Haec Fabula Docet
A rat who'd gorged a box of bane
And suffered an internal pain,
Came from his hole to die (the label
Required it if the rat were able)
And found outside his habitat
A limpid stream. Of bane and rat
'T was all unconscious; in the sun
It ran and prattled just for fun.
Keen to allay his inward throes,
The beast immersed his filthy nose
And drank-then, bloated by the stream,
And filled with superheated steam,
Exploded with a rascal smell,
Remarking, as his fragments fell
Astonished in the brook: 'I'm thinking
This water's damned unwholesome drinking!'
poem by Ambrose Bierce
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Tears Of Pain
Tears of pain stream down my although I know you're in a better place
Wishing I could see your face..,
Tears of pain stream down my face, I know you won the race.
All your pain finally ends, you and I were close friends,
Tears of pain stream down my face, I'll still be here in the end,
Tears of pain stream down my face this is something I can't take.
It wasn't fare for you to go; I have never felt a deeper hole.
Tears of pain stream down my face I feel
Your presence, in my place
I sure do miss that smiling face,
Tears of pain stream down my face,
You were the brightness to fill my greys,
Tears of pain stream down my face
I miss the feeling of embrace,
When looking at your wonderful face
Tears of pain stream down my face.
It came to soon, but your alright I try to talk to you every night.
now I know you're in a better place, The tears of pain have withered away.
poem by Raeanne Runyemba
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Campaign Song
Boom boom boom
Boon boon boon
Bane bane bane
Your campaign song
Is too loud, bane
I am riding on boon
Good and fine days
Ignorant of intended ways
Boom your campaign song
It was too loud, bane
I barely could manage
To hear your message
I voted for the other candidate
Your Boom song was too loud
It was good in our ears in June
But you sang it till December
That even kids should remember
I choose otherwise, voted you out
Is Campaign song bane or boon?
poem by Benjamin Paa Willie
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Shouting' For A Camel
It was over at Coolgardie that a mining speculator,
Who was going down the township just to make a bit o' chink,
Went off to hire a camel from a camel propagator,
And the Afghan said he'd lend it if he'd stand the beast a drink.
Yes, the only price he asked him was to stand the beast a drink.
He was cheap, very cheap, as the dromedaries go.
So the mining speculator made the bargain, proudly thinking
He had bested old Mahomet, he had done him in the eye.
Then he clambered on the camel, and the while the beast was drinking
He explained with satisfaction to the miners standing by
That 'twas cheap, very cheap, as the dromedaries go.
But the camel kept on drinking and he filled his hold with water,
And the more he had inside him yet the more he seemed to need;
For he drank it by the gallon, and his girths grew taut and tauter,
And the miners muttered softly, 'Yes he's very dry indeed!
But he's cheap, very cheap, as dromedaries go.'
So he drank up twenty buckets, it was weird to watch him suck it,
(And the market price for water was per bucket half-a-crown)
Till the speculator stopped him, saying, 'Not another busket,
If I give him any more there'll be a famine in the town.
Take him back to old Mahomet, and I'll tramp it through the town.'
He was cheap, very cheap, as the speculators go.
There's a moral to this story, in your hat you ought to paste it,
Be careful whom you shout for when a camel is about,
And there's plenty human camels who, before they'll see you waste it,
Will drink up all you pay for if you're fool enough to shout;
If you chance to strike a camel when you're fool enough to shout,
You'll be cheap, very cheap, as the speculators go.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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“Shouting” for a Camel
It was over at Coolgardie that a mining speculator,
Who was going down the township just to make a bit o' chink,
Went off to hire a camel from a camel propagator,
And the Afghan said he'd lend it if he'd stand the beast a drink.
Yes, the only price he asked him was to stand the beast a drink.
He was cheap, very cheap, as the dromedaries go.
So the mining speculator made the bargain, proudly thinking
He had bested old Mahomet, he had done him in the eye.
Then he clambered on the camel, and the while the beast was drinking
He explained with satisfaction to the miners standing by
That 'twas cheap, very cheap, as the dromedaries go.
But the camel kept on drinking and he filled his hold with water,
And the more he had inside him yet the more he seemed to need;
For he drank it by the gallon, and his girths grew taut and tauter,
And the miners muttered softly, 'Yes he's very dry indeed!
But he's cheap, very cheap, as dromedaries go.'
