Prologue
The crucified planet Earth,
should it find a voice
and a sense of irony,
might now well say
of our abuse of it.
"Forgive them, Father,
They Know not what they do."
The irony would be
that we know what
we are doing.
When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say, in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canion
"It is done."
People did not like it here.
poem by Kurt Vonnegut from A Man without a Country (2007)
Submitted by Bogdan
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Related quotes
Real art is without irony. Irony distances the author from his material. Irony is a product of something. It's not the reason for doing something. Irony is a cheap shot.
quote by Robert Altman
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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A Natural Reaction
A reprobate? Who, me?
What's up with that?
Don't ask me to cozy up
and be your pal, please!
If I wanted, I could wreak
havoc on the whole crew!
By the way, can you define
irony for me?
Yes, I said irony!
I don't think you understand
the uses of irony, do you?
poem by Michael Pruchnicki
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself.
quote by Jessamyn West
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Justify
To add justice,
I did not scream nor cry,
I instead called,
“Irony.”
Yes,
Irony.
The strange noun that bites and slaps when least expected.
So, to justify,
I called Irony.
I would like it to be shown, to the court at least, that I did nothing wrong,
nor nothing right.
I called his name,
when he was gone from sight.
I whispered my wisdom,
to a deaf and blind old fool,
I gave my only love,
To one who would never love at all.
So,
To justify,
I believe I did not lose,
I just didn't win.
That is often the case with irony.
poem by Kaitey Cat
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Planet Earth
Only came outside to watch the nightfall with the rain
I heard you making patterns rhyme
Like some new romantic looking for the tv sound
Youll see Im right some other time
Look now, look all around, theres no sign of life
Voices, another sound, can you hear me now?
This is planet earth youre looking at planet earth
Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop this is planet earth
My head is stuck on something precious
Let me know if youre coming down to land
Is there anybody out there trying to get through?
My eyes are so cloudy I cant see you
Look now, look all around, theres no sign of life
Voices, another sound, can you hear me now?
This is planet earth youre looking at planet earth
Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop this is planet earth
Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop calling planet earth
Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop looking at planet earth
Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop this is planet earth
song performed by by Duran Duran
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Planet Earth
Only came outside to watch the nightfall with the rain
I heard you making patterns rhyme like
Some new romantic looking for the tv sound
Youll see Im right some other time look now
Look all around, theres not sign of life
Voices, another sound
Can you hear me now?
This is planet earth, youre looking at planet earth
Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop
This is planet earth
My head is stuck on something precious let me know
If youre coming down to land is there
Anybody out there trying to get through?
My eyes are so cloudy I cant see you
Look now, look all around, theres no sign of
Life voices, another sound
Can you hear me now?
This is planet earth
Youre looking at planet earth
Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop
This is planet earth
Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop
This calling planet earth
Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop
This looking at planet earth
Bop bop bop bop bop bop bop bop
This is planet earth
song performed by by Face To Face
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Father Forgive
Father forgive,
The hatred which divides
Nation from nation
Race from race
And class from class.
Father forgive,
The covetous desires
Of people and nations
To possess
What is not their own.
Father forgive,
Our greed which
Exploits the work,
Of human hands
And lays waste to the Earth.
Father forgive,
Our envy,
Of the welfare
And happiness
Of others.
Father forgive,
Our indifference,
To the plight
Of the imprisoned
The homeless
And the refugee.
Father forgive,
The lust which
Dishonors the bodies
Of men, women,
And children.
Father forgive,
The pride which leads us,
To trust in ourselves
And not in God.
poem by Athena Goddess of Wisdom Lumis Light to all
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Earth
Words and music by tim staffell
I might be at a table
And suddenly Ill catch
A fleeting vision of her crystal seas
Or I might be standing in a crowded dockyard faraway
Underneath the sun Ive never seen
cos I have seen many worlds
For what its worth
But Ill never see again the planet earth
My earth
I might be chasing waves of light
Out towards the rim
Where stars are sparse
And the cold of space seeps in
But I might be in a bar room
Drinking methylated gin
And thinking of the places I have been
Yes I have seen many worlds
For what its worth
But Ill never see again the planet earth
My earth
I have seen many worlds
For what its worth
But Ill never see again the planet earth
My earth
Cast adrift amongst the stars
I float from sun to sun
Dreaming of the world that gave me birth
All the places I have been
Remind me there is none
To match the green living hills of earth
cos I have seen many worlds
For what its worth
But Ill never see again the planet earth
My earth
song performed by by Queen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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All on Earth
I died so many times in empathy,
Cried so many rhymes in sympathy,
Dreaming out the horrors in the dark –
Imbibing all the agony. Embark
I must, on travels out from gentle home –
A flagellating path; a track to roam:
I am to Hell to go, to ruin, aflamed,
And there, in queerest irony, be framed
In curse: what all on dubious earth have done:
The race to kill our planet has begun.
