There was a young man called Jack
Whose view of the world was black.
When they asked him “why?”
He said, with a sigh,
“because I always take the flak …!”
There Was A Young Man Called Jack
Leave a reply
Tag Archives: newauthoronline
There Was A Young Lady Called Gale
There was a young lady called Gale
Who wrote to her lover in braille.
He said with a look most perplexed,
“Really, I’m vext,
For my fingers,can not read braille …!”
The Gods Have Left Mount Olympus
The gods have left Mount
Olympus. Zeus grits his teeth
At the lack of belief,
While Venus haggles over a discount
On second hand clothes.
And Heaven only knows
Where the world goes.
Night Duty
The click clack of stilettos.
Girls from ghettos
Feet are lost
In carpets they could never afford,
While a discreet board
Shows the cost
Of most things.
The lift bell pings.
What goes up must go down.
The receptionist, eyes lost in her book
Gives a slight frown.
Why bother to look?
For of course
A nod is as good as a wink
To a blind horse.
Newark Abbey, by Thomas Love Peacock
Newark Abbey
August, 1842
with a remembrance of August, 1807
I gaze, where August’s sunbeam falls
Along these grey and lonely walls,
Till in its light absorbed appears
The lapse of five-and-thirty years.
If change there be, I trace it not
In all this consecrated spot:
No new imprint of Ruin’s march
On roofless wall and frameless arch:
The hilss, the woods, the fields, the stream,
Are basking in the self-same beam:
The fall, that turns the unseen mill
As then it murmured, murmurs still:
It seems, as if in one were cast
The present and the imaged past,
Spanning, as with bridge sublime,
That awful lapse of human time,
That gulph, unfathomably spread
Between the living and the dead.
For all too well my spirit feels
The only change this place reveals:
The sunbeams play, the breezes stir,
Unseen, unfelt, unheard by her,
Who, on that long-past August day,
First saw with me those ruins grey.
Whatever span the fates allow,
Ere I shall be as she is now,
Still in my bosom’s inmost cell
Shall that deep-treasured memory dwell:
That, more than language can express,
Pure miracle of loveliness,
Whose voice so sweet, whose eyes so bright,
Were my soul’s music, and its light,
In those blest days, when life was new,
And hope was false, but love was true.
There Was A Young Lady Called Gay
There was a young lady called Gay
Who ate apple pie every single day.
She preferred it with mustard
And refused to eat custard.
As to why? She refused to say!
There Was A Young Lady Called Claire
There was a young lady called Claire
Who fell asleep while climbing the stair.
Should you ask me why
I shall make reply,
“How would I know, I wasn’t there!”
A Man Can Not Always Be Serious
I was recently reminded of Sleary’s words, to Mr Gradgrind, in “Hard Times”:
“People mutht be amuthed. They can’t be alwayth a learning, nor yet they can’t
be alwayth a working, they an’t made for it”.
It happened in this manner. I fell into conversation with an acquaintance in the pub, who mentioned that a friend had said words to the following effect:
“Poetry should be serious. Proper poetry isn’t humorous”.
I am the first one to defend serious poetry. The expression of heartfelt melancholy as in Keats “Ode to a Nightingale”, or Dowson’s “They are not long the weeping and the laughter”, engenders in me a profound sense of connection with the poet, long since deceased. I feel as they felt or as close to it as it is humanly possible to feel. Serious art (whether poetry or otherwise) has the power to shake us out of our complacency, make the strong man weep or simply cause the reader to reflect deeply on existence and her place in it.
Humorous verse does, in contrast cause us to laugh outloud, as in Lewis Carroll’s wonderful Jabberwocky, or Edward Lear’s “The Owl and the Pussy-cat”, To possess the power to make others laugh uproariously is a real talent and those who have the capacity to do so should not be dismissed merely owing to the fact that their work is not “serious”. To misquote Sleary:
“A man can not always be serious”!
Perhaps it is attitudes such as that expressed by my acquaintence’s friend (that poetry must be serious), which help to explain (at least partially) why so many people maintain they “don’t like poetry”.
Inner Peace
Sitting here
My mind is almost clear
Of old junk.
For now the detritus has slunk
Away to hide
Inside
The maze of my calculating brain.
The stain
Of a thing overthought
Frequently leaves me overrought.
This room is still and full of peace
So why can not my mind for long cease
In it’s whirring motion?
Must I forever be tossed upon this restless ocean?
I long for a lack of motion.
Yet there is no magic potion
To achieve a quiet soul,
A goal
Pursued by men of every nation
And station.
Though ‘tis a fact both sad and true
That inner peace is gained by so few.
Making Hay
The young man makes hay
And little heed does pay
To the odd grey
Hair.
With desire he does stare
At maidens fair
While the hay turns bad
And the lustful lad,
With expression sad
Sees that the grey
Has chased the brown away.
The man strays still
But the rill
Of joy is almost dry.
Try
As he might
To lose himself in sensual delight
Man does hear
With fear
Night’s footsteps, creeping near.
K Morris - Poet 