Or was that Tennyson? Damn – I hate being on the road without references.
Lost in Yonkers.*
or is it
Dazed and Confused
Ernest Dowson, I think, Spir. Though I’m at work without my references too!
I found the full, complete poem Data wrote about his cat Spot. He recites it in the ST:TNG episode “Schism”.
Now aren’t you glad you asked? 
Right, well, what the hell. Here’s one of mine:
Going to the Doctor
Across the street on Leland
From the penny candy store
The doctor lives in three-o-four
She’ll fix you a mojo hand.
Ask anybody in the neighborhood
She’s for real for certain
She burns sandalwood
She’s got a bead curtain
And a strab albino evil eye
Bring her four hundred cash
And a piece of red felt,
A scab from a rash
Coke, fries and a patty melt.
Bring a strip of hide
Cut from the back
Of a hound that died
Pissing on the el track
On the south side.
Bring a bone
From the middle finger
Of any sinner
Borne to a mother
In a state of disgrace.
Bring a clip of newspaper,
Good news from any nation,
It don’t have to be the gospel
Or even a revelation.
Bring dirt from the grave
Of a child
No savior could save
From the germs
Or the worms
Or the sinners depraved.
She’ll fix you a jack
That’ll cover your back,
Keep a jimson smoker
From gatewaying crack,
Keep the carpal tunnel off your fists,
Keep your name off of secret lists,
Save you from AIDS infected needles in payphones,
Brain cancer rays from your cell phone,
Government taps on your home phone,
Scare away teenagers
And road ragers
And gamers
And flamers,
Satanic criminals
Using subliminal,
Block telephone tracers
And mind control lasers
And ATF blazers,
Global warming
And El Nino storming,
Environmental tobacco
And cold, cold
UFO
Anal probes.
And I know it works 'cause I got one
Proof against Soviet commies
And the global freeze
And the killer bees
And the Japanese
And it ain’t failed me yet.
“A Psalm of Life”
by . . . . .Longfellow
<h> heh heh heh he said —* oops, ran that into the ground already. Guess there’s nothing left to do but bask in my triumph at poetic jeapordy (minor works by under-appreciated American poets for $200, please) and make fun of somebody for no reason.
Hey Polycarp, take two quatrains and sashimi in the morning.
The best lack all conviction
The worst are full of passionate intensity.
*
I’ll play for the hell of it, with something I wrote in high school (teen angst!!) after running away from home never to return:
Hey, Ma!
Ya don’t treat
me right.
Never did.
Always looked
down
on me:
fruit of your
womb
like pus in your
boil
a lamb for your
slaughter
Hey, Ma!
Wake up.
rub the dried
blood vengeance
from your eye
I’m no sacrificial
Isaac,
fad child
no modern inconvenience.
It was your
choice.
First
I cramped your
stomach.
Now I cramp
your style.
More crap here: Opal’s poems
–
O p a l C a t
www.opalcat.com
Poets are both clean and warm
And most are far above the norm.
-Monty Python
Do you realize that 50% of the population is below average?
…except in Lake Wobegon!
Poly, LOL!!!
Johnny, well, well, well, nice work! That was a REAL surprise and a treat.
That which a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
And now for a little relief from all this angst; you’ll know what I’m talking about if you ever had a passing interest in the “flat earth” thread…
O, what can we say about Phaedy?
His sources are just a bit shady;
Our eager interest
Soon headed due west
And the light in our eyes got all fade-y
He whined and he cried just to stall
He thinks he’s the greatest of all
The arrogant ass
Made posts snide and crass
And slowed our thread down to a crawl.
“I’ve studied philosophers dead
In science and business I’ve led
also construction, guitar,
Are other hats that I wore
Just to cover my hugely swelled head.”
Then out came our andros and phil;
Zinged him quite hard, they sure will
Toss off a good flame…
Phaed’s reponse was quite lame
He whined loud til we’d all had our fill.
Reviving the thread, jab and glee
Argued their points manfully
And beeruser warn’t drunk
and who woulda thunk
he could use logic as well as could we?
Our God of the board, David B
Was hated particularly
And drFidelis
Who never said “f*ck this!”
Should be sainted immediately
Tom argued with grace and with style;
The good Doc settled in for a while;
It was over three weeks
Before Phaedy speaks
More than wild philosophical bile.
Phaedy’s PO’d at Dawkins and Gould:
“So Godless our children are schooled!
You dirty old sod
Just leave it to God
I’m the smart one, you’re all overruled!”
“Don’t care what your new science books say
In books of new age I’ve the True way!
All your clear proper terms
Just will help reconfirm
That my mind, always closed it will stay!”
“If I get my def’nition from Redbook
I’ll honor it over your science book
Whatever you say
I’ve the only right way
My certainty cannot be shook!”
Now at post four hundred and fifty
Though with words Phaedy’s never been thrifty
He now says that he’s won
And the argument’s done
Which seems to us terribly shifty.
What arguments had he ever won?
Can you even think of a one?
But he declares himself winner
Though he can’t outthink my dinner…
He’s one arrogant son-of-a-gun!