Copyright Mark R Slaughter 2009
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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The Gaiety Of Reflection
'Irony is the gaiety
of reflection
and the joy of wisdom.'
Anatole France (1844-1924)
ON that clear day
on that clear
pond
i see the face of irony
it is myself
and it is not myself
both
in the paradox
of belief and
disbelief
there is joy
in the wisdom
of acceptance
in the domain
of my own
laughter having
seen
what i am
and what i am not
what i ought to be
and what
i want to be
it makes sense
in this
loneliness.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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I Stop And Wait/For A Poem
I Stop And Wait/ For A Poem
I stop and wait
For a poem.
The poem does not come
The city says ‘Morning beauty’
The silence is a sadness unsayable -
Light is lovely
Isn’t it?
Irony Irony Irony-
I write these lines
As if I actually believe
I am writing poetry
And doing something.
poem by Shalom Freedman
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Hymn XXVIII: Love Divine! What Hast Thou Done!
Love divine! what hast thou done!
The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father's co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree;
The immortal God for me hath died!
My Lord, my Love is crucified.
Behold him, all ye that pass by,
The bleeding Prince of life and peace!
Come, see, ye worms, your Maker die,
And say, was ever grief like his?
Come, feel with me his blood applied:
My Lord, my Love is crucified.
Is crucified for me and you,
To bring us rebels back to God:
Believe, believe the record true,
Ye all are bought with Jesu's blood,
Pardon for all flows from his side;
My Lord, my Love is crucified.
Then let us sit beneath his cross,
And gladly catch the healing stream,
All things for him account but loss,
And give up all our hearts to him;
Of nothing think or speak beside,
'My Lord, my Love is crucified.'
poem by Charles Wesley
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The Dead Woman
If suddenly you do not exist,
if suddenly you are not living,
I shall go on living.
I do not dare,
I do not dare to write it,
if you die.
I shall go on living.
Because where a man has no voice,
there, my voice
Where blacks are beaten,
I can not be dead.
When my brothers go to jail
I shall go with them.
When victory,
not my victory,
but the great victory
arrives,
even though I am mute I must speak:
I shall see it come even though I am blind.
No, forgive me,
if you are not living,
ifd you, beloved, my love,
if you
have died.
poem by Pablo Neruda
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Hymn XXVIII: Love Divine! What Hast Thou Done!
Love divine! what hast thou done!
The immortal God hath died for me!
The Father's co-eternal Son
Bore all my sins upon the tree;
The immortal God for me hath died!
My Lord, my Love is crucified.
Behold him, all ye that pass by,
The bleeding Prince of life and peace!
Come, see, ye worms, your Maker die,
And say, was ever grief like his?
Come, feel with me his blood applied:
My Lord, my Love is crucified.
Is crucified for me and you,
To bring us rebels back to God:
Believe, believe the record true,
Ye all are bought with Jesu's blood,
Pardon for all flows from his side;
My Lord, my Love is crucified.
Then let us sit beneath his cross,
And gladly catch the healing stream,
All things for him account but loss,
And give up all our hearts to him;
Of nothing think or speak beside,
"My Lord, my Love is crucified."
poem by John Wesley
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Planet Earth
I heard a girl in a dress
Say her face was a mess
I heard theres no reason why
I heard that nows the time to buy
On planet earth
Ill probably stay
On planet earth
Its a place to live your life
Where pleasure follows pain
People go insane
Fly around in planes
Pray that it wont rain
Drive around in cars
Get drunk in local bars
Dream of being stars
Well I lived all my life on planet earth
I saw a girl lose all control
When she lost her new mink stole
I saw her try to catch a man
Things I couldnt understand
On planet earth
Ill probably stay
On planet earth
Its a place to live your life
Where pleasure follows pain
People go insane
Fly around in planes
Pray that it wont rain
Drive around in cars
Get drunk in local bars
Dream of being stars
Well I lived all my life on planet earth
I saw a man on a stage
Scream put me back in my cage
I saw him hang by his tie
I saw enough to make me cry
On planet earth
On planet earth
I lived all my life on planet earth
I lived all my life on planet earth
On planet earth
(repeat)
song performed by by Devo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Irony of Love
Irony is a literary or rhetorical device.
