
Thank you, Brother Barnabas.

Mounts Hostly Pulpit and Addresses Gathered People

Brothers, Sisters and Others in Christ, attend upon me for a minute so that you may hear the Good News: There has been a Reformation in Eccles! Henceforth, all colours will be black. All liturgy will be duly authorized from the Book of Common Order (mind the last word, you Anglican backsliders!) and all smells, odours and other fumes unpleasing to the Lord will disappear. The only tinkling will be that of Wee Cuppies.

Reprobates who cannot accept the New Order are invited to appear in front of the Eccles steps and beg forgiveness for indulging in sin.

All threads will be judged by how they reflect upon the Word. As such, under An Act Annet Doggerel (1754) this thread is henceforth closed until * consult with the Hostly Session about its fitness for membership in Eccles.

You may duly reflect upon the Word of the Lord.

Descends Hostly Pulpit
 
Posted by Sober Preacher's Kid (# 12699) on :
 
Here in Eccles we believe in Double Predestination: some threads are destined for Heaven, others for Hell. Guess which one you're going to?

SPK, Eccles Ruling Elder Pro Tem
 
Posted by Ariston (# 10894) on :
 
Look, kid, while there's a long and noble tradition of temp hosts closing all the threads and/or shunting 'em off to Hell, you'll never come close to the brilliance of your predecessors in this domain.

Trust me on this one. The competition is stiff. And some might say horny.

Thread sent BACK!

—Ariston, nostalgic ex-Temphost

 
Posted by Ariel (# 58) on :
 
"Hi ho, hi ho,
It's off to the Circus we go."

Cheers

Ariel
Heaven Host

[ 20. September 2014, 05:56: Message edited by: Ariel ]
 
Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :
 
* will arise and go now; * need to have a pee,
And a small cabin find, of bricks and mortar made;
Nine white stalls * 'll find there, where * can have a wee,
And find relief in the flea blown shade.
 


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