Poem (Rap) of the Week

“I Wish”

This week I’m sharing a rap song by Tom MacDonald whose “Fake Woke” has gone viral. I liked the nostalgic footage above. Enjoy.

 

Heard on The Crown

I’m just starting to watch season 4 of The Crown and heard Margaret Thatcher recite this poem to buttress her decision to reshuffle her cabinet.

No Enemies

by Charles MacKay

You have no enemies, you say? 
Alas! my friend, the boast is poor; 
He who has mingled in the fray 
Of duty, that the brave endure, 
Must have made foes! If you have none, 
Small is the work that you have done. 
You’ve hit no traitor on the hip, 
You’ve dashed no cup from perjured lip, 
You’ve never turned the wrong to right, 
You’ve been a coward in the fight.

 

Poem of the Week

Snow flakes

By Emily Dickinson

I counted till they danced so
Their slippers leaped the town –
And then I took a pencil
To note the rebels down –
And then they grew so jolly
I did resign the prig –
And ten of my once stately toes
Are marshalled for a jig!

 

Valentine’s Day Poem

love is more thicker than forget

by e.e. cummings

love is more thicker than forget

more thinner than recall

more seldom than a wave is wet

more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly

and less it shall unbe

than all the sea which only

is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win

less never than alive

less bigger than the least begin

less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly

and more it cannot die

than all the sky which only

is higher than the sky

 

Poem of the Week

斧入れて　香おどろくや　冬木立

Ono ire te

Ko odoroku ya

Fuyu kodachi

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Cutting into with the ax,

I was surprised at the scent of.

The winter trees.

By Yosa Buson

 

Poem of the Week

it may not always be so

By e.e. cummings

it may not always be so; and i say
that if your lips, which i have loved, should touch
another’s, and your dear strong fingers clutch
his heart, as mine in time not far away;
if on another’s face your sweet hair lay
in such a silence as i know, or such
great writhing words as, uttering overmuch,
stand helplessly before the spirit at bay;
if this should be, i say if this should be—
you of my heart, send me a little word;
that i may go unto him, and take his hands,
saying, Accept all happiness from me.
Then shall i turn my face, and hear one bird
sing terribly afar in the lost lands.

 

A Poem for Veterans’ Day

In Flanders Fields

 

9/11 Poem

For 9/11, Jack Buck’s poem

Since this nation was founded … under God
More than 200 years ago
We have been the bastion of freedom
The light that keeps the free world aglow
We do not covet the possessions of others
We are blessed with the bounty we share.

We have rushed to help other nations
… anything … anytime … anywhere.

War is just not our nature
We won’t start … but we will end the fight
If we are involved we shall be resolved
To protect what we know is right.

We have been challenged by a cowardly foe
Who strikes and then hides from our view.

With one voice we say, “There is no choice today,
There is only one thing to do.

Everyone is saying — the same thing — and praying
That we end these senseless moments we are living.

As our fathers did before … we shall win this unwanted war
And our children … will enjoy the future … we’ll be giving.

 

Poem of the Week

Summer Images

By John Clare

Now swarthy Summer, by rude health embrowned,
Precedence takes of rosy fingered Spring;
And laughing Joy, with wild flowers prank’d, and crown’d,
A wild and giddy thing,
And Health robust, from every care unbound,
Come on the zephyr’s wing,
And cheer the toiling clown.

Happy as holiday-enjoying face,
Loud tongued, and “merry as a marriage bell,”
Thy lightsome step sheds joy in every place;
And where the troubled dwell,
Thy witching charms wean them of half their cares;
And from thy sunny spell,
They greet joy unawares.

Then with thy sultry locks all loose and rude,
And mantle laced with gems of garish light,
Come as of wont; for I would fain intrude,
And in the world’s despite,
Share the rude wealth that thy own heart beguiles;
If haply so I might
Win pleasure from thy smiles.

Me not the noise of brawling pleasure cheers,
In nightly revels or in city streets;
But joys which soothe, and not distract the ears,
That one at leisure meets
In the green woods, and meadows summer-shorn,
Or fields, where bee-fly greets
The ear with mellow horn.

The green-swathed grasshopper, on treble pipe,
Sings there, and dances, in mad-hearted pranks;
There bees go courting every flower that’s ripe,
On baulks and sunny banks;
And droning dragon-fly, on rude bassoon,
Attempts to give God thanks
In no discordant tune.

The speckled thrush, by self-delight embued,
There sings unto himself for joy’s amends,
And drinks the honey dew of solitude.
There Happiness attends
With inbred Joy until the heart o’erflow,
Of which the world’s rude friends,
Nought heeding, nothing know.

There the gay river, laughing as it goes,
Plashes with easy wave its flaggy sides,
And to the calm of heart, in calmness shows
What pleasure there abides,
To trace its sedgy banks, from trouble free:
Spots Solitude provides
To muse, and happy be.

 

Poem of the Week

Here’s flowers for you;
Hot lavender, mints, savoury, marjoram;
The marigold, that goes to bed wi’ the sun
And with him rises weeping: these are flowers
Of middle summer, and I think they are given
To men of middle age

William Shakespeare