The Poetry Thread...

Set out your favourite poem, and why. I always love this one, the way it starts with such a simple but poignant image, then becomes more personal before ending with 2 lines that are just breathtaking...

William Butler Yeats - When You Are Old

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars

Winterlong

Been done already.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055790800&page=22

Alf Stewart.

I'll give it a lash.

There was a young man called Skinner
Who went home one day for his dinner.
All he could see, was his Ma's two bare knees
And the arse of the lad who was in her.

stimpson

Beans

Beans, beans are good for your heart,
The more you eat the more you fart,
The more you fart the better you feel,
So eat beans for every meal.

Author unknown

I particularly like this piece because it deals with two things that are close to my heart: beans and farting.

Level 5 Vegan

Albert

Albert
was still struggling to get to grips
with “the internet.”
And he accidentally put himself
up for sale
on eBay.
He was bought by a Moldovan family
for 30 quid
(including postage).

Albert glumly picked at his cereal
after his first night
with the Birsanus.
“Wait ‘til Gene hears what
I’ve gone and done now,”
he thought.
“She’ll be furious.”

failinis

Mid-Term Break - Heaney

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying—
He had always taken funerals in his stride—
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were 'sorry for my trouble'.
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four-foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four-foot box, a foot for every year.