The Poetry Thread

boltonbonce wrote:One of my favourite poets, Charles Bukowski. Not the best of men, but a great writer.

I re-read The Post office 2 or 3 months ago. Such a good book.

boltonbonce wrote:

Sluffy wrote:Mary had a iron cow

She milked it with a spanner

The milk came out in shilling tins

And small ones for a tanner.

(Anon)

I'd be 'Anon' if I'd written that.

If you liked that one here us another -

Central Eating


Radi was a circus lion

Radi was a woman hater

Radi had a lady trainer

Radiator.

(Anon)

Iirc correctly those were poems in my grammar school text book.

God knows what poetry they teach the kids theses days.

Probably non I guess?

Old Breaders was pretty nifty at the poetry lark. Floppy felt hat, crimson, velvet, smoking jacket, cigarette holder gripped raffishly between his teeth. No wonder Big Barry liked him.

Jack and Jill
Went up the hill
To have some hanky panky
But silly Jill forgot her pill
And now there's little Franky

I got a detention for this when I was at Bolton County Grammar in Gt Moor St. I got it off my dad and submitted it as part of my homework.

30 days hath September, April, June, and no wonder.
All the rest have 31, except grandma, and she rides a bike.

A nonsense poem, but it still makes me laugh.

Difficult to beat Shakespeare's prowess with language. These are Macbeth's reflections on the futility of life as he comes upon the dead body of his wife, and knows that he is also about to die in battle.

   
“Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.”

― William Shakespeare, Macbeth

Sluffy had a little Bob
His posts made sluffys look exciting
That is why he kept him round
So people would keep fighting

He had a distaste for vince Dale
And for some reason rashford too
He didn't like me too much
And he probably doesn't like you

He seems only to like his reflection
And his written word is law
It's the only opinion that matters
Even if it is a bore

But we persevere and keep going
Trying to keep the site alive
Once there was hundreds of posters
Now there is only five

Thankfully Nat is one of them
Norpig, kp and bonce too
All you lurkers need to get posting
So not can take the piss out of you

gloswhite wrote:I got a detention for this when I was at Bolton County Grammar in Gt Moor St. I got it off my dad and submitted it as part of my homework.

30 days hath September, April, June, and no wonder.
All the rest have 31, except grandma, and she rides a bike.

A nonsense poem, but it still makes me laugh.

I used to have an apartment in the building you went to school glos

y2johnny wrote:Sluffy had a little Bob
His posts made sluffys look exciting
That is why he kept him round
So people would keep fighting

He had a distaste for vince Dale
And for some reason rashford too
He didn't like me too much
And he probably doesn't like you

He seems only to like his reflection
And his written word is law
It's the only opinion that matters
Even if it is a bore

But we persevere and keep going
Trying to keep the site alive
Once there was hundreds of posters
Now there is only five

Thankfully Nat is one of them
Norpig, kp and bonce too
All you lurkers need to get posting
So not can take the piss out of you

A generous 1/10 
Little johnny must try harder.

Hello Johnny. This poetry lark is tough, and I'm struggling a bit.

I'm having a go, but I can't find anything to rhyme with Bob. I tried to work myself into it, but I'm struggling with something to rhyme with Bonce.

Any ideas? 

Shite poem, didn’t even mention me

I like history.

I don't really know why but I'm often fascinated to find out where things have come from - and I don't mean just ancient history and all that but recent history too - for example if we sign a player I will look up what teams he played for, what he's done in the past before he signed for Bolton.

Not that me knowing that makes much difference to anything but it just feeds my curiosity I suppose.

I like learning stuff too, always have.

So I guess I've always been a bit 'bookish' and less likely to storm Wembley or tweet racist stuff to the the three penalty takers who missed on the night.

What's all this got to do with poetry you must be thinking by now, well a great deal really.

Back in time when people couldn't read or write, knowledge was passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth, by storytelling to keep what had be learned alive.

Of course over the span of time some of these tales got embellished and some of the 'facts' and 'knowledge' of their time became myths and legends of our times.

Anyway when reading and writing became more widespread, the knowledge/myths were written down and still read today, for example the story of King Arthur, or the Greek myths.

For some reason these story's were  often told as poems - I guess you tend to repeat the words you've learned as a poem - and thus remember them - rather than tell a tale and mix things up???

Anyway where I'm going with all of this is that I've recently watched a three part documentary on the Art of Persia (I know, who but a complete nerd would ever want to watch that!) and it is all built around a bloke called Ferdowsi who wrote down the Persian story's and tales he heard (his death is recorded as 1025AD or in other words forty years before The Battle of Hastings in 1066).

He did this in poetry in his book called the Shahnameh - which I'd never even heard of before.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh

If you like stuff like King Arthur, Greek myths and stuff like that - then you will enjoy this (or at least the BBC documentary telling the story of it - and how it still resonates a millennium later).

The documentary also introduced me to other poets who I'd never heard of before such as Saadi and his books the Bustan and the Guilistan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulistan_(book)

This bloke died around 1290AD - yet part of one of his poems is hanging on a wall in the United Nations building in New York today!

Anyway I found it all really interesting - maybe I am a total nerd - but for those who might like to give it a try this is the link to the documentary -

BBC iPlayer - Art of Persia

I love history too, Sluffy. I'm well into a 14 hour Ken Burns documentary series about the Roosevelts.

It's brilliant stuff, and available on Prime Video for £17.00. Tried to get my brother to watch it, but anything that doesn't include a bar fight, or a stabbing in the first ten minutes he considers a French art house movie.

Burns' Dust Bowl, is another documentary well worth the trouble (and only four hours long).

Thanks for those Bonce.

I quite liked Steinbeck's book Of Mice and Men (it is actually a short story and a good one too and well worth a read if anyone hasn't read it) and Grapes of Wrath - I'd recommend the old black and white film with Henry Fonda - catch it if you've never seen it!

I didn't actually watch The Art of Persia for the poetry - I didn't even know there was going to be in it - and the documentary isn't really about poetry at all except that the book that Ferdowsi wrote nearly a thousand years ago sets the culture of how Iran still is today - and permutates its history by remembering it's achievements from what really is one of the earliest civilisations on Earth through to the modern day - even the bible (not that I'm a believer) can go back that far!

I guess people like whatever interests them, to my way of thinking social media seems to do the trick for many these days, sadly imo - but for those who may have wider interests and can spare three hours of their time I would certainly recommend watching the documentary because it goes much further than history and poetry and even religion and delves into values that perhaps would make us far better than wanting to be popular and Twitter or Tik Tok or whatever else people validate themselves with these days.

Ten Bobsworth wrote:
A generous 1/10 
Little johnny must try harder.

Stop trying to butter me up by calling me little you tease

boltonbonce wrote:Hello Johnny. This poetry lark is tough, and I'm struggling a bit.

I'm having a go, but I can't find anything to rhyme with Bob. I tried to work myself into it, but I'm struggling with something to rhyme with Bonce.

Any ideas? 

Bob, knob

That's all you'll ever need

Bonce, Ponce, once, nnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn..... can't think of anything else

BoltonTillIDie wrote:Shite poem, didn’t even mention me

Sorry btid, been up since 5, you'll get your own, you are far too important