This poem is on my refrigerator. It's one of my favorites.
"National Cold Storage Company"
by Harvey Shapiro
The National Cold Storage Company contains
More things than you can dream of.
Hard by the Brooklyn Bridge it stands
In a litter of freight cars,
Tugs to one side; the other, the traffic
Of the Long Island Expressway.
I myself have dropped into it in seven years
Midnight tossings, plans for escape, the shakes.
Add this to the national total --
Grant's tomb, the Civil War, Arlington,
The young President dead.
Above the warehouse and beneath the stars
The poets creep on the harp of the Bridge.
But see,
They fall into the National Cold Storage Company
One by one. The wind off the river is too cold,
Or the times too rough, or the Bridge
Is not a harp at all. Or maybe
A monstrous birth inside the warehouse
Must be fed by everything -- ships, poems,
Stars, all the years of our lives.
Post your favorite poem
22i have two.
the first:
the panther, ogden nash
The panther is like a leopard,
Except it hasn't been peppered.
Should you behold a panther crouch,
Prepare to say Ouch.
Better yet, if called by a panther,
Don't anther.
the second:
the death of the ball turret gunner, randall jarrell
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
the first:
the panther, ogden nash
The panther is like a leopard,
Except it hasn't been peppered.
Should you behold a panther crouch,
Prepare to say Ouch.
Better yet, if called by a panther,
Don't anther.
the second:
the death of the ball turret gunner, randall jarrell
From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.
Post your favorite poem
24Apologies for errors in punctuation or correct spacing. I had to copy and paste from the only place that I could find this online. Most of my books are still in Wisconsin.
The Lovepet (Ted Hughes)
Was it an animal was it a bird?
She stroked it. He spoke to it softly.
She made her voice its happy forest.
He brought it out with sugarlump smiles.
Soon it was licking their kisses.
She gave it the strings of her voice which it swallowed
He gave it the blood of his face it grew eager
She gave it the liquorice of her mouth it began to thrive
He opened the aniseed of his future
And it bit and gulped, grew vicious, snatched
The focus of his eyes
She gave it the steadiness of her hand
He gave it the strength of his spine it ate everything
It began to cry what could they give it
They gave it their calendar it bolted their diaries
They gave it their sleep it gobbled their dreams
Even while they slept
It ate their bodyskin and the muscle beneath
They gave it vows its teeth clashed its starvation
Through every word they uttered
It found snakes under the floor it ate them
It found a spider horror
In their palms and ate it.
They gave it double smiles and blank silence
It chewed holes in their carpets
They gave it logic
It ate the colour of their hair
They gave it every argument that would come
They gave it shouting and yelling they meant it
It ate the faces of their children
They gave it their photograph albums they gave it their records
It ate the colour of the sun
They gave it a thousand letters they gave it money
It ate their future complete it waited for them
Staring and starving
They gave it screams it had gone too far
It ate into their brains
It ate the roof
It ate the lonely stone it ate the wind crying famine
It went furiously off
They wept they called it back it could have everything
It stripped out their nerves chewed flavourless
It bit at their numb bodies they did not resist
It bit into their blank brains they hardly knew
It moved bellowing
Through a ruin of starlight and crockery
It drew slowly off they could not move
It went far away they could not speak
"To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost."
-Gustave Flaubert
-Gustave Flaubert
Post your favorite poem
25Not my favourite, but a wonderful poem that appeared in Private Eye a couple of weeks ago, after the death of Marcel Marceau.
In Memory of Marcel Marceau
So. Farewell then, Marcel Marceau.
"
".
That was your catchphrase.
- E.J. Thribb (17 1/2)
Rick Reuben wrote:He went to bed about a decade ago, or whenever he sold his soul to the bankers and the elites.daniel robert chapman wrote:I think he's gone to bed, Rick.