So he drank up twenty buckets -- it was weird to watch him suck it,
(And the market price for water was per bucket half-a-crown)
Till the speculator stopped him, saying, 'Not another bucket --
If I give him any more there'll be a famine in the town.
Take him back to old Mahomet, and I'll tramp it through the town.'
He was cheap, very cheap, as the speculators go.
There's a moral to this story -- in your hat you ought to paste it --
Be careful whom you shout for when a camel is about,
And there's plenty human camels who, before they'll see you waste it,
Will drink up all you pay for if you're fool enough to shout;
If you chance to strike a camel when you're fool enough to shout,
You'll be cheap, very cheap, as the speculators go.
poem by Andrew Barton Paterson
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The Tipler To His Bottle
What hast thou ever done for me?
Defeated every good endeavor;
I never can through life agree
To place my confidence in thee,
Not ever, no, never!
Often have I thy steam admired,
Thou nothing hast avail'd me ever;
Vain have I thought myself inspired,
Say, have I else but pain acquired?
Not ever, no, never!
No earthly good, no stream of health,
Flows from thy fount, thou cheerful giver;
From thee, affluence sinks to stealth,
From thee I pluck no bloom of health,
Whatever, no, never!
Thou canst impart a nobel mind,
Power from my tongue flows like a river;
The gas flows dead, I'm left behind,
To all that's evil down confined,
To flourish more never!
With thee I must through life complain,
Thy powers at large will union sever;
Disgorge no more thy killing bane,
The bird hope flies from thee in pain,
To return more never!
poem by George Moses Horton
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Bitter truths are buried
Down a stream came a woman,
partly clothed, fully drenched.
By lonely stream strolled the woman;
no one at sight, she freely emoted.
Upon a rock by a brook
fell she flat to bathe in sun.
Arms under nape, thighs wide apart,
she lay bare, charging her part.
She was caught from behind,
her twin hills under iron palms.
Though startled, not at all wild
as she was swayed heavily by impulses.
She minded not who the man was:
a lovely prince or a lowly brute.
She resisted not as she was sure
no one was there to bear a witness.
Willingly yielded and succumbed
she had, to the pleasure inflicted.
She was alone; so was she naked.
She was alone; so she granted.
Suffered the chastity before the secrecy.
A bitter truth and a hidden truth.
19.07.97
poem by Rm. Shanmugam Chettiar
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Still thinking of you
In this summer night
I am still thinking about you...
Without any disdain...
Fragments of thoughts
Spill over to paper floors...
Fragments of internal life
Honoring the mind and heart
With inscriptions of free
And unrestrained imaginations
While still thinking about you...
©All Rights Reserved-2009
poem by Romeo Della Valle
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The Happy Townland
THERE'S many a strong farmer
Whose heart would break in two,
If he could see the townland
That we are riding to;
Boughs have their fruit and blossom
At all times of the year;
Rivers are running over
With red beer and brown beer.
An old man plays the bagpipes
In a golden and silver wood;
Queens, their eyes blue like the ice,
Are dancing in a crowd.
The little fox he murmured,
'O what of the world's bane?'
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured,
'O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world's bane.'
When their hearts are so high
That they would come to blows,
They unhook rheir heavy swords
From golden and silver boughs;
But all that are killed in battle
Awaken to life again.
It is lucky that their story
Is not known among men,
For O, the strong farmers
That would let the spade lie,
Their hearts would be like a cup
That somebody had drunk dry.
The little fox he murmured,
'O what of the world's bane?'
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rcin;
But the little red fox murmured,
'O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world's bane.'
Michael will unhook his trumpet
From a bough overhead,
And blow a little noise
When the supper has been spread.
Gabriel will come from the water
With a fish-tail, and talk
Of wonders that have happened
On wet roads where men walk.
And lift up an old horn
Of hammered silver, and drink
Till he has fallen asleep
Upon the starry brink.
The little fox he murmured,
'O what of the world's bane?'
The sun was laughing sweetly,
The moon plucked at my rein;
But the little red fox murmured.
'O do not pluck at his rein,
He is riding to the townland
That is the world's bane.'
poem by William Butler Yeats
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Tears come and go like waves
Tears stream down your face.
Upon something you
Cannot really face.
Tears steam
Like a lake flows.
Within something you
Cannot really face.
I cant face
Alot of things.
Then tears
Stream down my face
Upon something
i cannot really face.
