h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Let's try a poetry conversation, similar to the Song Conversation game, but poetry.

Rules please - keep contributions not dirty or offensive, and keep them quite short. Milton's Paradise Lost would not be acceptable, whereas an abstract would.

Try to link your verse to the previous one in some way, to keep it a communal conversation of feelings, if not ideas.

Give us the author. It might be you! It'd be interesting to see the author's name, and perhaps the book where the poem can be found. If you don't know these details, just leave them out.

If the author is you and you want to add a couple of lines about the poem, please do.

Let's try it, folks!

I Am


I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.


John Clare - Collected Poems

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?


Excerpt from Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot

Just a note to remind everyone about copyright regulationw which would place limits on this thread

You might like to read <./>HouseRules</.>

Excerpts are okay, aren't they? *goes to look at house rules*

...There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world...


[From A Brief for the Defense, by Jack Gilbert.]

Thank you Feisor, you're quite right. It's a shame but they have to be excerpts unless the poem is over 70 years old or it's your own work of course - B'Elena just told me. Let's be careful about this folks, and still have our fun

Jab

This post has been removed.

If the work is published on the net why not post a link?

I don't see why excerpts shouldn't be allowed - after all there's also a copywright on music!

I'm not absolutely sure about copywright rules but isn't it something to do with publishing for gain? And you must acknowledge source?

I'm not sure posting a link would work - may be take too long and lose the immediacy?

Sorry folks - I see you've already discussed this

This post has been removed.

I've eaten many strange and scrumptious dishes in my time,
Like jellied gnats and dandiprats and earwigs cooked in slime,
And mice with rice--they're really nice
When roasted in their prime.


[From The Centipede's Song, by Roald Dahl.]

The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright--
And this was odd, because it was
The middle of the night.

...four young Oysters hurried up,
All eager for the treat:
Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat--
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

"The time has come," the Walrus said,
"To talk of many things:
Of shoes--and ships--and sealing-wax--
Of cabbages--and kings--
And why the sea is boiling hot--
And whether pigs have wings."

"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.

[excerpts from The Walrus and The Carpenter - Lewis Carroll - Through the Looking Glass]

The owl and the pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat
They took some honey and plenty of money wrapped up in a five-pound note.

Hi all,

Just to clarify something, copyright laws allow us to quote small excerpts so long as they are part of a related discussion. Having a quote just for the sake of it might be problematic; having two whole stanzas of a poem or verses of a song almost certainly will be. While there's a certain level of editorial protection involved in quoting material in an entry, doing it just as part of a game could bring the site unwanted attention.

We don't want to spoil anyone's fun here, but please keep the quotes to two lines or less.

Regards,

The h2g2 team

Ballad: THE YARN OF THE "NANCY BELL." (1)
WS Gilbert - 50 Bab Ballads

'TWAS on the shores that round our coast
From Deal to Ramsgate span,
That I found alone on a piece of stone
An elderly naval man.

His hair was weedy, his beard was long,
And weedy and long was he,
And I heard this wight on the shore recite,
In a singular minor key:

"Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold,
And the mate of the NANCY brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig."

And he shook his fists and he tore his hair,
Till I really felt afraid,
For I couldn't help thinking the man had been drinking,
And so I simply said:

"Oh, elderly man, it's little I know
Of the duties of men of the sea,
And I'll eat my hand if I understand
However you can be

"At once a cook, and a captain bold,
And the mate of the NANCY brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig."

Then he gave a hitch to his trousers, which
Is a trick all seamen larn,
And having got rid of a thumping quid,
He spun this painful yarn:

"'Twas in the good ship NANCY BELL
That we sailed to the Indian Sea,
And there on a reef we come to grief,
Which has often occurred to me.

"And pretty nigh all the crew was drowned
(There was seventy-seven o' soul),
And only ten of the NANCY'S men
Said 'Here!' to the muster-roll.

"There was me and the cook and the captain bold,
And the mate of the NANCY brig,
And the bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig.

"For a month we'd neither wittles nor drink,
Till a-hungry we did feel,
So we drawed a lot, and, accordin' shot
The captain for our meal.

"The next lot fell to the NANCY'S mate,
And a delicate dish he made;
Then our appetite with the midshipmite
We seven survivors stayed.

"And then we murdered the bo'sun tight,
And he much resembled pig;
Then we wittled free, did the cook and me,
On the crew of the captain's gig.

"Then only the cook and me was left,
And the delicate question, 'Which
Of us two goes to the kettle?' arose,
And we argued it out as sich.

"For I loved that cook as a brother, I did,
And the cook he worshipped me;
But we'd both be blowed if we'd either be stowed
In the other chap's hold, you see.

"'I'll be eat if you dines off me,' says TOM;
'Yes, that,' says I, 'you'll be, -
'I'm boiled if I die, my friend,' quoth I;
And 'Exactly so,' quoth he.

"Says he, 'Dear JAMES, to murder me
Were a foolish thing to do,
For don't you see that you can't cook ME,
While I can - and will - cook YOU!'

"So he boils the water, and takes the salt
And the pepper in portions true
(Which he never forgot), and some chopped shalot.
And some sage and parsley too.

"'Come here,' says he, with a proper pride,
Which his smiling features tell,
''T will soothing be if I let you see
How extremely nice you'll smell.'

"And he stirred it round and round and round,
And he sniffed at the foaming froth;
When I ups with his heels, and smothers his squeals
In the scum of the boiling broth.

"And I eat that cook in a week or less,
And - as I eating be
The last of his chops, why, I almost drops,
For a wessel in sight I see!

* * * *

"And I never larf, and I never smile,
And I never lark nor play,
But sit and croak, and a single joke
I have - which is to say:

"Oh, I am a cook and a captain bold,
And the mate of the NANCY brig,
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite,
And the crew of the captain's gig!'"

In the light of how very stringent copyright law seems to be, maybe we should stick to poems over 70 years old, or original poems, or 2 lines plus a link. Or just give up

Jab

The Bab Ballads out of copyright as far as I know.