The essayist Henry Watson Fowler wrote:
“any definition of irony
—though hundreds might be given,
and very few of them would be accepted—
must include this,
that the surface meaning
and the underlying meaning of
what is said are not the same.'
He left out that any definition of
Irony must include that it is cruel.
I never understood
The meaning of irony
Or how cruel it can be,
Until you told me,
That though you may love me,
You find it difficult to
Hear the words
“I love you” from me.
You see, some three years ago
You jokingly said
'I love you' to me,
And I begged you
Never to utter those words again.
Not because I did not want to hear them,
But because they were difficult for me.
They carried heart-felt consequences
That I did not want to face.
So, I shut out my heart and followed my head.
And in life filled with so many regrets,
It was the biggest mistake I ever made.
The irony,
After some thousand days have past,
You uttered the same
Imprudent sentiment to me.
This sentiment is the definition of irony –
The surface meaning
And underlying meaning are not the same.
Because although I asked you not to say
“I love you”,
It is all I wanted to hear.
The cruelty,
That now that heaven has at last
Blessed, cursed me with
Clarity of the heart,
And I want to say what I mean
With no different underlying sentiment,
You tell me you do not
Want to hear these words from me.
But the most ironic and cruelest part,
Will be,
If you make the same mistake I made
And keep from me what is within your heart.
poem by Hal Caufield
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Can't Really Get Enough Of Love Babe
once i have it, there is this irony, i give it away,
i wish, i dream, i work to have what i do not have yet
once it is in my hand, there is this irony, i throw it away.
the paradox of feelings, i had this joy, long time ago, and
i let it go, and i wish it comes back to me, like a memory of someone
too far away, i spend life like it is not life at all, i wish death, like death is life,
like it is not like, this is the irony of my life,
hating and loving and hating and loving, until, everything is gone
i have nothing and then i feel so complete.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Trumpet Voice
I live to hear my father sing
People come
Far and wide
Gathering like anchovies in a can
To hear his deep, trumpet voice
My father burns a record
Neighbors and friends
Float from their lonely birdhouses
To hear his deep, trumpet voice
My father records a tape
The family sits in the living room
Under the golden chandelier
To hear his deep, trumpet voice
My father has a CD
My brother and I sit in my room
Playing Parcheesi
We open the player
To hear his deep, trumpet voice
I lie on the city bus
One seat for my head
The other for my feet
I turn on my small, silver iPod
And zone out from the world
To hear his deep, trumpet voice
poem by Aury Cecile
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The One And Only Immortal
Those who do love Nature are blessed indeed
For all of her friends our Earth Mother does need
The one every life form on Planet Earth does feed
Has been made to suffer due to human greed
The greedy for financial gain her beauty try to destroy
A beauty that is meant for all to enjoy
For their crimes humanity may have to pay
That does seem a sad thing for to have to say
The beauty of Nature is an amazing thing
And her praises one ought to feel happy to sing
The one who will be here long after to nothingness we've gone
The only immortal will be living on
And we who abuse her for our financial greed
Are not very clever and self destructive indeed.
poem by Francis Duggan
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Dramatic; Life
A name so so sweet
for a drama so so set.
With main setting on planet earth,
no drama could be assessed
in so equivocal nonane
settings, attuning non
living and living things.
What an ingratiator the author is!
The characters being adumbrated of their roles
at inception, proffers antagonism or protagonism.
A tragicomedy; irony abounding paradoxical
countenance of thrilling suspense. Bom bom
of disconsolate serenity, superimposed
to be didactic and dual sided.
Oh! this drama of consternation
and imperturbable allay.
Moments toing and froing
lugubriousity and elation.
Dirge and lilt emanating
from different scenes.
Ooh! Ending, all await.
poem by Kctony Xtopher Nkwocha
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