For im trying to
Block it all out.
But tears stream down
My face.
Upon something
I just really cannot face.
Try and fix
The hurt
But tears
Still stream down my face
poem by Amy Louise Kerswell
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Tear drops
Tears stream down your face.
Upon something you
Cannot really face.
Tears steam
Like a lake flows.
Within something you
Cannot really face.
I cant face
Alot of things.
Then tears
Stream down my face
Upon something
i cannot really face.
For im trying to
Block it all out.
But tears stream down
My face.
Upon something
I just really cannot face.
Try and fix
The hurt
But tears
Still stream down my face
poem by Amy Louise Kerswell
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Crabs
(On a Queensland Beach)
Poisonous, bloated, crab-like shapes
Crawl in gangs around these capes-
Stopping here and feeding there,
Listening, crawling everywhere;
Searching every rotten weed
With a frothing, wild-eyed greed:
Fighting o'er a lump of scurf
Or a red boil of the earth;
Thrusting up their writhing claws
To their grinning, fiend-like maws.
And these horrid creatures wet
With a thick, unwholesome sweat
Have most hideous banquets here
On the poor drowned marineer.
Down they hurry eagerly
Chittering all the way with glee:
They have smelt the tainted air
From that body festering there.
How they twitch their claws and pry
Into each distorted eye;
How they spit on him with spite
As their nippers pinch and bite;
How they strip him clean and bare,
Leaving not a morsel there,
Till they're gorged and all squat near
Fleshless remnant with a leer.
When the billows near them roll
Each will scope himself a hole
In the mud-banks, and therein
Sleep like an embodied sin.
***
In the world so crass and blind
Human crabs feed on their kind:
Glutted creatures that devour
All that fall within their power;
Skulking each near his own hole,
They smell out each human soul
Tossed up on Life's stony shore,
Weary, friendless, weak and poor.
poem by Arthur Bayldon
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Water Mouth-Full
A passing ruptured river or stream,
I define terror as this single rupture.
You have found water from utter violence,
Violence from the jungle behind,
All the violence, all of its sound and disgust.
I dip my mouth into the freshwater, fighting books
Of the water, of river stream.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Jungle Juice in Our Tap Water
It doesn’t surprise me one bit than drinking the remnants of other people’s drugs.
We have been recycling water since time immemorial,
The earth has a only a finite of fresh water,
We are drinking the water that the dinosaurs drank,
the Neanderthals drank,
All recycled through a filtration process that had gone for billions of years,
But we are destroying it there is no doubt.
But now we have jungle juice running in our tap water in America,
We, Americans, USA Americans,
(So sorry, I began to think Caitlin Upton,
it must be the drugs, see observation Upton’s Response..) ,
Take our prescriptions drugs,
We absorb majority of it but some gets through our excretory system and we pee it out.
Imagine the tap water is filled with traces of estrogen, Viagra, Zoloft, Xanax, Vicodin,
Chemotherapy waste, including Novontrone,
For which I am guilty,
In Florida I used to work at Ionics, a GE subsidiary,
For water purification in the home.
I have worked at Ultimate Water.
Ultimate Water leased a device that replaced the big 5 gallons bottles of water in offices.
The device took tap water filtered beyond civic standards,
(see observation Red Lobster Tonight)
Perhaps it’s premature,
But I would venture to say,
The ways it is going these are going to be necessary in the future.
(3-10-2008)
poem by Joe Rosochacki
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Dark Fire
Fire, dark and burning bright
Bright as day, yet, gives no light
In the shadows of the night
Take away immortal sight
Blind soul eyes with black twilight
Banish day and burn the night
Remove sin from Heavens sight
Fire, twist and taint the once pure light
Heaven fought against your might
In the end, He lost the fight
Pure souls surrender to the evil light
As shadows move to reign the night
Angel's wings flutter in fearful flight
In the shadow of your light
Fire, sweet and sin filled bane
Make the devil go insane
As you burn his skin with acid rain
His screams are songs wrought in pain
His wake of Hell’s dark fire wanes
Death and pain are what he gains
Shadows of the devil’s bane
Wash away his sin with His holy name
Fire of the dragon’s heart
Don’t let us tear the world apart
poem by Amanda Swain
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The 'Ole in the Ark
One evening at dusk as Noah stood on his Ark,
Putting green oil in starboard side lamp,
His wife came along and said, 'Noah, summat's wrong,
Our cabin is getting quite damp.
