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

OK, thanks to Paul I declare the game officially open. I think we should allow quoted pieces as well, (I'm still open to your views on this though), and please make the topics likely to produce good poetry rather than being cryptic and difficult to answer.

Short will still be preferable to long, though. Paul and the Prof have started off well.

Jab

Yesterday saw the death of a racehorse,
Desert Orchid.
He was posited as having been a hero
With determination and so on and so forth.
He supposedly always gave his all to win races.

But nobody on the telly mentioned the money
that was made from him,
From prizes and from betting. Millions made
From this determination and will to win
And effort on the part of a single animal.

Exploitation's the name of the game.
For animals as for humans: it's just the same.
Valour, work and the cowardice make up money's name.

(orig.)

War

Man the killer consumed in hate
Excuses pour out from an unemptyable bottle
Destroyer of worlds from the time he arrived
Bring forth the hour of his own destuction
For Mother nature shall return peace and calm
The planet again can heal it's wounds

(mine)


"the Sun"

Are you talking tabloids here, or great big balls of hot air?


From: Poet for Our Times, by Carol Ann Duffy.


I write the headlines for a Daily Paper.
It's just a knack one's born with all-right-Squire.
You do not have to be an educator,
just bang the words down like they're screaming *fire!*
CECIL-KEAYS ROW SHOCK TELLS EYETIE WAITER.
ENGLAND FAN CALLS WHINGEING FROG A LIAR.


Next subject: echoes.

Echoes of times past

I hear them still.

Memories will last

until the mole is a hill.

(mine)

Next subject:song

I sing of the years that make up the minutes
The minutes that turn into years
I sing of the song of the blackbird and thrush
Each springtime evening, when the fields are all ears;
But most of all a single song fills me
Of when you were with me, of when you were here.


[Orig.]


A river.

SORRY. One mistake. Try again:


I sing of the years that make up the minutes
The minutes that turn into years
I sing of the song of the blackbird and thrush
Each summertime evening, when the fields are all ears;
But most of all a single song fills me
Of when you were with me, of when you were here.


[Orig.]


A river.

Time, they say, is a river.
A concept that makes me shiver.
If we meet with a rapid,
Would it make my dreams vapid,
And do terrible things to my liver?

Not very poetic I guess; I think I might be burnt out.

next topic...Horses.

The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in
Till wind distresses tail and mane
Then one crops grass and moves about
- the other seeming to look on -
And stands anonymous again

Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowds and cries -
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they
Have slipped their names, and stand at ease
Or gallop for what must be joy.

[from At Grass by Philip Larkin - there's a pair just like this in the field next to the medieval church of St. Peter and St. Paul here in Olney, overlooking the River Great Ouse]

Jabberwock, what topic do you want the next poem to be about?

ooo horses! I lurve horses, some of my best friends are horses, they will always speak to you if your polite and never take fright, if you speak nicely to them.

Sorry to but in, someone mentioned the H word, i couldn't help it

- Sorry to keep you waiting:

Next topic:


Home town

Here the grass is wrapped, packaged away, under tarmac black as the night, Birds land on stone gray pavements, modern citywide bird tables, strewn with cold chips, for feasting on,Polished glass reflects a modern heart, beating anew in my old home town

*original * Next subject : Tigers

Tigger! Tigger! Bouncing bright
Somewhere in the woods at night
We'd need an All-Seeing Eye
To tell us where you are and why

In what distant nooks or puddles
Do you concoct your endless muddles
- Have you tried the tall church spire
Or evenings by our nice warm fire?

AND what ankle or body part
Could separate you from your bounding art;
And as your heart begins to thump
Oh look at her whiskers! And what a rump! (I say!)

When the stars all threw a paddy
Were you with them or home with Daddy?
Did Mummy smile when she looked anew -
After Laura the Lamb she knitted you!

Tigger Tigger bouncing bright
In the woods when it's nearly night -
Had we but an eye to see
- but we don't dare to be so nosey.


[Just for fun. I'm sure I could do better if I had more time - the pressure - Oh the Pressure! that someone might write an answer when you're in the middle of it! - Jab )

Poverty

http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/thetiggermoviesongs&story/howtobeatigger.htm

While walking o'er the pavements grey
town is bustling as shoppers mill round stalls
I walk alone within the crowd of nameless folk
anorexia nerviosa effects my purse
so poor in fact, as mugged was I
the scoundrel gave me coins of the realm




subject:wealth

(Re. the Tigger poem: )

The bridge casts looming shadows while they stand
Around their little fire 'gainst the cold,
Sausages on sticks gripped in their hands.
A pot of bubbling soup, in green and gold,

Releases fragrance subtle and inviting.
They once were middle class, hoped for ascension,
But now their world is here, where wind is biting.
Retired all, their comp'ny ditched its pension .

In the time it took me to write *my* poem about poverty, someone else sumitted one and then changed the next topic to "wealth." I think my poem covers wealth as something that my characters have *lost* , so I think my poem makes the grade either way.

Next topic: the field