Favorite NonFictional Poem

[Art]

Overheard over S.E. Asia, Denise Levertov

White phosphorous, white phosphorous
mechanical snow,
where are you falling?'
'I am falling impartially on roads and roofs,
on bamboo thickets, on people.
My name recalls rich seas on rainy nights,
each drop that hits the surface eliciting
luminous response from a million algae.
My name is a whisper of sequins. Ha!
Each of them is a disk of fire,
I am the snow that burns.
I fall
wherever men send me to fall -
but I prefer flesh, so smooth, so dense:
I decorate it in black, and seek
the bone.

[Buddy]

Those feckin americans are right shits.

When I heard about the phosphorous crap I dispared.

The yanks bang on so much about chemical weapons when the 'enemy' use them, but hang on, they're actually quite a good weapon, so lets give it a go.

A case of do as I say, not do as I do.

The sooner Bush is out of the picture, the better.

[Dudley]

I was run over by the truth one day.
Ever since the accident I've walked this way
   So stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Heard the alarm clock screaming with pain,
Couldn't find myself so I went back to sleep again
   So fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Every time I shut my eyes all I see is flames.
Made a marble phone book and I carved all the names
   So coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

I smell something burning, hope it's just my brains.
They're only dropping peppermints and daisy-chains
   So stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

Where were you at the time of the crime?
Down by the Cenotaph drinking slime
   So chain my tongue with whisky
   Stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

You put your bombers in, you put your conscience out,
You take the human being and you twist it all about
   So scrub my skin with women
   Chain my tongue with whisky
   Stuff my nose with garlic
   Coat my eyes with butter
   Fill my ears with silver
   Stick my legs in plaster
   Tell me lies about Vietnam.

[Wils]

my mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and
taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and
chipping with sharp fatal tools
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of
chrome and execute strides of cobalt
nevertheless i
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am
becoming something a little different, in fact
myself
Hereupon helpless i utter lilac shrieks and scarlet
bellowings.

[DavidXBrunt]

I don't have a link to it but there's a single Larkin poem that, for me, encapsulates everything that I hope is true about love. The Arundel Tomb.

I also really love Under Milk Wood which despite what many think isn't actually a poem but even if we take it as an extended verse form I wouldn't know whether to include it in Non Fiction or Fiction.

[The Amstor Computer]

David --

Side by side, their faces blurred,
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd--
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainess of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends could see:
A sculptor's sweet comissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
Their air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the grass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone finality
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love

[Art]

LAT LADY EXPLODES ON IMPACT

Fat Lady has a bad day
Fat Lady looses control
Fat Lady is immediately sacked
Fat Lady explodes on impact

[longmanshort]

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

[House of Usher]

To Ellen (In Imitation of Catullus)

Oh! might I kiss those eyes of fire,
A million scarce would quench desire:
Still would I steep my lips in bliss,
And dwell an age on every kiss;
Nor then my soul should sated be,
Still would I kiss and cling to thee:
Nought should my kiss from thine dissever;
Still would we kiss, and kiss for ever,
E'en though the numbers did exceed
The yellow harvest's countless seed.
To part would be a vain endeavor:
Could I desist? - ah! never - never!

- Byron

[Quirkafleeg]

Dulche et decorum est

Tyger! Tyger!

[DavidXBrunt]

Cheers The Amstor, and good choices all but especially Gary.

[Wils]

I'm mildly surprised that no one's quoted a McGonagall poem yet. ;)

Great choice from Gary. Dulce et Decorum Est has been my favourite war poem since I first read it in English Lit. Unfortunately, we studied the abysmal Rupert Brooke as well.

[Carlsborg Expert]

Crow
Decided to try words.


He imagined some words for the job, a lovely pack-
Clear-eyed, resounding, well-trained,
With strong teeth.
You could not find a better bred lot.


He pointed out the hare and away went the words
Resounding.
Crow was Crow without fail, but what is a hare?


It converted itself to a concrete bunker.
The words circled protesting, resounding.


Crow turned the words into bombs-they blasted the bunker.
The bits of bunker flew up-a flock of starlings.


Crow turned the words into shotguns, they shot down the starlings.
The falling starlings turned to a cloudburst.


Crow turned the words into a reservoir, collecting the water.
The water turned into an earthquake, swallowing the reservoir.


The earthquake turned into a hare and leaped for the hill
Having eaten Crow's words.


Crow gazed after the bounding hare
Speechless with admiration.


Ted Hughes.
I loved Crow.