Noah said, 'Is that so?' Then he went down below,
And found it were right what she'd said,
For there on the floor quite a puddle he saw,
It was slopping around under t' bed.
Said he, 'There's an 'ole in the bottom somewhere,
We must find it before we retire.'
Then he thowt for a bit, and he said 'Aye, that's it,
A bloodhound is what we require.'
Se he went and fetched bloodhound from place where it lay,
'Tween the skunk and the polecat it were,
And as things there below, were a trifle so-so,
It were glad of a breath of fresh air.
They followed the hound as it went sniffing round,
'Til at last they located the leak,
'Twere a small hole in the side, about two inches wide,
Where a swordfish had poked in its beak.
And by gum! how the wet squirted in through that hole,
Well, young Shem who at sums was expert,
Worked it out on his slate that it came at the rate,
Of per gallon, per second, per squirt.
The bloodhound tried hard to keep water in check,
By lapping it up with his tongue,
But it came in so fast through that hole, that at last,
He shoved in his nose for a bung.
The poor faithful hound, he were very near drowned,
They dragged him away none too soon,
For the stream as it rose, pushed its way up his nose,
And blew him up like a balloon.
And then Mrs Noah shoved her elbow in t'hole,
And said,' Eh! it's stopped I believe,'
But they found very soon as she'd altered her tune,
For the water had got up her sleeve.
When she saw as her elbow weren't doing much good,
She said to Noah, 'I've an idea,
You sit on the leak and by t'end of the week,
There's no knowing, the weather may clear.'
Noah didn't think much to this notion, at all,
But reckoned he'd give it a try,
On the 'ole down he flopped, and the leaking all stopped,
And all... except him, was quite dry.
They took him his breakfast and dinner and tea,
As day after day there he sat,
'Til the rain was all passed and they landed at last,
On top side of Mount Ararat.
And that is how Noah got them all safe ashore,
But ever since then, strange to tell,
Them as helped save the Ark has all carried a mark,
Aye, and all their descendants as well.
That's why dog has a cold nose, and ladies cold elbows,
You'll also find if you enquire,
That's why a man takes his coat tails in hand,
And stands with his back to the fire.
poem by Marriott Edgar
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Quintili Vare, Legiones Redde
I
I was at ease. Now, pinched, in pain,
burdened beyond the years I bear.
Summer is sunk in Autumn rain,
on legions lost I dream, despair!
II
High eagles fell low in fell enemy’s lair,
my legions in slime die, lie slain,
Rome’s raped reputation mourns careworn and bare,
shall she ever arise again?
Shall some stronger scion Dame Fortune’s dice dare?
harry the Hun, shatter the bane,
regain sacred standards, and offer up prayer,
saving us from the shame, the pain?
poem by Jonathan Robin
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Driff me off
yield with full of awesome memory,
languish in the option of time, of where I
settle my complete hope of surrender to
the wave of the sky, I command to lie
down my hand
put off the flower that floats and come
to the magic of the stream, the waiting is
gone as the captive dream cease no one
in the sun
pour out all the water spells, the drifted
echo, lives in the air, listen my blooming
dear your escape is only in dream, for
your sweet touch may be gone; as the
water goes through the stream and the
wind may come the same, the pain may
always live to win
go crystal water, as the drifted sky comes
to end and let the passing tears leaves in
the air.......
poem by Antonio Liao
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When You See Water
When you see water in a stream
you say: oh, this is stream
water;
When you see water in the river
you say: oh, this is water
of the river;
When you see ocean
water
you say: This is the ocean's
water!
But actually water is always
only itself
and does not belong
to any of these containers
though it creates them.
And so it is with you.
poem by Alice Walker
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Brudefolkene
Paa Bane nu, paa Bane!
Seer Du den røde Fane?
De ringed anden Gang;
Vor Vei er ikke lang!
Jeg sidder ved din Side;
Vi gjennem Luften glide,
Alt flyve vi forbi,
Ja, det er Trylleri!
End milevidt derhenne
Staaer Kirken, og i denne
Min Brud Du blive vil.
O, Lyst at flyve til!
Vi eie Ørnens Vinger!
Hør alt, hvor Orglet klinger!
Hvor svandt dog Byer og Træer!
Et Kys! — Nu er vi der!
poem by Hans Christian Andersen
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