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

Good to my promise, I read through your poetry.
My problem is that I can’t crit poetry as I am a heathen with no clear empathy for the genre. That said, I appreciate the imagery and craftsmanship of your writing. Keep writing, and I will keep reading.
One snatch of verse that I still remember from my school days describes a fox on the run from a pack of hounds, I don’t know who wrote it, but I like it. (Also pertinent at the moment as fox hunting is to be banned as part of the class war going on.)

“Like a rocket shot from a ship ashore the lean red bolt of his body tore. Like the ripple of wind on a field of grass…….”

Beans.

“Like a rocket shot from a ship ashore the lean red bolt of his body tore. Like the ripple of wind on a field of grass…….”
Oh Beans, what a wonderful quote!
You reminded me of being read to at an early age; how magic it seemed; plus it were one of the ways my mother liked to love us;she would read from Peter Rabbit and tickle our backs as we fell asleep. And she would read from the funny papers...ooo how I wanted to learn the language of squiggles.
As an aside; I think your real life pieces are wonderful, as I've said before you bring so much wryness and honesty and compassion and humour. You must be published, you will; in the meantime I'll take your freebies here,
with beans on toast please!
Regards,
Lynda

I was determined to track this poem down, and thanks to the intrnet, managed it.

It's called Raynard Fox written in 1921 by John Masefield.

Now get this...it's 20,000 words long!
(I wonder if I learned it all at school.)
I have pasted the stanza in question. I seem to remember my teacher saying that the whole thing should be read fast and furious. I suppose if you have to get through that many words it's the only way.
Beans.



Like a rocket shot to a ship ashore

The lean red bolt of his body tore,

Like a ripple of wind running swift on grass;

Like a shadow on wheat when a cloud blows past,

Like a turn at the buoy in a cutter sailing

When the bright green gleam lips white at the railing,

Like the April snake whipping back to sheath,

Like the gannets' hurtle on fish beneath,

Like a kestrel chasing, like a sickle reaping,

Like all things swooping, like all things sweeping,

Like a hound for stay, like a stag for swift,

With his shadow beside like spinning drift.

*

And of course they shouldn't be hunted and ripped to shreds by dogs midst laughing red-coated malt beverage swilling.........oops.

Yea, I know.
I don't have a view on fox hunting, but, have you ever seen film taken inside a chicken factory?
Hundreds of thousands of birds a week routinely slaughtered after living abject lives. Why don’t people get worked up over that? I simply don’t understand anything these days.

Beans.

unlurk dont be cruel, i can see how a few simple lines can grow to 20,000 , that stanza,
the poets name,
the school verse i had
"i must go down to the sea"
leave this here to look at later
http://www.publishingcentral.com/masefield/biography.html
as will link to A3040796 as thread reminded me of it

But Beans I do have a view about that...it just weren't the right thread. I'm very consistently inconsistent in the regard, erm, pardon, I have to go pick up dinner and the font is too big to tell you what it is. Drat, caught out again, but ye can't eat a fox anyway. And they make better poems whilst running....

Thanks for the thread Logicus.
I enjoyed tyour poem but didn't have much luck with the web site. I spotted 'Cargoes' and thought it might be another poem from my schooldays (salt encrusted smoke stacks etc) but when I clicked on it, it said that the page couldn't be found. Oh well.

Anyway, I am going to write a poem about chickens! If Burns could do it for a mouse, I don't see why I can't do it for a chicken. (And make a better job of it.)

Beans.

looks like sites under construction,
(uni link found it)
reading by mase feild sounded poor,(reminded me of other by , emerson ? or irish poet
(died 5year or so ago)
wont recall name till 4 am or so
so can exspect to see a colen-alassult or
kentucky fried poem then

Yip, it’s going to be one hell of a poem.
I am off to bed now, but my subconscious will be working like the devil, then aided by a couple of pints tomorrow night, the results will be little short of earth moving.

Beans.

Absolutely amazing!!!!!111
Beans meets,
Logical toast.

you yip and kip, and torture me
who sit here in good humor,
full of glee

yeah your subconcious will be working like the devil,
or an angel, let's give her her due
night night

like the effect in the headers, poetry in motion
for while.