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

Thomas Hardy is the poet

"We sat at the window" is the title

[The next poem is about homelessness, written by someone who was homeless herself. As the denizens of H2G2 look for a new home for their beloved website, this poem seems fitting somehow]

No more the tasks and daily grind
and bills that steal my piece of mind.
No longer the dread of the daily post
I am not here, I’m just a ghost,
I’m homeless you see.


No longer, the castle that was my home
no boundaries set, I’m all alone.
No worries where my next meal’s from
Let’s face it, I’m just a bum,
I’m homeless you see

That's marvellous, Paul. It's Homelessness by Elaine Patrick. Here's the URL - I urge everyone to read it, although I think it could have done without the last three words.

http://www.hearmystory.org/homeless-poetry/homeless-poems-and-poetry-elaine-patrick-homelessness.php

Much in the same spirit, this excellent poem is by someone diagnosed as mentally ill, probably as schizophrenic (first verse):

I promise I will be there.
Words with empty meaning, words screaming through the halls of my mind as they make their course.
I know he lies.
I know I won't see him until the echo is heard, until the message smacks the back of the wall. Not the wall of innocence though.
Can one echo pass through two circles at once?
I wait. No answer.
The doorbell rings but no-one can hear above all this noise.


[Sorry for rushing in, but I haven't got much time ]

Jabs

That poem is called "The Third Man Is New" and was written by someone known only as Jo. It can be found @ http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/sad/poetry.asp?poem=28801.

The extract from Don Juan that I quoted earlier is a stand-alone 'song' of 16 verses inserted between stanzas 86 and 87 of the third canto. It often appears in anthologies under the title of "The Isles of Greece".

Here's a poem I've just randomly encountered. I imagine you may be familiar with the poet, Paul.


They eat beans mostly, this old yellow pair.
Dinner is a casual affair.
Plain chipware on a plain and creaking wood,
Tin flatware.

Two who are Mostly Good.
Two who have lived their day,
But keep on putting on their clothes
And putting things away.

And remembering . . .
Remembering, with twinklings and twinges,
As they lean over the beans in their rented back room that
is full of beads and receipts and dolls and cloths,
tobacco crumbs, vases and fringes.

The Bean Eaters by Gwendolyn Brooks. Next (entire poem, out of copyright, translated):


Brushed by the shadows of the dead
On the grass where day expires
Columbine strips bare admires
her body in the pond instead
A charlatan of twilight formed
Boasts of the tricks to be performed
The sky without a stain unmarred
Is studded with the milk-white stars
From the boards pale Harlequin
First salutes the spectators
Sorcerers from Bohemia
Fairies sundry enchanters
Having unhooked a star
He proffers it with outstretched hand
While with his feet a hanging man
Sounds the cymbals bar by bar
The blind man rocks a pretty child
The doe with all her fauns slips by
The dwarf observes with saddened pose
How Harlequin magically grows

That's "Twilight" by Guillaume Apollinaire - translated by A S Kline, if I'm not mistaken. I have a slim volume of his poems, but I don't think it includes that one.

You'll probably be able to guess the author of this one:-

His most capacious brain will make us cower,
His only weakness is a lust for power -
And that is not a weakness, people think,
When unaccompanied by bribes or drink.
So let us hear this cool careerist tell
His plans to turn our country into hell.
"I cannot say how shock'd I am to see
The variations in our scenery.
Just take for instance, at a casual glance,
Our muddled coastline opposite to France:
Dickensian houses by the Channel tides
With old hipp'd roofs and weather-boarded sides.
I blush to think one corner of our isle
Lacks concrete villas in the modern style.

The poet is John Betjeman
itle: "The town clerk's views"

Next poem:

I'm under it again, that foot of ice.
No headroom. On me, the weight of a house.

This winter's hard as the year the river froze over,
that December they bore a hole

the size fishermen cut for their bait,
then lowered me down, bound hands and feet.

That's 'The Escape Artist in Winter' by Allison Funk.

Next:-


A man with a fissure in his arm
all the way down to the bone
sits next to me. This patient
is far more patient than I'd imagine,
considering the bleeding. I ask him if it hurts
and he says sure, what doesn't.