And for those of you who don’t have enough free time to waste reading every single message in the General Questions forum, I posted the following to “So, is the cat dead or alive?” a few days ago:
AWB wrote:
Oh my! Now I feel so inadequate near
All those talking in prose in this thread over here.
See, the letter addressed to dear Cecil from one
Of us Teeming Millions tried to have some wee fun
By talking of this famous half-living cat
In dactylic tetrameter – rhyme! Believe that?
But our Unca Cecil, he rose to the task
And answered the question the fellow did ask
With a rhyme of his own! And a longer one, too!
Like A Visit from Saint Nicholas, it rang true.
Or maybe it sounded more like Dr. Seuss
Except without Seuss’s fake words flopping loose
Like “oobleck” or “hoober-bloob” or “yuzz-matuzz”
Or “frobozzle frobizzle frobnoy snooper snuzz”.
And like always, ol’ Cecil pulled through in the end
With a picture of how quantum physics doth wend
Through its sordid, tumultuous history, full
Of big names like “Einstein”, who on dice did mull
By saying that God doesn’t – can’t – play with them.
(This despite having won a Nobel for Q.M.!)
And I see as I write this the challenge he faced –
“He” being Cecil, with whose words we’re graced –
Because rhyming and making sense at the same time
Would sure be a heck of a lot easier if I got to put a couple of extra syllables into a line.
Burma Shave.
Quick-N-Dirty Aviation: Trading altitude for airspeed since 1992.
Very clever posts Gaudere (glad someone recognized and replied to Phaedrus’s poetic barbs) & tracer (LOL at the last couplet), but this was hardly my intent when I began this thread. Do either of you write more serious material? If you do, I’m betting it’s pretty damn good - let’s see it!
Hell is Other People.
Yes, Gaudere, if you have any more poems I would like to see them. Your talent in poetry has remain hidden, much to our loss. Please post any others that you may have. I was REALLY impressed with your work! You made fun of me in the most delightful way! I was REALLY pleased. What a mind! Really!
Thank you for your poem.
I LOVED it!
Yours,
Phaedrus
That which a man had rather were true he more readily believes.
I don’t write “serious” poetry unless I set it to my own music.
And even then, I’ve written songs like “Deuterium, or How to Get Fused for Less Than $200 a Week”.
Glass
by Matt McLauchlin
for Matt Chisholm
my monitor is of glass
and it is cold
even when i read your typing
the glass is also over
your photograph
surrounded in rigid
metal imitations of flowers
and it is cold too
even though it holds in your beauty
there is too much glass
glass is for a museum
to hold rare and ancient artifacts
when we shattered the glass last time
your skin in the morning was warm
and soft, and your lips were moist.
the barrier of glass
like ice has a way of growing back.
Song for Sarajevo
Not so long ago, and not so far away
War broke out in a land
Where once many people lived together peacefully
And the world watched and could not understand
How wrongs from 1,000 years ago could be made right by a rocket
Killing children in a crowded market square.
So they loaded tanks and choppers and sent cargo planes with soldiers
With guns to try to bring the peace back there.
And the river of hate begins as a stream
Of fear that flows from the soul
And it poisons the mind, and it hardens the heart
Til the hatred and fear take control
But with stones of love and planks of trust and steel as strong as faith,
We can build a bridge to reach the other shore
And then cross the bridge hand in hand reunited with our fellow man
And end the hate and fear forevermore.
Home here in America, there’s hatred flowing through our towns
Where kids grow up in gangs of black and white
And children on the sidewalk are shot down by strangers driving by,
And good people fear to leave their homes at night
And the Anglo’s fear Hispanics and the teachers fear the students;
At work there’s no trust between the women and the men.
And the gay folk fear the rednecks, and the rednecks fear the FBI
Will we ever be the United States again?
And the river of hate begins as a stream
Of fear that flows from the soul
And it poisons the mind, and it hardens the heart
Til the hatred and fear take control
But with stones of love and planks of trust and steel as strong as faith,
We can build a bridge to reach the other shore
And then cross the bridge hand in hand reunited with our fellow man
And end the hate and fear forevermore
Sue from El Paso
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Matt: I liked the ending of your poem a lot.
I wrote this one about an unforgettable experience:
pages not paper
pens are not used
now will naturally be later
never in my world argued
portraits and pictures
pages of you
million miniatures,
many you dont know who
words of my will
where are you
lost and ill
listening to you
life will never leave
love is not alone
you alone can not cleave
the atom of your clone
why you are where
whispering with ticks
nobody is never here
never hearing your click
i can not be your country
could not talk your tounge
i can not be your country
can not talk your tounge
i am not lost to the living
life though i do not know
good pages are constantly giving
good life to everybody now
bj0rn - hmm…perhaps it needs a bit of work from a native english speaker…but i belive the message got through :o)
happy thanksgiving, friends.
creative writing has never been among my strong points. i stand in awe of the talent represented here.
sharing my favorite:
Jabberwocky by 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 wiffling 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 it’s 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.
once again, happy thanksgiving, my friends.
“don’t get strung out by the way that i look, don’t judge a book by it’s cover” (tim curry as dr. franknfurter in rhps)